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

[Overread]

Remember there's no such thing as a "tournament list". There are simply good and bad lists. 

 

[Panzer]

1 hour ago, Dead Scribe said:

What do you tell the people quitting who don't want to keep up with the more powerful armies who don't want to have to keep buying models to keep up? 

That they need to rethink their priorities and reason for playing the game. Do they play the game to win tournaments? Then they gotta keep up with the meta and that means to burn money and time. Do they play the game because they like the models and the background, even if it's just for their own army? Then not being at the top of the foodchain in tournaments shouldn't be their main concern.

Edited October 14, 2019 by Panzer

[swarmofseals]

 

6 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

Over the weekend I played in a 32 player tournament ($100 buy in, $2500 first prize) and it was a lot of fun.  However the topic on everyone's mind that was discussed the entire time was the balance in the game, and how a lot of people thought it was very very bad.  Looking around, it was true that the armies present were mainly the same four or five core builds (I am currently running slaanesh, triple keepers and I can pull about 1500 free points from summoning per game roughly (sometimes less, sometimes more, but it usually averages around 1500)

A lot of the players playing are new to wargaming and GW in general, and I myself never played previous fantasy to really have any comparison.  

A lot of people were complaining that it was hard to recruit people lately because the balance is seen as bad and they go play other games (sometimes ninth age pops up, sometimes kings of war, but mostly its things like star wars legion or malifaux that seem to be where everyone is going to these days though I also note 40k has a huge following despite everyone complaining about its balance)

And there's the rub:  40k is hugely popular despite everyone complaining about its balance.  

So do you think the designers will ever put a serious effort into balancing out the game, or is this pretty much typical and you should just keep adapting with new armies that have strong rules?

4 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

But then why is there always so much complaining about balance if balance is something not really considered or cared about?

1 hour ago, Dead Scribe said:

The designers do live streams where they talk excitedly about their tournament experience and the next armies they are building for the new tournament season.  

I think that the overall premise here is a bit dubious. I wish I could cite updated results from The Honest Wargamer, but he hasn't updated his page in a few months. Look at the London GT results though. 11 different factions scored 4-1 or better, and 17 different factions had winning records out of 25 factions that appeared in the event (note: I am counting things like "Legion of Blood" and "Legion of Sacrament" as separate factions. If you don't do this, then the numbers are actually even better). 

I absolutely agree with you that there is a perception that balance is poor, and I'm sure if you look at the game purely locally it will appear that way in some places. But overall I don't think the facts agree with perception. Even before GHB2019 I think balance was better than people gave it credit for. There were a few factions that were clearly a bit ahead of the rest, but the vast majority of battletome factions were +-10% of a 50% win rate. Considering how many factions exist and how much control TO's have over the way the game is played I'd say that's pretty remarkable.

Are there tiers in the game? Yeah, there certainly are. 

If I had to make a guess, I think it's something like this right now:

Top Tier: FEC, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, Fyreslayers, Cities of Sigmar, Orruk Warclans, Skaven, DoK, Idoneth

Mid Tier: Legions of Nagash (including Grief), Blades of Khorne, SCE, Sylvaneth, Beasts of Chaos

Low Tier: Nurgle, Nighthaunt, Gloomspite, Seraphon

Garbage Tier: Slaves to Darkness, Ogors/BCR

I'm really not sure where to place KO on this list. I would have thought low tier but they've had enough buzz since GHB2019 that maybe they should be higher. I think an argument could be made for moving Gloomspite up too.

Basically you've got a mix of recent and older books throughout, although not having a 2.0 battletome (or any battletome at all) is a pretty strong strike against a faction. That said, everything outside the garbage tier is perfectly capable of winning a tournament.

I think that level of balance is quite good. It could definitely be better, but it's quite good.

So then why is the perception that balance is bad? I think there's a bunch of reasons:

• Historically, GW has not taken game balance very seriously. It's only really in the past couple of years (as far as I know) that GW has been moving in a positive direction on balance. You mentioned that you aren't familiar with how things were in WHFB. While I certainly don't know the full history of competitive WHFB, for the time that I played it was far more unbalanced with usually only a couple of factions being tournament viable. When a company has decades of not caring about balance driving the narrative, it's going to take a while for perceptions to shift. Confirmation bias is massive.
• Imbalance is a great excuse. People are generally quite poor at taking responsibility for their failures, and there are loads of players that will blame anything but themselves for their losses.
• In my experience, the loudest people on forums tend to be low to mid level competitive players. In my experience, these are also the players that tend to be most vocal about games being imbalanced. Top level players tend to be a lot more circumspect. In other games (such as Magic) the top players have a pretty big voice in the community. Magic pros tend to be pretty prolific in their writing, and those articles have a big impact on perception. In Warhammer, the top players are mostly pretty quiet. There are a few infrequently updated podcasts and some post on twitter. As a result, their voices don't provide a counter-point to mid and low level players complaining about balance.  
• Broadly speaking, humans are awful at accurately perceiving the results of probability. This fits in with the confirmation bias point above. It doesn't take all that many coinflips before it's likely that you'll see a string of four or five of the same result in a row. If you're looking for a streak to "prove" that the coin isn't random, chances are good that you can find it. Even a perfectly balanced game will have small sample sizes where one side appears to dominate.
• Perception quickly becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If people think that you have to run one of four or five builds to be competitive, then the metagame will quickly become skewed towards those lists. The fact that you are seeing them more frequently will then reinforce the perception of imbalance.
• In general, people love to complain. 

As to your last point, consider who those livestreams are aimed at. I'm guessing the folks who watch that kind of coverage are much more likely to be competitive or at least aspirational-competitive players. You talk about what you think your audience is interested in hearing about It's the same reason you don't see Duncan talking about game stuff during his videos. Those videos are aimed at a hobby audience, so they stick to hobby content.

4 hours ago, Smooth criminal said:

GW doesn't give a damn about balance, so you shouldn't too. They only produce new shiny cool stuff for people to buy.

 

Personally I wouldn't play this game if it wasn't for the hobby aspect. The competitive balance is terrible, if you're focused on having highest win percentage possible you are forced to constantly jump factions. Just accept that and move on, and if you can't accept the inherent unbalance then this game is not for you.

The initial claim here is flat out factually incorrect, and the claim that you have to meta chase to maximize winning percentage is questionable. Mediocre players vastly underestimate the importance of having experience and practice with an army. The same thing happens in Magic: The Gathering. There are hordes of OK-at-best players that will buy into whatever deck just won a Pro Tour and then get surprised when they can't just cakewalk through the competition with it. In contrast, you can also observe truly great players who can and do win with decks that are off meta due to their level of experience and knowledge with the deck. A lot of those mediocre players would actually be better served sticking with a deck and playing it consistently rather than hopping from list to list. 

You see the same phenomenon in Warhammer. Some people meta chase thinking that they have to play the new hotness in order to win, only to see the real top players come in and crush the tournament with some army that they have been playing for the past eighteen months with minor tweaks. 

 

[Alexonian]

the game in itself is pretty good, as in any game its players who ruin it with their waac attitude , playing with friends of a similar relaxed stance and you will have a great time

[svnvaldez]

9 minutes ago, Alexonian said:

 its players who ruin it with their waac attitude

Please stop. 

No it is not. What is WAAC anyway. There is nothing wrong with trying to win a game at all costs as long as you are following the rules of the game. That doesn't ruin anything.

If by WAAC you mean someone who is actively cheating... then write a Cheater not WAAC.

People who blame WAAC players have no idea what they are talking about.

Edited October 14, 2019 by svnvaldez

[JackStreicher]

2 hours ago, svnvaldez said:

I would disagree with this. I think it's much more like playing Monopoly against a person who knows the optimal properties to purchase and such. If two people agree to play a game of AOS or Monopoly they both have an equal chance to win the game at the point of agreement. 

That whole statement is plainly wrong.

first off: both don‘t have an equal chance since one player might just not have enough models to min max (And or have the money to buy more) or one player does not play the new army which for some reason, again, is way more powerful than the other players army. (Which is just a trademark for GW games *Cough Warchanter cough*) One player will have a handicap (Even a dramatical handicap) when you Play unless both players play the same army with all models available to them.

you are already assuming there would be balance solely based on your knowledge of the game - I know most Comp. Players like to think of themselves that way though it‘s simply not the case. You mostly win due to playing a superior army that’s been min-maxed to the last grain of points. The skill required for that isn‘t even a hard one really and I guess that  by 80% of the Players can do The same and win a Tournament. To summarize: Your army wins or you „bought/build“ your army in a way that your opponent starts at a handicap the moment the game begins which, again, shouldn‘t be that hard to win.

AoS and 40K are simply no Competetive games, no matter how often people claim otherwise while failing to mention even a single argument as to why (they can‘t start with the important one: Balance, since there‘s no balance)

Imo the balance is okay once you can play a casual game with both parties having fun and while no army, no matter what you do, simply steamrolls the other (and again: Who had the ludacris idea to give Warchanters that +1 dmg bubble? That totally destroys even casual games).

Edited October 14, 2019 by JackStreicher

[soak314]

8 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

Do I still enjoy playing the game, yes. But competitive play locally has just become an exercise is creating lists that offer your opponent zero chance to interact with what you are doing, is that a balanced game, no. 

This pretty much sums up my relationship with the system at the moment, lmao.

As per the balance issues and AoS being approached as a competitive system: GW sends out tournament packs to their stores and affiliated retailers, correct? AFAIK AoS and 40k don't really get big fancy packs. All the tourneys I've heard about and been to are all independently organised. Compare this to Kill Team's and Warcry's event packs which all come with some *very* fancy metal medals.
 

Spoiler

I've got one of these and they are proper swish.

Compare it further to Underworlds' trophy, what I believe to be GW's only truly good tournament game: 

Spoiler

 

Seriously you could accidentally hurt yourself with that thing.

The focus on these small-system tournament packs may also be a function of smaller Warhammer store sizes + an already established, purchase-happy  buyerbase for their wargames. But I feel the marketing message is already pretty clear.

 

[amysrevenge]

39 minutes ago, svnvaldez said:

Please stop. 

No it is not. What is WAAC anyway. There is nothing wrong with trying to win a game at all costs as long as you are following the rules of the game. That doesn't ruin anything.

If by WAAC you mean someone who is actively cheating... then write a Cheater not WAAC.

People who blame WAAC players have no idea what they are talking about.

Yeah, the term WAAC is a useless one unless you pair it with a definition for that second 'A'.  What is included in "all" costs?  Cheating?  Smashing opponent models with a crowbar?  Calling in a SWAT team?  There are a lot of things that could fit under the umbrella of "all" costs.  But if you mean "all, while still following the rules" costs then it's a different story - that's just a good player who maybe, since you're complaining about them, doesn't match the social cues of their opponent or group.

[svnvaldez]

34 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

first off: both don‘t have an equal chance since one player might just not have enough models to min max (And or have the money to buy more) or one player does not play the new army which for some reason, again, is way more powerful than the other players army. (Which is just a trademark for GW games *Cough Warchanter cough*) One player will have a handicap (Even a dramatical handicap) when you Play unless both players play the same army with all models available to them.

 

I would call this the pre game... 

That a player can either participate in or choose not to participate in.

My argument is that players have an equal chance of winning at the point of agreeing to a game in the future or signing up for an event.

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by svnvaldez

[svnvaldez]

50 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

To summarize: Your army wins or you „bought/build“ your army in a way that your opponent starts at a handicap the moment the game begins which, again, shouldn‘t be that hard to win.

If both players do the above, then both players have optimized the pre game and have an equal chance to win on the table.

Then the winner of the game will be the player who makes the right moves and gets the right dice rolls.

My argument is only that 1) it is important to recognize there exists a pre game in AOS and 2) Many games I play have a pregame so I don't take issue with it.

Below is from pre rotation MTG

https://mtgadecks.net/

If you do not have one of these T1 decks you are not going to be winning an event. I see AOS the same way. 

For me the balance I hope for with AOS is that 1) most armies are at least viable... ie you can at least participate in any game you play regardless of your list. This does not mean you will win... only that you can have an engaging game, 2) that there exist multiple top end builds to chose from... for me a number like 4 or 5 builds is plenty and 3) the top builds rotate in order to keep the game fresh.

Edited October 14, 2019 by svnvaldez

[Inquisitorsz]

Late to the party, but here's my 2c anyway. 

What is balance? It's such a broad term and everyone understands it differently.  
I don't believe anyone is expecting Chess level of balance. That's a game which is 100% pure skill.... and while the game itself is balanced, if you're playing a better opponent, you're going to lose every time. Is that balanced?   
Luck and randomness add an element of fairness because even the weakest army/player can get some lucky rolls and make a game of it. 
Ultimately I see balance as having most (if not all) factions sitting between 45-55% win rates. This is probably the metric that GW use, if they even track these things, and it's similar to what video game developers use to balance heroes in games like Dota and LoL. Sometimes the range might be tighter, sometimes not.  
Unfortunately we don't have those numbers outside of what the community collects via tournaments, and those stats vary wildly with different metas and different list. Let's call this "external" balance. 
This can be difficult to achieve, especially when different factions are disproportionately represented in the community... sometimes it's simply because more people like Stormcasts, sometimes it's for other reasons (which I'll mention later). 

So that's overall win rates. Then you have to consider individual units or specific army lists. 3 Keepers, double blood thirster, Nagash, 2x30 reapers etc.... If you have a specific combo or specific unit that's over represented, then you have balance issues. Those could be considered "internal" balance. 
This is something GW can greatly improve on. I don't think it's enough to tweak points once per year in a separate book that we have to buy. 
I'd like to see more of an FFG approach. Free online pdf rule and point updates. Reviews carried out maybe once per quarter?  
We have multiple official online army building tools now. Use those tools. Ultimately it's something that only affects the "matched play" side of the game anyway. The open and narrative players won't care much. 

The final thing to consider is power creep. Whether intentional or not, sometimes things get released that are just too strong. FEC was like that, Skaven have some stand outs but don't seem to win as much as people expected. Now it's Slaanesh due all the extra summons and striking first. 
There have also been some releases recently which appear to have been weak by comparison.... namely Gloomspite and Sylvaneth. We'll have to see how the Cities/Orruks and Bonereapers perform soon to get a better idea how much power creep there is. I suspect Cities will be very difficult to balance with all the different possible combos coming out of that soup.  
GW often takes the approach of fixing overpowered factions/units by making the next release stronger or counter it in some way. Sometimes this works, sometimes it makes the problem worse and causes a snowballing effect.  

To their credit, GW have been pretty good at releasing FAQs and GHB point updates to fix broken things. To me, the first thing you have to do when fixing balance is to remove the Negative Play Experiences.  
No one likes to turn up, set up a game and get shot/magic/alpha striked off the table in turn 1. That's the kind of stuff that makes players not turn up to another event, shelve their army, go play another game or even another hobby.  
Unfortunately, the nature of these games, especially on their competitive side, is that people often spam the strongest, most efficient units and this creates a very skewed gaming experience.

Now, having said all that, Aos (and 40k for that matter) won't ever be properly balanced. I don't believe the fundamental rule system is built in such a way to allow good balance. There's simply too much variation and too much possibility of blow out in a "you go, I go" system, especially in one with a priority roll/double turn mechanic. You can still have big blow outs in more competitive/balanced games like Underworlds for example.... but then you can play a best of 3 because one round takes 35min not 3 hours. 
I think this will become even more of an issue when AoS gets more shooting (eg with Cities, or future aelf armies). The combat phase already has alternating activation. That can work pretty well most of the time. But it's devastating when your magic/gun line gets to do it's thing twice in a row.  
But I don't want to derail this with another "double turn" discussion. 

My point is, the current rule system is fundamentally unbalanced. On paper, the variance should even out, but it does so in an extreme way, and certain armies will always have advantages in these cases. I believe games with alternating activations (or some other system) can achieve much higher levels of balance, because the core rules are more accommodating to a fair gaming experience.
 

[jake3991]

I agreed with a lot of things said here, many good points!  I'd just like to say that balance with summoning is likely never going to happen.  When you have a mechanic as pivotal in the game as summoning, in many cases allowing certain armies to bring many more points to the table without paying for them as in previous various of GHB while other armies cannot (most order and destruction)  is fundamentally not balanced.  I would further contend that the complexity associated with balancing more than one summoning mechanic (blood tithe,  depravity, etc.) means that any gaming company would struggle to find a happy medium.  I know the obvious counter argument is that GW points the units in the armies with access to summoning accordingly, but I given that it seems as though GW picks points values by a lottery system, that response is fanciful at best.  

I would temper the above paragraph by saying I'm a huge lover of the AoS system and think its largely just taken for a ride by a couple outlier factions. Many of these issues can be solved by simply not playing as or with "meta chasers" and just going by the rule of cool!

 

 

[Chikout]

I think there has always been a fundamental disconnect between they gw internally plays games and the way the community does. For the vast majority of their history gw has focused on playing fun games. The battles shown in white dwarf always feature a wide variety of units with little spam. They often fudge the mechanics in order to allow for heroes to face off, or create exciting encounters. Winning the game usually comes second to having an enjoyable play experience. 

The community on the other hand does the opposite. Spam is common. Players don't choose the most fun or thematically suitable abilities. They choose the best.  Since Ben Johnson joined the studio gw have gradually started to come around the the way that people actually play the game but it is a gradual process. The fact that the rules team is one of the smallest in the company and that playtesters are all unpaid volunteers are testament to this. I hope this change continues but I think the is an old guard in gw who is resistant to it. 

For the future of the game I think the community needs to step up. If you think the rules are not balanced then use a house rule. If you are taking three keepers to a club and people are complaining that it is not fun then change your list.

If you have an idea for a change that you think is good then email gw or send Sam Pearson a message on twitter. 

It always saddens me that the conversation is always about how broken something is rather than about how we can fix it. 

[prochuvi]

Seeing how umbalanced are slanesh,fec and skavens and gw havent done nothing to fix it and also in 40k the new spacemarines codex is the most overpower jump in all gw history.

 

Im not joking,for those that dont play to 40k,gw have released a codex of space marines with as double free rules than every other army etc etc it is as if in aos we have a dispossesed 1.0 army fighting new slanesh,that it is rigth now 40k being ever army at the dispossesed lvl and space marines at slanesh lvl.

 

So i have absolute zero hope in gw balancing the game,it is pretty clear that they dont give a ****** about the balance and only buff or nerf models to increase sales of that models(as they openly said about the wraithknigth in 7th edition)

[prochuvi]

7 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

What do you tell the people quitting who don't want to keep up with the more powerful armies who don't want to have to keep buying models to keep up?  The its balanced enough doesn't work for a lot of people, especially when they show up and have their semi casual army have to face off against one of our tournament armies (and my group only has a tournament army, so we can't "tone down").  

This was the topic that sank my store's attempt at a narrative night and caused a lot of angry feelings.

Do we tell those people the game is balanced enough and they should just be ok with auto losing?  At that point is it really a game?  That kind of feels like playing monopoly where one player gets 1000 when they pass go and a free property and the other players play by normal rules.

I gonna speak as both coin head situations.

 

I have had games where i stomped the rival and was unfun,even i went to melle with shoting units so the rival could have somefun and also had games where i had zero chances of win before play only seeing both lists.

Both situations are unfun for both,the overpower and the underpower army.

 

I stoped play both to 40k and aos due to how bad is the balance that makes games unfun(in 40k i play tau and sometimes i let my rival play 3000 points vs my 2000 points so both can have fun)

 

For me the and the guys at my store the balance is so bad that many of us have quit of play(we was as 40 people at tournaments 2 years ago and now they have problems to get 8-10 people to play tournaments) 

Some people that say that the balance dont matter i cant get it,where we have two players of the same skill,and one army is slanesh,fec,skaven level and we other player with any army as dispossesed(even the new cos only dwarf is useless and underpower) it is useless play the game. Because both players know what gonna happen.

 

Is as when a footbal math or f1 race is one sided,the math or race isnt fun. Wargame is the same,without balance is imposible have fun

[Panzer]

2 hours ago, Chikout said:

I think there has always been a fundamental disconnect between they gw internally plays games and the way the community does. For the vast majority of their history gw has focused on playing fun games. The battles shown in white dwarf always feature a wide variety of units with little spam. They often fudge the mechanics in order to allow for heroes to face off, or create exciting encounters. Winning the game usually comes second to having an enjoyable play experience. 

The community on the other hand does the opposite. Spam is common. Players don't choose the most fun or thematically suitable abilities. They choose the best.  Since Ben Johnson joined the studio gw have gradually started to come around the the way that people actually play the game but it is a gradual process. The fact that the rules team is one of the smallest in the company and that playtesters are all unpaid volunteers are testament to this. I hope this change continues but I think the is an old guard in gw who is resistant to it. 

For the future of the game I think the community needs to step up. If you think the rules are not balanced then use a house rule. If you are taking three keepers to a club and people are complaining that it is not fun then change your list.

If you have an idea for a change that you think is good then email gw or send Sam Pearson a message on twitter. 

It always saddens me that the conversation is always about how broken something is rather than about how we can fix it. 

^ this

From interviews, comments and practical observations we can see that GW employees mostly play what would fall in 40k under "Narrative Play" and "Open Play" instead of the "Matched Play" rules most people and tournaments use. That's because for them it's mostly about the models and the background and less about having a fair game. Even the ones who more or less often go on tournaments place pretty low because they just don't have the right mindset to write competetive lists.

It was the most obvious when they released AoS without points for units. That's all good and fun but not what most people want obviously. Having no points for units was and is unthinkable for the regular wargamer. People want a fair game as a basis (or at least as fair as possible) which they can slap the narrative and their fun background and beautiful models on top of.

GW is learning ... slowly, but ultimately they are still the same people who prefer unbalanced narrative focussed games over balanced games so that's the kind of rules they'll write primarily which they try to balance afterwards via General Handbooks/Chapter Approveds and Erratas.

However, so it doesn't sound all negative, GW is also at their best if they let themselves be creative with their rules. 40k has become rather bland rules-wise (not just this edition). Fun and interesting rules like for example the Greater Daemon ones you look for in vain. I 'blame' the 40k community being vastly more competetively minded than the fantasy one and GW being GW simply not being able to write rules that are fun&interesting and balanced at the same time.
The latest Space Marine Codex is them trying to bring a bit more flavour into their rules again, but it seems GW has a problem with seeing the results of stacking their rules. Something 40k players jump on immediately. So one of the Marine subfactions ended up way over the top for the timebeing.

[JackStreicher]

4 hours ago, Chikout said:

For the future of the game I think the community needs to step up. If you think the rules are not balanced then use a house rule.

I agree on what you said though you‘d be surprised to find out how many players reject any house rule since it is „not the real thing“ to them 🤷🏼‍♂️

Edited October 15, 2019 by JackStreicher
Typo

[Kasper]

How exactly do you want the balance in AOS? Not only is there a big disparity between armies, but there is also a HUGE issue with internal balance in multiple armies. Look at Daughters of Kaine, there is a reason why everyone goes for Hagnar and mass Witch Elves. It isn't just the aesthetics of the units, it is because every other list isn't anywhere close to the powerhouse of Hagnar.

This applies to Slaanesh too - If you don't go for Keepers but field mass Fiends, you wont experience the same results at all. This is likely the case for every single army. So an "OP" army can be rather poop if you don't finetune it and go for "rule of cool" when building your list. Should every army be balanced against each other based on 1 finetuned list? You are likely in a situation where you might as well cut 50% of the warscrolls because very few would buy them. Should every warscroll within an army be close to identical? In that case it kinda loses its meaning in my eyes. Almost doesn't matter what you field and listbuilding becomes moot.

This is something we often talk about in my local too, and the outcome is usually that you should build your list based on your opponent. As a former Slaanesh player, there is a huge difference how I would build my list vs Beasts of Chaos with random monsters and vs a finetuned FEC list. I wouldn't field the same models against both opponents because against Beasts of Chaos it would be over by turn 1.

Edited October 15, 2019 by Kasper

[Charleston]

I belive we will see in the future gw to go on as they do right now. Competetive List Hoppers are good customers, I don´t see a reason why to loose them on a too tight balancing. Meanwhile the actuall main issue ain´t gw´s balancing in my eyes. It´s us players and the way we want to play.

If someone really wants to win, he will concider the powerlevel of an army and unit during army and listbuilding. This will lead to a army that is fragile for any point or rules changes and that also can get dull quite soon as it often follows an optimized pattern on the table.

If someone wants to build a fun army with different units and to build up a broad collection, there is more diversity on the table for that player which leds to more depths and in my opinion to a better long time enjoyment. Also, there is a higher resilience to nerfs and point changes.

And then there is the internet. In general the most people write in the internet about powerfull rules and combinations. This leads simply to more players think about how to optimize their army. The thing is: The internet does not apply to out local group. Local metas are broadly microverses of their own. Knowledge is here a much higher factor, as new armies often have the advantage that their enemies do not know what they have to stand against. Or luck, as Initiative Rolls oftten can turn whole games and dictate the winner. Also, this is rather the powerlevel I think GW wants to adress with their balancing.

[Sonnenspeer]

Internal balance could be achived if every advantage in your tome would come with a price. So if you use a ability that alows you to summon a lot of units you are not able to use magic anylonger etc. ... have to think about it a little longer

 

 

[TheWilddog]

I have played and still play a variety of table top war games and other competitive games like MTG (many at relatively high levels of competitive play), and honestly most every other system I have played exhibit the same imbalance that we currently see in AOS.  I have played dozens of Standard MTG formats over the years and in almost everyone there were 3-5 best decks that were truly competitive tier 1 and everything else would be dominated by, in fact the current standard format is dominated fairly heavily by 1 deck with most people playing it if they really want to win.  The same goes for War Machine. For most of the game's life each faction has had certain casters that dominated and 80 percent of the rest of the range was just left on the shelf. The CID structure has rotated what is good based on the set themes and the meta chases the top builds, while most other lists are relegated to non-competitive.  These other games spend way more time and resources than GW on game balance and rules writing and end up in similar spaces.  It is honestly the model of the modern competitive/collectible game, a constantly shifting unbalanced meta where new things are promoted to induce sales. This reality is only more frustrating for us as war gamers because unlike magic players we can not just move on to a new deck and recycle the old ones very easily, due to the hobby investment in painting and building the models.   

 

Edited October 15, 2019 by TheWilddog

[CDM]

I think it was fairly balanced in 40k when they did the indexes. People.demanded more flavour in a codex and all of a sudden it was all over the place. 

I'd advocate for a tournament's to use just points from the generals handbook or a future tournament book and leave out all army and unit special rules. You cant balance varied rules through points. You cant create an interesting game without special rules (pre GHB 1 in AoS)

You cant cater to both crowds with the same rules, casual AoS gaming took off with the more structured approach of GHB1 and beyond so indent think there is that mythical gamer who throws down whatever and just plays for fun, some structure is needed but it ain't tournament structure!

There is no balance if they're is a vast array of rules and factions. Why do we kid ourselves otherwise.

[Chikout]

5 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

I agree on what you said though you‘d be surprised to find out how many players reject any house rule since it is „not the real thing“ to them 🤷🏼‍♂️

Yeah, I am well aware how reluctant many people are to modify the rules. It is an attitude I find surprising and frustrating. People will carve up  beautiful and expensive models to adjust them to their taste but are unwilling to tweak some poorly written words on a page in order to find a better play experience. 

I also think gw is much more likely to listen to suggestions when players have tried them out in a game or two. 

 

[JackStreicher]

4 minutes ago, Chikout said:

I also think gw is much more likely to listen to suggestions when players have tried them out in a game or two. 

They could also just „accidentally“ leak rules on Reddit or the likes before sending them into printing and they‘d know what‘s broken and what‘s useless within 12 hours.

I wonder if GW reads this Forum (I know some employees of them have active accounts here) and reacts to criticism or if they just turn a blind eye.

Edited October 15, 2019 by JackStreicher
Typo?

[hughwyeth]

I think there's an issue in the community where we rely on GW for perfect balance in order to have good games. That's not going to happen. Instead of bemoaning this all the time, find a community or group that don't meta chase constantly.

The issue is the people you play with, not the balance. We have a great community of seriously competitive players, none of whom play Slaanesh. If you play with a group of people who's only interest is winning at all costs, you'll have a miserable experience. AoS can provide really great games, but you need a player who buys into the same mindset. If you're having a miserable time, change the group or the people you play with. This is by nature a socially interactive game- the player on the other side of the table will make or break your experience. GW can't control that. 

Edited October 15, 2019 by hughwyeth