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What would you like for AoS 3


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On 2/17/2021 at 9:34 AM, Kadeton said:

And yet, the data we have overwhelmingly shows that players find shooting-heavy armies to be the least fun aspect of AoS. Is there a reason you only reference data that "agrees" with you?

I will note that 37% of surveyed by Vince pointed to shooting as NPE, that's certainly large but you than have rest of 63% of playerbase (almost 2/3) that do not share this opinion.

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18 minutes ago, Boar said:

I will note that 37% of surveyed by Vince pointed to shooting as NPE, that's certainly large but you than have rest of 63% of playerbase (almost 2/3) that do not share this opinion.

I am certain this is dependent on the quantity of shooting. No one minds if your enemy has one or two shootig units. Yet if the enemy blasts you off the table by turn two, then it is a NPE :D

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10 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

I am certain this is dependent on the quantity of shooting. No one minds if your enemy has one or two shootig units. Yet if the enemy blasts you off the table by turn two, then it is a NPE

And there is this, where we don't know how many of those 37% of surveyed pointed to shooting as shooting regardless of it's power.

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34 minutes ago, Boar said:

I will note that 37% of surveyed by Vince pointed to shooting as NPE, that's certainly large but you than have rest of 63% of playerbase (almost 2/3) that do not share this opinion.

You also have to look at that number in context. First and second place were also both under 50% (~47% for activation wars, ~42% for magical domination).  There is no single mechanic where the majority agrees that it affects their experience negatively. But I don't think that's a reasonable standards to look for with regard to when the negative play experience associated with a mechanic becomes problematic. For games, certain mechanics can become problematic long before the majority of the player base hates them. There is a statistic about how much dissatisfaction with the game as a whole a game can bear before the community starts collapsing. I can't recall it right now, but it was fairly low. Something between 10 to 20%.*

I think it's fairly likely that the 63% percent who do not mind shooting now would also not be upset if it became more interactive as a whole. I think there is little to be gained by being conservative when it comes to shooting in AoS right now. The mechanic is unpopular as things stand. And I think there are ways to make shooting more satisfying  without compromising the power level of shooting armies or hurting whatever functions shooting is supposed to fulfill in AoS.

I personally don't think a core rule change alone can balance shooting at this point. I still see many of the problems with shooting as problems with the Seraphon, LRL and KO books (plus maybe a few others). But I do believe core rules changes could make shooting more interesting for on the receiving end of it (and ideally for shooting armies, as well).

*Source: Trust me, bro 😎

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I am mostly pushing back against using those data points as "overwhelmingly showing" something, in this case that shooting is not liked. I also specifically acknowledged that 37% is not small number in itself in this context.

21 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I personally don't think a core rule change alone can balance shooting at this point.

Well terrain with appropriate terrain rules could make everything more interesting. Tough when any problem with whatever mechanic can be essentialy doubled by priority roll, well...

Other point is that inherently warscrolls+allegiance abilities will always retain power to destroy everything in core rules. Writers need to reign this too, no amount of brilliant core rules can help if warscrolls generate f.ex. too much damage, or strange interactions.

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5 minutes ago, Boar said:

Other point is that inherently warscrolls+allegiance abilities will always retain power to destroy everything in core rules. Writers need to reign this too, no amount of brilliant core rules can help if warscrolls generate f.ex. too much damage, or strange interactions.

Yeah, I think it's important to acknowledge that problems with balance generally cannot be fixed by altering the core rules. Balance is determined by unit profiles, points costs and army special rules.

It's equally important to acknowledge that broad mechanical problems generally cannot be fixed by altering unit profiles, points costs or special rules. If the problem is with the core mechanics, then the best solution is to change the core mechanics.

People may or may not have a balance problem with shooting, depending on their perspective - I honestly don't care. My problem is with the core mechanics of shooting making for dull, arduous games of dice-rolling instead of fun, engaging games of tactical decision-making. It's not a balance issue, and it can't be fixed with balance solutions.

I don't want shooting to be less powerful, or more powerful. I just want shooting to be more interesting.

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44 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

My problem is with the core mechanics of shooting making for dull, arduous games of dice-rolling instead of fun, engaging games of tactical decision-making. It's not a balance issue, and it can't be fixed with balance solutions.

I don't want shooting to be less powerful, or more powerful. I just want shooting to be more interesting.

Interesting. Tough you could say that f.ex. melee is just rolling dice, can you not?

You don't have alternate activations, but often lot of tought have to be given to targetting priorities (and hence positioning of your missile troops), and therein lies tactical decision making.

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27 minutes ago, Boar said:

Interesting. Tough you could say that f.ex. melee is just rolling dice, can you not?

Not really, no. With melee, you have to choose at the very least how you advance (do you push forward to get an easier charge but risk over-extending, or be more cautious but risk being unable to join the fight?), and the order of units to fight with (choosing one will often mean sacrificing another).

27 minutes ago, Boar said:

You don't have alternate activations, but often lot of tought have to be given to targetting priorities (and hence positioning of your missile troops), and therein lies tactical decision making.

Target priority without restriction is what I'd call a "boring decision". Yes, it involves some tactical analysis, but there's either a clear answer or a near-insignificant distinction between the choices. The kind of tactical decisions that are "interesting" are the ones where you're either taking a big risk in order to get a big reward (e.g. positioning for a charge), or making a painful sacrifice (e.g. choosing one unit to fight in melee, thus leaving another to die before they can swing). Crucially, the thing that makes the decision engaging for both players is that they must both get to exert influence over how big the risk or how painful the sacrifice is. I don't personally feel that AoS achieves that with its current shooting mechanics.

Basically all I'm after is making target priority for shooting into a more interesting decision that involves some risk or sacrifice, and which both players can meaningfully affect. That's why I thought it was interesting when 40k was brought up, since the differences in shooting between 40k and AoS are fairly subtle but combine to make 40k's shooting just interesting enough for me.

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21 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Not really, no. With melee, you have to choose at the very least how you advance (do you push forward to get an easier charge but risk over-extending, or be more cautious but risk being unable to join the fight?), and the order of units to fight with (choosing one will often mean sacrificing another).

Target priority without restriction is what I'd call a "boring decision". Yes, it involves some tactical analysis, but there's either a clear answer or a near-insignificant distinction between the choices. The kind of tactical decisions that are "interesting" are the ones where you're either taking a big risk in order to get a big reward (e.g. positioning for a charge), or making a painful sacrifice (e.g. choosing one unit to fight in melee, thus leaving another to die before they can swing). Crucially, the thing that makes the decision engaging for both players is that they must both get to exert influence over how big the risk or how painful the sacrifice is. I don't personally feel that AoS achieves that with its current shooting mechanics.

Basically all I'm after is making target priority for shooting into a more interesting decision that involves some risk or sacrifice, and which both players can meaningfully affect. That's why I thought it was interesting when 40k was brought up, since the differences in shooting between 40k and AoS are fairly subtle but combine to make 40k's shooting just interesting enough for me.

This is a game play problem not a rules problem. If you aren't equiped to put pressure on shooting units to make that decision less binary then you failed to come prepared to engage in shooting, as the player who is being shot. The reality is that shootings needs teeth for it to be worth interacting with and we need shooting schemes to make that interactivity interesting. 

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@Kadeton

Well, this boils down to personal feelings on the matter I feel.

Missile unit postioning often means exactly the same as in with melee units, putting yourself into position of vulnerability. There is difference tough that it's not in this turn but in next that I will feel consequences of my decisions. Maybe you are that much better player, but for me targetting priority is not as easy as you describe, and many battles I either won or lost based on this decisions.

Since you  bring 40k as better could you elaborate on what makes it better, and how it could improve AoS?

21 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

shooting schemes

What do you mean here?

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Shooting in 40k is far more interactive because you have far more options as the party being shot to feel like you're making choices about what to expose and what not to expose. 40k has:

1. Meaningful LOS-blocking through terrain. This means that you can use the board to limit which units your opponent can delete.

2. A meaningful Look out Sir rule that actually prevents character sniping. This means you can use your own units to limit which heroes your opponent can delete.

3. Meaningful ability to shut down shooting through tagging. This means you can shield your units using the enemy's units. 

AOS has none of this. Or rather, more precisely, it has versions of all of these that do very little to nothing in practice. AOS technically has Line of Sight, but in reality it doesn't, because nothing ever blocks LOS for anything when you use the terrain they intend you to use. It technically has Look out Sir, but it's a minor inconvenience at best for the best shooting units. It technically has the ability to limit shooting in that a unit in combat can only shoot what it's engaged with...but in practice this doesn't really amount to much, because other units can still shoot into combat, and for a bunch of other more complicated reasons we can go into if we really have to, but I don't want to bother unless you actually contest the general observation that AOS's shooting rules make it much harder to reduce shooting output through engaging the shooter in combat. 

These are three fundamental ways that 40k's shooting mechanics give you some control over what in your army gets shot. In AOS, shooting is basically just something that happens to you, especially with the new shooting units that have so much combined movement + range that they can hit basically anywhere on the table, so you can't even position your way to safety. 

 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

AOS technically has Line of Sight, but in reality it doesn't, because nothing ever blocks LOS for anything when you use the terrain they intend you to use

Thanks for reminiding me how I dislike current LoS rules. I hope they change that to some degree in AoS 3.

I am not exactly sold on 40k Look Out Sir, on one hand it can be silly as it is, brought before example of death by million arrows. OTOH such prohibition would create situation when it's back to buffed death stars. And if you dont have one, or something similar, well sucks to be you.

 

On another note I would like some change to pile-in mechanics, as it stands it's horrible with all those measurments who is closest. 40 Grots or similar and it's literal hell. Slowing battle resolution for questionable benefit in increased need for some thinking.

 

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37 minutes ago, Boar said:

Thanks for reminiding me how I dislike current LoS rules. I hope they change that to some degree in AoS 3.

I am not exactly sold on 40k Look Out Sir, on one hand it can be silly as it is, brought before example of death by million arrows. OTOH such prohibition would create situation when it's back to buffed death stars. And if you dont have one, or something similar, well sucks to be you.

 

On another note I would like some change to pile-in mechanics, as it stands it's horrible with all those measurments who is closest. 40 Grots or similar and it's literal hell. Slowing battle resolution for questionable benefit in increased need for some thinking.

 

Agree. Line of sight rules need to be better. As do scenery rules. There's plenty that could restrict shooting meta to more manageable levels. For example, plagueclaw and LRL cruise missile rules are just plain silly. If there is large scenery between you and a target, it should be at least-1 to hit, if allowing them to target that unit at all. 

Flying units are just as problematic. If you are behind a building, how could a frigate blast you unless they are right on top of the building?

Melee is more precise within the game's mechanics.  Shooting I guess should match melee for accuracy, otherwise why have it? Same with magic really.

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3 hours ago, Boar said:

@Kadeton

Well, this boils down to personal feelings on the matter I feel.

Missile unit postioning often means exactly the same as in with melee units, putting yourself into position of vulnerability. There is difference tough that it's not in this turn but in next that I will feel consequences of my decisions. Maybe you are that much better player, but for me targetting priority is not as easy as you describe, and many battles I either won or lost based on this decisions.

Since you  bring 40k as better could you elaborate on what makes it better, and how it could improve AoS?

What do you mean here?

I want to touch on the 40k point for a second. Yes 40k has more protection for characters than AoS, however 40k has many AoS level heroes in a game where even the most mediocre of units can pump out 10-15 dmg after saves, from18-24" at minimum sizes. We are talking about shooting magnatudes of power different here. I'd also suggest even with this protection people aren't using those models so the issue seems to be that it's the lack of doing anything not necessarily that these characters are getting killed.

On to what you asked me specifically.

Basically every faction has a specific purpose to why it shoots. Most factions can't muster the damage in the shooting phase to actually directly win the game. Most factions use shooting as a lubricant for their primary strategy. 

LRL for example use shooting to make up for their extremely lack of agility on the table. They need the threatening range attacks to get the opponent to advance, rather than just try and camp objectives. The pressure created by the a tangible threat to the cogs of the opponent's army. Without that threat LRL basically can't play the game as the lack the movement or in place of the movement that toughness to sprint onto objectives and hold out. 

KO uses its shooting to thin out combat threats to its otherwise fragile pieces. Which is why the point drops made such a massive impact previously they didn't have enough wounds to make the strategy work.

This is similar to how each faction gets to combat; teleport/redeployment, run+charge, fly, >3 pile-ins, etc. How I as the player interact with all of these is different on the board and by the decisions I make. And, I specifically take certain units to deal with, for example including screening units. 

As shooting continues to be integrated into the game I expect players to take units specifically to deal with shooting. Cheap fliers for example are pretty low value at the moment if you can't get enough bodies to screen. These units present a challenge to shooting armies and the controlling player. Do I take more models to tank the shooting, do I take fast vanguard type units to engage and threaten shooting units? The shooting player has to decide if they want to shoot the primary targets or the units that threaten the shooting units. 

My original argument has been that this sniping issues presents as a problem with shooting, when it is probably a problem with heroes. It could probably be resolved by adding 2-3 wounds to most foot heroes, and leaving the points as are, or making LoS -1 to hit and +1 to saves. 

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Minuses to hit and pluses to save do nothing against MWs, which is where the biggest problem is.

If you are really committed to fixing shooting not by limiting what can be shot but by giving people reasons they might not want to shoot certain targets, I would just say that any time you shoot at something that is either a hero under 10W OR engaged in combat, each hit on a 4+ can be assigned by the other player to any other target within 3" of what you're targeting. 

This fixes Look out Sir (the -1 to hit could just be removed) and the shooting into combat problem at the same time, as well as making shooting less reliable generally at sniping out particular targets. You can still try to snipe characters, but they can pass it off to nearby units on a 4+, which makes the math on killing them quite unreliable. You can still shoot into combat, but they can pass it off to your units instead of theirs, meaning you have to think about whether you want to retreat from combat before shooting, or take the risk of your own dudes getting hit. It gives both players a lot of ways to interact with the opponent's battle plan when it comes to shooting. 

Obviously you'd have to rebalance a fair amount of stuff to make this work (e.x. "can't retreat" abilities become more valuable, shooting becomes less valuable), but that's true of any significant change to the game.

Edited by yukishiro1
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52 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Minuses to hit and pluses to save do nothing against MWs, which is where the biggest problem is.

Tough that seems to be province of LRL Sentinels mostly? And where problem also lies with both range and no LOS requirement.

I would point that minus to hit would help if MW were generated on wound roll.

 

As for 4+ pass on unit, it reminds me of Look Out Sir! in WFB, where it was applicable. Passing it on any unit even enemy is interesting twist

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

Basically every faction has a specific purpose to why it shoots.

Ah so you meant strategy of using missile troops, thanks.

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This discussion is going in circles. 

AoS wanted to be accesssible and easy to play, so it has (upond other things) rather simple ranged combat rules and the random turn order to "spice things Up". 

Which was fine, i guess, as long as the game was always decided in the combat Phase ( where both players activate, so turn order does not matter too much). 

AoS 2 already did tone down casting a lot and added a few negatives to ranged combat as well.

But we DO see a lot more ranged Units, lately. I mean Slaanesh just got archers. So you know how Chaos players have been asking for archers? xD;)

Tzeentch  Daemons ( which i play myself and are absolutely devastating when shooting and defensive in combat) and KO have been clearly designed to be mainly shooting, other new battletomes have featured stronger shooting as well.

 

So IMHO wee either

A) need more complex/equal ranged combat rules. Might be Cover ( do not be tricked: 40k cover is also mostly "something really big to hide behind.. oops, can still be shot at"), might be modifiers, might be other things.

B) have to give up double turn ( because , as has already been mentioned several Times: beeing shot at twice in a row is just not a fun feeling. And that kind of emotional design matters!)

or C) "Go Back" on the importance of ranged combat.

 

As i do not realistically See C happening, would really like to keep AoS rules fun and simple and actually find the double turn fun most of the time... i am #sad about the whole situation.

Maybe we will see it solved the "GW" way, where ranged units see an increase in points and there are new releases featuring strong defence against ranged weapons. After all currently a lot of shields only work against melee... Just think what would happen if SE shields got +2 against ranged. Instant melee Meta xD

 

Edited by Koala
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4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

If you are really committed to fixing shooting not by limiting what can be shot but by giving people reasons they might not want to shoot certain targets, I would just say that any time you shoot at something that is either a hero under 10W OR engaged in combat, each hit on a 4+ can be assigned by the other player to any other target within 3" of what you're targeting. 

City of sigmar general have this same rule or almost the same and is 100% useless vs kroak and lumineths.

Look out sir must be a rule that makes imposible to target the hero with shooting and magic

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10 hours ago, Boar said:

Well, this boils down to personal feelings on the matter I feel.

Well... yes, obviously. All perceptions about the state of the game, and opinions on what should be changed or not, are personal feelings.

10 hours ago, Boar said:

Missile unit postioning often means exactly the same as in with melee units, putting yourself into position of vulnerability. There is difference tough that it's not in this turn but in next that I will feel consequences of my decisions. Maybe you are that much better player, but for me targetting priority is not as easy as you describe, and many battles I either won or lost based on this decisions.

There are key differences. For example, with a melee unit you are positioning to reduce the risk of charging - the payoff for success is that you get a chance to utilise that unit, and the penalty for failure is that the unit does nothing. Compare that to a shooting unit, where you can pre-measure everything - there's zero risk that something unexpected will prevent your unit from firing.

Your opponent can put a screening unit between your melee unit and their priority target, thus preventing you from taking the choice you ideally wanted. Instead, you have to make a non-ideal choice - charge the screen and leave your unit out of position, or don't charge at all. Compare that to a shooting unit, where the only ways to prevent it from targeting its ideal choice is to be a thousand miles away, or to engage it in melee - see "screening units" above for why this can be difficult.

Then, once your melee unit is in combat, there are still hard choices and risks. Choosing to fight with one unit leaves the others open to being attacked before they swing, so which are you prepared to sacrifice? And if your unit is unlucky and flubs its attacks, the unit it was attacking will get to punch it in the face. Compare that to shooting units, where there's no possibility of counter-attack and the only importance of choosing which unit to attack with next is to minimise overkill.

As for targeting priority not being easy - sure, sometimes you might have to take some time to weigh up the available options to determine which is currently the best. For your opponent, that process is as fun and interactive as watching someone do a maths exam. They don't get to jump in and punish you for making a bad choice in the way that they can in melee.

10 hours ago, Boar said:

Since you  bring 40k as better could you elaborate on what makes it better, and how it could improve AoS?

I think @yukishiro1 covered this really well.

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@Kadeton

I mean, you are not wrong. But many of differences between melee and missile combat will remain as they stem from what they inherently are and can be. And so I feel there is limit of what you can expect from those to achieve. They are simply operating in slightly different frames of reference. And hence expectations of them will and should differ.

@yukishiro1gave us some insight on 40k, but even with those, melee still would be somewhat more engaging option. Tough not being able to shoot into melee (if I understood it correctly) could just devastate shooting in AoS which is mostly melee based. The question remains what amount of changes are enough for different players?

Obviously for me it's on okeyish side - servicable, but I would kill for nice LoS rules for example. For you it's not good enough as it is.

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4 hours ago, Boar said:

I mean, you are not wrong. But many of differences between melee and missile combat will remain as they stem from what they inherently are and can be. And so I feel there is limit of what you can expect from those to achieve. They are simply operating in slightly different frames of reference. And hence expectations of them will and should differ.

Yeah, for sure. There needs to be some inherent differences between them. I'm not saying they should have the same set of risks and rewards, just using the risks involved in melee as a touchstone for the kind of factors which make for interesting decisions. I suppose that my position more or less boils down to shooting not having enough uncertainty, and not enough ways that the opponent can interfere with a shooting army's game-plan.

4 hours ago, Boar said:

@yukishiro1gave us some insight on 40k, but even with those, melee still would be somewhat more engaging option. Tough not being able to shoot into melee (if I understood it correctly) could just devastate shooting in AoS which is mostly melee based. The question remains what amount of changes are enough for different players?

Obviously for me it's on okeyish side - servicable, but I would kill for nice LoS rules for example. For you it's not good enough as it is.

This thread isn't about reaching a consensus on what AoS 3 should be - it's about sharing our individual thoughts and opinions on what we'd like to see. (This is why it's been so annoying that certain people have spent the whole thread just trying to shout down other people's opinions.)

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