AoS should encourage bigger lists to have more variety!

[stratigo]

On 1/14/2021 at 2:03 AM, Maddpainting said:

Then give us more ways to get Artifacts or if every army is limited to just 1 then make them 2-3x as strong as they are now. 

Personally I think ost battalions are fine and do what they are suppose to do. They are supposed to push you into restrictive lists. Thats literally the point of them.

If everything is good, nothing is.

 

It's a better marketing strategy to have some units be the optimum, and then change what those units are every half a year to get people to buy the new good stuff (either new kits or old kits with new rules) and put aside their old stuff. This is probably the heart of why GW started supporting competitive gaming again, it fosters these kind of ideals.

[Maddpainting]

The problem is, we have terrible artifacts to help are subfactions if we are taking a Greatfray. If you force Battalions to not give us extra artifacts then they better be good or no one will ever take them for any reason. So its just a waste of space for rules, you could remove them and no one would notice.

Personally I would rather have more relics and make them cost points, 10-50pts. Nothing crazy but we can give each hero something and let us buff up our heroes to fit a role better and be more fun to use. 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Maddpainting

[stratigo]

38 minutes ago, Maddpainting said:

The problem is, we have terrible artifacts to help are subfactions if we are taking a Greatfray. If you force Battalions to not give us extra artifacts then they better be good or no one will ever take them for any reason. So its just a waste of space for rules, you could remove them and no one would notice.

Personally I would rather have more relics and make them cost points, 10-50pts. Nothing crazy but we can give each hero something and let us buff up our heroes to fit a role better and be more fun to use. 

I swear I was quoting another post? Cause I have no idea where my argument connects with yours rereading my post. 

[Kramer]

22 minutes ago, stratigo said:

I swear I was quoting another post? Cause I have no idea where my argument connects with yours rereading my post. 

Haha I thought it was me 😅
i couldn’t make heads or tails from it. 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Kramer

[stratigo]

On 1/14/2021 at 1:08 AM, Eldarain said:

The interesting thing is from what I understand a kit sees it's greatest sales immediately upon release. However we also see older kits go out of stock after receiving a boost in a new book or FAQ.

It just baffles me that they allow certain units and even sometimes factions to languish for long periods of time when it's clear bringing them closer to the upper tiers increases sale. Maybe there are just enough Marine whales that it's not a big deal to them?

THis was the post I was attempting to quote. XD

 

 

[Greybeard86]

On 1/14/2021 at 7:08 AM, Eldarain said:

The interesting thing is from what I understand a kit sees it's greatest sales immediately upon release. However we also see older kits go out of stock after receiving a boost in a new book or FAQ.

It just baffles me that they allow certain units and even sometimes factions to languish for long periods of time when it's clear bringing them closer to the upper tiers increases sale. Maybe there are just enough Marine whales that it's not a big deal to them?

The part that you are missing is: provided that they are a successful release.

Then there are also limitations associated with production, stocking, marketing spotlight.

It is quite clear that GW envisions the players as individuals collecting multiple armies, often simply following whatever GW is hyping at the moment.

The era of players heavily invested in a given faction is over. Or at least that's what GW is attempting, via staggered rule and model releases with cycles that can take years.

[Maddpainting]

3 hours ago, stratigo said:

I swear I was quoting another post? Cause I have no idea where my argument connects with yours rereading my post. 

"If everything is good, nothing is." 

Commenting on that with a serious of discussions. 

Someone said Battalions shouldn't give Artifacts, so I said then make them stronger, you came in and to "If everything is good, nothing is." well then you have less options to take so it should be more impactful if you can only ever take 1. Otherwise why even have artifacts then? 

[stratigo]

1 minute ago, Maddpainting said:

"If everything is good, nothing is." 

Commenting on that with a serious of discussions. 

Someone said Battalions shouldn't give Artifacts, so I said then make them stronger, you came in and to "If everything is good, nothing is." well then you have less options to take so it should be more impactful if you can only ever take 1. Otherwise why even have artifacts then? 

I was trying to comment on why GW lets some units and even languish so long in trash tier from a business perspective. It isn't incompetence. Well not just incompetence. There's a marketing strategy behind it. Units being bad and good forces people who care about unit stats (and this is the MAJORITY of players, not just competitive games) to buy new units, even when they only play one army, or gets them to buy a new army, then buy more models for their old army when it does, eventually, get a rework. It'd actually be bad business to have a perfectly balanced game, as long as the game isn't so bad that players stop playing altogether.

 

Not commenting on artefacts at all. My apologies for the muddying of that water by misquoting you.  For artefacts there is some value in having artefacts that don't work in all the games you play to encourage specialization, but there are very much too many trash artifacts and general traits

[Eldarain]

You both make solid points. The part that still confuses me is that such an approach makes a lot more sense when you're selling microtransactions/playable characters in video games.

These dead kits/factions come with expensive shipping/storage costs attached. Even more so when you're the lone business that maintains a global chain of stores.

[yukishiro1]

I really don't think GW makes deliberately bad factions or units, not least because that would imply they pay enough attention and put in enough effort to do so.

The truth is much more prosaic: at the corporate level, they just don't care very much. Balanced rules are not a priority. GW is a plastic company; the rules are just there to stimulate sales, and to do that, they only need to be less than totally terrible, they don't need to actually be very good, and they definitely don't need to be balanced. They just need to be there.

Most people who buy GW plastic don't even play the games more than once in a blue moon. Let that sink in, because it has profound implications for the way GW structures its business.

The game is just an excuse to collect; it needs to be there to provide the excuse, the same way that someone goes to the store "to buy some milk" when the real reason is to buy cigs, alcohol and junk food, but that's all it needs to be. 

Ironically, I think the fact that the rules get as much attention as they do is probably down to the rank-and-file gamers left in the company who actually do care about this stuff, and I expect it's a constant struggle for them against the higher-ups who are really only interested in how much plastic they can sell. 

[Beliman]

21 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Ironically, I think the fact that the rules get as much attention as they do is probably down to the rank-and-file gamers left in the company who actually do care about this stuff, and I expect it's a constant struggle for them against the higher-ups who are really only interested in how much plastic they can sell. 

Remember that they took some new designers to write rules (Bottles was one of them). I don't think it's as black and white as you suggest, but I'm  sure you are pretty close.

[stratigo]

5 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

I really don't think GW makes deliberately bad factions or units, not least because that would imply they pay enough attention and put in enough effort to do so.

The truth is much more prosaic: at the corporate level, they just don't care very much. Balanced rules are not a priority. GW is a plastic company; the rules are just there to stimulate sales, and to do that, they only need to be less than totally terrible, they don't need to actually be very good, and they definitely don't need to be balanced. They just need to be there.

Most people who buy GW plastic don't even play the games more than once in a blue moon. Let that sink in, because it has profound implications for the way GW structures its business.

The game is just an excuse to collect; it needs to be there to provide the excuse, the same way that someone goes to the store "to buy some milk" when the real reason is to buy cigs, alcohol and junk food, but that's all it needs to be. 

Ironically, I think the fact that the rules get as much attention as they do is probably down to the rank-and-file gamers left in the company who actually do care about this stuff, and I expect it's a constant struggle for them against the higher-ups who are really only interested in how much plastic they can sell. 

 

I think you underestimate how micromanagey and controlling executives are. 

 

I guarantee to you some units get a punch up in rules because a manager decided these models are cool and will be big sellers, or noticed these kits are kind of languishing and need to be priced to move. This happened even under the "we don't do market research, we hate gamers" kirby era. GW's a far more engaged company now.

[Enoby]

I still subscribe to the conspiracy theory that Slaanesh's rules were so hero heavy because the only things released with the battletome were heroes (and the most expensive and most mandatory one being the keeper. 

I don't think higher ups are specific with rules, but I do think they at least give a nudge to try promote sales.

[Eldarain]

The saga of the Wraithknight points to there being some specific meddling though I think that was still the darker Kirby days.

[yukishiro1]

The very fact that the Wraithknight thing is what everyone cites kinda says it all though, doesn't it? If this happened all the time we'd have lots of Wraithknight stories, not just the one. Making that seem very much like the outlier, not the normal.

 

I mean maybe I'm wrong and maybe the corporate bosses at GW are evil geniuses pouring over spreadsheets and saying "we have 5000 left over beasts of nurgle! make them really powerful ASAP! But only in 40k, not in AOS, because <reasons>!" But I really think that gives them far too much credit. 

Edited January 21, 2021 by yukishiro1

[stratigo]

42 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

The very fact that the Wraithknight thing is what everyone cites kinda says it all though, doesn't it? If this happened all the time we'd have lots of Wraithknight stories, not just the one. Making that seem very much like the outlier, not the normal.

 

I mean maybe I'm wrong and maybe the corporate bosses at GW are evil geniuses pouring over spreadsheets and saying "we have 5000 left over beasts of nurgle! make them really powerful ASAP! But only in 40k, not in AOS, because <reasons>!" But I really think that gives them far too much credit. 

 

Not necessarily.

 

I mean, anyone who has worked in an office for enough time knows how pushy and micromanaging managers and execs can be. If GW miraculously lacks all the petty power play ******, they are a miracle company sent from the heavens.

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

Strongly disagree with the "if everything is good, nothing is," line of thought. The iconic use of that kind of thinking in The Incredibles was never meant to be taken as a serious, credible argument. There is very little derived from it that works well either. If everything is good, it can still be good in different ways, with different specializations or parts of a toollkit. You can also have something be good but not perfect, and therefore open to rock-paper-scissors counters by other good units that have different strengths and weaknesses. And you can have things that are kinda good, but benefit from synergies to become stronger than the sum of their parts. These are all valid and possible design strategies. Many games achieve them, and Age of Sigmar could get there eventually.

[Greybeard86]

17 hours ago, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

If everything is good, it can still be good in different ways, with different specializations or parts of a toollkit. You can also have something be good but not perfect, and therefore open to rock-paper-scissors counters by other good units that have different strengths and weaknesses.

Yes, you can. But currently AoS is not set up that way, there are no serious unit specializations. There is a tad of difference with rend, but it tends to erode away anyway. At least that's my understanding.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

22 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

Yes, you can. But currently AoS is not set up that way, there are no serious unit specializations. There is a tad of difference with rend, but it tends to erode away anyway. At least that's my understanding.

That's going a bit far, don't you think? I assume you don't mean that there is no appreciable difference in AoS between, for example, infantry and cavalry. Because that's clearly absurd. I think what you want to say is that AoS does not allow for significant differences between units of the same type in the same army (e.g. two different infantry units) but even that does not seem right to me. Maybe if you are looking at two units of the same type and at the same point level, but why limit yourself in this way? That does not seem to be what @RocketPropelledGrenade is talking about.

[Greybeard86]

35 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

That's going a bit far, don't you think? I assume you don't mean that there is no appreciable difference in AoS between, for example, infantry and cavalry. Because that's clearly absurd. I think what you want to say is that AoS does not allow for significant differences between units of the same type in the same army (e.g. two different infantry units) but even that does not seem right to me. Maybe if you are looking at two units of the same type and at the same point level, but why limit yourself in this way? That does not seem to be what @RocketPropelledGrenade is talking about.

This is with regards to damage dealing, in the context of the equivalences of anti-tank, anti-infantry, etc.

Quite clearly they removed that to a large extent when they simplified away toughness.

[whispersofblood]

2 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

This is with regards to damage dealing, in the context of the equivalences of anti-tank, anti-infantry, etc.

Quite clearly they removed that to a large extent when they simplified away toughness.

Not really, variance between save and wounds actually has massive effect on considering why a damage dealing unit is good in-class or not. Its the inverse reason as to why most 2 wound infantry units are quite bad, they blur the line for in-class specializations and end up being bad against both types. 

I think what you are actually getting at is in comparing internally between two damage dealing units which share >80% of the same rules. So something like Seekers of Slaanesh and Hellstriders. Generally if you are struggling then the reality is they are both bad 😅.

Wardens and Stoneguard for instance, they are very unique despite both being nominally damage dealing infantry, with variations of the same rules. What happens here is that you won't generally mix, you'll invest in one tree or the other. As they reach their optimum potential in different ways, Wardens use the base lore and battle traits efficiently and are battleline. Stoneguard need an almost new support structure, so the choice is more about what else you want to take as opposed to head to head. 

[Beliman]

11 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

Wardens and Stoneguard for instance, they are very unique despite both being nominally damage dealing infantry, with variations of the same rules. What happens here is that you won't generally mix, you'll invest in one tree or the other. As they reach their optimum potential in different ways, Wardens use the base lore and battle traits efficiently and are battleline. Stoneguard need an almost new support structure, so the choice is more about what else you want to take as opposed to head to head. 

That's one of the things that I love about this pointy-ears. Their army seems to be really flexible, all units give you something, even the ones that seems to be a bit behind are used to accomplish their task.

If GW release new temples, I hope to see "new" gameplays than "same as before, but better".

[yukishiro1]

Wound carry-over plus lack of toughness does drastically compress the range of defensive profiles you can have, and consequently, significantly limits the amount of different damage-based roles you have in AOS compared to 40k. 

[Greybeard86]

3 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Not really, variance between save and wounds actually has massive effect on considering why a damage dealing unit is good in-class or not. Its the inverse reason as to why most 2 wound infantry units are quite bad, they blur the line for in-class specializations and end up being bad against both types.

@yukishiro1 already answered. Lack of toughness and carry over compress roles massively.

 

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

There's also more to roles than damage.  We've seen the beginnings of GW really feeling this out with stuff like the Sons of Behemat objective manipulation, but even elements like mobility, battlefield roles for different battleplan purposes, etc. 

Bringing up Lumineth as an example of design goals again, the Wardens demonstrate tools like threat range (3" spears combined with decent movement), reactivity to enemy actions (increased effectiveness when charged), and the ability to operate in other phases of the game (the unit wizard--a controversial element, I know, but still something  worth noting). 

And while they are a potent unit, they have weaknesses that some other warscrolls in the same army do not, let alone warscrolls in other armies. For example, the reactive bonuses they get for receiving a charge are a cool design tool, but not one the Wardens have much control over, which makes it a double-edged sword. You're incentivized to place them in harm's way to maximize their power, which is interesting risk/reward play. Similarly, it has already been noted that the Stoneguard's additional wound changes how they interact with damage. Sure, the lack of toughness and damage carry-over mitigate that, but they don't eliminate it entirely. Not by a long shot. More wounds=less bodies for objectives, but also more wounds=incoming damage does less to reduce fighting strength. Again, specialization! Adding in damage negate effects like Protection of Hysh/Protection of Teclis is another axis that can muck with damage as well.