AoS Power Creep

[Juicy]

Alpha strike you can prevent when you take screens. Right now i see a lot of lists that dont bother taking screens. That means alpha strike lists play well into these lists. 

I come from 5th edition whfb and i can tell you.. Balance was horrible there. Deamons where though but dont get me started on Elves. GW has always something with making Elf units really good. in 6/7 and 8th if i remember correctly Elfs where domination our local clubs. That always strikes first was horrible to play against. I played and played against them and even Elf into Elf was kind of sad. Right now i do feel the powercreep a little when i see newer units getting easy acces to ranged mortal wound output. For me thats the most horrible part of the game because i like the combat stuff. But with the double turn still in play i can do some stuff against it and over the years i learned to play with less netlists and more lists that favor my playstyle. Even with a weaker army i manage to do well. Sometimes the gamble on the double turn and sometimes to place screens so that if i get a double turn against me it wont hit me that hard. At my local game group most players that came from whfb love the balance of age of sigmar because we feel more balance now then we felt back in those days and the double turn is not something we hate. Games are hardly over at turn2/3 ( sometimes yes against heavy magic/shooting when you get double turned the game can be over very quick) but most of the times the games are close till turn 5. I try to ignore our experience from aos -1 because that was horrible and summons dominated everywhere. 

remember this game is all about objective play. Even weaker units can do great on some senario's

[Doko]

The game would be so much more balanced withouth all these allways attack first units\armys and the attack twice skills.

 

[Maddpainting]

6 hours ago, Doko said:

The game would be so much more balanced withouth all these allways attack first units\armys and the attack twice skills.

 

Well depends, you can have Fight first and still not be on a strong unit, giving a unit Fight first is a good way to show its specialty and gives the game more tactical thought. Some units should always hit first and some should always hit last. Just b.c its not balanced on some units doesn't mean its a bad mechanic. 

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, Maddpainting said:

Well depends, you can have Fight first and still not be on a strong unit, giving a unit Fight first is a good way to show its specialty and gives the game more tactical thought. Some units should always hit first and some should always hit last. Just b.c its not balanced on some units doesn't mean its a bad mechanic. 

 

It's usually a bad mechanic when the source is a command ability or battalion ability or faction/subfaction ability. GW struggles with pointing in abilities that essentially occur with all units in a faction in a similar manner in that they are bad with knee ****** nerfs to a warscroll as a whole when the issue comes from one specific combo in one subfaction or with one leader. Mostly I don't think GW writers are amazing at figuring out how things interact outside of a very limited context of how they think things should go. This, I am betting, is mostly a function of not having enough time to fully cook rules, especially with how fast GW releases books now, as opposed to them just being incompetent. Though it leads to the day one DLC/FAQ issue in that a book comes out with something full busted and has to be emergency FAQed to make it actually work how they intended.

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

9 hours ago, stratigo said:

40k is only really ever worse in the imaginings of those AoS players who need something to be worse to not feel as bad. The actual balance flipflops between the two depending on releases. Right now, I'd say 40k has managed a place where the game is in a better place than AoS. 

Unless you play Tau or Genestealers... yes I'm a tau player, yes I'm a little salty. 

I also feel AoS now having more armies (unless you count each space marine sub faction as an army) makes it more likely for there to be a wider range in power between armies, where as 40k's relatively smaller number of armies makes the outliers more noticeable especially if your local community has a good representation of different armies for you to compare to. My local community has 3 tau players including myself who all play a different army at the moment because of how laughably bad tau are (I started emperors children around the same time i picked up slaanesh for AoS like 2 years ago) while the others picked up harlies and custodes. Like 40% of our players play some flavour of marines with a few admech and knight players and a handful of people with guard, sisters or the different flavours of chaos as side armies. We've also got some hard core eldar fans who collectively collect all the eldar lines. The only things underrespresented in my local area is tyranids who we only have one player for, orks whose players have fallen out of the hobby and we've never had a genestealer player (new army with a high model count and expensive buy in probably didn't help). 

I almost feel AoS released too many armies too quickly and a lack of depth for many of those armies lead to a lack of flexibility the 40k scene has thanks to even the most undersupported army having decades of releases (aside from genestealers and custodes. When a 40k army is bad it's usually not because they lack a unit or tool for a situation, most have a unit for every job by now, it's more likely because their book is bad as a whole, when an AoS army is bad it's probably because their army lacks the tools to keep up with whatever happens to be doing well at that moment. 

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, Lucky Snake Eyes said:

Unless you play Tau or Genestealers... yes I'm a tau player, yes I'm a little salty. 

I also feel AoS now having more armies (unless you count each space marine sub faction as an army) makes it more likely for there to be a wider range in power between armies, where as 40k's relatively smaller number of armies makes the outliers more noticeable especially if your local community has a good representation of different armies for you to compare to. My local community has 3 tau players including myself who all play a different army at the moment because of how laughably bad tau are (I started emperors children around the same time i picked up slaanesh for AoS like 2 years ago) while the others picked up harlies and custodes. Like 40% of our players play some flavour of marines with a few admech and knight players and a handful of people with guard, sisters or the different flavours of chaos as side armies. We've also got some hard core eldar fans who collectively collect all the eldar lines. The only things underrespresented in my local area is tyranids who we only have one player for, orks whose players have fallen out of the hobby and we've never had a genestealer player (new army with a high model count and expensive buy in probably didn't help). 

I almost feel AoS released too many armies too quickly and a lack of depth for many of those armies lead to a lack of flexibility the 40k scene has thanks to even the most undersupported army having decades of releases (aside from genestealers and custodes. When a 40k army is bad it's usually not because they lack a unit or tool for a situation, most have a unit for every job by now, it's more likely because their book is bad as a whole, when an AoS army is bad it's probably because their army lacks the tools to keep up with whatever happens to be doing well at that moment. 

I stopped playing AoS for a year and a half because they nerfed KO  so hard. It's the GW way.

 

Tau are an army hurt by 40k being a better game. Tau as they are written don't play well to objectives, all they do is try and table opponents. And that just doesn't cut it any more. It's a bummer that GW's concept of Tau was so, well, anti fun, but they couldn't make a better game where the current tau codex is good, it's just not compatible with... uh... fun. I hope GW figure out how to make Tau an engaging army for both players in their next codex.

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

45 minutes ago, stratigo said:

I stopped playing AoS for a year and a half because they nerfed KO  so hard. It's the GW way.

 

Tau are an army hurt by 40k being a better game. Tau as they are written don't play well to objectives, all they do is try and table opponents. And that just doesn't cut it any more. It's a bummer that GW's concept of Tau was so, well, anti fun, but they couldn't make a better game where the current tau codex is good, it's just not compatible with... uh... fun. I hope GW figure out how to make Tau an engaging army for both players in their next codex.

GW's concept of tau on the table is the opposite of their concept in lore, a lack of viable kroot and auxillaries don't help but tau are pitched in lore as a mobile force that does fighting retreats and ambushes, but in gameplay especially during 8th you castle or die and decide the game on kill points.  Not only was it not fun but mechanics where outright bad, markerlights are a joke, the posterboy unit in the crisis suit was unplayable and might as well cross out any mention of auxillaries in the codex because all their models and rules are garbage that get excluded from any of your synergies. The book was just plain bad as it shoehorned to one playstyle if you wanted even a casual game with marines late into the edition.

I feel for you early KO players, they where almost my first army but i ended up with LoN because I had some kits from vampire counts lying around. KO was playing 40k and that made it hard to balance, now there are more shooting and mobility armies in the game which gives more frame of reference to balance them but man is fly high a rough rule to balance when some armies just don't have easy access or the breathing room points wise to take a dirt cheap screen like is common in 40k.

[Beliman]

6 hours ago, Maddpainting said:

Well depends, you can have Fight first and still not be on a strong unit, giving a unit Fight first is a good way to show its specialty and gives the game more tactical thought. Some units should always hit first and some should always hit last. Just b.c its not balanced on some units doesn't mean its a bad mechanic. 

I 100% agree with that. Abilities are just a tool to build play around.

Btw, I had a talk with some friends last week about that. What do you think about giving "attack first" to all units that charged in the same turn?

[Greybeard86]

Sometimes buffs are just too powerful, they are just army defining. Compositions live or die by how much units can be buffed, sometimes more so than their warscrolls. As other posters have said, it is hard to balance units when they can multiply many times over their performance via buffs. 

I am collecting a mixed force of goblins as a visual companion to my order forces (maybe some day I ll be able to play with them). Many units are extremely bad unbuffed, to the point that they truly must be fielded with their support buffers to be able to do something. But if you do that, then it eats up your points and you end up with a force of X (only squigs, only trolls, only gobbos, only spiders). Now, are stabbas balanced around their buffed or unbuffed version?

[Beliman]

6 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

Sometimes buffs are just too powerful, they are just army defining. Compositions live or die by how much units can be buffed, sometimes more so than their warscrolls. As other posters have said, it is hard to balance units when they can multiply many times over their performance via buffs. 

But there isn't any problem if X buffs is really powerful. The main issue is giving it to everything. That's the point of keywords or even rules like max +1/-1 hit and wound rolls (40k).

I hope to see the same for AoS. That will make support heroes a bit less obnoxious  and we could see new Look Out Sir too (something like Fantasy or 40k could work).

[Greybeard86]

3 minutes ago, Beliman said:

But there isn't any problem if X buffs is really powerful. The main issue is giving it to everything. That's the point of keywords or even rules like max +1/-1 hit and wound rolls (40k).

I hope to see the same for AoS. That will make support heroes a bit less obnoxious  and we could see new Look Out Sir too (something like Fantasy or 40k could work).

I do not disagree! They could certainly be toned down.
Also, the current sniping rules for AoS, combined with the increased ranged lethality, are just unfun for foot characters.

[Beliman]

5 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I do not disagree! They could certainly be toned down.
Also, the current sniping rules for AoS, combined with the increased ranged lethality, are just unfun for foot characters.

Yes!! And it kills the fun of having a strong hero challenging another one in 1 ot 1 combat  on foot (because they are usually dead or riding a Dragon/Chimera/Koala/Whatever!!!)

[Skreech Verminking]

5 hours ago, Beliman said:

Yes!! And it kills the fun of having a strong hero challenging another one in 1 ot 1 combat  on foot (because they are usually dead or riding a Dragon/Chimera/Koala/Whatever!!!)

Mmh maybe the look out sir rule may need an update 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I'll try to bring this thread back onto the topic of power creep for a bit:

I think the question should not be whether or not there is power creep in AoS. There obviously is. But power creep exists in all long running games to some extent. I have read opinions of some people that it is even a necessary feature of the design process of such games, but even if it is not: Writing rules that allow you to do cool stuff with the newest thing added is definitely the easiest way to sell it.

I think the question should be: Is the power creep in AoS too much? I personally don't think so. It seems to me that many of the oldest battle tomes like Nurgle and Legions of Nagash can still compete pretty well against the average list at a 7 to 8 out ot 10 power level. They may not be able to consistently win tournaments anymore, but it's not like the books are completely invalidated at this point. I would say that puts us in a better place than we were about one or two years ago, where there definitely were armies that could not compete even casually.

I belive what the OP complained about was not so much power creep, but meta shifts. Which, fair enough: If you really love a slow, grindy game nobody can tell you it's wrong that you are not satisfied by a more aggressive meta.

[Overread]

5 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I have read opinions of some people that it is even a necessary feature of the design process of such games, but even if it is not: Writing rules that allow you to do cool stuff with the newest thing added is definitely the easiest way to sell it.

Most of the people I've seen justify power creep and overpowered lists/armies were often those looking for the "easy win" at the competitive end of the game. Ergo that their justification for having clearly overpowered stuff was so that they could easily buy it and use it at the competitive events. Which is a null argument because, when you think about it, if everyone in the competitive circles uses the overpowered stuff then, in those environments, you're no longer overpowered, you are just average. Thing is you're all average with the same (or similar) army composition and the same army. So you end up with very dull events where many of the top tables are similar armies pitching against each other.

In a healthier system you want armies that compete on a more level playing field so that you retain a high diversity. This keeps the competitive area of the game (both casual and formal) open to all gamers not just those who picked the "right army". It means you're not devaluing those who buy different armies which means they are more likely to hang around and buy a second and third army; rather than leave because their first chosen army is useless. 

 

I can get behind the idea that you can start with overpowered and then tone it back, however that shouldn't be hitting the market, it should be in the alpha and beta and should be ironed out for the retail release. Rules shouldn't be the spearpoint of sales; it should be model sculpt quality, lore, visual design and all that. That way you retain gamers for a longer period of time. 

 

Heck many of those I see chasing the power-meta aren't even putting money into GW's pockets. They put it into cheap secondhand models on ebay and then perhaps into painting commissions on those models. They keep their costs down because they are meta chasing. 

 

 

One thing that has always plagued GW games is that each edition is  reworking of the rules, sometimes quite major. The result is that new battletomes/codex are always more powerful than old ones because the new work with the new systems and the old don't. In the past (pre AoS 2.0 and 8th edition 40K) new rules could take years and years to come out and some armies even missed whole editions. So you could well end up waiting for most of a new rules edition for your army to get brought up to standard. That's painful. 

GW has sped up rules releases dramatically over the last few years, however its still a risk. Granted AoS really felt this in the shift into 2.0 because some armies were non functional in 1.0 and didn't even really have rules; but by and large they did 2.0 at a good speed. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I agree with most of what you wrote, but would like to say something about two of your points:

9 minutes ago, Overread said:

In a healthier system you want armies that compete on a more level playing field so that you retain a high diversity. This keeps the competitive area of the game (both casual and formal) open to all gamers not just those who picked the "right army". It means you're not devaluing those who buy different armies which means they are more likely to hang around and buy a second and third army; rather than leave because their first chosen army is useless. 

I think AoS is doing pretty well in this regard. I would say for all armies on sale right now, you can have an interesting game between two reasonably tuned lists. I also think the idea that all armies should be viable at the top level, while a good ideal to strive for, is probably close to unachievable. At least I have never seen a game with lots of choices that managed it. And that is looking at tabletop games, but also fighting games, card games and other video games.I

23 minutes ago, Overread said:

I can get behind the idea that you can start with overpowered and then tone it back, however that shouldn't be hitting the market, it should be in the alpha and beta and should be ironed out for the retail release. Rules shouldn't be the spearpoint of sales; it should be model sculpt quality, lore, visual design and all that. That way you retain gamers for a longer period of time. 

If this is right, then it's definitely because of the special nature of AoS as a hobby game. You definitely would not expect Magic players to mainly buy cards for their artwork and lore. I suspect though that it would be best to focus both on the game and modelling sides of AoS and drive sales both through what you mentioned as well as interesting and powerful new game mechanics. I know that I definitely only really get excited about an army if it can do something cool or unique. And I say that as someone who gets a lot of enjoyment out of the painting and modelling side of the game.

[Greybeard86]

All the comments about how "perfect balance is impossible" and "there are too many factions", or "warhammer is too complex" might me scratch my head in disbelief. It does NOT take a rocket scientist to see how certain "combos" stand above others, or how the points balance is off at times. I am quite certain GW designers can see that too. They provide as much balance as we demand, quite simply.  No one is talking about perfection as something we might see, but truly balance as a goal in itself.

The problem is that game companies do not necessarily design to satisfy balance. There is a nice article by one of the MTG lead designers on how they classify players and design cards to please these stereotypical players. So they are aware the cards aren't balanced, they just think that in certain cards please certain publics, and they gun for them in the design phase. I couldn't find the reference in 2 minutes but I am sure a little more google time will get that for you.

I am quite certain there is plenty of stuff like that in GW's games. A sprinkle of meta sells armies, and some hobby related considerations, and it doesn't seem impossible to get to something like we have now. Obviously, rule changes and meta shifts are by design, and how the company stands to win by that is so obvious that I do not need to spell it out. Now, there are more subtle things they do, which also hurt balance, that we don't talk about that much around here.

All that to say, if you want a balanced game, giving it to a private company to manage is probably not a good idea. There are so many marketing considerations that are entangled with rules that you can't just expect them to show restraint.

[Overread]

33 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

If this is right, then it's definitely because of the special nature of AoS as a hobby game. You definitely would not expect Magic players to mainly buy cards for their artwork and lore. I suspect though that it would be best to focus both on the game and modelling sides of AoS and drive sales both through what you mentioned as well as interesting and powerful new game mechanics. I know that I definitely only really get excited about an army if it can do something cool or unique. And I say that as someone who gets a lot of enjoyment out of the painting and modelling side of the game.

MTG certainly sells for the artistic quality of their product, if they didn't need it they wouldn't do it. However the big difference is that a magic card works out of the box immediately. 

Warhammer is a hobby as much as it is as game and GW pushes the hobby side hard - building and painting are as much the hobby as the game to them. It's very different to, say, DnD circles where models are often lower quality and might not even be painted or come pre-painted. For them they want diversity but they aren't as worried about "the hobby" that GW has helped build a market around. 

For that reason Wargamers need to have some solidarity in their armies. MTG could have huge imbalances, but people are less attached to the card and can far more easily change what they use.

 

Ironically then MTG has far better and tighter overall balance than GW games. 

Of course one other big differenec is that a well made MTG deck is VERY powerful compared to a poorly built one. So the disparity in power within the system is very big. Warhammer has big swings but not quite as big; however part of that is the dice rolls. 

 

 

Everyone agrees that warhammer can do better with balance than they do. 

[NinthMusketeer]

They could, but some part of GW management must see that the current system is working and feel it does not need to be improved. That it could easily work better... meh. I imagine they are blinded by the short-term sales benefit of meta shake-ups.

[Overread]

Just now, NinthMusketeer said:

They could, but some part of GW management must see that the current system is working and feel it does not need to be improved. That it could easily work better... meh. I imagine they are blinded by the short-term sales benefit of meta shake-ups.

It's more likely 30-40 years being THE dominant name in the market that gives them some assurance that, whatever the faults, their system works. Indeed I suspect that was some of the source of the whole Kirby era of "we don't need customer feedback/ surveys" attitude. GW has good ideas and sometimes they might have good ideas that we see as bad ideas, but which are reflected in better numbers for them. That said there's a balance and if anything the big shake ups and changes that resulted in a massive profit boom for GW showed that the right consumer feedback and the right attitude in responding too it can yield not only a greater return on investment, but a greater market dominance and security (ergo more customers). 

 

 

[Kramer]

8 hours ago, Beliman said:

ra/Koala

I want that for my orks 

[Sarouan]

I think it's more an issue due to the way GW designs games and the tight schedule imposed to rule designers. The fact is, you have to make a battletome / set of game rules ready for a set date so that the other sections can do their work (not even talking about the release calendar). So all the playtest the game designers can do are always limited to that tight time schedule. And we don't even speak about the other projects they may have to handle at the same time.

The way the feedback is handled by GW is also another way they handle the living rules. The FAQ and erratas are much more reactive than before (even it's still not fast enough for the players nowadays ).

The real trouble here is the fact that everything has to be released faster. See the numbers of books released in AoS V2 in comparison to the months following the release of AoS V1 (or even WFB, for that matter). The difference is very clear, but the strain put on the game designers is also certainly higher. It's easy to miss "obvious combos" when the time is running out and you're focused on a very specific part of the rules you're making. Of course, AoS game designers are certainly also aware of the changes they're making in the future way faster than players will ever do, so sometimes a horrible combo that seem terribly unbalanced in the current meta may be seen differently once the other pieces it was taken into account at the time of its design are released as well.

 

Also, it's a dead horse beating, but...fact is, there is no perfect balance in a game with so many factions with so many special rules trying to make them feel unique. It's a Graal you may never achieve, no matter how hard you're trying. The real way to balance the games is the players agreeing on building lists that makes the game interesting...something hardcore competitive players putting the list builds above anything else will never understand.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Sarouan

[Greybeard86]

Or a certain degree of imbalance is actually baked in by design. Given that similar companies openly say it (WOTC - MTG), why is it so hard to believe that this would happen in GW games?

[NinthMusketeer]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

It's more likely 30-40 years being THE dominant name in the market that gives them some assurance that, whatever the faults, their system works. Indeed I suspect that was some of the source of the whole Kirby era of "we don't need customer feedback/ surveys" attitude. GW has good ideas and sometimes they might have good ideas that we see as bad ideas, but which are reflected in better numbers for them. That said there's a balance and if anything the big shake ups and changes that resulted in a massive profit boom for GW showed that the right consumer feedback and the right attitude in responding too it can yield not only a greater return on investment, but a greater market dominance and security (ergo more customers). 

If the Kirby-era mentality was working so well, they wouldn't have changed it. Or become the best performing stock on the London market when they did. Even the worst imbalances we face now would be merely average by the standards of the late Kirby era. AoS was released with no balance at all!

[NinthMusketeer]

1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:

Or a certain degree of imbalance is actually baked in by design. Given that similar companies openly say it (WOTC - MTG), why is it so hard to believe that this would happen in GW games?

Because MTG is so completely different from Warhammer in so many ways that we would be better served comparing AoS to Starcraft.

Because for every other wargame on the market balance is a  priority--why are they doing that if they would be better off with an imbalanced system?

Because every wargame, even GW, has seen its popularity suffer in the long term when its balance has degraded. When the meta shakes up it generates sales relatively immediately, the consequences of continuously imbalanced meta can take years to become apparent.

Because we all know that GW would not get away with the balance swings (and prices) they do if they weren't the most popular by a huge margin.

Because 'baked in by design' implies an active inclusion of imbalance. They went from spending no resources on balance (AoS release) to a considerable amount (yearly GHB, frequent FAQ/errata). If they wanted more imbalance they would scale back the amount of effort put into balancing, not spend additional effort to put imbalance back in to the system after spending effort to remove it.

Edited December 29, 2020 by NinthMusketeer