Discussing balance in AoS

[wayniac]

A big problem with that sort of imbalance is that you have people actively telling new players to stay away from those armies or, worse, if they like a particular army immediately pointing them towards the netlist without finding it out what they like or what they want to achieve. 

The reasoning is they don't want to let the new person invest a lot of money in an army that is weak or can't perform but the problem here is you're telling somebody who may like the aesthetics of Sylvaneth that the game is so bad the army they like is garbage And they will lose just because they picked it. Who would stay in a game like that? I know if that had been my first experience I would have been like what the hell what's wrong with this game and found something else to play that doesn't have that problem. 

I think another big problem is in warhammer in particular, you rarely if ever see advice on how to make what you want work in the context of the game rather than throwing it all away and picking these completely different units instead. For example when I played other miniature games you never saw the latter And it was almost always the former. If somebody liked particular units that weren't that great at that point in time they were not pointed away from them they were pointed how to make the most out of them. 

If you cannot do that at all in Warhammer then that speaks volumes to how bad the balance is. The answer to somebody saying I like these units when those units are not super great should never be Don't take those units at all take these completely different units regardless of what you like, but instead synergies and ways to make the most out of those units. 

Edited May 5, 2021 by wayniac

[Overread]

Wargaming in general has a heavily under developed sense of talking about the game itself. Tactics, deployment, movement, target prioritising are all basically unmentioned barring in the most general of terms. To the point where people think screening units is a tactic that has developed since Double Turns became a thing. 

Basically working with what you've got is less established and the online chatter focuses purely on the statistical best conditions. So any army that isn't, on paper, the best is instantly discounted. The problem there is that it is very open to hyperbole

 

 

 

And balance and tactics discussions often go in circles. Heck look at this thread, we've limited actual balance discussion. We've a lot on what kind of balance we'd like (which is broadly the same idea just being reworded a dozen times or more); and a lot of showing of event stats (national and local level) in terms of showing what might be under/over performance of armies. But we've no real drilling into the hard core statistical numbers. Nor really hard core presentation of heavy data to adjust the balance by. It's all in very generalist terms. 

 

The sad thing is getting generalist terms boils down to "army good, army not good" which isn't helpful. 

 

I've also seen it in the past (sometimes more with other systems like Warmachine) where an army is underpowered until someone wins a big event with that army; then suddenly its overpowered . It highlights how the player is important in the game as well, on both sides, but its often the element we least remember to include and have the hardest time talking about. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

7 minutes ago, Overread said:

Wargaming in general has a heavily under developed sense of talking about the game itself. Tactics, deployment, movement, target prioritising are all basically unmentioned barring in the most general of terms. To the point where people think screening units is a tactic that has developed since Double Turns became a thing. 

Basically working with what you've got is less established and the online chatter focuses purely on the statistical best conditions. So any army that isn't, on paper, the best is instantly discounted. The problem there is that it is very open to hyperbole.

I have seen that in a lot of other games, too. People discuss the numbers a lot, but the actual decision making component of the game very little. I think it's just because the numbers are more concrete and immediately accessible. Talking about decision making is a lot more ephemeral. Plus, I would guess that a lot of players spend 95% of their time engaging with the game working on lists and hobbying, because you can do those things on your own.

That said, though, I think balance discussions are still worth having, even if they tend to repeat themselves somewhat. It's useful for people to participate in actually having to make their points and having others respond to them. Not necessarily to solve any particular problem about balance, but to get a deeper understanding about the complexity of the issue.

[Kadeton]

36 minutes ago, wayniac said:

Who would stay in a game like that? I know if that had been my first experience I would have been like what the hell what's wrong with this game and found something else to play that doesn't have that problem. 

What would you have played instead? I can't think of any tabletop game I've played that doesn't have that problem. As soon as internet pundits get involved, everyone's perception of the state of the game gets polarised to categorising everything as "trash tier" or "god tier" and nothing else matters.

I guess a lot of this conversation is coming from differences in those expectations. To you (perhaps, don't want to put words in your mouth) the fact that some units and some armies are terribly under- or over-tuned is untenable and needs to be corrected. To me, that just feels like the inherent nature of wargames, because I've never found one that works any other way. Some are more evenly balanced than AoS, some are less, but they all have their garbage never-picks, their trap choices, their OP BS.

[wayniac]

1 hour ago, Kadeton said:

What would you have played instead? I can't think of any tabletop game I've played that doesn't have that problem. As soon as internet pundits get involved, everyone's perception of the state of the game gets polarised to categorising everything as "trash tier" or "god tier" and nothing else matters.

I guess a lot of this conversation is coming from differences in those expectations. To you (perhaps, don't want to put words in your mouth) the fact that some units and some armies are terribly under- or over-tuned is untenable and needs to be corrected. To me, that just feels like the inherent nature of wargames, because I've never found one that works any other way. Some are more evenly balanced than AoS, some are less, but they all have their garbage never-picks, their trap choices, their OP BS.

I get what you're saying but I've never found a game as bad as GW games in that regard.  Every other game I've played, while there are imbalances, it's never to the point of saying "Don't play that, it's terrible and you'll lose constantly", it's more like "That's not meta right now but here's how you can make the most of it".  Only Warhammer it seems to be binary to where there's seemingly  nothing to be done to make it even remotely playable, it's pure garbage and you're wasting money/time if you pick to play it.  At least that seems to be the way people approach it as I frequently see people dissuade someone from playing a certain army or units by dismissing the entire thing as "bad".

A good example of this in my mind is when I played Warmachine.  There was a really cool unit (Man-o-War Shocktroopers) that looked awesome but wasn't that great.  You constantly had people want to make the most of them, and most everyone agreed they were cool and just not good.  Yet you always saw people suggest other units/characters that helped them out, with the understanding it still would not be a super meta list but would not be unplayable garbage.  It would be like "If you take X and Y it helps them out" and people still did okay with them as long as they weren't playing against S-tier meta lists.

Yet in warhammer I see a lot of "Don't take these units at all, nothing will help them, they are totally unplayable and terrible" as the answer to someone wanting to know about it.

Edited May 5, 2021 by wayniac

[Phasteon]

1 hour ago, wayniac said:

I get what you're saying but I've never found a game as bad as GW games in that regard.  Every other game I've played, while there are imbalances, it's never to the point of saying "Don't play that, it's terrible and you'll lose constantly", it's more like "That's not meta right now but here's how you can make the most of it".  Only Warhammer it seems to be binary to where there's seemingly  nothing to be done to make it even remotely playable, it's pure garbage and you're wasting money/time if you pick to play it.  At least that seems to be the way people approach it as I frequently see people dissuade someone from playing a certain army or units by dismissing the entire thing as "bad".

A good example of this in my mind is when I played Warmachine.  There was a really cool unit (Man-o-War Shocktroopers) that looked awesome but wasn't that great.  You constantly had people want to make the most of them, and most everyone agreed they were cool and just not good.  Yet you always saw people suggest other units/characters that helped them out, with the understanding it still would not be a super meta list but would not be unplayable garbage.  It would be like "If you take X and Y it helps them out" and people still did okay with them as long as they weren't playing against S-tier meta lists.

Yet in warhammer I see a lot of "Don't take these units at all, nothing will help them, they are totally unplayable and terrible" as the answer to someone wanting to know about it.

Thats just not true.

There are for sure units I‘d never take and I don‘t know how to utilize, BUT even when you don‘t build around them you can take them as gimmick / objective holder in an otherwise functioning list and win. 

Best example: All the Warhammer Underworlds Warbands. Spending ~150 points on them does not make you autolose. 

Same as playing army X does not make you autowin / autolose. 

Your description of the state of the game is incredibly black and white, anti GW and straight up toxic to a point where if I had no clue and you were the only source of opinion I had I‘d pass on a fantastic and super fun game. 

I‘d advise you to stop playing AoS if you even do, as you clearly seem to just dislike it.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Phasteon

[Phasteon]

7 minutes ago, Phasteon said:

Thats just not true.

There are for sure units I‘d never take and I don‘t know how to utilize, BUT even when you don‘t build around them you can take them as gimmick / objective holder in an otherwise functioning list and win. 

Best example: All the Warhammer Underworlds Warbands. Spending ~150 points on them does not make you autolose. 

Same as playing army X does not make you autowin / autolose. 

Your description of the state of the game is incredibly black and white, anti GW and straight up toxic to a point where if I had no clue and you were the only source of opinion I had I‘d pass on a fantastic and super fun game. 

I‘d advise you to stop playing AoS if you even do, as you clearly seem to just dislike it.

Short story about that. 

I just had a game the other day with my KO Zilfin „broken op“ tournament list against a Hammers of Sigmar - SCE list of a friend, preparing for our next season of gaming group campaign. 

It was a classic „autowin“ scenario like many people here said, but many above average dice rolls later the WHOLE GAME came down to a single roll off. 

I bet I made some mistakes out of frustration at some point and he for sure made some too, let alone his deployment (but he saved 8/10 4+ and 5/10 5+ Saves, so it didnt backfire as hard as it could have been). 

But the most important thing: 

We had a blast playing it. My „frustration“ came from „why are the dice so evil“ and not from a „what a bad balanced game it is“ perspective. 

What a want to say is, even him playing whats probably not the strongest list out there against a pretty top tier list - he still had a realistic chance of winning. 

And still I‘m here discussing how terrible the balance is and how dommed whole armies are. 

[Overread]

And its time for a pause. 

This is not a ban on the topic of balance, but we have reached a point where we aren't really progressing in the discussion and its starting to get a little personal between a few of you here and there as you debate your different attitudes and stances on balance.