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Speculation: Will AOS ever be balanced or is this as good as it gets?


Dead Scribe

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How you interpret the levels of outrage is pretty subjective so I feel like that's a bit of a trap question. I can only speak for myself but I'd certainly have less to complain about. Even the most hardcore are probably willing to swap 1% win rate to play an army they like.

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1 hour ago, relic456 said:

How you interpret the levels of outrage is pretty subjective so I feel like that's a bit of a trap question. I can only speak for myself but I'd certainly have less to complain about. Even the most hardcore are probably willing to swap 1% win rate to play an army they like.

Yeah you're right, it's a leading and unfair question.  It's an exaggeration.  I am convinced, however, that no level of increased balance will ever moderate the discourse around it.

 

I'm kind of playing around the edges of both sides of the argument in this one, holding a moderate position means I rail against extremes on either side I suppose.

Edited by amysrevenge
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Honestly, and I know I will get flak for this, I don't think there's an actual desire to balance, not even close.  This isn't a GW problem however, although it often seems like GW is one of the worst offenders.  Games the last decade or so (maybe more) have adhered to the Magic: The Gathering mindset where its mostly (if not entirely) about deckbuilding and stacking combos to make a "killer" combo; as close as you can get to a one-hit KO.  Wargaming has followed that (I've watched it) and AOS is no exception.  The intention is that there are better/worse choices (the "skill" is figuring out what is OP and using as much of it as possible) and an emphasis on stacking buffs and combos, with a rollercoaster power curve instead of as close to a flat line as you can get.  Of course, you can never get a fully flat line i.e. 100% perfect balance, and nobody really wants that,  but in design you strive to get as close as possible to that as a general rule and the key to good game design is getting as close to that line without making things too bland.

For whatever reason (to push sales, really wanting MtG style combos to reward theorycrafting, who knows?) the opposite approach has been true in Warhammer (possibly more so in 40k than AOS, but AOS is a big offender in that as well) and rather than strive to get as close as possible to balance, it feels like more of a "throw it out the window, this seems cool" approach even if that's not the intended goal; from their articles in WD, it appears GW seems to want to try and care about balance, just it never shows.  I doubt they're lying just to say they care, so it's anyone's guess why they continue to miss the mark.  It might not even be the designer's fault.  There was an interview, 40k related granted, where one of the designers stated that they were told to make the Eldar Wrathknight better without balancing it, just to sell more of it.

Still, to answer the OP yeah I think this is as good as we get, and it's a rollercoaster  where you can't see what the next part is until you get to it.  It could be a straight line, it could be a steep curve upward, it could be a fast plunge downward.  If you like that (and a lot of people are seemingly okay with that style of design) then it's all well and good.  If you don't, however...

Edited by wayniac
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2 minutes ago, wayniac said:

Magic: The Gathering mindset where its mostly (if not entirely) about deckbuilding and stacking combos to make a "killer" combo; as close as you can get to a one-hit KO

One-hit KO's are the major game plan for one specific kind of deck, Combo decks (aptly named eh?).  Almost every other deck type's game plan is to stack incremental advantages over multiple turns, whether that's tempo, board, or card advantage. 

Besides that I think you make good points.  I'm mostly fine with every army having one or two killer builds that work in a relatively narrow game plan, I think a lot of complaints are that armies only have no or only one one killer build (*cough* Idoneth *cough*). 

The difference between internal and external balance is an important distinction also. Internal balance doesn't really matter in MtG (I don't think people care if some Red cards are better than others) but external balance is important (you don't want one type of deck making up 20% of the meta).  In AoS people care about both internal (Sequitors vs Liberators) and external (Slaanesh crushing the meta).

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19 hours ago, Mayple said:

That's hardly what he said though. He was referencing the vocal minority/silent majority, which is basic human psychology, and far from some unproven hypothesis, no? Or do you disagree with that basis? 

It is what he said. He said the silent majority agreed with him. There's no data on that. No one's polled the "silent majority" to engage their satisfaction with the game balance. Using the "silent majority" to go "And that's why everyone else is wrong when they complain" is nonsense. And you know it.

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10 minutes ago, stratigo said:

It is what he said. He said the silent majority agreed with him. There's no data on that. No one's polled the "silent majority" to engage their satisfaction with the game balance. Using the "silent majority" to go "And that's why everyone else is wrong when they complain" is nonsense. And you know it.

He really didn't -- Quote the words written as is, or don't quote them all. Don't go about dictating the flow of the conversation by trying to infer what others are truly saying. 

16 minutes ago, stratigo said:

And you know it.

You haven't the slightest idea what I do, or do not know ;)
 

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16 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

Honest question.

If there were 20 factions, and 18 of them were at 50% win ratio, one was at 51%, and one was at 49%, do you think there would be the same level of outrage-filled rhetoric as we have now?

Looking at purely win % is kinda meainingless to me, but that is because I care a lot about the gaming experience. If everybody is having fun, then a couple of % don't matter at all. Nobody that I know really care if an army has a slight edge against yours, as long as you feel you can actually play the game and not just sit back and get steamrolled.

Imagine if there were 4 armies - All with 50% win ratio because army A hardcountered B and won 100% of the time, B hardcountered C and won 100% of the time etc. Would this be balanced? Yes, from a stats point of view. All armies would be considered equal. Would it be a good game design? Hell no. It would give everyone involved a horrible gaming experience.

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I also don't really put a lot of stock in these statistics because it doesn't show you the full context of where the data comes from.

I could have 10 bad players playing a really powerful faction and 10 great players playing an ok faction and the stats would show that the ok faction is OP because it has a 90-100% win ratio.

Stats without context is meaningless. 

 

Edited by Dead Scribe
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Looking at the last data from the honest wargamer and the latest 39 events and 7787 matches using GHB2019 It is very ovvious waht is doing well, with Slaneesh taking 12 1st places, Skaven taking 7, FeC and DoK both at 3 and then less for the rest. 

I know competetive players gravitating towards the most OP warps the data even more, but regardless it is incredibly obvious that 2 armies accounting for half the 1st place tournament spots, and 1 of these having nearly twice that of the other, is incredibly off. Also for example Slaneesh having a 5.8% meta representation can easily be comapred to that of 5,6% of the Gloomspite Gitz, but Slaneesh having 24 podium players, the Gitz have 3.

In GW's "defence" it seems the rest of the field is relatively well balanced, and these few armies are throwing a wrench in it all.

This reminds me a lot of F1 racing, with the best drivers also being put into the best cars, so you see the same people in the same types of cars winning most of the time, instead of cars in Warhammer it is battletomes.

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