What would you like for AoS 3

[whispersofblood]

15 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

No, that's not correct. I am aware of the math, I just come to different conclusions from you. I think this is because I value high-rend or mortal wounds higher than low rend damage. As a heuristic, I view a mortal wound to be about twice as good as a no-rend wound. That's just my quick rule of thumb. That is because that's their value when calculating against a 4+ save. If you take the average relative value against all armour saves, it's more like 2.5 no rend wounds per mortal, but since saves are not equally distributed, that's not a very useful number. Of course I am aware they will perform better per wound against high armour and worse against low armour units. That's basic stuff.

But mortal wounds a lot more valuable in some respects. For example, you can't really hope to overwhelm 3+ or 2+ armour with no rend in AoS as it is currently, with the amounts of damage units deal and how much that damage can be buffed. But you can hope to deal with a low-armour unit in a pinch if all you have is mortal wound spam. That makes me value mortal wounds higher than no rend wounds. As such, even though in some situations Sentinel damage output is low, I think because it is high quality it should be valued highly.

I do not believe that I have claimed that it was the damage of Sentinels that makes me think they are overtuned. What I actually believe is that they are overtuned in other ways. To pick up your comparison with Freeguild Crossbows, I think the difference is pretty clear.

Crossbows have a shorter range, can't move and need to stay above 10 units to get their extra attack, and need a command point and support hero to reach their full potential. To be fair, though: You'd probably bring a Freeguild General anyway if you have other Freeguild units, and you can in theory replace him with 10 more crossbows and get similar numbers if you don't. Crossbows have to deal with all the usual counter play options to shooting, like cover, line-of-sight and Look Out, Sir!

Lumineth Sentinels, by contrast, have higher range, are self-buffing and have no additional rules they need to watch out for to reach their full damage potential. The range difference is significant, at 24" with no movement Crossbows can only hope to hit units deployed right at the line turn 1, while Sentinels have a much easier time hitting high value targets at 30" with the possibility to move 5". A 24" circle is only about half the area of a 35" one, if you want to put it in terms of area control. And as a bonus, Sentinels don't care about line-of-sight due to their warscroll ability, and don't care about cover and negative to hit modifiers due to dealing their damage as mortals on unmodified 6s.

I can tell you that if I was building a competitive Cities list, if allying in 20 Sentinels was an option, I'd probably go for it every time over Freeguild Crossbows. Given that Crossbows are a native unit with synergies in the army, I think that's fairly telling. I already view the damage output of Sentinels as competitive compared to Crossbows, and all their other upsides just push them even further into the lead. If you think Crossbows are not the right comparison, try Hellstorm Rocket Batteries, which have a 36" threat range and are therefor a closer comparison in terms of their role in the army. They will end up looking even worse, head to head.

Even in the post you quoted, I was not talking about the problem with Lumineth Sentinels being that they can shoot up most of an opposing army. I don't think that is what they do. Instead, I think they make it too easy to remove high value targets, such as the Freeguild General you included to buff the Freeguild Crossbows in your comparison. In that role, reliably removing or at least highly damaging high value targets every round, they are exceptionally good. And I am not surprised tournament lists take 20 to 30 of them. That's what I would expect. Dedicating 420 points to deal with any hero problems you might face seems like a super good deal.

And that brings us to the point I am actually arguing: The really egregious thing about Sentinels is not just that they are extremely good in their role, but also that they are extremely non-interactive, which is what causes negative play experience. @Enoby made a good point that Sentinels are a lot like old Thundertusks, which were also not overpowered in the sense that they were winning tournaments, but still bad for the game in the sense that everyone hated playing against them. I find that when we look at the data, and it says that of everyone who thinks shooting in it's current form is a problem, over half of them think it's the worst or second worst problem in the game, we need to take that seriously regardless of whatever other metrics you want to look at. And I think responding to that very real concern with just "git gud" or "you don't know what you really want" is not good enough.

Your interpreting my post defending Sentinels, I am not Sentinels don't need to be defended because... I'm demonstrating that shooting as whole is not as impactful as people claim and therefore your feelings about shooting are about your expectations and not what is happening in the game on the board and stopping people from being successful in the battleplans. Your distinction between mw/high rend/low rend/no rend is a forced distinction, the game is determined by unsaved damage and that is the volume that must be measure against. The math on those shooting units shows that while Sentinels and their MW ability evens out their dmg curve, they also just generally do less damage. By the way they don't do much more dmg against a 5+ save or a 6+ save, both units do. Which is exactly what you want to see as a trade off. We also don't want to live in a world of universal utility, no LoS shooting is rare so the value of standard anti-shooting strategies and tactics is retained. A corner case doesn't negate that. 

I expected you would bring up Line of Sight, but here is the reality. That is your interaction. Against Crossbows or other shooting units, you choose between being in the optimal position to provide buffs and being out of line of sight. Against Sentinels you don't have a the benefit of being out of line of sight, as a defence mechanism. So you choose other forms of interaction I showed that cover is a useful rule, also you can interact with the casting of Power of Hysh. The math shows that being in cover, and trying to stop a otherwise normal wizard casting significantly interact with the ability to sentinels to remove units at full range. Strategically if you build a list that keeping said hero alive is necessary then you have to increase the pace of your game and the delivery of that strategy, this is what makes each game and match up unique. Again battling against universal utility. 

There is a difference between interacting with a mechanic and having agency in the game. Pushing the former infantilizes gamers, the later allows growth and divergence of skill levels.
Here is why Sentinels are not like Thundertusks; Thundertusks want to get into combat, that alone completely changes the dynamic of the unit, it wants to or is capable of charging killing units in combat and claiming objectives. Almost no shooting unit can do that. Therefore Thundertusks were better than Sentinels, and guess what? A Thundertusks at the time was more expensive than 20 Sentinels.

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

If your hypothesis was correct you would see Spike type players maxing out on shooting. What is happening is the opposite,  even in the most egregious examples of "NPE" Sentinels are being maxed at 20/30 in a list by some of the most competitive and skilled players in the community. Because they know what I've been trying to communicate to you, Battleplans are won by movement and combat, full stop. Factions with reasonable shooting add them in to improve the delivery and reliability of their combat units, not to deal the damage that wins the game. So unless you are going to change the argument to that having shooting makes being your combat too effective, but in that case it would show up in the winrate, and without adjusting for player skill it seems the factions with these shooting units and without shooting units are equally distributed across tiers. There are only two factions that fit into this narrative that represent with over a 50% winrate. Seraphon, and DoT, neither are winning games because of their shooting. They win games because they have shooting units they can drop on an objective that either obliterate the holding unit, or also have a lot of hard to remove bodies themselves.

You also haven't contended with this. Your hypothesis is not showing up in nature, in a space which incentivises reducing interactivity. Why do you think that is? 

I do understand what you are saying, you think its feels bad.  I'm saying that guess what most things in life aren't actually about what you feel and if you spend sometime with it you can change how you feel about things with information and weighing up potential outcomes from changing those things. Plato believed that truth is to be discovered; that knowledge is possible. He held that truth is not relative, as sophists would have us believe. Truth is objective; it is what we reason, usand applied correctly. In modern times sophism has made a massive resurgence and guess what? Peoples outcomes have deteriorated along side it. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

 

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

Your interpreting my post defending Sentinels, I am not Sentinels don't need to be defended because... I'm demonstrating that shooting as whole is not as impactful as people claim [...]

 

I don't know why you think I am the correct target of your agrument, then. I don't believe I have argued anywhere that all shooting is too strong and need to be nerfed. I thought I had made my position pretty clear a few times that I think the power level is not too high except for a few units (such as Sentinels). That's what my previous post was about. The real concern in my eyes is just that people don't currently enjoy the shooting mechanics of the game. No more, no less. To me, that suggest that we should look at changing it in some ways. I have not suggested that those changes should involve reducing the impact of shooting across the board.

 

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

If your hypothesis was correct you would see Spike type players maxing out on shooting. What is happening is the opposite,  even in the most egregious examples of "NPE" Sentinels are being maxed at 20/30 in a list by some of the most competitive and skilled players in the community. Because they know what I've been trying to communicate to you, Battleplans are won by movement and combat, full stop. Factions with reasonable shooting add them in to improve the delivery and reliability of their combat units, not to deal the damage that wins the game.

Please stop talking like I have never played a game of AoS and don't know that being able to take objectives is good.

I have not argued that shooting damage wins games by itself and won't be defending that position.

I have argued that Sentinels are overtuned. But that is not in conflict with the fact that top lists run 20 to 30 of them, since I don't believe a unit needs to beable to be spammed and win tournaments to be overtuned.

I also don't think that tournament performance is very relevant to discussions about NPE. A mechanic can be non-interactive or unfun to play against without winning tournaments. And tournament players are willing to put up with a lot more NPE than other players, typically.

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

I do understand what you are saying, you think its feels bad.  I'm saying that guess what most things in life aren't actually about what you feel and if you spend sometime with it you can change how you feel about things with information and weighing up potential outcomes from changing those things. Plato believed that truth is to be discovered; that knowledge is possible. He held that truth is not relative, as sophists would have us believe. Truth is objective; it is what we reason, usand applied correctly. In modern times sophism has made a massive resurgence and guess what? Peoples outcomes have deteriorated along side it. 

You leave my boy Plato out of this!

Anyway, even if I agree that "most things in life aren't actually about what you feel", the context of a game not being fun is a very plausible exception to "most things". I see being fun to play as one of the essential functions of a game. Therefor, a good game is one that excells at being fun. A very Aristotelian position.

If you are into philosophy, look up some contemporary papers about how to handle disagreement between people with equal access to information some time. Might be instructive.

Also, one last thing:

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

Here is why Sentinels are not like Thundertusks; Thundertusks want to get into combat, that alone completely changes the dynamic of the unit, it wants to or is capable of charging killing units in combat and claiming objectives. Almost no shooting unit can do that. Therefore Thundertusks were better than Sentinels, and guess what? A Thundertusks at the time was more expensive than 20 Sentinels.

I don't understand your point here. When Thundertusks were still able to snipe stuff with six mortal wound snowballs, they were absolutely terrible in melee for their points and could not capture for beans.

If they were worse than Sentinels in terms of shooting, but also not good at the objective game and more expensive than 20 Sentinels, it seems to me that should support my position that Sentinels are overtuned and that a unit can be bad for the game in terms of play experience unrelated to their pure, mechanical strength.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep
Removed a misplaced quote at the top.

[whispersofblood]

I specifically used impact rather than strength to not confuse damage and good mechanics. 

22 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I thought I had made my position pretty clear a few times that I think the power level is not too high except for a few units (such as Sentinels).

IF it does not produce excess damage,

23 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I have not argued that shooting damage wins games by itself and won't be defending that position.

and shooting does not determine the outcome of games

23 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

A mechanic can be non-interactive or unfun to play against

What is NPE about it? And, why is changing the game better than educating people and aligning their expectations with quality mechanics? 

24 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

When Thundertusks were still able to snipe stuff with six mortal wound snowballs, they were absolutely terrible in melee for their points and could not capture for beans.

Thundertusks were as good as Sentinals at shooting, and at the time were quite capable in a fight, I should know I played mixed Destruction.  Combat dmg was generally much lower after the stonehorn was done running amok a thundertusk was more than suffeicent to do clean up.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

7 hours ago, Kadeton said:

This discussion is making me think of all those classic archery scenes in blockbuster movies. You know the ones:

Two great armies are arrayed against each other on the field of battle. The hero's just given his big speech to get the troops fired up about their specific casus belli. The horns are sounded, the cavalry spur their mounts, and the infantry lower their spears and charge.

On the opposing side, a commander dramatically holds up one hand, and the archers nock arrows and draw their bows. As the hand drops, they loose, and the sky is blackened by a cloud of whistling death...

... all of which converges invariably on the lone hero, a thousand arrows turning his body into fresh salsa. Not a single arrow falls anywhere other than his immediate vicinity - even the soldiers advancing shoulder-to-shoulder with him remain unscathed.

Because that's how missile weapons have always been used in warfare, right? Inevitable tightly-focused death for anyone in a position of command.

This gets me so well!

Again, I love AoS for how it avoids so many of the issues that drove me away from historical wargaming.  And for the most part I’ve truly come to peace with the compromises that the simple rule set forces.  But this is a great example of where I feel like the simplicity is “game-breaking” in the sense that it takes me out of the mentality of “realistic strategy & tactics” albeit in a fantasy setting.  

As I put it in another thread it takes us from being Generals to being Gods.

And so as to not simply complain but coming completely off the top of my head I will propose the following solution for AoS:

Unless no other target is in range, no more than 5 models worth of missile attacks can be targeted at a non-MONSTER HERO.

This still allows for some sniping by individual models or small units that should be able to “concentrate fire but prevents the ridiculousness of @OkayestDM’s amazing GIF (laughed so hard my kids came and checked to see if I was alright).  Again, just off the top of my head but seems like a simple fix.

[yukishiro1]

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

I specifically used impact rather than strength to not confuse damage and good mechanics. 

IF it does not produce excess damage,

and shooting does not determine the outcome of games

What is NPE about it? And, why is changing the game better than educating people and aligning their expectations with quality mechanics? 

People have already explained this to you multiple times, you just won't or can't understand. You have an extremely fringe idea of NPE that takes no account of interactivity or fun, and that is not an idea shared by even a significant minority of the player base. You can talk about "educating" and "aligning expectations" (super condescending, incidentally), but if 80% of the population or more disagrees with your basic framework,  it'll take a lot more charisma than is on offer here to change peoples' minds. 

You can argue till the cows go home that Sentinels being able to delete any small hero they wish, anywhere on the board, simply by the player pointing his finger at it is not actually NPE because it doesn't win games on its own. It is not going to change the mind of anyone who finds that a non-interactive, un-fun experience. We're talking about people's feelings as to what is fun and what isn't. Your repeated refrain to set aside your feelings is literally beside the point. People don't play wargames to set aside their feelings. People play wargames because they are fun and interactive. Remove those elements and people don't enjoy themselves, no matter how much you insist to them that they can still win the game. An element that is not fun and not interactive is not a "quality mechanic." Ranged units that do mortals on a 5+ rerolling from 30" ignoring LOS is not a "quality mechanic," no matter how that actually maths out, if the majority of the player base finds it oppressive and unfun.

You don't get to tell other people what is or is not NPE for them, it's like telling someone they really should like cookies n crunch ice cream, and if they don't, they need to be educated to set aside their feelings and realign their expectations. 

Edited February 16, 2021 by yukishiro1

[stratigo]

4 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

People have already explained this to you multiple times, you just won't or can't understand. You have an extremely fringe idea of NPE that takes no account of interactivity or fun, and that is not an idea shared by even a significant minority of the player base. You can talk about "educating" and "aligning expectations" (super condescending, incidentally), but if 80% of the population or more disagrees with your basic framework,  it'll take a lot more charisma than is on offer here to change peoples' minds. 

You can argue till the cows go home that Sentinels being able to delete any small hero they wish, anywhere on the board, simply by the player pointing his finger at it is not actually NPE because it doesn't win games on its own. It is not going to change the mind of anyone who finds that a non-interactive, un-fun experience. We're talking about people's feelings as to what is fun and what isn't. Your repeated refrain to set aside your feelings is literally beside the point. People don't play wargames to set aside their feelings. People play wargames because they are fun and interactive. Remove those elements and people don't enjoy themselves, no matter how much you insist to them that they can still win the game. An element that is not fun and not interactive is not a "quality mechanic." Ranged units that do mortals on a 5+ rerolling from 30" ignoring LOS is not a "quality mechanic," no matter how that actually maths out. 

It takes 280 points of sentinels to kill a 5 wound support hero. I am hoping that hero isn't 280 points themselves really. 

 

I mean the issue is if you don't kill that support hero, then that unit of skinks is gonna teleport/run and shoot, get 80 attacks, be more defensice than most big dinos, do mortal wounds, and get hit buffs. 

 

Support heroes remain over represented and too many makes the game worse.  It is, again, why skinks are so strong. The game should not revolve around dumping 3 to 6 different buffs on a unit and watching it then win the game. It's too damn much.

 

12 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

When your own example is wrong in precisely the way that illustrates the point, it's kinda telling. No, you can't screen out shooting the way you can screen out an alpha melee strike, because shooting, by definition, has longer range. How do you screen out a unit that can shoot 30" without LOS? Even something with a more reasonable range  is by its very definition harder to screen out than something that has a 1-3" range. It's extremely easy to protect characters or small key units from a melee alpha strike; it varies from "difficult" to "completely impossible" to protect characters or small key units from ranged shooting in AOS. 

The logical equivalent to screening for melee is using terrain to prevent shooting. But that essentially doesn't exist in AOS as it's clearly intended and actually played (even if the rules technically would allow for it if tables were set up in a completely different way than GW wants you to, with lots of 5" tall solid walls). 

And yes, the fact that you get to do stuff in your opponent's combat phase is a fundamental difference that completely changes how interactive the phase is. Again, by definition, getting to do stuff in a phase = interactivity, not getting to do stuff = no interactivity. 

You have defeated your own point by illustrating two key ways in which shooting is non-interactive. 

 

 

 

 

You are here complaining about literally one shooting unit in the entire game and using that as the justification to nerf the entire mechanic. Can you not see how ridiculous this is? "Sentinels are uninteractive and OP. So we should nerf all shooting". Like, wot? What? 

 

You can in fact screen out most shooting in the game. Most shooting in the game has range limits and movement limits. You can keep you units out of range, pressure them with melee, use LoS blocking. It's as interactive as properly screening out melee (I mean, I guess a lot of people don't use pile in tricks the game fully supports to make the most of melee moves). 

 

I honestly don't know what game you play where every single combat phase has meaningful interactions. Interactive is not "I just get to throw dice". That is not what the word means. 

[yukishiro1]

9 minutes ago, stratigo said:

 "Sentinels are uninteractive and OP. So we should nerf all shooting". Like, wot? What? 

I honestly don't know what game you play where every single combat phase has meaningful interactions. Interactive is not "I just get to throw dice". That is not what the word means. 

Nobody said any of that, certainly not me. There's not much point in talking to someone who misrepresents what you're saying to make it easier to argue against. 

Sentinels are an example of the problems with shooting in AOS because they so perfectly hit all the bases. The fact that many other shooting units are less problematic is part of the point being made - you have to be careful with shooting, because it has a tendency to become non-interactive and unfun very quickly do to its basic structure. If the game had a somewhat more limiting basic structure to shooting - like literally every other wargame does, there isn't a single other major wargame that has the lack of restrictions AOS does - you would have more design space to work with and wouldn't need to be so careful. Even Sentinels might be fine, for example, in a game with a meaningful Look out Sir rule and where you couldn't shoot into combats freely. When you have a basic mechanic with virtually no restrictions, that actually limits the design space, rather than expanding it. 

I'm not going to go into more detail until I've seen you're capable of reading what someone actually wrote, not rewriting it to make it easier to attack. 

Edited February 16, 2021 by yukishiro1

[whispersofblood]

@yukishiro1I'm not actually trying to convince you, I'm putting forward arguments so that people who haven't settled into their camp have a balanced perspective. Also, so that there isn't a sense of universality amongst the forum on a clearly contentious issue by pushing back with an unsupported subjective narrative you'd like to push.

Call me condescending if you must but the fact of the matter is you haven't demonstrated a singular example based on anything but your say so that the game as a whole containing threats to the small segment of 5 or less wound heroes in the game is actual a reasonable reason to cite NPE. 

You've regularly failed to address what the alternative to the current situation is or why it would be more "fun and enjoyable". I've argued that the medicine is better than the sickness in this case and supported it with evidence. A survey which say "it's not nice" is not compelling evidence to make a change with negative forseeable consequences. 

I've also demonstrated several pieces of interactivity involved in the shooting phase as is with examples of units which actually exist. And I regularly post in various faction threads to help players solve in game problems with a little for thought and information. 

You can resort to ad homonym attacks if you'd like, but stomping your feet like a child denied sweets only underlines the lack of substance behind your argument. The best argument you've been able to make is that some segment "casual players" will be able to take heroes. Those heroes won't die to shooting now, and probably not magic shortly after. Therefore some players (a minority by your own words) will feel better about their games. 

I'm perfectly clear on what you are arguing I just think it's a vapid position to advocate for. And, believe once the reality is demonstrated people will be better equipped to deal with how they feel.

[FlatTooth]

Who would have thought that so many people loved the shooting phase in AoS. In most games I gravitate towards the squirrely fast-moving, high-shooting factions but the shooting phase in AoS is so mindless that I barely register it's there. "Pick unit in range, roll dice, good job" just doesn't tickle my fancy haha. I feel that if they added some stipulations and complications to shooting then they could start to give armies more meaningful options for shooting. Granted I'm still not 100% sold that GW rules designers are THAT interested in interesting design (roll a 5 or 6, do a mortal wound is not interesting design.)

 

Also I am so wildly uninterested in returning to the days of "mostly my heroes just add 3 attacks to combat." I love that heroes have flavorful support abilities. It gives me decision points. They could do a better job with the support heroes but if the argument is between "hero with an interesting ability" and "Hero that can can hit more good" I know where I land.

[Doko]

7 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

For 300 points in CoS army 20 Freeguild Crossbows and a general put out 11.1 unsaved damage against a 4+ save target, at 29" with 1 CP spent.  

For 280 20 Sentinels do 7.08 dmg at 36" with 1 spell cast, or 4.72 dmg without the spell cast. In the bracket I will put 2 units of 10 Sentinels, with two spell casts (6.71/4.49)

For 320 20 Sisters of the Watch do 10.56 dmg at 24"

First,sisters if you count 24" then she shooting only one shoot,so at 24" vs a -1 hit hero the sisters have only 6 damage(1 mortal and 5 no rend damage)

Vs the less points sentinels at 36" doing 7 mortals wound and 1 or 2 no rend damage.

Very good balanced units

Now this damage vs a 3 save hero(heroes with natural 3 save as every melle hero or weak heroes in cover)

320 points sisters do a total of 3 damage(1 mortal and 2 regular)

280 sentinels do a total of 8 damage(7 mortals and 1 regular)

So cheapers,extra 8" range,ignore vision and can dispell enemy magic and have almost 300% more damage vs heroes.....good comparation

Even if you count the sisters with 2 shoots as you did,then his range is only 18" and cant move neither have enemy in melle and even at 18" vs the 36" of sentinels and being expensiver the sisters loose

The sisters with only 18" range have 6 damage vs a hero thar is lower than sentinels with double range and ignore vision.

And crssbowmens at 28" as you said is imposible because they cant move if you use the cp,so only 24" range and does 22 no rend damage vs heroes that with save 3 gonna be 7'3 damage that is the same than the sentinels,BUT at 24" cant move and spending 1 cp vs the 36" ignore vision of sentinels

So if you want compare crossbowmen vs sentinels you must do it with the 18" profile of sentinels that with the move is 24" as thecrossbowmens.

So im sorry but its imposible the comparation,sentinels are waaaaaaaay better than any city of sigmar unit sniping heroes, and with the double range and ignore vision.

 

Sentinels must only does mortals with wound rolls and cost 160 to only start to be balanced

Edited February 16, 2021 by Doko

[yukishiro1]

50 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

 

You can resort to ad homonym attacks if you'd like, but stomping your feet like a child denied sweets

Lol. You can't really have a discussion with someone capable of writing a sentence like this and not seeing the epic irony.  

P.S. It's not an ad hominem attack to say repeatedly telling people they need to be educated, to align their expectations, and to set aside their feelings is condescending. An ad hominem attack is an attack against the person - for example, "stomping your feet like a child denied sweets" - not a comment on their argument.

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by yukishiro1

[yukishiro1]

2 hours ago, stratigo said:

Support heroes remain over represented and too many makes the game worse.  It is, again, why skinks are so strong. The game should not revolve around dumping 3 to 6 different buffs on a unit and watching it then win the game. It's too damn much.

 

Incidentally, I don't necessarily disagree with this. But the solution to the problem, to the extent there is one, isn't to give a small handful of armies the ability to delete the support heroes from anywhere on the board with no counter-play. That's piling problems on top of problems, instead of addressing them, and is part of what leads to the situation we find ourselves in now, where LRL are like "no I need this cheese to fight Seraphon!" and Seraphon are like "no I need this cheese to fight LRL!" and then Gitz are like "can i has cheezburger?" and Seraphon and LRL are like: "NO! go back to your corner." 

Also, to further illustrate the point re: what people don't like about shooting - the skink example is actually another good example of why restriction-free mechanics are NPE and people don't like them. The big issue with the skinks is that pretty much all their stuff just goes off automatically, with no fail points, and for the stuff that isn't automatic, it can be stacked so high it's practically automatic. This makes for a bad experience for the person on the receiving end. 

People don't like shooting because shooting is like uber-skinks: it just happens to you, with very limited options for doing anything about it other than sitting there and taking it and hoping GW has done their math well enough that you still have a chance. 

Edited February 16, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Gistradagis]

 

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

@yukishiro1I'm not actually trying to convince you, I'm putting forward arguments so that people who haven't settled into their camp have a balanced perspective. Also, so that there isn't a sense of universality amongst the forum on a clearly contentious issue by pushing back with an unsupported subjective narrative you'd like to push.

Call me condescending if you must but the fact of the matter is you haven't demonstrated a singular example based on anything but your say so that the game as a whole containing threats to the small segment of 5 or less wound heroes in the game is actual a reasonable reason to cite NPE. 

You've regularly failed to address what the alternative to the current situation is or why it would be more "fun and enjoyable". I've argued that the medicine is better than the sickness in this case and supported it with evidence. A survey which say "it's not nice" is not compelling evidence to make a change with negative forseeable consequences. 

I've also demonstrated several pieces of interactivity involved in the shooting phase as is with examples of units which actually exist. And I regularly post in various faction threads to help players solve in game problems with a little for thought and information. 

You can resort to ad homonym attacks if you'd like, but stomping your feet like a child denied sweets only underlines the lack of substance behind your argument. The best argument you've been able to make is that some segment "casual players" will be able to take heroes. Those heroes won't die to shooting now, and probably not magic shortly after. Therefore some players (a minority by your own words) will feel better about their games. 

I'm perfectly clear on what you are arguing I just think it's a vapid position to advocate for. And, believe once the reality is demonstrated people will be better equipped to deal with how they feel.

It's quite hilarious to see you write this, considering that you have a video from Venturella from just a couple weeks ago with the results of a poll he ran regarding NPE. Not only was Shooting/All-shooting armies part of what is considered NPE, it WON by a landsline as the nº1 source of NPE feeling in AoS players. Go watch his video if you believe this to be a ruse, but the results state the truth plain for all to see.

Not only we know for a fact that the overwhelming majority of the top armies in the meta rely either heavily or completely on shooting to win, we also have this data (which we all knew already, but more as a common complain/criticism of the current rules and meta) which shows that intensive shooting is not only strong, but absolutely hated by players.

You claim to be trying to simply give a "balanced perspective" but instead you're lying to people about what NPE is, and how shooting, despite what  data and meta analysis literally show, isn't actually game-winning right now. Also, citing some outlier units or specific examples is actually an objectively bad argument. For a defence against shooting to exist, it needs to be amply accessible, otherwise it's not a real defence. In the case of Sentinels, or KO, as two examples, this does not exist. The vast majority of armies has 0 defence against Sentinels, who care about neither armour nor vision, and KO will out-manoeuvre and shoot what they want (even if they are "less difficult" to content with, as screening does partially reduce the problem with them).

[yukishiro1]

Well, to be fair to the guy, his argument seems to be "I don't care what people say is NPE, they need to be educated to set aside their feelings and realign their expectations so they can see the error of their ways." 

I think it's a really weird way to look at the world and certainly not advice GW should be listening to on how to set up their game, but if you really believed that, it makes sense you wouldn't care about what people say is NPE to them, because you genuinely believe you know better than they do what they should like or dislike. 

[Ragest]

58 minutes ago, Doko said:

First,sisters if you count 24" then she shooting only one shoot,so at 24" vs a -1 hit hero the sisters have only 6 damage(1 mortal and 5 no rend damage)

Vs the less points sentinels at 36" doing 7 mortals wound and 1 or 2 no rend damage.

Very good balanced units

Now this damage vs a 3 save hero(heroes with natural 3 save as every melle hero or weak heroes in cover)

320 points sisters do a total of 3 damage(1 mortal and 2 regular)

280 sentinels do a total of 8 damage(7 mortals and 1 regular)

So cheapers,extra 8" range,ignore vision and can dispell enemy magic and have almost 300% more damage vs heroes.....good comparation

Even if you count the sisters with 2 shoots as you did,then his range is only 18" and cant move neither have enemy in melle and even at 18" vs the 36" of sentinels and being expensiver the sisters loose

The sisters with only 18" range have 6 damage vs a hero thar is lower than sentinels with double range and ignore vision.

And crssbowmens at 28" as you said is imposible because they cant move if you use the cp,so only 24" range and does 22 no rend damage vs heroes that with save 3 gonna be 7'3 damage that is the same than the sentinels,BUT at 24" cant move and spending 1 cp vs the 36" ignore vision of sentinels

So if you want compare crossbowmen vs sentinels you must do it with the 18" profile of sentinels that with the move is 24" as thecrossbowmens.

So im sorry but its imposible the comparation,sentinels are waaaaaaaay better than any city of sigmar unit sniping heroes, and with the double range and ignore vision.

 

Sentinels must only does mortals with wound rolls and cost 160 to only start to be balanced

Ok, do the maths with sentinels being 160 points and doing mw on a 6 to wound (because nobody will waste a spell to get the 5 to wound).

Next step, look for a replacement to that garbage in the army.

I don't know why people try to hide the desire about deleting some armies they don't like by calling it “balancing”.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Ragest

[Vasshpit]

Also they are super squishy!! Get in fast, hit hard, feed the gruntas. 

[novakai]

maybe a solution would just give  foot heroes better protection against shooting (extreme case would be to make them un-targetable when in look out sir range or maybe something similar to the necromancer where they pass on attack to nearby units) but buff up  melee assassin foot heroes  like  the deathmaster  or Tenebral Shard to have strong abilities to jump past screens into these heroes (Flying charge, better Deepstriking abilities, ect) maybe still a bit NPE but feels a bit fairer then being dumpster at long range.

i guess you can have certain sniper heroes that ignores LOS like 40k Vindicare assassin  do

[Doko]

27 minutes ago, Ragest said:

Ok, do the maths with sentinels being 160 points and doing mw on a 6 to wound (because nobody will waste a spell to get the 5 to wound).

Next step, look for a replacement to that garbage in the army.

I don't know why people try to hide the desire about deleting some armies they don't like by calling it “balancing”.

Sure why not.

At 160 points doing mortals with wounds:

At 36" --1'7mortals wounds and 0'85 regular damage

At 24" --2'2 mortals and 1'1 rend 1 damage

So now they are balanced per example stormcast silimar unit of vanguard raptors with longstrike ballest cost 170 that is expensiver

At 30" because they cant move --3'3 rend2 damage or 2 mortals and 1 rend 2 damage.

 

So it is the same numbers,but stormcast are expnsiver,cant cancel magic,dont ignore vision,less wounds,less range.

 

Why when people have units umbalanced and broken in their tome are happy with that free win and dont want have a balanced tome?

[yukishiro1]

The Vindicare is pretty terrible, if AOS shooting was as bad as him I don't think anybody would be complaining. 😄

Ranged MWs should just be really rare, it's such a powerful effect that removes so much counterplay. They should certainly not be keyed off an unmodified to-hit roll,  not in a game where your primary defense to being sniped is a -1 to hit and therefore where the mechanic completely bypasses the defense. 

It was a massive mistake to design a unit around the concept that they'd deliver most of their damage through mortal wounds at 30" range ignoring LOS. It's a real indictment of GW's design team that nobody spoke up partway through the design process and was like "guys...this is just bad. go back to the drawing board and figure out something else." 

Edited February 16, 2021 by yukishiro1

[stratigo]

6 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Nobody said any of that, certainly not me. There's not much point in talking to someone who misrepresents what you're saying to make it easier to argue against. 

Sentinels are an example of the problems with shooting in AOS because they so perfectly hit all the bases. The fact that many other shooting units are less problematic is part of the point being made - you have to be careful with shooting, because it has a tendency to become non-interactive and unfun very quickly do to its basic structure. If the game had a somewhat more limiting basic structure to shooting - like literally every other wargame does, there isn't a single other major wargame that has the lack of restrictions AOS does - you would have more design space to work with and wouldn't need to be so careful. Even Sentinels might be fine, for example, in a game with a meaningful Look out Sir rule and where you couldn't shoot into combats freely. When you have a basic mechanic with virtually no restrictions, that actually limits the design space, rather than expanding it. 

I'm not going to go into more detail until I've seen you're capable of reading what someone actually wrote, not rewriting it to make it easier to attack. 

 

Lol, I did read what you wrote, but you been banging on about how shooting, not sentinels, really should be nerfed. And then largely just use sentinels as your example of why shooting, the mechanic, should be nerfed.

 

Maybe, iunno, shooting is fine and sentinels should be nerfed?

4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Incidentally, I don't necessarily disagree with this. But the solution to the problem, to the extent there is one, isn't to give a small handful of armies the ability to delete the support heroes from anywhere on the board with no counter-play. That's piling problems on top of problems, instead of addressing them, and is part of what leads to the situation we find ourselves in now, where LRL are like "no I need this cheese to fight Seraphon!" and Seraphon are like "no I need this cheese to fight LRL!" and then Gitz are like "can i has cheezburger?" and Seraphon and LRL are like: "NO! go back to your corner." 

Also, to further illustrate the point re: what people don't like about shooting - the skink example is actually another good example of why restriction-free mechanics are NPE and people don't like them. The big issue with the skinks is that pretty much all their stuff just goes off automatically, with no fail points, and for the stuff that isn't automatic, it can be stacked so high it's practically automatic. This makes for a bad experience for the person on the receiving end. 

People don't like shooting because shooting is like uber-skinks: it just happens to you, with very limited options for doing anything about it other than sitting there and taking it and hoping GW has done their math well enough that you still have a chance. 

 

 I agree. GW should start consolidating support character profiles.

 

But this is less likely than them nerfing the shooting phase, cause GW makes bank off charging 40 bucks for a single model. Reducing the support characters going into the future is just not in the cards for the game.  Which sucks. There's never gonna be a good answer for this from GW. So, if you intend to compete, you better have a plan to nuke support heroes. Which is almost always going to involve shooting or magical shooting.  And I find support character proliferation way more annoying than strong shooting and much harder to address through simple balancing.

3 hours ago, Gistradagis said:

 

It's quite hilarious to see you write this, considering that you have a video from Venturella from just a couple weeks ago with the results of a poll he ran regarding NPE. Not only was Shooting/All-shooting armies part of what is considered NPE, it WON by a landsline as the nº1 source of NPE feeling in AoS players. Go watch his video if you believe this to be a ruse, but the results state the truth plain for all to see.

Not only we know for a fact that the overwhelming majority of the top armies in the meta rely either heavily or completely on shooting to win, we also have this data (which we all knew already, but more as a common complain/criticism of the current rules and meta) which shows that intensive shooting is not only strong, but absolutely hated by players.

You claim to be trying to simply give a "balanced perspective" but instead you're lying to people about what NPE is, and how shooting, despite what  data and meta analysis literally show, isn't actually game-winning right now. Also, citing some outlier units or specific examples is actually an objectively bad argument. For a defence against shooting to exist, it needs to be amply accessible, otherwise it's not a real defence. In the case of Sentinels, or KO, as two examples, this does not exist. The vast majority of armies has 0 defence against Sentinels, who care about neither armour nor vision, and KO will out-manoeuvre and shoot what they want (even if they are "less difficult" to content with, as screening does partially reduce the problem with them).

The funny thing is, KO, not doing so hot overall as an army according to the latest stats (Like, I'm literally watching statscenter right now) and, like, Lumineth NEVER has.  And KO doesn't have builds that aren't shooting based. So why are lists not taking advantage of the alpha doing so much worse? They're just as shooting reliant. It's cause the problem isn't shooting, it's movement.

 

Honestly, this becomes a case of propaganda, where people on the internet saying "it's shooting that's the worst" self proliferates until the actual issues with the game are drowned out. And then GW listens to them and I get to spend another 2 years not playing AoS because GW decided my army should be in the trash.  I just gotta hope inertia keeps GW from nerfing an entire phase into uselessness and they go with less sweeping changes that will actually be better for the game. And nerfing the shooting phase of course doesn't touch on a model like kroak that pulses out all the mortal wounds in the hero phase.

3 hours ago, Doko said:

Sure why not.

At 160 points doing mortals with wounds:

At 36" --1'7mortals wounds and 0'85 regular damage

At 24" --2'2 mortals and 1'1 rend 1 damage

So now they are balanced per example stormcast silimar unit of vanguard raptors with longstrike ballest cost 170 that is expensiver

At 30" because they cant move --3'3 rend2 damage or 2 mortals and 1 rend 2 damage.

 

So it is the same numbers,but stormcast are expnsiver,cant cancel magic,dont ignore vision,less wounds,less range.

 

Why when people have units umbalanced and broken in their tome are happy with that free win and dont want have a balanced tome?

 

Stormcast are also one of the worst armies in the game right now, and are not a target for balancing units towards. 

 

3 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Well, to be fair to the guy, his argument seems to be "I don't care what people say is NPE, they need to be educated to set aside their feelings and realign their expectations so they can see the error of their ways." 

I think it's a really weird way to look at the world and certainly not advice GW should be listening to on how to set up their game, but if you really believed that, it makes sense you wouldn't care about what people say is NPE to them, because you genuinely believe you know better than they do what they should like or dislike. 

 

Because people aren't very good a metric for anything. They are barely a good metric for basing a government on really.

 

Statistics and gameplay are a better tool, and, like, people who actually know how to read them and not go "Oh, I see KO are this month's top faction. Time to nerf every army's shooting". That would be just as nuts as a year going "Ah, Hedonites are the best faction. Time to nerf all melee"

 

3 hours ago, novakai said:

maybe a solution would just give  foot heroes better protection against shooting (extreme case would be to make them un-targetable when in look out sir range or maybe something similar to the necromancer where they pass on attack to nearby units) but buff up  melee assassin foot heroes  like  the deathmaster  or Tenebral Shard to have strong abilities to jump past screens into these heroes (Flying charge, better Deepstriking abilities, ect) maybe still a bit NPE but feels a bit fairer then being dumpster at long range.

i guess you can have certain sniper heroes that ignores LOS like 40k Vindicare assassin  do

Be really neat to have dedicated assassins. But they'd also have to get there before the support characters go off and the hammer unit has won the game for your opponent. Or you, because AoS is that kind of arms race.

 

3 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

The Vindicare is pretty terrible, if AOS shooting was as bad as him I don't think anybody would be complaining. 😄

Ranged MWs should just be really rare, it's such a powerful effect that removes so much counterplay. They should certainly not be keyed off an unmodified to-hit roll,  not in a game where your primary defense to being sniped is a -1 to hit and therefore where the mechanic completely bypasses the defense. 

It was a massive mistake to design a unit around the concept that they'd deliver most of their damage through mortal wounds at 30" range ignoring LOS. It's a real indictment of GW's design team that nobody spoke up partway through the design process and was like "guys...this is just bad. go back to the drawing board and figure out something else." 

 

that's cause 40k support heroes tend to be tankier MEQs then AoS support heroes. He reliably snipe out guard heroes

 

4 hours ago, Gistradagis said:

 

It's quite hilarious to see you write this, considering that you have a video from Venturella from just a couple weeks ago with the results of a poll he ran regarding NPE. Not only was Shooting/All-shooting armies part of what is considered NPE, it WON by a landsline as the nº1 source of NPE feeling in AoS players. Go watch his video if you believe this to be a ruse, but the results state the truth plain for all to see.

Not only we know for a fact that the overwhelming majority of the top armies in the meta rely either heavily or completely on shooting to win, we also have this data (which we all knew already, but more as a common complain/criticism of the current rules and meta) which shows that intensive shooting is not only strong, but absolutely hated by players.

You claim to be trying to simply give a "balanced perspective" but instead you're lying to people about what NPE is, and how shooting, despite what  data and meta analysis literally show, isn't actually game-winning right now. Also, citing some outlier units or specific examples is actually an objectively bad argument. For a defence against shooting to exist, it needs to be amply accessible, otherwise it's not a real defence. In the case of Sentinels, or KO, as two examples, this does not exist. The vast majority of armies has 0 defence against Sentinels, who care about neither armour nor vision, and KO will out-manoeuvre and shoot what they want (even if they are "less difficult" to content with, as screening does partially reduce the problem with them).

 

Okay, what are, in your estimation based on whomever, the top armies in the meta? 

[yukishiro1]

I think you're kinda missing the point by conflating whether something is overpowered with whether it's not a fun game experience. I mean you could nerf Sentinels via points to the point where taking them was an objectively terrible idea...and it still wouldn't make it any more fun to have your heroes sniped out by them with no counterplay. It'd still be NPE, it would just be underpowered NPE instead of overpowered NPE. It's worst when something is both NPE and overpowered, because when something is overpowered you see it everywhere...but something doesn't have to be overpowered to be NPE.

Speaking for myself, it's not that I want to see shooting nerfed per se in terms of being made objectively worse...I want it to work differently, more the way the rest of the game does, where there is interactivity and counter-play. I use the Sentinels example (I feel like I'm repeating myself here, but I guess it didn't get through the first time) not because they're overpowered but because their basic schtick is the perfect example of a unit that just does its things no matter what and you have to just sit there and have it be done to you, which is the fundamental problem with shooting in AOS. 

I want a game where if someone snipes out my heroes I feel like "well, that's a tactical choice I made not to protect them," not "well, I was playing LRL, so that means my heroes just all die no matter what." Even if the clear tactical choice is to let them die, I want the sense that I'm involved in the process, not just the NPC getting whacked. You have that feeling in 40k with shooting. You have that feeling in AOS with melee, for that matter. You don't have that feeling in AOS with shooting.

If that ended up being a game where shooting was actually more deadly, but with more ways to mitigate it...that's fine by me. It's not that I want my support hero to survive standing out in the open if he's targeted by a bunch of archers. It's that I don't want to feel like my support hero is always standing out in the open ready to be no-scoped, no matter what I actually do. 

Now there's a billion different ways you could accomplish that (aside from reworking Sentinels, obviously, which is a separate issue and needs to happen no matter what). You could make terrain a bigger deal. You could lower ranges significantly - if almost all ranged weapons were 18 inches or shorter, and the standard was 12", that means you actually can screen them out. You could buff Look out Sir to actually significantly limit sniping. You could put in stuff like a morale check to fire at something other than the closest target that add RNG to the process and therefore make shooting less reliably be able to delete exactly the thing you want to delete. I mean we could go on a long time here. The problem isn't figuring out ways to do it, it's getting GW to see that a non-interactive phase with few if any meaningful restrictions does not a fun game experience make. 

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Saxon]

3 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

The Vindicare is pretty terrible, if AOS shooting was as bad as him I don't think anybody would be complaining. 😄

Ranged MWs should just be really rare, it's such a powerful effect that removes so much counterplay. They should certainly not be keyed off an unmodified to-hit roll,  not in a game where your primary defense to being sniped is a -1 to hit and therefore where the mechanic completely bypasses the defense. 

It was a massive mistake to design a unit around the concept that they'd deliver most of their damage through mortal wounds at 30" range ignoring LOS. It's a real indictment of GW's design team that nobody spoke up partway through the design process and was like "guys...this is just bad. go back to the drawing board and figure out something else." 

Lumineth are problematic for AOS on the basis that 1) autocasting spells is terrible and 2) MW from shooting on a 5 can rip apart anything. 

To expand on point 1, autocasting against an army like nighthaunt is basically an auto-win. The autocast can basically knock out support heroes in 1-2 turns rendering the spooky boys useless. Whoever came up with this rule set really didn't think it through. It's awful. A player in our group runs Luminth and no one is particularly keen to play him. 

To expand on point 2, i'd really love to see limits to shooting into combat. It would stop shooty lists tying up chaff with a throw away unit and then murdering everything else. For armies with no shooting, they have no choice to engage but these armies with obvious singular tactics of tie up the opponent and then pick them off at range is a bit boring. Not being able to shoot into combat would at least make them think more about tactics. 

[yukishiro1]

Yeah, LRL are an amazing grab-bag of NPE game mechanics. Whoever designed that book and whoever oked it both need to be taken off lead duty for a while. Again, the issue isn't that it's overpowered - it's definitely competitive, but I don't think it's so powerful in raw terms as to be a problem for the game. But it's hugely unfun to play against because so many of the mechanics are about making it difficult for the other player to influence the game. Do you use command points? Lol, have fun doing half as much as normal. Do you use magic? Lol, have fun not being able to use it. Do you have support heroes? Lol, have fun having them all sniped out by T2 at the latest. Do you rely on saves for protection? Lol, have fun with an army that can largely bypass it. Ditto for minuses to hit and to wound - they can largely bypass those too. This isn't even an exhaustive list. 

People don't generally play wargames to feel like they're the NPC. LRL are designed around turning the opponent into an NPC. It's not a good way to design a faction. People play the game to do cool stuff with their army, not to watch their opponent stop them from being able to do cool stuff with their army. 

Edited February 17, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Vasshpit]

I'm a fan of all the universal command abilities. This type of mechanic levels the playing field a bit more in my opinion.

What if a few universal rules were put in place such as units with shields recieve a "reroll to hit against shooting" or something along these lines? I believe something like this could alleviate shootings overly powerful presence.

I'm sure there are more universal rules that could be implemented to further balance and increase strategic options without overly complicating and adding to rules bloat. 

As a sidenote I'm also a firm believer that GW intentionally makes a few rules OP when new things drop to boost sales. Tin foil hat, I know but it just seems to play out very often. (Original Petrifex Elite anyone 😉)

Also, da fak is NPE!!??😅

Edited February 17, 2021 by Vasshpit

[yukishiro1]

Negative play experience. Basically, whatever you don't enjoy about the game. If anyone hasn't watched Vince's recent episode on this topic, I'd really recommend it. Their survey data is broken down in a great amount of detail. You can see exactly what people don't like in AOS, and there's a lot of interesting recurring themes, largely to do with feeling like you're being made into a spectator rather than a participant.