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

[Televiper11]

They should beta-test digitally then do a physical release with the final adjustments. Points changes yearly are fine.

[Panzer]

43 minutes ago, Televiper11 said:

I agree. I hate the whole release/FAQ/Errata cycle -- get it right the first time.

Eh, by taking away the FAQ/Erratas the first release wouldn't magically become better. It wasn't the case before in any of the warhammer systems and it won't be now. All it would do is leave us hanging with potentially broken releases for several years. Quick FAQ/Errata releases are a GOOD thing, not bad.

 

How quick people seem to forget the past...

[Televiper11]

1 minute ago, Panzer said:

Eh, by taking away the FAQ/Erratas the first release wouldn't magically become better. It wasn't the case before in any of the warhammer systems and it won't be now. All it would do is leave us hanging with potentially broken releases for several years. Quick FAQ/Errata releases are a GOOD thing, not bad.

 

How quick people seem to forget the past...

In the past, they didn't have the tools they have now to get their product right the first time.

[Panzer]

11 hours ago, Televiper11 said:

In the past, they didn't have the tools they have now to get their product right the first time.

You are apparently way more optimistic about GWs capability than I am. I'd rather have the current status quo than them betting it all on one card and if they ****** up we having to live with it for the next few years.

 

Edit: or any developers capability that is. Videogames don't get regular patchnotes for no reason. Nothing is ever right the first time.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Panzer

[Televiper11]

Just now, Panzer said:

You are apparently way more optimistic about GWs capability than I am. I'd rather have the current status&quo than them betting it all on one card and if they ****** up we having to live with it for the next few years.

GW just needs to meet the general industry publishing standard.

If Battletomes and Warscroll cards didn't cost a small fortune, it would be different. 

[smartazjb0y]

6 minutes ago, Televiper11 said:

GW just needs to meet the general industry publishing standard.

If Battletomes and Warscroll cards didn't cost a small fortune, it would be different. 

Isn't posting errata/FAQs kind of an industry standard? Plenty of board games I play have errata and FAQs, RPGs do, etc. Runewars Miniatures did too (that did die, but I don't think it died because its rules needed errata) 

[Televiper11]

Just now, smartazjb0y said:

Isn't posting errata/FAQs kind of an industry standard? Plenty of board games I play have errata and FAQs, RPGs do, etc. Runewars Miniatures did too (that did die, but I don't think it died because its rules needed errata) 

That's true -- because the industry is too cheap to design and edit their games properly.

I was talking more from a book publishing perspective, which is admittedly different. To my mind, errata are a sign of editorial and design failure. FAQs are okay for clarification purposes only, not for changing an actual rule wholesale.

 

[michu]

Yeah, you're ...  simply wrong. Go, create a game with so much rules as AoS and we will see if you'll manage to get everything right at first try. You set unachievable standards.

[smartazjb0y]

1 minute ago, Televiper11 said:

That's true -- because the industry is too cheap to design and edit their games properly.

I was talking more from a book publishing perspective, which is admittedly different. To my mind, errata are a sign of editorial and design failure. FAQs are okay for clarification purposes only, not for changing an actual rule wholesale.

 

I guess it depends on what types of books we're talking about. If we're talking about normal books, well they generally don't have to worry about game design so that's an issue inherent to gaming so there should be different standards there. 

To me it seems like board games are more akin to video games than they are to actual books, in terms of being designed. And like video games, generally things get patched because the rules can be complex and some interactions are going to be missed, clarifications are going to be necessary, etc. 

That doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong that errata are, well, errors that should be avoided. But IMO it seems that with how widespread the practice is, it seems to be the industry standard rather than the outlier. 

[Televiper11]

1 minute ago, smartazjb0y said:

I guess it depends on what types of books we're talking about. If we're talking about normal books, well they generally don't have to worry about game design so that's an issue inherent to gaming so there should be different standards there. 

To me it seems like board games are more akin to video games than they are to actual books, in terms of being designed. And like video games, generally things get patched because the rules can be complex and some interactions are going to be missed, clarifications are going to be necessary, etc. 

That doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong that errata are, well, errors that should be avoided. But IMO it seems that with how widespread the practice is, it seems to be the industry standard rather than the outlier. 

I meant gaming books. You don't see a lot of FAQs and errata coming out of RPG publishing -- unless I'm really missing something.

[michu]

Just now, Televiper11 said:

You don't see a lot of FAQs and errata coming out of RPG publishing -- unless I'm really missing something.

Yeah, you're missing - a lot! Cubicle 7 have at least two FAQ for WFRP4, DnD gets erratas and FAQs in the Dragon Magazine, Pathfinder also have erratas...

[Overread]

3 minutes ago, Televiper11 said:

I meant gaming books. You don't see a lot of FAQs and errata coming out of RPG publishing -- unless I'm really missing something.

RPG games also get considerable leeway because the game runs through a DM (typically). As a result imbalance doesn't really matter "as much" because the mechanics work through a moderated element that works to twist balance to suit the players they've got. If things are too easy they just throw more encounters/higher level encounters. If its too hard they just lower the number or adjust the stats themselves. 

And whilst I'm not involved in them I'm sure they do get revisions and updates. Though its not likely as much pressure on them as there is for competitive games. 

Wargames don't have someone in the middle mediating the experience and bridging the gap between rules and players - so in many ways the rules have to be more robust toward balance. Even if players can introduce their own house rules to mediate imbalance; its not something you can do on the fly in the middle of a game. With an RPG game you can very much change things on the fly. 

[smartazjb0y]

3 minutes ago, Televiper11 said:

I meant gaming books. You don't see a lot of FAQs and errata coming out of RPG publishing -- unless I'm really missing something.

I know DnD 5e and Pathfinder (well, not 2nd edition quite yet) both have errata. I think a slight difference there is that a lot of those books, especially the core books, go through multiple printings and they do tend to update between them. 

[stratigo]

52 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

At least AoS is not a balance mess like 40k is (while GW claims that they're happy with how things stand right now, rofl).

Illuminate us on where exactly 40k is worse. 

[Overread]

Just now, stratigo said:

Illuminate us on where exactly 40k is worse. 

One aspect is how alliances work. The Imperial force doesn't just have loads of alliance options like AoS has, but also can take way more of them. Even the individual sub-armies within a single army can work together like this. The result is far more "souping" of forces rather than a single army like you get with Aos. 

So with AoS you'd be using one allegiance table per army and then have 1/4 of the army as potential allies. In 40K you could be using 3 detachments from 3 different sub-armies within the same codex itself, with each using its own form of allegiance abilities. 

 

To me that's a huge difference. AoS actually rewards and encourages single army approaches; whilst 40K far more encourages this soup approach. Which of course breaks really easily when you've forces like Imperials who have a legion of options to min-max; next to armies at the other end of the scale, like Tyranids or Necrons, who have far fewer ally options. 

[stratigo]

21 minutes ago, Overread said:

One aspect is how alliances work. The Imperial force doesn't just have loads of alliance options like AoS has, but also can take way more of them. Even the individual sub-armies within a single army can work together like this. The result is far more "souping" of forces rather than a single army like you get with Aos. 

So with AoS you'd be using one allegiance table per army and then have 1/4 of the army as potential allies. In 40K you could be using 3 detachments from 3 different sub-armies within the same codex itself, with each using its own form of allegiance abilities. 

 

To me that's a huge difference. AoS actually rewards and encourages single army approaches; whilst 40K far more encourages this soup approach. Which of course breaks really easily when you've forces like Imperials who have a legion of options to min-max; next to armies at the other end of the scale, like Tyranids or Necrons, who have far fewer ally options. 

Let’s take just slaanesh. So, a slaanesh army gets access to its book. But then also it can add in the majority of the beasts of chaos book, the slaves to darkness, and archaon if it felt so inclined. Aos has its own soup issues with how the Battletomes work. A bunch of books are literally just them going “here, soup it up”. Most notable with CoS

 

imperium armies don’t tend to mix different tactics from the same book though. It doesn’t add anything that just covering the weaknesses of your book with another book doesn’t. And that’s the actual issue with soup, it allows an army to cover its own weaknesses by cherry picking the best units from different books. I agree this is a problem. 
 

but in aos, you just have books that really don’t have a weakness. So, well, aos doesn’t really win out here. The soupiest of armies in 40k is still worse than triple keepers or just competitive skaven is in aos

 

also, hope is on the horizon. Space marines no longer want soup, and space marines have eternally been the forerunner of the future in 40k

[Charleston]

40 minutes ago, Overread said:

One aspect is how alliances work. The Imperial force doesn't just have loads of alliance options like AoS has, but also can take way more of them. Even the individual sub-armies within a single army can work together like this. The result is far more "souping" of forces rather than a single army like you get with Aos. 

So with AoS you'd be using one allegiance table per army and then have 1/4 of the army as potential allies. In 40K you could be using 3 detachments from 3 different sub-armies within the same codex itself, with each using its own form of allegiance abilities. 

 

To me that's a huge difference. AoS actually rewards and encourages single army approaches; whilst 40K far more encourages this soup approach. Which of course breaks really easily when you've forces like Imperials who have a legion of options to min-max; next to armies at the other end of the scale, like Tyranids or Necrons, who have far fewer ally options. 

While Armybuilding in AoS is more restricted and things like Imperial Soup are not possible, yet I for my own prefer the balancing approaches of 40k.

• Having a fixed turn order in 40k allows a much less chaotic game and prevents that bad feeling of loosing to one roll. Yes, due to shooting having the first turn is a major factor which can give a big advantage, yet it seldom felt to me like turn 1 was gamedeciding.
• I also prefer Stratagems over Command Abilities. Later ones just feel unfinished to me, with weird wording and stackable command abilities that just feel like straight rule abuse. Also "Inspiring Presence" straightforward disallows any bravery tactics as there is always a hardcounter in each army.  Which is so weird as GW keeps pushing bravery debuffs as if they mattered.
• AoS has much more powerfull rules that often come without a drawback. Especially newer books "suffer" from this. Also, thoose rules often lead to a bad feeling for our fellow players. It is no fun in any game when your opponent is allowed to fight first and twice while you just put your models away with that bad feeling of just having the inferior ruleset. Slaaneshi-Combat-Priority-Sheningans, Nighthaunts Ethereal Rule to ignore rend, Deepkin "Third turn we kill everything in combat", all thoose rules feel just bad to play against. The worst thing is the feeling to be not able to do anything against, which can really spoil the game.
• Magic and Prayers are quite messy. In 40k Psykers are not perfect, but Perils is a wonderfull mechanic that makes the use of Psy always a risk. Meanwhile in AoS Magic and Prayers are free of any risk in most cases.
• AoS beeing more Meele Focused leaves far less room for errors behind. For me AoS often feels like how to move my units into the best position to do optimal damage and thats it. Either the charges are cool or units end up beeing stomped. 40k feels more flexible, due to more shooting alone. A unit can be sent to get objective A but used a turn later to move somewhere else, maybe to bind an enemy or to enjoy cover before waiting for a better point in the game for a charge and so on.

That are some reasons why AoS is tilting me quite fast, while in 40k the games I play always end up beeing much closer and tense. And for me: Much more fun as a game. Nevertheless I also like AoS, but much more for the models and the lore than for the gameplays sake. But this is a highly personal opinion and critique, which everyone has to decide for themself. And I know that 40k is by far not perfect, with CP defining listbuilding a bit too much, alpha shooting leading to 1-2 Units beeing removed before doing anything with them etc.

Edit:
This was not meant as a direct contra to undermine your position dear  @Overread It was just a post that turned quite fast from "Well, I like 40k more" into a "I like it more, because.." which was quite nice to write for myself as it really helped me a lot to understand for myself what I like about the game and how I could improve my playing experience I posted it in the hope that maybe someone will find thoose toughts usefull, maybe helpfull to understand for themself what some differences of the game are. Some of thoose bulletpoints can be easily turned into possible suggestions what could be changed in AoS

Edited October 21, 2019 by Charleston

[Televiper11]

1 hour ago, michu said:

Yeah, you're ...  simply wrong. Go, create a game with so much rules as AoS and we will see if you'll manage to get everything right at first try. You set unachievable standards.

AoS core rules are only six pages. For every extra step they add along the way, they need to make those additive rules clear and playable before releasing them. 

Edited October 21, 2019 by Televiper11

[Televiper11]

Look at the Iron Hands debacle for 40K. That should've never made print. They've already errata'd it yet people sunk real time and money into those lists. It shouldn't happen, or at least less often.

[Panzer]

18 minutes ago, Charleston said:

While Armybuilding in AoS is more restricted and things like Imperial Soup are not possible, yet I for my own prefer the balancing approaches of 40k.

• Having a fixed turn order in 40k allows a much less chaotic game and prevents that bad feeling of loosing to one roll. Yes, due to shooting having the first turn is a major factor which can give a big advantage, yet it seldom felt to me like turn 1 was gamedeciding.
• I also prefer Stratagems over Command Abilities. Later ones just feel unfinished to me, with weird wording and stackable command abilities that just feel like straight rule abuse. Also "Inspiring Presence" straightforward disallows any bravery tactics as there is always a hardcounter in each army.  Which is so weird as GW keeps pushing bravery debuffs as if they mattered.
• AoS has much more powerfull rules that often come without a drawback. Especially newer books "suffer" from this. Also, thoose rules often lead to a bad feeling for our fellow players. It is no fun in any game when your opponent is allowed to fight first and twice while you just put your models away with that bad feeling of just having the inferior ruleset. Slaaneshi-Combat-Priority-Sheningans, Nighthaunts Ethereal Rule to ignore rend, Deepkin "Third turn we kill everything in combat", all thoose rules feel just bad to play against. The worst thing is the feeling to be not able to do anything against, which can really spoil the game.
• Magic and Prayers are quite messy. In 40k Psykers are not perfect, but Perils is a wonderfull mechanic that makes the use of Psy always a risk. Meanwhile in AoS Magic and Prayers are free of any risk in most cases.
• AoS beeing more Meele Focused leaves far less room for errors behind. For me AoS often feels like how to move my units into the best position to do optimal damage and thats it. Either the charges are cool or units end up beeing stomped. 40k feels more flexible, due to more shooting alone. A unit can be sent to get objective A but used a turn later to move somewhere else, maybe to bind an enemy or to enjoy cover before waiting for a better point in the game for a charge and so on.

That are some reasons why AoS is tilting me quite fast, while in 40k the games I play always end up beeing much closer and tense. And for me: Much more fun as a game. Nevertheless I also like AoS, but much more for the models and the lore than for the gameplays sake. But this is a highly personal opinion and critique, which everyone has to decide for themself. And I know that 40k is by far not perfect, with CP defining listbuilding a bit too much, alpha shooting leading to 1-2 Units beeing removed before doing anything with them etc.

Edit:
This was not meant as a direct contra to undermine your position dear  @Overread It was just a post that turned quite fast from "Well, I like 40k more" into a "I like it more, because.." which was quite nice to write for myself as it really helped me a lot to understand for myself what I like about the game and how I could improve my playing experience I posted it in the hope that maybe someone will find thoose toughts usefull, maybe helpfull to understand for themself what some differences of the game are. Some of thoose bulletpoints can be easily turned into possible suggestions what could be changed in AoS

Funnily enough I prefer the way command points get generated and used in AoS and 40k Killteam compared to main 40k. Also bravery/LD/morale/whatever it's named has it's issues in 40k as well. Even if you play an army that can stack a -8 modifier to the LD it's not worth going for such a tactic at all. The last Warhammer I've played where LD mattered was WHFB 7e and there in fact it was pretty much the core mechanic for how to win fights and the movement phase was what decided whether you can win the fight or not. So an entirely different beast than AoS and 40k today.

You say you don't like flavourful rules like the slaaneshi combat thing or Nighthaunts ethereal thing, but something like that exists in 40k too. Like the Genestealer Cult deployment shenanigans and daemons having basically the same as Nighthaunts in that they all have a 5+ invulnerable save which completely ignores armour penetration and is only not as much of a problem due them being 90% melee which sucks in 40k and 40k throwing around enough dice to not care about a poor defense like that.

AoS being melee focussed may not leave much room for errors, however the other side of the coin is 40k being so shooty that whoever goes second can pick up a bunch of his units before having been able to ever use them in the game which can quickly snowball into a win for whoever went first with the more shooty army.

 

Feels to me like this is mostly a case of "the grass is greener on the other side". 

[Charleston]

6 minutes ago, Panzer said:

Funnily enough I prefer the way command points get generated and used in AoS and 40k Killteam compared to main 40k. Also bravery/LD/morale/whatever it's named has it's issues in 40k as well. Even if you play an army that can stack a -8 modifier to the LD it's not worth going for such a tactic at all. The last Warhammer I've played where LD mattered was WHFB 7e and there in fact it was pretty much the core mechanic for how to win fights and the movement phase was what decided whether you can win the fight or not. So an entirely different beast than AoS and 40k today.

You say you don't like flavourful rules like the slaaneshi combat thing or Nighthaunts ethereal thing, but something like that exists in 40k too. Like the Genestealer Cult deployment shenanigans and daemons having basically the same as Nighthaunts in that they all have a 5+ invulnerable save which completely ignores armour penetration and is only not as much of a problem due them being 90% melee which sucks in 40k and 40k throwing around enough dice to not care about a poor defense like that.

AoS being melee focussed may not leave much room for errors, however the other side of the coin is 40k being so shooty that whoever goes second can pick up a bunch of his units before having been able to ever use them in the game which can quickly snowball into a win for whoever went first with the more shooty army.

 

Feels to me like this is mostly a case of "the grass is greener on the other side". 

Well, I tried to refer some of the points you noted already And yes, as already stated, this is my personal opinion. The only thing I would like to simply get straight: I never said I dislike flavorfull rules. Flavorfull rules are the best thing about AoS! The point is the lack of drawbacks, required to give your opponent something to handle your stuff.

[gjnoronh]

22 hours ago, TheCovenLord said:

This game will never be as balanced as it could be and I believe the problem is two-fold. Your first statement I believe is an inherent issue with miniature wargaming that all systems will suffer from. The game is too hard to invest into, takes too much time (or money if you do not build/paint your own) for GW to make changes or shift blocks as quickly as say MTG.  

--------------------------------------------

While we largely agree we disagree a bit on this point.  There aren't many gaming systems that  involve fielding as many 28 mm models as AoS. (9th Age, and KoW, and 40K as far as I know.)   The barriers in switching from say one faction in  Warmachine, or Bolt Action or Infinity  to another is much smaller then in these large model count systems.   Heck for some of these systems you might have a 10-20 model total size faction.   Agree that card and computer games tend to have a much lower barrier to faction shift.     

For those who are curious about math and philosophy of balance we had a long discussion on this forum a year ago it gets a bit esoteric but there is a lot in there about how hard it is to 'accurately' balance AoS when there is a lot of diversity of skill levels, terrains, tournament set ups in our community.  If we all had the same baseline it would be easier to balance.   As it stands it is very very hard to get a game as complicated as AoS to 'balance' well, and what's  balanced in the hands of the worlds top players may be very imbalanced when played by the average joe, and vice versa.   

 

 

Edited October 22, 2019 by gjnoronh

[Obeisance]

Honestly, if you're looking for balance you're playing games in the wrong company. GW is, first and foremost, a company that sells models. Primary responsibility is to the shareholders.

Secondly, there's 2500$ on the line. Money brings out the worst in people. You will probably see the hardest lists and the worst behaviour with that amount of money on the line.

The most balanced game I've played (and am still playing) is Infinity. The very nature of the game encourages a dialogue and cooperation between opponents. There's also not really any "gotchas" and there's very little meta bending antics. No power builds/lists and every faction can do everything to a certain degree. It's an objective based game where you build to handle missions.

It also has the most unique mechanic I've seen in any game. Whenever you do anything your opponent's models can see in your turn, they get to react. Your guy moves, shoots. They shoot back. Coupled with dice in the game, it's super neat.

Say you shoot 3 times in your turn, looking for 12s or less on a D20. Your opponent gets 1 shot against you, looking for, say 12s as well. You roll 11, 9, 8. Your opponent rolls a 10. Your 11 beats his 10, but his 10 beats your 9 and 8.  So your 11 connects, his 10 knocks out your other two hits- resulting in a single hit from three. This means you can get shot to death in your own turn.

[AaronWilson]

I think the reason balance is posted about so much is the point that don't really care about it / accepted it's not balanced are busy enjoying the world of sigmar, enjoying hobby projects, enjoying beer and pretzel games, enjoy the game for it's atmospheric games and community and not posting online complaining about balance.

[relic456]

14 minutes ago, AaronWilson said:

I think the reason balance is posted about so much is the point that don't really care about it / accepted it's not balanced are busy enjoying the world of sigmar, enjoying hobby projects, enjoying beer and pretzel games, enjoy the game for it's atmospheric games and community and not posting online complaining about balance.

I can't do both? 😉