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The Constructive AoS Feedback Thread


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15 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I don't want to derail this lovely thread, so if this needs expansive discussion, let's make a new one. That said, I'm curious about what you dislike here. I felt like even the original 1.0 4-pager had all the terrain rules you needed if you just applied what was there, and 2.0 hand-holds for those who wanted that. What more is needed that wouldn't needlessly complicate things?

I assume you don't regularly need to add 3" to most of your charges because your opponent has positioned his models floating 3" up a terrain feature. 

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23 hours ago, Fairbanks said:

2. Pusgoyle Blightlords should be min size of 1, so that when I build the lord of afflictions, I still have a use for the other model.

3. Deal with the remaining Metal/Resin models. I would hate to see it go from the army list, but either give us a plastic Slann or let the army go without one. Nurgle and Skaven have a few old models that can get fixed or go too.

OMG yes! In general I'd like to see metal/resin models just all get retired and the armies adjusted to deal without them. I love GW plastic models but their resin is far too fragile for my taste (Had a Harbinger of Decay explode into a bazillion pieces from a 3 foot fall) and metal is just outdated and dangerous to other models in my carrying case. Also, had the Pusgoyle issues.

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not knowing the process makes it difficult its easy to pass judgement, but each army must be an epic undertaking with a lot of effort put in and a lot of people only notice the mistakes, I could go on forever on how good the game is and each design and battle tome but heres my criticisms 

1- Releasing start collecting boxes without the unit upgrade options- ie slaves to darkness and not having the models released so I can buy them, having silly long waiting periods for models and not having models available- I would suggest a back order system - an example of the process that would work 1- when sisters battle battle force was sold out have an order system that has the money pending for 30days if they manage to get 100 of these in the allotted time they would put in the order (numbers circumstantial would have to be what ever is cost efficient for them to still make a profit) this would stop individuals buying and then selling at higher prices.

Also release the damn models it is first and foremost a game not being able to get a model because its out of stock or only available in said boxset is B/S its bad marketing and business, to begin with its great drives up hype and sales but eventually crashes because people get sick of it and move on to games where everything in it is available.

at minimum a timeline of when already released models will be available should be provided. 

2- Proof reading - 50 odd players in their play test group and not one person picked up things like the nurgle dp ability? but i don't know how the system works has it already gone to print before the test it? or do they get a pdf? so many questions but they need to proof read it have it read by several people that play the game to see how they interrupt it, 

3- I'd love if I bought a book to at least get a discount code to use it on the azyr app, for me having the books important I love a physical copy nice to sit and read than stare at phone but for gaming app battle tome is much better.

4- With balance I'm not to bothered Ill just buy and play armies that I think are cool and it will never truly be a balanced game, though there is definitely a lack of communication between designers of battle tomes at minimum new armies need to be tested against each other, and be 50/50 even if they they are both stronger or weaker than the meta. I've got no problem with some armies being stronger it makes some games more challenging, but they do need to be fun and dynamic for the game, the only bad example I have of a release is the bone reapers they're are boring to play with and against.

5- I'd love to go to a tourney where each player is given a pack of sealed dice and they are the dice you use for the tournament. (just thought i'd throw it in)

I'm not really into bashing GW but these should be easy fix, they have done an excellent job and models are so much better than when I played fantasy 17-18 years ago and I love how dynamic and vast AOS has become, the problems seem to be management errors and simple oversights that could easily be fixed.

 

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5- I'd love to go to a tourney where each player is given a pack of sealed dice and they are the dice you use for the tournament. (just thought i'd throw it in)

This is something I agree with a lot because we have caught a few people with loaded dice in our tournaments and there are people that know how to do dice tricks where they can roll dice and get the values they want reliably.  You can't do much with the people that know dice tricks, but you can weed the people bringing in weighted dice or dice that have a tendency to roll high by making them use the same sealed dice pack everyone else uses.

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On 1/20/2020 at 9:52 AM, RuneBrush said:

I think where we are with AoS is fantastic, there's loads of content out there, the background is developing all the time.  As a hobbyist, not only is the hobby in amazing shape, but I also feel like my contributions count.

From the point of view on improvements my own aren't actually that many.

It does feel like there's a reluctance to wait until battletomes are released before seeing warscroll changes.  Although I can see logic in this (both playtesting and customers who have bought the warscroll cards), I think sometimes a modified warscroll would do more to resolve issues that have arisen rather than point changes.

For some battleplans, I feel at times there is quite a bit of disparity between the game being played and the end result.  A game that ends with the victory points on 19-20 that was super close throughout, feels really bad with a simple major win for one person.  I equally know from talking to lots of people that this is a divisive suggestion.

Finally a book full of battalions would be amazing (plus clarified & consolidated rules on using them)!  With the way the game currently sits, there's quite a disparity between armies that have a good selection of battalions and ones that don't.  I don't mean this from a "this battalion is better than that one", quite a few battletomes have battalions locked to specific allegiances or conditions.

That's it really.  From a players perspective, I'd love to see a generals compendium released each year that contained all the playing aids you could possibly need - so battleplans, agendas, realm rules, command abilities etc on cards, but that's not so much the game as making things easier to play (at least for me).

Gaming the other day and actually discussed this winning by 1- VPs should definitely be a minor victory minor loss and would also then negate almost any need  to track Kill points at a tourney and would also mean a tighter leaderboard across a 2day tournament as it is at the moment only certain battle plans are you likely to see major and minors knife to the heart, blood and glory, gift from the heavens. 

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In general, I think GW is going in a pretty good direction but I'd like to see the following:

1.) Focus on balancing the game around single play instances. This might require some explanation. Basically, most players don't actually play that many games (at most 1 or 2 a week is my guess outside of tournaments) and they tend to take several hours. Introducing elements of randomness or balance issues that average out okay but wreck single games is frustrating. Take the Stormcast subfaction command ability to resurrect a unit on a roll of 5+. It was popular in my area for awhile back with lists with 20 sequitors. Most of the time, the only thing the command ability did was have the player waste a command point. Yet occasionally it would go off and they'd get a free unit of 20 sequitors and that would pretty much hand them the game. The new Tzeentch battletome can also do that with Horrors.

The other side of this is external balance between armies. At lot of people have predicted that KO and Tzeentch will counter OBR. Lets say this is 100% the case. It still does nothing to effect how lopsided games are with the armies OBR are currently curb-stomping. Having a balanced overall win-rate doesn't make for engaging games if that winrate is the product of a rock-paper-scissors game.

2.) Release the heroes from the dual boxes already. I'm find with them initially coming out in those boxes but its getting ridiculous. Its been almost a year since Carrion Empire came out and you still can't get the abhorrent arch-regent despite him being on the cover of the Flesh-Eaters Courts battletome.

3.) Get rid of the random turn order. Kinda plays into point #1 but is a specific thing rather than a design philosophy. I could list my reasons but this has really been discussed to death in other threads.

 

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13 hours ago, BadDice0809 said:

Boxed sets. I don't know how we went from 70-80 dollar Start Collecting kits to whatever you want to call the rip offs that are Aetherwar, and its 40k equivalent Blood of the Phoenix but we need a hard stop to that. Locking character models behind an 180+ dollar, limited time only box is disgusting and only benefits scalpers and their ilk. Let's not pretend GW doesn't know this either.

I agree with everything in this post, but especially this! The boxed sets are absurd. Having to pay hundreds of dollars just to get a unique hero unit is ****** of the highest order.

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23 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

 

 

This is something I agree with a lot because we have caught a few people with loaded dice in our tournaments and there are people that know how to do dice tricks where they can roll dice and get the values they want reliably.  You can't do much with the people that know dice tricks, but you can weed the people bringing in weighted dice or dice that have a tendency to roll high by making them use the same sealed dice pack everyone else uses.

yeah, or i thought on step further, every table has a red and blue set sealed at the start of the tourney, with 2 sealed back gammon dice as the priority dice, then those dice stay on that table so no player ends up using the same set up dice twice. Though this probably for another thread but if people were serious about making t sports grow thats the way to do it. Though financial viability of good quality dice with painted sides may make it impossible, for example 2 competition level approved backgammon dice cost £11-15, I thought cheeses were pretty good but after some research they're not.

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All in all - great progress and the game is in a great state. Saying that, terrain, cover and Line of Sight rules should be drastically changed. Terrain should matter - LOS should be done Warmahordes style (on a base by base case and not can my model see your spear) and cover should be different if you are hiding behind a castle wall or behind a fence.

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I think the game is in a pretty positive place overall right now. It's a solid rulebase for a relatively simple game, but still allows for special mechanics to create a unique "feel" for each army that aligns with player expectations based on their lore. The choice of faction aesthetics and playstyles is broad and varied, and it sounds like that's only going to increase with new releases. The inter-faction balance is, honestly, remarkably good. Games are smooth, engaging and don't drag on.

My main criticism, purely self-interested, is the lack of price parity between markets and/or anti-competitive trade practices (e.g. the ban on worldwide shipping). I don't really understand how GW have managed to get away with that, but it's pricing a lot of people out of the game here in Australia, and we're not even the most egregious example.

Otherwise, I just want to see the Wood Elves come back (and I'd happily settle for Kurnothi as a fully-developed faction).

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Okay, my 15-20 cents.

Positives

Models: These models are the best of any wargame I've ever seen. They're sharp, well designed and cut, and the kits are easy to work through. Really top notch work.

Lore: GW has always had the best lore teams on the planet, and it's really coming together now that they've had some time to breath in the mortal realms. I really love the work they're doing there.

Release schedule: I love that every other week I've got something to look forward to and read about, and a new kit to add to my dragonpile of unbuilt stuff.

Warhammer Community: While not totally AoS centered, warcom is like, the best thing to happen to GW. I imagine it's only a matter of time before they bring back the GW forums again, like that had when I was a wee lad.

Criticisms

Balance: While I feel AoS is probably the most balanced wargame I've played before, I feel it suffers from two major balance issues. Internal balance in a faction, and a "rock, paper, scissors" mentality.  The first is simple, some units in books are vastly worse than other units in the same book, for the same points. Some artifacts are flatly better than others. Some subfactions are insanely better than others.  The latter issue is a much harder problem. GW has always had a "rock, paper, scissors," mentality. It's fine for DoK to be an insane synergy faction that can kill anything they touch, because they're weak to shooting. It's fine for OBR to be functionally unkillable, because they're slow and can be out maneuvered on the board. It's fine for Skaven to cast infinite spells a turn, because they have weak units that die like gerbils in speed bags. The problem with this mentality is that in a game like this, that has a high barrier of entry, walking into a local meta that is full of paper, when you've got a bag full of rocks, feels bad. It doesn't matter how much I love X faction, they're seriously countered by Y faction, and my main opponents play Y.

How do we fix this? The solution to this is something that most people won't want, but it's to make armies more milquetoast. Don't let a faction's theme being models are unkillable, or can punch someone into the sun. Make a unit that is "good" at combat 3 by 4, with 1 rend. Make a unit that is "tanky" 2 wounds with a 4+ save. Now you won't have that insane skew that leads to the rock paper scissors design.

Play-testing: This leans into balance a little bit, but it's less about power and more about consistency. I play a lot of games, both physical and digital. One of the best things that many developers of digital games do is release a PTR, or public test realm, where you can play-test the various changes and updates. I know part of the magic of GW is the fact that you don't know exactly what's coming, and things are kept under tight wraps, and the rumor engine takes terrible pictures of them to make us argue if that scaly bit is an elven cloak or a seraphon character (it was a chaos mount in the end, go figure.) But the down side of this is that the small hush-hush community of players that get into play-testing  suffer from a few major issues that leave books in a sorry state where they need an update a few days after launch. Firstly they are a small enough group that not enough feedback can be given. It turns out sometimes you just need monkeys with typewriters, and not hand selected specialists. Secondly, the hand selected specialists aren't actually very good at the game. Personal side note, I played against one of the guys who was on the play-testing team for GHB2018 at adepticon, and he didn't know the rule about being able to pile in if a unit charged, and its target was wiped out. I used that trick to win the game, and he called a judge over, who just looked at him funny and then pointed his name in the book out to me. 

How do we fix this? Simply have a larger group of play-testers, and also have a more selective group of "top tier" play-testers. Consider the following: The current core of testers now get the book a year in advance, as they currently do. They muck around with it, they give feedback, changes get made. Then, 2nd pass comes in 4 months later. It goes to a much larger pool, basically the public, who then does further play-testing, and gives further feedback. Suddenly you have a much larger group who is funneling information back to GW. And hell, even release the models in that 2nd phase of testing, so you don't have to worry about copywrite issues. And if they wanted to be really cheeky, they could have people pay a small subscription fee to get this play-test material every time it comes around (which at the current release rate would literally be once a month,) and that would give them a steady stream of revenue and would mean only people who are really dedicated to the program are giving feedback.

Terrain and LoS: True line of sight is bad for the games health. It's cinematic, it's very easy for a new player to understand, and it moves the game along very quickly. The problem is if you have two players who disagree, it becomes hard to have a hard and fast ruling, and it also makes it hard to release cool and ornate scenery pieces, because people will argue about how they effect line of sight. The other major problem with terrain is the rules for placing models. I see games all the time where people just gingerly set models that clearly don't fit and say "well he's flying, so it's fine." It bothers me, and it looks bad.

How do we fix this? Firstly, make the base rules official, and not a suggestion. It's time. People have had their square bases for long enough. Secondly, assign every base size a "size score" between 1 and 10. Do the same for all terrain. If something is bigger than you, it blocks line of sight for you. Done. For the flying thing, have a simple rule added into the matched play section. "If it fits, it sits: A model can only be placed on a section of the battle field large enough to hold the entirety of its base. If any portion of the base is unable to sit flatly on this section of the battlefield, weither by hanging off or sitting at an angle, it can not be placed there." Easy money.

 

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I would appreciate it if they made sure to avoid the extremes regarding powerlevel when they bring new armies.

Azyr App is such a nice thing, but execution is horrible.

  • UX is poor, e.g manually adding stuff to my battle
  • No synch with warscroll builder for armies, or between iOS / Android for the books
  • Keep points and warscrolls exclusively in App and separate Book/PDF , would allow much faster adjustments.

Make physical warscrolls have a "sleeve" on the backside where we can print and put in the latest version -> wouldn't invalidate them when a warscroll change happens and we still get a nice warscroll :)

Bring Combo-Tomes: Buy physical and Azyr book for a discount. 1 time use codes in the physical book.

 

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16 hours ago, NJohansson said:

All in all - great progress and the game is in a great state. Saying that, terrain, cover and Line of Sight rules should be drastically changed. Terrain should matter - LOS should be done Warmahordes style (on a base by base case and not can my model see your spear) and cover should be different if you are hiding behind a castle wall or behind a fence.

I would agree more if you were talking about Warhammer 40k.  However, Age of Sigmar doesn't seem to involve nearly as much ranged combat (Kharadron Overlords not withstanding) to necessitate complex terrain rules.  As mentioned, I also don't think Age of Sigmar is intended to be all that complicated and wants to stay accessible for new players.  I do think maybe the terrain rules could offer suggestions much like 40k does even if most the players that subscribe to forums such as this treat them as if they don't exist.  What I always find more important is talking with your opponent on what terrain does since even the most comprehensive terrain rules don't cover everything.  Well, unless you just want to play with 2D terrain like many do in Warmachine, but that seems like it is missing the point of GW (style over substance) games.

But maybe that's me.  I can't even begin to fully comprehend the concern over dice from previous posts even in a major/grand tournament setting.  I don't think t-sports are ever going to be a thing and Age of Sigmar isn't the kind of game I would get that worked up about as to need sealed dice or something.  That seems very square peg (GW games) in around hole (competitive gaming).  To each their own I guess.

I will say with the chance that there becomes more ways for the attacker to pick a model and delete it skipping the normal steps for damage (Mortek Crawler, Dankhold Troggboss, etc.) , I think how Age of Sigmar does unit coherency should be looked at.  I feels really gamey to kill a model with one of these abilities only to remove several more even if they were 'shoulder to shoulder' because that unit has bases wider than 1".  I actually think the counter to this is worse as it can generate bizarre looking patterns (to me at least) on the table to prevent it.  And Chariot groups of 3 (or similarly big based models) can only hope that it just doesn't happen.  It seems odd to me for that to be intention of the rule and not an exploit of them.

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Thing is there will be other factions that used ranged weapons. Plus you can bet one reason many armies don't have many ranged weapons is purely because they are small sized armies. As GW expands those armies you can bet they'll get more models and more options and a good number will be ranged. I can see range growing over time not lessening. As a result good quality detailed terrain rules that allow for cover are going to be critical to avoid the problem taht 40K has where a powerful ranged force can shut down close combat armies - which results in GW typically making close combat armies that can hit the opponent in one single turn - which tends to take a lot of the fun out of the game for both sides. 

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@Overread,

Maybe.  I don't see Age of Sigmar by its nature (still a fantasy game) having anywhere close to the amount of the ranged combat that 40k or even Warmachin/Hordes does.  I think melee is going to be the primary source of attacks just like 40k's is ranged.  I specifically called out Kharadron Overlords because I think that is one of the things that make them different.  I am sure if more factions are added there probably will be more of them where ranged combat is also their thing.  You are probably correct in that as current factions are expanded ranged unit options will increase.

I still don't think cover should be particularly important and need more comprehensive rules.  You can say I am way off in my assessment and maybe I am, but I still see Age of Sigmar as game that plays on more sparsely terrain-ed tables like pretty much any other fantasy game.  I view cover as more of a bonus than a given, completely hiding more than a single model rare with armies largely meeting on open fields (or what I call 40k tournament tables hey-oh!).  Heck, I still make use of rank and file strategies playing my army.  I actually like densely terrain-ed tables too. It takes some amount of restraint (fortunately I don't have access to much Chaos fantasy terrain) to not litter the table with terrain so it looks like the fantasy version of Stalingrad (I really like city fighting). 

Don't get me wrong, I miss rules like 50% model/unit not visible gets cover and would like more ways to keep my full Save.  I am also not against more comprehensive terrain rules either.  I don't see they are all that needed though given my understanding of the amount/range of ranged attacks that exist in the game.  Getting peppered with long range shots all game long is frustratingly annoying.  More so when you do finally reach sword range and they still keep shooting you.  I just think that is how it goes.  I could be way off in this though.  As play more games against more factions, or get fed up getting beat up by the KO player, I may change my perception on this.

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47 minutes ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

But maybe that's me.  I can't even begin to fully comprehend the concern over dice from previous posts even in a major/grand tournament setting.  I don't think t-sports are ever going to be a thing and Age of Sigmar isn't the kind of game I would get that worked up about as to need sealed dice or something.  That seems very square peg (GW games) in around hole (competitive gaming).  To each their own I guess.

Yeah same here at least partially. Honest Wargamer has changed my opinion on the watchability of tabletop games but there are so many rules imbalances and so much room for player error that sealed dice seem like massive overkill. I'm not sure I'd actually want to attend a tournament that used sealed dice as I'd be terrified I'd get some rule wrong and immediately tared and feathered as a cheater. I like tournaments and playing to win but that just invokes a hardcore and mistrustful attitude that isn't in line with what I want from this game. Then again, I dislike large prize pools (specifically when they are concentrated into 1st/2nd/3rd place) and that makes me the Anti-Christ to some people :P.

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How does attending a tournament that uses sealed dice correlate to getting a rule wrong and being tarred and feathered as a cheater?

I do agree that some people take mistakes way too far and accuse people of cheating when it was an honest mistake.  

However tournaments are serious for a lot of people and thats to be expected.  Competition is a serious mindset to many.

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If there was one thing I could change about AoS, it would be the same way the first turn priority is worked it out - I would change it to the way it is worded in the core rules pre-Faq. 

I don't like how one of the two players will be able to guarantee the first or second turn at the time that they are deploying. 

I think it makes battalions too important and also makes alpha strike armies a bit too strong. 

I would therefore change it to a roll-off after deployment, with draws going in favour of the first player to finish deploying. 

Either that, or I would change the rules so that a battalion MUST all be dropped at once - so if you know you are going to chose first or second, your opponent can at least set up after you to try to counter that. 

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59 minutes ago, Carnelian said:

If there was one thing I could change about AoS, it would be the same way the first turn priority is worked it out - I would change it to the way it is worded in the core rules pre-Faq. 

I don't like how one of the two players will be able to guarantee the first or second turn at the time that they are deploying. 

I think it makes battalions too important and also makes alpha strike armies a bit too strong. 

I would therefore change it to a roll-off after deployment, with draws going in favour of the first player to finish deploying. 

Either that, or I would change the rules so that a battalion MUST all be dropped at once - so if you know you are going to chose first or second, your opponent can at least set up after you to try to counter that. 

There has never been a roll–off. 

People just played it wrong and the FAQ clarified it.

And I think its a good thing. Drops should matter so people can build a list around having priority in t1. Just my opinion.

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Just now, Phasteon said:

There has never been a roll–off. 

People just played it wrong and the FAQ clarified it.

And I think its a good thing. Drops should matter so people can build a list around having priority in t1. Just my opinion.

There is a big difference in batallion options between books though. I only have a single batallion option, which is a batallion I like, but it's also not a standalone version.

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A roll off takes player agency away.  If I want to guarantee double turn, because in my games so far last year I have won 84% of my games that I got to control the double turn and it is hugely important in AOS, that means I need a mechanism that lets me control and guarantee that I can control it.  List drops are that mechanism that let me know that I will always get that, and if someone comes up with a build that beats mine in drop count to get guaranteed turn order, I will go back and amend my list.

Rolling for it in the beginning would suck because it takes away my control over my list.

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