Metawatch article highlighting the total lack of balance

[NinthMusketeer]

You didn't answer the question, though. I'm not trying to mock or be toxic or anything, I want to know what you would expect to see if, theoretically, it was all a case of incompetence/dismissal.

On a side note, given it is an AoS forum it would be great if you could stick to AoS examples if possible. I don't know a thing about shifting centurion metas so can't really get the full context of your argument.

Edited October 25, 2020 by NinthMusketeer

[Greybeard86]

Exact same company, that's why I used examples I know are good. I am newer to AoS (old fantasy), so I am more careful discussing it beyong the general picture (which I have researched).

If it was all random, then we'd expect exactly that the changes don't knock down systematically the top meta after a few months, but rather affect units and armies independently of where they are. That's not my experience, both units and armies seem to take turns in taking the spotlight, and the changes tend to come from the top or the bottom of the pile.

This is what my observation of past / other systems behavior of GW made me conclude, and what I have been reading about the AoS competitive scene. Am I wrong?

[hobgoblinclub]

I think, if it was accidental, you'd see more units that already exist bubble up in terms of power. If it was weird rules interactions, new rules would cause spikes in power for old units they'd overlooked. 

If it was accidental, it'd occur less frequently with new units. Anyone with a grasp of the game can see broken units in a new book before they even play a game. If it was really unintentional, GW would sort massive issues out way quicker. There's been times when the community has been screaming for something to be nerfed but GW have waited for two or three FAQs (until the sales spike is over?). 

If it was accidental, the meta wouldn't be dominated so perfectly by the books from the last six months at any point in the game's history. Each set of new books gazumps the last with uncanny frequency. 

[NinthMusketeer]

I do think we have to give GW a bit of credit here--obviously they are making some effort to balance things either way. In both circumstances (intentional misbalance/bad at balancing) outliers in terms of effectiveness are more likely to see nerfs/buffs as appropriate. 

But if they were incompetent I would expect to see undeserving units get buffs, weak units get nerfs, well balanced units see dramatic changes with a lot of randomness to what is affected an how. I would expect this to be more common with new units since there is less experience, feedback, and data to accompany them. But I would expect a mix of new releases being OP, UP, and balanced both internal and external to the battletomes.

This would be opposed to an intentional system where I would expect new releases to be better, options that are bad to shift to at least above-average status, and options that are good to only remain so for a relatively short period. Most importantly I would expect these to be consistent trends with few exceptions.

 

I also want to go out of my way to note that I do understand that power creep is very much real and clearly intentional--but I see this happening not only among new releases; existing armies see incremental point drops over time even without any releases or rule changes.

Edited October 25, 2020 by NinthMusketeer

[Greybeard86]

Buffing week units and nerfing powerful units is not necessarily a sign that they are attempting to balance things.

If they buff weak options too much while nerfing good options also too much, you end up again in a situation of imbalance.

That is precisely my point: they aren't balancing, they are switching metas. And they aren't doing that by mistake, because it happens consistently over the years.

I do not think I have called them incompetent a single time; on the contrary, I think they are very competent and what they are doing, which is not balancing.

[Kramer]

3 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

I think that saying it is incompetence is just letting GW get away with it; it is straight up planned, and I am sure that perusing through changes in recent years we could find even more obvious answers. The rule writers work in a company attempting to maximize sales, same as video game designers. Whether their strategies work on us is, to an extent, up to how we react to the changes.

 

Without saying you're right or wrong. 

There does seem to be quite a bit of conformation bias going on. On both sides of the argument. 

Because do what you suggest I could find changes that seem to corroborate your view. But on the other hand, I can definitely find examples as well that seem to corroborate the view that it's accidental. 

Which slightly lowers the bar for the next example, and the next and the next. 

The thing is, in the end as long as the discussion is about intent, people will find examples to support their believe. As the only way to know the intent is not to judge the outcome, but only judge the decision making. Which is impossible unless you were there. 

 

[Saxon]

3 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

I do think we have to give GW a bit of credit here--obviously they are making some effort to balance things either way. In both circumstances (intentional misbalance/bad at balancing) outliers in terms of effectiveness are more likely to see nerfs/buffs as appropriate. 

It's hard to give a company credit when the rules in their very expensive battletomes become very redundant very fast. Printing Errata all the time and taking it to games is really irritating. 

[Greybeard86]

2 hours ago, Kramer said:

. As the only way to know the intent is not to judge the outcome, but only judge the decision making. Which is impossible unless you were there. 

 

That’s a standard we don’t even have in a court of law, so not sure what you are trying to accomplish with that comment.

[Icegoat]

All this arguing over whether the imbalance is intended is foolish.

GW exists to sell models. Lord kroak is currently sold out on the uk store. 

There is a lot more proof its intentional, than that they all a bunch of inept dullards in nottingham which is definitely not the case.

[Saxon]

21 minutes ago, Icegoat said:

All this arguing over whether the imbalance is intended is foolish.

GW exists to sell models. Lord kroak is currently sold out on the uk store. 

There is a lot more proof its intentional, than that they all a bunch of inept dullards in nottingham which is definitely not the case.

It's harder to sell models when your rules are poo though  

[Kadeton]

Again, it's not an either-or situation. The designers at GW aren't Machiavellian manipulators expertly milking the unsuspecting public for every last cent, and they're not drooling half-wits bashing randomly at keyboards. They're just ordinary people trying to navigate complex and contradictory pressures in their jobs. They're beholden to their employers to continue to promote sales and the overall success of the game, and they're also trying to make a game they can be proud of so they can go home satisfied at the end of their workday. Being human, they sometimes ****** up. There's really nothing more to it.

[123lac]

17 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

I think this warcom article is GW embracing the meta seasons approach. Neither player nor interviewer ever discuss the fact that there is such a meta as a bad thing or that GW will try to address it. They limit themselves to discussing what are current strong options. You want a current strong option? Here we give you the menu and how to build them. But then, don’t get too attached, because things will change again. 
 

It's sad if you're right, given how much play testing appears to have gone into 40k 9th edition.

Give the illusion of trying to balance your game, only to deliberately engineer imbalance to sell the latest hotness.

Kind of nefarious.

[Saxon]

31 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Again, it's not an either-or situation. The designers at GW aren't Machiavellian manipulators expertly milking the unsuspecting public for every last cent, and they're not drooling half-wits bashing randomly at keyboards. They're just ordinary people trying to navigate complex and contradictory pressures in their jobs. They're beholden to their employers to continue to promote sales and the overall success of the game, and they're also trying to make a game they can be proud of so they can go home satisfied at the end of their workday. Being human, they sometimes ****** up. There's really nothing more to it.

If you want to be the 'gold standard' of wargames selling plastic crack at an extortionate price then there is a reasonable expectation that you will be better than most with rules. 

My job has pressure too. If an excavation collapses i don't have the luxury of saying 'i'm human, I stuffed up', I go to court for negligence. I find this defense of some questionable rules to be rather lacking. 

[NinthMusketeer]

So why aren't Sons of Behemat very good, exactly?

Why are the large majority of Lumineth units not overpowered at all?

Why do Saurus remain the worst part of the Seraphon battletome and Slaan the best?

Why are skyriggers STILL bad?

Why is Tzeentch STILL overpowered, for the same reasons?

Why aren't Slaves to Darkness part of dominating the current meta?

Why are the OP elements of OBR limited to a fraction of the available models?

Why were Cities, Fyreslayers, and Khorne not major pieces of the meta when they hit?

Why is the Skaven battletome a skew of units running from OP all the way to terrible? Gloomspite? Beasts of Chaos? Stormcast?

If GW is making new stuff OP to sell it, why are the majority of new model kits not OP?

If GW is switching what's good and bad to promote sales, why are so many good things staying good and so many bad things still bad?

[Saxon]

30 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

So why aren't Sons of Behemat very good, exactly?

Why are the large majority of Lumineth units not overpowered at all?

Why do Saurus remain the worst part of the Seraphon battletome and Slaan the best?

Why are skyriggers STILL bad?

Why is Tzeentch STILL overpowered, for the same reasons?

Why aren't Slaves to Darkness part of dominating the current meta?

Why are the OP elements of OBR limited to a fraction of the available models?

Why were Cities, Fyreslayers, and Khorne not major pieces of the meta when they hit?

Why is the Skaven battletome a skew of units running from OP all the way to terrible? Gloomspite? Beasts of Chaos? Stormcast?

If GW is making new stuff OP to sell it, why are the majority of new model kits not OP?

If GW is switching what's good and bad to promote sales, why are so many good things staying good and so many bad things still bad?

In addition to making things OP they also make things terribly underpowered as well, further reinforcing that their rules designers aren't on top of balance?

Using cities as an example for anything is a long bow to draw when it was literally a way to shut people up with old models (myself being one of them).  

Beasts of Chaos are just atrocious. How can a company do so badly with a faction? 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Saxon

[NinthMusketeer]

7 hours ago, hobgoblinclub said:

I think, if it was accidental, you'd see more units that already exist bubble up in terms of power. If it was weird rules interactions, new rules would cause spikes in power for old units they'd overlooked. 

If it was accidental, it'd occur less frequently with new units. Anyone with a grasp of the game can see broken units in a new book before they even play a game. If it was really unintentional, GW would sort massive issues out way quicker. There's been times when the community has been screaming for something to be nerfed but GW have waited for two or three FAQs (until the sales spike is over?). 

If it was accidental, the meta wouldn't be dominated so perfectly by the books from the last six months at any point in the game's history. Each set of new books gazumps the last with uncanny frequency. 

Apologies, I missed this earlier. First off I respect your answer; it is clear you thought this through and I appreciate that. Responding by paragraph:

They do. A lot. KO is an extremely prominent example where the units themselves did not change very much, a number of stat buffs and a few nerfs which they needed as an underperforming army. The exception being the rules change to how transports worked, and the addition of the new fly high rule, and suddenly blam those very reasonable stats became a top performing army. The army gets an immense power boost just from the interaction of those two rules. People say KO show GW making new releases better, except they aren't new. Those kits were released in first edition and spent all of 2nd edition up till now being bad. Why did GW make a whole new line of miniatures bad for so long? The recent change of removing the stacking of wound-negating abilities reduced Pusgoyles, an already sub par unit, to the point where there is no reason to take them. Going back to the change of edition, when the Nighthaunt book first hit it made Legions of Nagash a top player, because of the interaction of grimghast reapers with the LoN rules (note that within their own 'tome they were reasonably balanced). Back when GW introduced the horde unit discount it catapulted to the top a number of units with scaling buffs based of number of models. I could go on for quite a while on examples of this.

New units are not OP at a greater frequency than old ones. Lumineth are a great example; Teclis and the archers, maybe the spearman, are OP. The rest is reasonably good to luckluster. Eltharion can be everything from OP to UP depending on the matchup. As for the rate of changes, there are reasons outside of balance to only update points and the like at a certain frequency. If points and eratta changed every month that would exhaust a large number of players trying to keep up with them. What GW does do is a two-week FAQ after a new battletome hits to deal with immediate problems. Sometimes these even involve sudden changes to rules of a 'tome or warscroll because of some exploit or loop hole they overlooked. And while there are fresh new units that come out and are OP for a long period, there are new units that come out and suck for just as long. I can name a number of unuts released for AoS that have NEVER been good.

Nighthaunt, Sylvaneth, Wartribes, Mawtribes, Beasts of Chaos, Gloomspite, Khorne, Nurgle, Cities, Slaves, Legions, and I'm betting Sons of Behemat all were not meta-dominators when they were released. Neither were any of the three campaign book allegiance options.

[Kadeton]

Quote

My job has pressure too. If an excavation collapses i don't have the luxury of saying 'i'm human, I stuffed up', I go to court for negligence. I find this defense of some questionable rules to be rather lacking. 

You don't go to court for making a mistake. Everybody knows that mistakes happen. You go to court to determine whether you, as a person responsible for safety, deliberately ignored or circumvented the procedures that are in place to help ensure that harm is minimised when mistakes happen. Imagining that an industrial disaster and minor balance issues in a wargame represent equivalent danger to human lives is insane.

However, if you believe that GW have caused you measurable harm as a result of their negligence in failing to write better rules, you are entirely within your rights to take them to court too.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Kadeton

[Saxon]

12 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

You don't go to court for making a mistake. Everybody knows that mistakes happen. You go to court to determine whether you, as the person responsible for safety, deliberately ignored or circumvented the procedures that are in place to help ensure that harm is minimised when mistakes happen. Imagining that an industrial disaster and minor balance issues in a wargame represent equivalent danger to human lives is insane.

However, if you believe that GW have caused you measurable harm as a result of their negligence in failing to write better rules, you are entirely within your rights to take them to court too.

Yes.... you do in my industry in addition to the above unfortunately....... The arguments in court go back and forth between known unknowns and unknown unknowns. It's as boring as it sounds. The joys of playing with dirt for a job. 

I brought up the above as a retort to the 'they're only human and they make mistakes' argument. Both are silly.  They have teams of people meant to be play-testing these releases. Attributing it to human mistakes indicates either a lack of ability or a lack of effort in their job or a combination. That would be like going to a Michelin Star restaurant and getting a cold steak and having the chef say 'sorry i'm only human'. 

When GW's plastic kits cost what they do, their rules designers don't get a free pass when much cheaper games with reasonable sculpts can get it far closer to 'balanced'. 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Saxon

[LuminethMage]

So their nefarious plan to make people buy Teclis was to reduce the points for KO?

 

 

 

[Kramer]

5 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

That’s a standard we don’t even have in a court of law, so not sure what you are trying to accomplish with that comment.

I’m trying to open up the possibility that your wrong. Just like this comparison is wrong. At least here in the Netherlands we have a difference between murder and manslaughter. And the fact that I instantly knew these terms I’m pretty sure the UK has as well. 

intent matters. And if you claim to know why GW does things. You better back it up. Rather than just say the community accepts it. 

it’s a worrying trend in general. Less so when discussing toy soldiers I admit . But that’s how conspiracy theories start and maintain themselves. Creating an echo chamber for the suspicions, a whole lot of conversation bias, and the filter bubble (on a bigger scale at least) doesn’t help. 

again you might also be right and it’s all intentional on the part of GW. But if you arguing the intent you need to bring up sources for that. Or else be honest that you are speculating just like the rest of us. It’s an interesting discussion though  

[NinthMusketeer]

I think you misunderstand; the discussion is on the presence of intent, not what it is. The state of balance being intentional or unintentional. Or rather, to be more specific, exactly where things fall between those those two extremes. Trying to determine to what degree the state of a given thing is intentional can be entirely rational; an archaeologist examining the missing sections of a rock to see if it was once an ancient tool or if it is just a crushed rock. They can also be tin-foil-hat level conspiracy; a pseudo-scientist examining missing sections of a rock for 'evidence' to prove their pre-existing conclusion that aliens did it.

Perhaps ironically, writing off a discussion as irrational due to the topic is itself irrational.

Edited October 26, 2020 by NinthMusketeer

[Kramer]

15 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

I think you misunderstand; the discussion is on the presence of intent, not what it is. The state of balance being intentional or unintentional. Or rather, to be more specific, exactly where things fall between those those two extremes. Trying to determine to what degree the state of a given thing is intentional can be entirely rational; an archaeologist examining the missing sections of a rock to see if it was once an ancient tool or if it is just a crushed rock. They can also be tin-foil-hat level conspiracy; a pseudo-scientist examining missing sections of a rock for 'evidence' to prove their pre-existing conclusion that aliens did it.

Perhaps ironically, writing off a discussion as irrational due to the topic is itself irrational.

is this in reply to me? 

[Kadeton]

2 hours ago, Saxon said:

They have teams of people meant to be play-testing these releases. Attributing it to human mistakes indicates either a lack of ability or a lack of effort in their job or a combination.

Or a testament to the difficulty of the challenge (which is another way of saying "a lack of ability", while recognising that lacking said ability is in no way unusual or unexpected). I wonder if you've actually been involved in any games development before?

I help manage the community forums for Wyrd miniatures, and they have done multiple large-scale closed and open beta tests of their rules. I've seen firsthand the combined efforts of teams of hundreds of volunteers putting thousands upon thousands of hours purely into balance testing over periods of eighteen months or more, and on release there were still errors, unintended rules interactions and balance problems that snuck through. It's simply a fact that when developing such complex systems, at some point you just have to bite the bullet and call it "ready for release". No matter how much time and effort you spend on it, it will literally never be "finished".

GW's decisions on when to release a given set of rules (in whatever their current state of balance might be) will, I guarantee, not be made by the designers of those rules. That's a marketing process, not a development one.

Quote

When GW's plastic kits cost what they do, their rules designers don't get a free pass when much cheaper games with reasonable sculpts can get it far closer to 'balanced'. 

A "free pass" for getting out of what, exactly? Are you proposing to punish them in some way?

The simple fact is that if balance mattered beyond "good enough", those cheaper games with better balance would be the ones dominating the market, and GW would go out of business. The fact that they are doing better than ever demonstrates that they have captured a substantial market for whom the quality of their game rules is "good enough". So what's the business incentive to throw more resources at development? To increase the demand that they already can't supply? To appease a handful of players bitching on internet forums? GW don't owe you anything.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Kadeton

[JackStreicher]

To summarize: GW, please stop f-ing up army books by making them trash-tier or god tier.  Playtest more, listen to the testers and make every army simple middle-tier. Thx.

Also, stop f-ing up the prices, really, just stop.

We should write an open letter as the TGA Community, this might have an effect eventually

[Saxon]

22 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Or a testament to the difficulty of the challenge (which is another way of saying "a lack of ability", while recognising that lacking said ability is in no way unusual or unexpected). I wonder if you've actually been involved in any games development before?

I help manage the community forums for Wyrd miniatures, and they have done multiple large-scale closed and open beta tests of their rules. I've seen firsthand the combined efforts of teams of hundreds of volunteers putting thousands upon thousands of hours purely into balance testing over periods of eighteen months or more, and on release there were still errors, unintended rules interactions and balance problems that snuck through. It's simply a fact that when developing such complex systems, at some point you just have to bite the bullet and call it "ready for release". No matter how much time and effort you spend on it, it will literally never be "finished".

GW's decisions on when to release a given set of rules (in whatever their current state of balance might be) will, I guarantee, not be made by the designers of those rules. That's a marketing process, not a development one.

A "free pass" for getting out of what, exactly? Are you proposing to punish them in some way?

This is a company that has existed for 4 decades, they should have a process sorted by now to address these issues and they should have enough data to know what does and doesn't work. Perhaps they haven't learnt anything? 

I would agree that its likely difficult given that designers probably don't choose release dates and thus their testing phase must fit into whatever the marketing guys allow them but these constant hard nerfs and printing sheets which address their changes through errata  isn't great when they charge $70AUD for a battletome and $40AUD for warscroll cards. Worse still is armies going from competitive to garbage by the time you've finished painting the models (Legions of Nagash being a good example). I've seen many arguments on this site that GW only sells models and thus supporting armies through rules updates etc. is not their problem. I couldn't disagree more. Without rules GW products are just really expensive models. Support is what has put GW above competitors for a long time. 

I would love to know how many practice games the final Slaanesh, Tzeentch and OBR versions got because these factions have been nerfed really hard. You only have to look at the sub-forum for OBR on here to see the discontent with the revised rules. Is this an acceptable outcome for GW to upset a lot of players by gutting their army they likely haven't even finished painting? How do you get them hyped for the next release if you do this? 

Not getting a free pass means they don't get to brush it off as a mistake or human error like you were happy to throw out there. The only way GW gets better at making rules and balancing their games is feedback from people who wont make excuses for them all the time. 

Not that my experience in testing anything should really matter byut funnily enough in my field of work i actually did the field testing for moving soil profiling onto a tablet form. It took time but we can't use a sub-standard product because our clients are less forgiving than a lot of GW customers i guess......

Edited October 26, 2020 by Saxon