Jump to content

Discussing balance in AoS


Enoby

Recommended Posts

4 hours ago, relic456 said:

I'm curious to see what you think that would look like. By nature the game is competitive because it's one player versus another. Are there any games or systems that pit two players against each other that don't inspire competition?

Having come from Historical Wargaming I’d note that the community there is often able to embrace a different dynamic.  For lack of a better term I’d call it the “learning mindset”.  Since they are recreating historical battles and in history the generals didn’t get together beforehand and exchange unit lists to make sure everything was balanced I often sat down to a game where I knew ahead of time I had a 90%+ chance of losing the battle in the traditional sense.

Now the “solution” is usually to give the two historical armies different win conditions.  This can work out two ways.  In one context you could have both players “win” in both achieve their objectives (or alternately both fail...) as, for example, the understrength player outperforms history by identifying an alternative strategy (or the dice are in their favor) but the stronger army still secures its objectives.  In these scenarios “learning” feels paramount as you are often struggling as much or more against the historical limitations (as incorporated into the game design) as your opponent.

The alternate creates for the understrength player the opportunity to force their stronger opponent to “win the battle but lose the war”.  These are often “fighting retreat” scenarios.  If the understrength player can save sufficient units, or hold out in certain objectives long enough then even if by traditional measures they “lost” they still “win” the scenario.

AoS players have so embraced the incredibly unrealistic points system of ensuring each army at least theoretically evenly matched (again, in real battles this is almost never the case) and uniform objectives in battleplans (again, in real battles this is almost never the case) that these game play opportunities are lost.  Clearly this heightens concern re:balance.  9e 40k may have taken a step in the right direction with secondaries allowing two players to have to very different paths to a victory but too early to tell really.

To be clear, I came to AoS burned out by the abstraction in the name of realism that can creep into historical and I continue to have very positive game experiences in AoS so this isn’t to argue historical de facto better.  Just that there may be mindset takeaways AoS could benefit from in looking at historical.

  • Like 8
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Absolutely spot on. The other big things in historical gaming you don't hear whining and complaining about the armies having different objectives because that somehow not fair. Both armies having different objectives means you don't need to have balanced forces because your win condition is different. 

Yet in Warhammer people expect everything to be almost identical or as close as possible or it somehow cannot be balanced and cannot be enjoyable. Which is more funny when you think of the fact that points are not at all balanced they just give the illusion of balance and the point of list building as a skill is to make your 2000 points behave like 3,000 in which case you're not being balanced anyway. 

Edited by wayniac
  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

Having come from Historical Wargaming I’d note that the community there is often able to embrace a different dynamic.  For lack of a better term I’d call it the “learning mindset”.  Since they are recreating historical battles and in history the generals didn’t get together beforehand and exchange unit lists to make sure everything was balanced I often sat down to a game where I knew ahead of time I had a 90%+ chance of losing the battle in the traditional sense.

Now the “solution” is usually to give the two historical armies different win conditions.  This can work out two ways.  In one context you could have both players “win” in both achieve their objectives (or alternately both fail...) as, for example, the understrength player outperforms history by identifying an alternative strategy (or the dice are in their favor) but the stronger army still secures its objectives.  In these scenarios “learning” feels paramount as you are often struggling as much or more against the historical limitations (as incorporated into the game design) as your opponent.

The alternate creates for the understrength player the opportunity to force their stronger opponent to “win the battle but lose the war”.  These are often “fighting retreat” scenarios.  If the understrength player can save sufficient units, or hold out in certain objectives long enough then even if by traditional measures they “lost” they still “win” the scenario.

AoS players have so embraced the incredibly unrealistic points system of ensuring each army at least theoretically evenly matched (again, in real battles this is almost never the case) and uniform objectives in battleplans (again, in real battles this is almost never the case) that these game play opportunities are lost.  Clearly this heightens concern re:balance.  9e 40k may have taken a step in the right direction with secondaries allowing two players to have to very different paths to a victory but too early to tell really.

To be clear, I came to AoS burned out by the abstraction in the name of realism that can creep into historical and I continue to have very positive game experiences in AoS so this isn’t to argue historical de facto better.  Just that there may be mindset takeaways AoS could benefit from in looking at historical.

I hear where you are coming from, but with AOS people are generally not looking to recreate or to retell a historical (or historical-fictional) battle (though there is the narrative campaign system for that, where balance is never a thing). In match play, where people are concerned with points and balance, it is because they are looked at AOS as a competitive game system. In theory, I suppose, one could build a competitive asymmetrical system (n 1), but I think that would be much harder than just trying to find a modicum of balance. 

 

n 1. Just spit-balling, but how about for a modified version of match play, one player draws up two lists and a scenario, and the other player decides which list he'll take? it would require in-depth familiarity with both armies - but that might be interesting! (As an old-school hex-and-counter wargamer, I remember flipping sides after a first play-throuhh and replaying scenarios to sort of see who had the better insight on the dynamics of particular battles.)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Galas said:

Probably deluding was too strong of a word. I apologize for using it, english is not my first lenguage.

 

For me AoS was like the Warcraft movie. A guilty pleasure. I love the warcraft movie, I'm a warcraft fanboy for life (even if in years past, blizzard has lost me). But the movie was, at best, a high 5, but not even a 6.

One can absolutely enjoy Age of Sigmar. I did. And theres nothing wrong with that. But the objetive quality of the game is very low. Specially as it is right now.

subjective quality* 

It‘s your opinion, objectively the quality is very high, because there is quite some good work involved. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, annarborhawk said:

Just spit-balling, but how about for a modified version of match play, one player draws up two lists and a scenario, and the other player decides which list he'll take? it would require in-depth familiarity with both armies - but that might be interesting!

Wasn’t exactly that but in Zoom League we played a tourney where four players submitted four lists.  They did a normal round robin with their own list and then the lists flipped and they played against their own list with each of the other three lists.

As far as asymmetric tournament play it’s tough but I don’t think impossible but I tend to think it might work better in team play.  For simplicity let’s start with three players per team.  Each player brings a 2k version of their list and a 1K list.  For each Round there are two 2K vs 1K scenarios and one 2K vs 2K battle.  Each team chooses their 2K list for one of the 2K vs 1K matches.  These could be defending a territory where there are some defensive bonuses or maybe an escort mission where you need to get a model across the board, or you start in center and have to make a successful retreat, etc.  The other team chooses the 1K list they want to use for that scenario from their two remaining.  The remaining two lists meet in the 2K vs 2K match.

But outside of tournament play I think asymmetric can be easy to negotiate, especially if you’re willing to modify some of the scenarios from the battle tomes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

Now the “solution” is usually to give the two historical armies different win conditions.  This can work out two ways.  In one context you could have both players “win” in both achieve their objectives (or alternately both fail...) as, for example, the understrength player outperforms history by identifying an alternative strategy (or the dice are in their favor) but the stronger army still secures its objectives.  In these scenarios “learning” feels paramount as you are often struggling as much or more against the historical limitations (as incorporated into the game design) as your opponent.

That's a really interesting idea - you're not competing against the other player, but against "historical precedent". Regardless of whether your forces win or lose the battle, the measure of how well you've done is compared to how well Napoleon did in the same battle, or Katakros for that matter. Both players can win or lose independently of each other. This would be a good format for Narrative play, with uneven forces in unique scenarios, and would separate that mode of the game more cleanly from Matched play.

Still, I think you'd really struggle to get that to become the "normal" mode of AoS. People are pretty attached to the idea of beating their opponent.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, wayniac said:

Amen.  But since people try to turn ("twist") the game into a tournament game, it does skew everything else and has a trickle down effect.  And since it seems like those are the people who have GW's ear, it seems more and more like they are wanting to keep things broken so they can have their busted "competitive" combos.

Probably just worth saying this.  Having spoken to various members over the years, the AoS devs are very aware that competitive gaming only accounts for a small portion of all games played.  Although it may feel like it on occasion, competitive players don't have a special line to GW and playtesters don't ignore combos so that they can leap into a tournament with a broken army.

  • Like 4
  • Thanks 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Probably just worth saying this.  Having spoken to various members over the years, the AoS devs are very aware that competitive gaming only accounts for a small portion of all games played.  Although it may feel like it on occasion, competitive players don't have a special line to GW and playtesters don't ignore combos so that they can leap into a tournament with a broken army.

As good as that is to know,that raises even more concern for why we keep seeing them sneak in. It's usually been considered the crazy imbalance is either intentionally put there to allow for "mastery" or it's lack of design skill/knowledge and they keep being missed.  I imagine it's a combination of things (hard to test all the combos when you need to get it out the door) but still the fact it keeps happening after years and years....

Edited by wayniac
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, annarborhawk said:

I hear where you are coming from, but with AOS people are generally not looking to recreate or to retell a historical (or historical-fictional) battle (though there is the narrative campaign system for that, where balance is never a thing). In match play, where people are concerned with points and balance, it is because they are looked at AOS as a competitive game system. In theory, I suppose, one could build a competitive asymmetrical system (n 1), but I think that would be much harder than just trying to find a modicum of balance. 

I don't think that you are really forced to recreate historical battles. But @Beer & Pretzels Gamer has a point. In history forces were never balanced (at least not in the way with having similar points for both armies).

Limitations were mostly the Rescources to build weapons, economy and how many soldiers a country could have in a region.

At least in historical games this is repressented that an army has a fix number of slots for some types of units. (so a late war American Army can only have 1 platoon of Pershing or 1 Super Pershing but their are also large possibilities for missmatches (a heavy tank company against a Armoured Car Recce Company).

In AoS we partly have the problem, that it isn't even completly clear how an "historical" army would look like. The closest thing we have are basicly the Battalions. Some are entire armies, some are parts of an Army. Sadly some are feeling quite static, especially if units are spammed inside a Battalion and are only used in that one battalion.

But, looking at matched play lists their is also something that basicly doesn't exist. consequences.

Tournament Lists are often build with the best stuff the Battletome has (besides the point that both armies have a nearly same amount of points the rescources are nearly infinit). If we would do this in our world after some amount battles we would have a problem. In every battle soldiers get Injured or killed and equipment get's destroyed. The army would most likely win the first battles but in the end the army would cripple itself (if they even had the rescources in the first place).

This is the difference with Narrative play.

Metabuilds often won't really fit into the story behind (because of being unrealistic), but also games will most likely have consequenses because of the plot.

So instead of only "Meta-Balancing" maybe battletomes should have a little more focus how an army or part of it would look like (not with restrictions, but with Lore explanation). Their are some units that need to be fixed but metabuilds are quite often quite unrealistic so priority one should be fixing builds that are to strong/week that would be plausible in the lore.

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

So instead of only "Meta-Balancing" maybe battletomes should have a little more focus how an army or part of it would look like (not with restrictions, but with Lore explanation). Their are some units that need to be fixed but metabuilds are quite often quite unrealistic so priority one should be fixing builds that are to strong/week that would be plausible in the lore.

Thing is, without restrictions it will be ignored.  That's the issue.  If you want that to matter, you have to enforce it because trusting people to do it proves time and time again to not happen.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, wayniac said:

As good as that is to know,that raises even more concern for why we keep seeing them sneak in. It's usually been considered the crazy imbalance is either intentionally put there to allow for "mastery" or it's lack of design skill/knowledge and they keep being missed.  I imagine it's a combination of things (hard to test all the combos when you need to get it out the door) but still the fact it keeps happening after years and years....

Couple of reasons I've heard.  The playtesting cycle involves quite a few rounds of testing & changes going back and forth.  On a few occasions a last minute change results in something going in that's not been tested (yay to deadlines) and causes something broken to get included.  The other thing (that I encounter during my work) is that you can try to think of all the broken combinations you can dream up, but once that book hits the public you can be sure that they'll spot something you've missed - it's the same as somebody looking over your shoulder and working out the answer to a crossword clue!

I know GW have been advertising for additional staff recently, so hopefully a bit more resource will help them nail it a bit more regularly.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Still, I think you'd really struggle to get that to become the "normal" mode of AoS. People are pretty attached to the idea of beating their opponent.

One thing I’ve found interesting is that when people are prepping for tournaments they still insist on even 2K games.  When I played sports “overload” drills were a key to success.  In (American) Football could the offensive line pass block when there was an extra rusher or two or on defense could we get to the QB if there were extra blockers?  In basketball could we prevent a game winning shot with only 4 defenders or could we make one against 6?  When I later coached soccer I would regularly send 4-5 attackers against 2 defenders and a keeper to force communication.  

In all cases these overload drills greatly helped player development.  Yet the idea of an overload drill in AoS for tournament practice seems anathema for reasons I don’t fully understand.  Which is a shame because it seems like such an obvious solution to a common complaint on both sides (both the “no one wants to play my tournament list” and the “I’m sick and tired of playing tournament lists I lose to in 2 turns...”).  

Especially since almost everyone has that cool piece they don’t get to play.  So if you're rocking up to the table with your fine tuned Seraphon and really want to see how good it is why not tell your SCE to throw that Stardrake into the match?  Or if your one drop Changehost is about to go for a practice run why not tell your Sylvaneth opponent to bring out Alarielle?  If you can still compete on those terms aren’t you that much better prepared for a straight 2K?  And if you lose you still learned something about your army that likely makes it better when you do take it to a tourney.

To me that’s a win-win we as a community are just ignoring too often.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

One thing I’ve found interesting is that when people are prepping for tournaments they still insist on even 2K games.  When I played sports “overload” drills were a key to success.  In (American) Football could the offensive line pass block when there was an extra rusher or two or on defense could we get to the QB if there were extra blockers?  In basketball could we prevent a game winning shot with only 4 defenders or could we make one against 6?  When I later coached soccer I would regularly send 4-5 attackers against 2 defenders and a keeper to force communication.  

In all cases these overload drills greatly helped player development.  Yet the idea of an overload drill in AoS for tournament practice seems anathema for reasons I don’t fully understand.  Which is a shame because it seems like such an obvious solution to a common complaint on both sides (both the “no one wants to play my tournament list” and the “I’m sick and tired of playing tournament lists I lose to in 2 turns...”).  

Especially since almost everyone has that cool piece they don’t get to play.  So if you're rocking up to the table with your fine tuned Seraphon and really want to see how good it is why not tell your SCE to throw that Stardrake into the match?  Or if your one drop Changehost is about to go for a practice run why not tell your Sylvaneth opponent to bring out Alarielle?  If you can still compete on those terms aren’t you that much better prepared for a straight 2K?  And if you lose you still learned something about your army that likely makes it better when you do take it to a tourney.

To me that’s a win-win we as a community are just ignoring too often.

This is one of the things really miss from 1st edition Age of Sigmar pre-generals handbook. Uneven armies being normal, but giving the underdog (in terms of models) a new win condition (sudden death) that favors their smaller force.

This is also why I have high hopes for AoS objective scoring to move closer to 40k, being able to rock up to a table for a game, role a scenario, and then tailor your victory objectives for the game towards your armies strengths, I'm also excited for the prospect of army specific objectives that get added with new battletomes. 

All of these things help players tailor victory conditions to their armies and that means people still have to be concerned with what is "meta" but that they don't necessarily have to "compete" directly against meta lists on their terms. 

All the handwringing in this thread aside, I really think the future is bright for AOS balance with the rumors for the new edition!

Edited by Athrawes
  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, Athrawes said:

This is one of the things really miss from 1st edition Age of Sigmar pre-generals handbook. Uneven armies being normal, but giving the underdog (in terms of models) a new win condition (sudden death) that favors their smaller force.

Unfortunately, that still showed that people didn't want it, like if I've seen anything constantly shown among gamers, especially in Warhammer, it's that the illusion of balance is better than admitting there is none.  For example, you will happily see someone play a 2k list that can summon enough to be 3k and claim it's balanced because they are playing a 2k point game.  But that same person would scoff and balk at an asymmetrical scenario with 3k vs. 2k (even if it was them with the 3k) literally because the points are different; the fact that in the 2k vs. 2k game it still ends up being 3k vs. 2k doesn't mean anything because it's a "2k game".

However I do think a big issue with v1 AOS was you had people bitter over WHFB who would go in on purpose to break the game to "show" it was stupid and childish (and the joke rules didn't help either).  like I heard horror stories of people purposely going in with 6 wizards and summoning in a hundred models because the rules let them, or take like a few canons, pick an easy sudden death condition and win the game in 15 minutes.  All to "prove" that AOS was a stupid system that nobody should play because it's so easy to break.  The sad reality is v1 showed that the modern player for the most part does not want a system they have to police themselves and is incapable of doing it.  The fact you still find so many people who will argue vehemently how Matched Play is balanced because it uses points and that means Open/Narrative play can't be balanced speaks volumes.

What it really says, to me anyway, is that people want to fall back on the crutch of "it's a legal army" to defend themselves.  Think about it:  If you had no points, you would have nothing to fall back on if you're called out for being "that guy" who brings 3 keepers or whatever the cheese du jour is.  It would be blatantly obvious that you only care about winning, and not if your opponent has fun.  But if you're playing a points based game and you can legally take 3 keepers, well you're playing within the rules right?  Surely you can't be faulted for building a legal army in the framework provided.. you see where I'm going?  It puts all the blame on the rules/army book/designers rather than keeping some blame on the person who looks at the list and says "You know what, nothing stops me from taking all of these super powerful things so I'm gonna do it.  I don't care if Bob has fun or not" since they can shrug and say it's a legal army.

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Athrawes said:

This is also why I have high hopes for AoS objective scoring to move closer to 40k, being able to rock up to a table for a game, role a scenario, and then tailor your victory objectives for the game towards your armies strengths, I'm also excited for the prospect of army specific objectives that get added with new battletomes.

I am happy to see, that you're looking forward to this secondary objective mechanic, and I can totally understand, why you do so.

Personally, it raises more concern for me, than it raises optimism.
It really depends on how thos secondaries are being released. If every army can have the same, then it is fine. But if Battle Tomes come out, where those objectives are written, then it is already screwed. Because, what will happen is, armies having secondaries, and others don't.
I would not suggest, that GW would be so stupid to do this, but I was often disappointed.

Also, we do have secondaries in the game already. In teh actual GHB there are some to use. But to be honest, they have very little impact to a game.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, wayniac said:

Thing is, without restrictions it will be ignored.  That's the issue.  If you want that to matter, you have to enforce it because trusting people to do it proves time and time again to not happen.

Case in point: multiple Auric Runefathers or Abhorrent Archregents in the same list, when the lore outright states there’s only ever 1 at a time

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, Joseph Mackay said:

Case in point: multiple Auric Runefathers or Abhorrent Archregents in the same list, when the lore outright states there’s only ever 1 at a time

Pretty much.  Because it's not specifically restricted as being Unique

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Joseph Mackay said:

Case in point: multiple Auric Runefathers or Abhorrent Archregents in the same list, when the lore outright states there’s only ever 1 at a time

3 Arch-Regents and a Courtier as the general make my soul hurt. 

Also all time favorite: <random army list with god model leader> 

Some random Support Hero as General because HE is allowed to get a trait. 

 

Pls GW, make it so that unique Heroes get fixed traits they get when they are the general as in 40k, you can even write them on their Warscroll and say „If this model is your general“. 

But then again, that would not solve the problem really, people will always care more about better rules than lore. 

Can‘t even blame them in a game. As @wayniac said before - its in the rules so its allowed. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Couple of reasons I've heard.  The playtesting cycle involves quite a few rounds of testing & changes going back and forth.  On a few occasions a last minute change results in something going in that's not been tested (yay to deadlines) and causes something broken to get included.  The other thing (that I encounter during my work) is that you can try to think of all the broken combinations you can dream up, but once that book hits the public you can be sure that they'll spot something you've missed - it's the same as somebody looking over your shoulder and working out the answer to a crossword clue!

I know GW have been advertising for additional staff recently, so hopefully a bit more resource will help them nail it a bit more regularly.

I mean, I know for a fact that 40k playtesters were going "Yo, Iron Hands is busted. Yo, GW, you can't release these guys like this. Hey, man, don't" and GW released the iron hands supplement anyways.

 

GW isn't always great for taking feedback for a variety of reasons.

15 hours ago, Beer &amp; Pretzels Gamer said:

One thing I’ve found interesting is that when people are prepping for tournaments they still insist on even 2K games.  When I played sports “overload” drills were a key to success.  In (American) Football could the offensive line pass block when there was an extra rusher or two or on defense could we get to the QB if there were extra blockers?  In basketball could we prevent a game winning shot with only 4 defenders or could we make one against 6?  When I later coached soccer I would regularly send 4-5 attackers against 2 defenders and a keeper to force communication.  

In all cases these overload drills greatly helped player development.  Yet the idea of an overload drill in AoS for tournament practice seems anathema for reasons I don’t fully understand.  Which is a shame because it seems like such an obvious solution to a common complaint on both sides (both the “no one wants to play my tournament list” and the “I’m sick and tired of playing tournament lists I lose to in 2 turns...”).  

Especially since almost everyone has that cool piece they don’t get to play.  So if you're rocking up to the table with your fine tuned Seraphon and really want to see how good it is why not tell your SCE to throw that Stardrake into the match?  Or if your one drop Changehost is about to go for a practice run why not tell your Sylvaneth opponent to bring out Alarielle?  If you can still compete on those terms aren’t you that much better prepared for a straight 2K?  And if you lose you still learned something about your army that likely makes it better when you do take it to a tourney.

To me that’s a win-win we as a community are just ignoring too often.

a lot of the very best players do in fact do things like this, set up scenarios where they have a stark disadvantage and see how to move from there. Least in 40k, but I can't imagine the best AoS players don't.

 

  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, stratigo said:

a lot of the very best players do in fact do things like this, set up scenarios where they have a stark disadvantage and see how to move from there. Least in 40k, but I can't imagine the best AoS players don't.

I’d be thrilled if this were broadly true.  I’m just going by the common commentary that the vast majority of players, including tournament players, are reluctant to play matches where the points aren’t even.  If the top players talked about the value of doing this and it flowed into the broader game the way their lists inevitably do can only think it would be a good thing and reduce the frequent commentary that players are tired of either people not be willing to play against their tournament list or players sick of always losing to tournament lists.

Simply for clarification though are the scenarios you are discussing equivalent to chess end games set ups where they are removing pieces and positioning pieces on board in way they couldn’t be R0?  Think that’s great and admittedly probably closest to the sports practice examples I gave.  I’m just looking for a broader application that doesn’t require the opponent to completely subsume their own play style or agenda to the tournament list player’s.  Again, looking for a win-win.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, Beer &amp; Pretzels Gamer said:

I’d be thrilled if this were broadly true.  I’m just going by the common commentary that the vast majority of players, including tournament players, are reluctant to play matches where the points aren’t even.  If the top players talked about the value of doing this and it flowed into the broader game the way their lists inevitably do can only think it would be a good thing and reduce the frequent commentary that players are tired of either people not be willing to play against their tournament list or players sick of always losing to tournament lists.

Simply for clarification though are the scenarios you are discussing equivalent to chess end games set ups where they are removing pieces and positioning pieces on board in way they couldn’t be R0?  Think that’s great and admittedly probably closest to the sports practice examples I gave.  I’m just looking for a broader application that doesn’t require the opponent to completely subsume their own play style or agenda to the tournament list player’s.  Again, looking for a win-win.

Things like that yeah. 

 

I've known a few AoS players to practice by giving away every priority so they can try and manage being double turned too.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/30/2021 at 7:43 PM, wayniac said:

As good as that is to know,that raises even more concern for why we keep seeing them sneak in. It's usually been considered the crazy imbalance is either intentionally put there to allow for "mastery" or it's lack of design skill/knowledge and they keep being missed.  I imagine it's a combination of things (hard to test all the combos when you need to get it out the door) but still the fact it keeps happening after years and years....

You see the same kind of mistakes creeping into computer games, where they have much more data and more extensive beta testing. Mistakes happen. And there are so many variables in a game like AoS. External balance is just not the only thing that counts. 

And if they try to go on the save side with Battletomes which can draw easily from a whole range of other battletomes and books (eg. Chaos) many people aren’t happy either because their own battletome alone feels lackluster, and not everyone wants to have to venture outside of their book to have a competitive list. You could restrict this with keywords, but then some people complain that keywords are too restrictive and so on.

And all the while, despite threads like that, most people think that AoS is in a good place anyway (at least according to the surveys I have seen like Warhammer Weekly).

Let’s see what AoS3 brings, likely it will be a big mess at the start with some super powerful armies and a few that won’t work at all anymore, if 40k is an indication. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, LuminethMage said:

 

Let’s see what AoS3 brings, likely it will be a big mess at the start with some super powerful armies and a few that won’t work at all anymore, if 40k is an indication. 

I for one, welcome our forthcoming Beastmen and Goblin overlords led by Kragnos.

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking at some old (ancient) WDs and rulebooks there are quite a few scenarios which has the two players use differently sized armies, loads of variants of deployment, objectives and win states.

I like this format since they based it on a historical battle and tells you who fought but you're not restricted to using those armies and could easily use the rules for your own story or pick-up battle. One battleplan had the attacker going it to kill as much as possible as soon as possible (the earlier turns you got kill points the more they earned you) while the defender protected a communications beacon to hold out as long as possible. The attacker also had double the force and the outcome was always going to lead to the defender being wiped out.

In a way, I think 40k with its pri/sec objectives can achieve this or at least be a start for more variations in how we approach battles.

If they are done well, feels fair, I think they'll be welcomed by most players. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...