Metawatch article highlighting the total lack of balance

[InSaint]

IMO, I feel that the article is commercially motivated.

Since GW is going to release a KO Battleforce for Christmas, the product must sell hence the hype on KO.

[Marcvs]

6 minutes ago, InSaint said:

IMO, I feel that the article is commercially motivated.

Since GW is going to release a KO Battleforce for Christmas, the product must sell hence the hype on KO.

A bit too far? KO are doing great in tournaments since the GHB2020, that's just the reality

[whispersofblood]

32 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

@whispersofblood I wasn't talking about faction integration into the game, I was talking about obvious flaws that coul've been avoided with easy if GW was into rules quality at all.

Claiming that +1 Save and thereby putting an entire faction with massed infantry up to a 3+ save isn't "too strong" is mind baffling to me. The +1 rend was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Sorry I'm bringing terms from several industries. By integration I mean how well a new book joins the rest of the game and the kinds of changes it forces on the meta. Some factions don't integrate they create a whole new meta. 

The +1 save on the infantry wasn't what made the faction broken in terms of the game holistically. It was really good on knights and stalkers though. But really it was the additional rend : it made the faction very blendy ,which made the durability an big deal on the infantry. Mortek guard which can't kill fast enough to take objectives, but don't die is not that game breaking. Its why Sequitors eventually aged out of the meta, they got flanked on both sides, they didn't kill enough to outlast durable factions and they weren't durable enough outlast damage factions. I don't really understand the 1:1 unit comparisons, the game is about scoring points not killing models. 

That's completely besides what people consider negative play experience. I don't really get negative feelings from playing games but I understand some people do.

[JackStreicher]

16 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

Sorry I'm bringing terms from several industries. By integration I mean how well a new book joins the rest of the game and the kinds of changes it forces on the meta. Some factions don't integrate they create a whole new meta. 

I know what you meant but that's not the point. It's not about the meta changes it's about avoiding such uneccessary powerspikes,

[whispersofblood]

36 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

I know what you meant but that's not the point. It's not about the meta changes it's about avoiding such uneccessary powerspikes,

I would say that most releases don't spike that hard, and people are prone to overacting.  And, when it does spike in "power" really I think its a faction or rule making the existing meta non-function and forming a new one. I think HoS and Locus was a significant enough addition to the game to say it created a new meta. While FS for example just played the same game that was being played despite being very good at it. OBR and OW are more complete factions, but fundamentally could have easily fit into the old meta, but the tools they had let them play in the new one. DoK is the perfect example they are starting to show their age, but they had enough gas in the tank to evolve. 

So for me the question about what others might call "power" is, what is it this faction adds or removes from the game and is that change positive when taken as a whole?

[NinthMusketeer]

In regards to some honest requests for proof of incompetence/dismissal, as opposed to deliberate meta shifting, I can provide. And that is just the thing; I am not asking for something I cannot do myself.

Judicators with crossbows. They are awful. They always have been. If this state of balance is intentional, why? What is the motive for keeping them unplayable?

The Nighthaunt battletome. Running Nighthaunt with Legions of Nagash rules has always been stronger, by a good margin. They even introduced a legion allowing full use of the Nighthaunt roster that does not require the purchase of either battletome. Why? How do they benefit from this state?

Seraphon. The saurus half of the army is worse. It was worse with the first battletome, and it is worse now. This is a big one, because intentional meddling would obviously say to switch which halves of the battletome were good when it got a new version. But they did not. The idea of swapping internal balance to encourage sales falls through here entirely.

Sons of Behemat. They aren't that good. Why not?

Idoneth. Eels are STILL the strongest part of the army. The models that were historically bad have had point drops and the eels have had point increases, improving the balance of the army greatly but doing nothing in terms of sales from a shifting meta. The change here makes sense from a perspective of improving balance for balance's sake, but not from one of trying to sell more kits.

Tzeentch has been swinging around the meta hard ever since they got a battletome. A new battletome was a chance to bring this into line, but they didn't, Tzeentch is still really good. If the intent is to shake up the meta periodically, why go out of their way to solidify Tzeentch in its place?

Blightkings. From the earliest days, blightking spam has been among Nurgle's strongest options. The battletome hit, they buffed blightkings, and spamming them got better. The recent GHB buffed them again, but this doesn't even change things because an optimized blightking list was already maxed on how many they could bring while still affording support elements. It lets Nurgle players fit in a single extra squad or character. Why keep Nurgle in the same place all this time?

Slaves to Darkness. What is the motive for making marauders so massively overpowered while everything else is actually pretty well balanced? Incompetence suggests that they simply didn't understand the effect of the rule changes to their warscroll, but I don't see the sales reason. Were they truly so eager to sell one of the more inexpensive units they had? Even more than the new Start Collecting box? And for that matter why are knights with lances still worse than those with hand weapons? Why is that cool new champion option in the SC box literally worse than giving him the default weapon? And for the battletome overall, it would be IDEAL to swing into overpowered territory for sales, since it was so bad before and because OP markable units would sell to the mono god allegiances. If the intent is to shift meta for sales this is among their biggest missed opportunities; they could have generated OP-unit-induced sales from five different armies! Better yet it wouldn't even monopolize the meta under one army's heel. Why is it only marauders that get such a buff?

Personal peeve; why are castigators STILL so crappy GW!? I love that model gimme some dam viability gahhhh!

But anyways, I can keep going if anyone would like.

Edited October 27, 2020 by NinthMusketeer

[Greybeard86]

LVO 2017

https://www.tga.community/forums/topic/7221-las-vegas-open-2017-results-lists/

LVO 2018

https://aosshorts.com/las-vegas-open-top-10-age-sigmar-lists/

LVO 2019

https://aosshorts.com/lvo-2019-results-top-lists/

LVO2020

https://aosshorts.com/lvo-2020-lists/

 

[NinthMusketeer]

6 hours ago, Marcvs said:

That being said this

is an impossible standard of proof (proving intention) so it doesn't really help any conversation. Have you any proof of their incompetence? Because surely their market results don't point to that either.

Just to respond to this real quick, the reason I said I "should have known better" is demonstrated extremely well by this quote from Greybeard:

6 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Maybe we can open the conversation. If this was deliverate, one thing I would look for are examples of books in which units have been nerfed / buffed to relevance in an obvious manner. Taking something extremely good and making it mediocre, then taking something mediocre and making it very good. If this is through point costs or warscrolls, and not some unforseen rule change, then we may conclude that it was a deliverate effort to change internal balance. If the nerf / buff was "too big", then we know that the ultimate goal was not to equalize options but to keep things "imbalanced".

Can anyone provide obvious examples of the above for existing books, over the years?

Note the last line. He has his conclusion and asks for others to provide evidence for it. He doesn't have the evidence. He has already decided and is now, after the fact, looking to justify it. And this is independent of who is correct in the discussion, even if his conclusion is correct he still jumped into this without knowing why. That is extremely bad-faith discussion and I should have recognized it earlier.

As for my "impossible standard" let me throw out one theoretical example; holiday-release battle boxes. What if the battle boxes at the end of the year matched the strongest battletomes released at the start of it? That would be perfect; release a few OP 'tomes, give the better part of a year for them to work into the meta, then drop large boxes for those tomes. The lead time on product releases (even bundles of existing product) has got to be long enough that choosing them in response to the meta would be difficult. It would also run in the face of the incompetence theory; they would both be keeping good track of the meta yet terrible at balancing it? Yeah, one year of that could just coincidence, but it would be a strong counterpoint to my position. If it happened multiple years in a row? Damming.

[EnixLHQ]

1 hour ago, NinthMusketeer said:

What if the battle boxes at the end of the year matched the strongest battletomes released at the start of it?

*looks at his Nighthaunt Court of the Craven King Battleforce box from last Christmas containing at the time some of the arguably worst models in Nighthaunt right along with some of the best*

*looks at the December 2019 White Dwarf that gave Nighthaunt the Emerald Host, Dolorous Guard, and Forgotten Scions battalions*

*looks at the Forbidden Power book that gave us Legion of Grief 6 months prior, in the summer of 2019*

[Marcvs]

2 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

As for my "impossible standard" let me throw out one theoretical example; holiday-release battle boxes. What if the battle boxes at the end of the year matched the strongest battletomes released at the start of it? That would be perfect; release a few OP 'tomes, give the better part of a year for them to work into the meta, then drop large boxes for those tomes. The lead time on product releases (even bundles of existing product) has got to be long enough that choosing them in response to the meta would be difficult. It would also run in the face of the incompetence theory; they would both be keeping good track of the meta yet terrible at balancing it? Yeah, one year of that could just coincidence, but it would be a strong counterpoint to my position. If it happened multiple years in a row? Damming.

I don't think that's a good example. It makes little sense to put into battleboxes (which provide savings) the models which are already selling well because of their rules. In fact, it makes sense to do the opposite (as always, on the basis of the financial incentive): bundle into "cheaper" offers (and at a time when people are buying stuff) models which you need to move for inventory reasons but which is not selling well.

[NinthMusketeer]

I see your point, personally I feel it would be advantageous; because the army is good, GW can sell more of the battleboxes (and could price them higher). A quantity of sales over amount. Also the players who were willing to buy in at full retail probably have at that point, players who might not normally start the army would see the box and think 'well, they ARE really good right now...'

But I don't have sales data to back those theories, so I could indeed have it backwards. But either way would show a clear correlation between meta skew and product release, providing evidence for intentional micromanagement of the meta.

Another good example would be to show battletome or GHB updates that have actually flip-flopped a faction. OP units becoming bad, UP units becoming good. Just one of those fits easily into incompetence as an overcorrection (balancers of all types make that mistake sometimes, the less skilled ones more so). But having the majority of units on both sides flip would be a pretty big coincidence. And if it happened with multiple battletomes that would be a strong trend in support of the intentional meta shifting position. The idea is that GW is doing exactly the above all the time, if that is true examples should not even be difficult to find.

[LuminethMage]

Again, if all they had in mind with rules and point changes is a nefarious scheme to push sales of the newest overpriced models why did they give a huge boost to KO right before they release Lumineth and Sons of Behemat? 

It's probably the worst faction you want ruling the meta when you introduce Teclis and Giants to the world. 

Beyond cherry picking examples which fit with your own narrative, many of the underlying arguments are based on assumptions presented as facts without proof. To just pick out two:

- the overall balance of AoS is bad and getting worse

- army performance in tournaments drives sales in a meaningful way 

I would recommend people watching the Warhammer Weekly show from 08052020 about balance in AoS. It's based upon a survey of 1,000 players. There are of course flaws in that survey too (and they are discussion those too), but just to show which armies were played the most as their main army among the surveyed people at that time. 

If meta performance would be that all important criterium for sales and player enjoyment, is that the ranking you'd expect? 

 

Edited October 28, 2020 by LuminethMage

[Kadeton]

Just reiterating an earlier point: None of the things that people are arguing for are mutually exclusive, because GW is not one monolithic single-minded entity.

Some people at GW will have game balance as a high priority, and will push for that. Some of those people might be incompetent at balance, others might not be given the time and data they need to achieve their own standards. Sometimes the incompetent people will get the balance right anyway, by accident; sometimes the competent ones will be allowed the resources they need to get it right.

Some people at GW will have sales as a high priority, and will push for that. Some of those people will recognise that an overpowered unit can have a spike in sales. Some of those will see an opportunity there, and attempt to influence the balance of the game to more easily achieve their targets. Sometimes they will succeed, other times they will fail. Sometimes, when they succeed, it still won't significantly affect sales.

Some people at GW will be in charge of balancing those (and other) priorities and allocating resources accordingly. Sometimes they'll lean more towards one or the other. Sometimes they'll intend to support one, and inadvertently end up making choices which don't achieve that. Sometimes people in this position will oppose one another.

All of this happens at the same time, with everyone's individual priorities shifting over time and under circumstances. Even the most tightly-run businesses with clear policies and strict governance still can't eliminate the chaotic factor of actual humans, and GW doesn't strike me as a particularly draconian organisation.

That's why for every theory put forward here there will inevitably be counter-examples and alternative explanations - there's no one simplistic take that accounts for everything that GW is and wants. The balance outcomes of such a chaotic system might look random, but it's not. It simply doesn't conform to any predictable pattern, because the human factors affecting the process are so complex that they can't be modelled, eliminated, or even fully understood.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[Greybeard86]

I have participated very actively in this thread and I haven’t seen anyone saying that balance is getting worse.

That rules drive what is being played is the easiest thing to prove, as I already listed for you the participation by army in LVOs of the last for years; meta armies, as expected, tend to make a relatively larger fraction of what is being brought to the tournament. 

Then there is the statement that the strategy is simply to release OP units, but is not what we have been discussing here. The hypothesis I put forward is that GW creates a state of changing metas instead of converging towards ever greater balance, and that this is true both within armies (internal balance) and across armies. This also involves revisiting old factions, or internal imbalance within new releases. In support of this hypothesis I have given you examples from 40k (I get you might not like that), an actual stamens by GW on why they nerfed petrifex elite, and others have discussed specific examples of obviously op war scrolls and rules that were released to them be replaced by some other hotness.

I felt a little lit review of points was needed to keep readers up to date, given the last comment.

[RuneBrush]

14 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

...snip...

But anyways, I can keep going if anyone would like.

+++ MOD HAT +++

Please don't

[hobgoblinclub]

22 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Doing additional analysis and figuring out how to ideally move things around the meta would cost money. It is time and effort they would need to spend, which they can just... not. And do they stand to win more? How much more? More than the cost of doing it? And can you back that up with evidence?

They're a massive company. Suggesting they don't know their market or their own game is getting a bit silly. Regardless, it doesn't take any research to write a broken rule. I could do it right now. Any of us could. 

On 10/27/2020 at 9:31 AM, JackStreicher said:

The answer might also be more simplistic:

They‘re still writing rules as they‘ve done it for 20 years. Balance was never even a focus, rules are meant to be interesting and fun. There‘s also barely any communication among people working on different Battletomes.

The system has worked so far, why change it? (A Change involves costs and effort).

Absolutely this. They release rules like this because it sells loads of minis and always has. It isn't going to change because they don't want it too. A minority of us grumble in the dark corners of the internet, like this one, but most people (including us!) still buy their minis. They're the biggest mini company because most people buy their minis. They're not going to look to change that in a hurry. 

When the nerfs inevitably come to an army, and people dump them en masse on eBay, those are all the people who wouldn't have been buying in the first place without the broken rules. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[Greybeard86]

5 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Just reiterating an earlier point: None of the things that people are arguing for are mutually exclusive, because GW is not one monolithic single-minded entity.

Yep! I guess the argument was about the "dominant" reason for what we see. Some thing it is (bad) luck, others that it is actually a concerted effort to have the "spotlight" on certain armies and units at a time.

Then there was an initial discussion on whether the "meta" is that strong anyway, in the sense of whether it matters that much for gameplay.

My stance:

Meta shifts are by design and balance affects everyone, not only tournament players.

There are ways to weather the storm (agreeing on lists with people beforehand, house rules) but I wish we didn't have to resort to that. Of course, this is one side of the hobby, as we know, and currently I derive most of my pleasure from painting and reading.

[Kadeton]

2 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Yep! I guess the argument was about the "dominant" reason for what we see. Some thing it is (bad) luck, others that it is actually a concerted effort to have the "spotlight" on certain armies and units at a time.

Yeah, exactly. I'm offering the counterpoint to all of those positions: there is no "dominant" reason. It's a big mess of lots of reasons, none of which consistently dominate.

[NinthMusketeer]

6 hours ago, hobgoblinclub said:

They're a massive company. Suggesting they don't know their market or their own game is getting a bit silly. Regardless, it doesn't take any research to write a broken rule. I could do it right now. Any of us could. 

Absolutely this. They release rules like this because it sells loads of minis and always has. It isn't going to change because they don't want it too. A minority of us grumble in the dark corners of the internet, like this one, but most people (including us!) still buy their minis. They're the biggest mini company because most people buy their minis. They're not going to look to change that in a hurry.

We are totally on the same page, I think I just did not properly communicate where I was at.

Edited October 28, 2020 by NinthMusketeer

[NinthMusketeer]

8 hours ago, Kadeton said:

That's why for every theory put forward here there will inevitably be counter-examples and alternative explanations - there's no one simplistic take that accounts for everything that GW is and wants. The balance outcomes of such a chaotic system might look random, but it's not. It simply doesn't conform to any predictable pattern, because the human factors affecting the process are so complex that they can't be modelled, eliminated, or even fully understood.

Your whole post was well-reasoned and written. But to be fair, I have been begging for a counter-example to my theory of "they try to balance, aren't good at it, and corporate leadership sees no reason to change that" and have yet to receive even one. Human factors boil down to pretty simple basics, but seem mystifying when they aren't properly accounted for. Like trying to assemble a piece of furniture, but you don't realize there's a few pieces missing. It seems complex and frustrating, but find those pieces and it all comes together.

[Saxon]

10 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Yep! I guess the argument was about the "dominant" reason for what we see. Some thing it is (bad) luck, others that it is actually a concerted effort to have the "spotlight" on certain armies and units at a time.

Then there was an initial discussion on whether the "meta" is that strong anyway, in the sense of whether it matters that much for gameplay.

My stance:

Meta shifts are by design and balance affects everyone, not only tournament players.

There are ways to weather the storm (agreeing on lists with people beforehand, house rules) but I wish we didn't have to resort to that. Of course, this is one side of the hobby, as we know, and currently I derive most of my pleasure from painting and reading.

When you play those meta-chasers there is usually a 0% chance they will change their perfectly tailored list (from AOS shorts) to make the game more fair and fun for both parties. 

It's hard, you don't want to be that person that refuses to play a list you know is going to crush you, but at the same time its soul destroying spending months painting models you like the look to get crushed and it's just not a good time. 

The question i would have for those that think it's unintentional is that if they don't have enough time to come up with well tested rules, they're still frequently coming up with rules that are really unfun to play against. One way or another they're still coming up with poo rules. They should have enough experience to know what does and does not work given they've had 4 decades....... 

[Kadeton]

9 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Your whole post was well-reasoned and written. But to be fair, I have been begging for a counter-example to my theory of "they try to balance, aren't good at it, and corporate leadership sees no reason to change that" and have yet to receive even one. Human factors boil down to pretty simple basics, but seem mystifying when they aren't properly accounted for. Like trying to assemble a piece of furniture, but you don't realize there's a few pieces missing. It seems complex and frustrating, but find those pieces and it all comes together.

Thanks

I take your point, but to me the situation you propose (the developers suck and management doesn't care) is indistinguishable (from our perspective) to the developers being awesome but put under extreme time pressures due to the marketing cycle. I just prefer a kinder and more charitable interpretation, because I sympathise with the devs.

My experience of balancing games has been that it takes a lot of time. Also, you get weird situations where things that look fine on paper turn out to be really damaging, and things that set off all sorts of alarm bells when you look at them turn out to be totally fine in context. You can definitely get a "feel" for what's good and bad in terms of balance, but things will still surprise you when you put them in the hands of players.

(Again, you might call "Not being able to spot balance problems at a glance" as evidence of incompetence as a rules writer, but honestly, I've never seen a boardgame or wargame with good balance in the beta phases, even from the best designers at the absolute top of their field. The difference between bad balance and good balance is literally just months and years of playtesting, feedback and tweaking - I don't think the GW rules team gets that luxury.)

[NinthMusketeer]

Honestly I want to agree with you. But when stuff is introduced that is not even subjective it is hard. Take for example the new Chaos Knights; a new weapon was introduced for the champion that is objectively, mathematically worse than the defaults available. At BEST there was a typo involved that should not have made it to print. Others in the thread doing their own commenting on what's OP have highlighted more egregious errors along these lines too. I can forgive the designers for not realizing how powerful the combination of new KO transport + fly high is, and certainly the spell bottle combo is something that could slip through under pressure. But that is merely a mild cheddar in the history of AoS cheese. 

[Kadeton]

I hear you.

Ultimately, though, it doesn't really matter whether we think the people involved are dumb or just the corporate processes are flawed - it's a safe bet that both are true some of the time. Even the best people have bad days, and no set of processes will ever completely eliminate errors. That's why it's impossible to "prove" any of these theories one way or another - anything could be taken as genuine evidence, or ignored as a one-off exception, depending on whether it matches your expectations or not.

The crucial fact is that these errors and lapses (whatever their source) don't seem to be meaningfully impacting GW's revenue streams, and therefore there's very limited business value in attempting to address them. (Once again, from the outside this looks a lot like "Management doesn't care," but it's probably rather more nuanced internally - it's more about setting acceptable thresholds and mitigating risks.)

Insisting that GW needs to fix this situation is a form of "learned helplessness", and it leads to feeling disenfranchised, not listened to, hopeless, bitter, angry, etc. A far healthier approach is to determine actions that each of us can take to address the problem according to our own individual needs, and based on the assumption that GW will not change or improve in this area. Taking action (of any kind) will always make you feel better than hoping someone else will do something. Unmet expectations of what other people or organisations "should" do is a major source of unnecessary stress.

Before the usual objections come in response to that, no, I'm not saying that GW gets a "free pass" in this area, or even that you shouldn't complain. But turning those complaints into an ongoing source of personal frustration isn't good for you. The simple reality is that GW changes policy only in response to market forces, not to individual complaints. If you decide not to buy GW products any more (perhaps play a different game instead, there are lots out there!) and a lot of other people do the same, that (and pretty much only that) will provoke corporate changes. Plus, in the meantime, you actually get to enjoy your hobby and not sink into bitterness.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Kadeton

[Gaz Taylor]

+++ Mod Hat On +++
@Kadeton - just a gentle reminder. Do not call out other forum member with passive aggressive/derogatory comments.

Rest of this topic. Can we please stay on topic. I don’t see the issue with the article personally as it’s just a snapshot of one way of playing the game we all love. I think it’s interesting to see what people have been doing well, especially at the moment where it’s difficult to play games or attend events for a lot of people.

Anyway, less bitter moaning or making comments about other forum members! More talking about Age of Sigmar!