Discussing balance in AoS

[Skreech Verminking]

8 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

Listbot has been pretty good at assessing list strength

Nah it gave me a D for mobility while I had 3 Doomwheels and a warlock with the vial of the fulminator artefact.

it clearly is missing a ton of data

[whispersofblood]

8 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Nah it gave me a D for mobility while I had 3 Doomwheels and a warlock with the vial of the fulminator artefact.

it clearly is missing a ton of data

lol I'd give you a D as well or at best a C. Random movement with no fly, or ability to ignore models or even ignore friendly models, terrain or endless spells. Mobility is about being able to put models where you want them, when you want them there. If you need to be 12" from your starting position would you rather roll 4 dice or have Mv 14? 

Don't get me wrong I get that Doomwheels are pretty mobile in the Skaven book, but globally it's pretty poor.

[Skreech Verminking]

29 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

lol I'd give you a D as well or at best a C. Random movement with no fly, or ability to ignore models or even ignore friendly models, terrain or endless spells. Mobility is about being able to put models where you want them, when you want them there. If you need to be 12" from your starting position would you rather roll 4 dice or have Mv 14? 

Don't get me wrong I get that Doomwheels are pretty mobile in the Skaven book, but globally it's pretty poor.

Thank the horned rat that people don’t see-see the potential of the most scurry-fastest unit in the game.

cleary you don’t know what  a potential Doomwheel has to offer

Ps: if you thought the average movement  is 14” than your making a horrible mistake 

With the exception of flying you just named everything the doomwheel can do

Edited April 23, 2021 by Skreech Verminking

[whispersofblood]

9 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Thank the horned rat that people don’t see-see the potential of the most scurry-fastest unit in the game.

cleary you don’t know what potential a Doomwheel has to offer

Ps: if you thought the average movement  is 14” than your making a horrible mistake 

And people say they don't know why Skaven are Chaos 😆.

Who said that was the average? I said mobility like most things is about how close to certainty you can get. So if you need to get 12" away to contest an objective would you rather be Mv8 with a run or roll 4d6? That's medium mobility at best, MV 10-12 is pretty much available in every book. MV 14 is obviously very fast. Gets a good grade, high move with fly gets a better grade. I'm not saying Doomwheels aren't mobile, but we are talking about grading on its mobility alone compared to the field. 

Unpredictability has its benefits but if I'm playing blackjack would I rather choose a 10 and get one random card or hope for a spike from two random cards? The movement phase is the most important phase in the game, lack of certain gets a low grade.

Edited April 23, 2021 by whispersofblood

[Skreech Verminking]

29 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

0)And people say they don't know why Skaven are Chaos 😆.

1)Who said that was the average? I said mobility like most things is about how close to certainty you can get. So if you need to get 12" away to contest an objective would you rather be Mv8 with a run or roll 4d6? That's medium mobility at best, MV 10-12 is pretty much available in every book. MV 14 is obviously very fast. Gets a good grade, high move with fly gets a better grade. I'm not saying Doomwheels aren't mobile, but we are talking about grading on its mobility alone compared to the field. 

2)Unpredictability has its benefits but if I'm playing blackjack would I rather choose a 10 and get one random card or hope for a spike from two random cards? The movement phase is the most important phase in the game, lack of certain gets a low grade.

0) but they are!

they are the only true chaos dedicated faction

1)you clearly know nothing about the doomwheel. I can get a Objective 36inches away from my army, with a doomwheel guaranteed!!

The Doomwheel brings that uncertainty for a reason, it may look bad, it may be random, but that is literally what you want.

2)people who think that this thing is useless and never will win a tournament, will have have had a high chance of already having lost.

people who know what it can do, will be afraid of it just ask every single guy I’ve played against, with my 3Doomwheels list

ps: the average movement of a fulminator buffed Doomwheel is 28”

Edited April 23, 2021 by Skreech Verminking

[whispersofblood]

4 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

0) but they are!

they are the only true chaos dedicated faction

1)you clearly know nothing about the doomwheel. I can get a Objective 36inches away from my army, with a doomwheel guaranteed!!

The Doomwheel brings that uncertainty for a reason, it may look bad, it may be random, but that is literally what you want.

2)people who think that this thing is useless and never will win a tournament, will have had a high chance of already having lost.

people who know what it can do, will be afraid of it just ask every single guy I’ve played against, with my 3Doomwheels list

ps: the average movement of a fulminator buffed Doomwheel is 28”

Not if I put something 3.1" infront of it 😉

But more seriously it's not specifically about the doomwheel it's more about what mobility is. It's probably not as bad as D but it's not a B. But, all ML has some blindspots, that doesn't critically undermine the overall integrity of AI. Just like Slaanesh Ungors don't. 

Edited April 23, 2021 by whispersofblood

[Skreech Verminking]

16 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

Not if I put something 3.1" infront of it 😉

But more seriously it's not specifically about the doomwheel it's more about what mobility is. It's probably not as bad as D but it's not a B. But, all ML has some blindspots, that doesn't critically undermine the overall integrity of AI. Just like Slaanesh Ungors don't. 

I’ll summarize-the warscroll and it’s potential, later this day, for you.

It seems like you as if you have never seen a Doomwheel being played correctly (or at all in this matter of fact)

 

[Kadeton]

The Doomwheel discussion might be getting a bit off-topic.

Listbot is an interesting tool but (as the Doomwheel conversation demonstrates) it isn't a substitute for actual game experience with an army. It gives my Beastclaw list a "below average" rating for overall damage, for instance, which I think the numerous armies I've tabled by turn 2-3 might dispute. I assume that, like with the Doomwheels, it's just not aware of or not able to calculate the impact of a lot of circumstantial modifiers that would dramatically affect its scores.

[whispersofblood]

11 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

I’ll summarize-the warscroll and it’s potential, later this day, for you.

It seems like you as if you have never seen a Doomwheel being played correctly (or at all in this matter of fact)

 

No, I know how it works. That's why I know I can mitigate it. I understand it can move over models with less than 3 wounds, it has a dodgey RR, random shots, random dmg, and random melee attacks. 

If doomwheel Skaven were suddenly as popular as Archaon DoT I'd make modifications to mitigate them with more assuredly, but just about any list I play has things I can use.

Also, since it obviously has to finish it's move flat and its base is massive, I can just put models where I don't want it to finish it's move, regardless of what it rolls. It's not dissimilar from why the Mawcrusher is less mobile than its profile would suggest.

But yeah as you can tell humans struggle for certainty in regards to the Doomwheel's and similar warscroll's ability. There isn't a reason for a bot to be significantly more certain given it is relying on the decisions of several thousand humans. To some degree the bots declaration is a reflection of what we the players consider strong rather than some objective unique insight into warscrolls. 

[Marcvs]

3 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

An appropriate question for this thread is: Are games being decided by what we can call mechanical imbalance? The data emphatically says the vast majority of games are won by the better player. But, that the strength of the opposing faction is more determinative the closer an individual player is to the average person. Which passes the sanity check, they have less ability to see there way out of mechanical challenges. But, the data does not show that the faction strength effect dominates the average players results. Most people's (like 80%+) games are determined by their level of skill against their opponent's, but yes some percentage of gamers are losing games more regularly because of imbalance. 

I want to be clear I've not made the argument that imbalance doesn't effect people's outcomes. The point I've been trying to make is that it is not as determinate as people would like it to be

In the show you are using as source of this statement, the man behind these stats literally says (around 2 hours 8 minutes) "if you are an average player [...] then your faction is gonna be about as important as how you play". So around 50% of your games as an "average player" (that is the majority of players, cf. again, that show) will be decided by the imbalance between books.

[whispersofblood]

34 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

In the show you are using as source of this statement, the man behind these stats literally says (around 2 hours 8 minutes) "if you are an average player [...] then your faction is gonna be about as important as how you play". So around 50% of your games as an "average player" (that is the majority of players, cf. again, that show) will be decided by the imbalance between books.

I agree he said it, but we have primary source information to discuss rather than an interpretation during a conversation largely led by Vince. FYI that arc is pretty similar to MtG. Faction strength is important for the average player, I haven't disagreed.  Most players exist within one standard deviation of the mean, and for those players better and worse than the mean the graph shows that faction strength is important, but not the determining factor. We know this because as skill drops faction strength doesn't become more determinate. If that was true we would see more of a wave an arc. Unless we are calling anything beyond 1 deviation too poorly skilled or too skilled for the rules to matter.

But guess what happens when you flatten faction strength in the fat middle? You maximize the impact of skill which as the majority of those players are play against each other minimal differences in skill will produce massive differences in outcomes. Which will make "balance" appear worse.

The question isn't if the game is balanced of course it's not. It about determining if and exactly how it could be better. The data shows even where faction strength is most impactful it's still less determinate than skill. And, the arc shows that faction strength as an effect not just as an effect of the factions we have right now.

What it means is that we need clearer guidelines as to what expectations to have, what factions are high skill, and low skill. So people can modulate their experience as they deem appropriate. 

By expectations I mean things like how to measure outcomes of games, so we can say what was a close game, and if you were in it. The final score is a good guideline, but there is probably a better one we could use beyond feel.

Edited April 23, 2021 by whispersofblood

[Golub87]

What I find super interesting is how whenever there is a discussion about systemic issue, the loudest people tend to be those that insist that "there is no problem"/"problem is not as bad as it is claimed"/"it is all your fault anyway" as if their lives depend on it.

Which is kind of odd, given that, in this particular example, there are two possible outcomes:

1. Balance gets fixed

2. Balance does not get fixed.

Why are the people who claim that balance has little impact so invested into shouting down anyone who asks for 1.? Will something change for you if 2. happened, @whispersofblood? If you do not think that balance is important, why participate in this conversation at all?

[Skreech Verminking]

2 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

No, I know how it works. That's why I know I can mitigate it. I understand it can move over models with less than 3 wounds, it has a dodgey RR, random shots, random dmg, and random melee attacks. 

If doomwheel Skaven were suddenly as popular as Archaon DoT I'd make modifications to mitigate them with more assuredly, but just about any list I play has things I can use.

Also, since it obviously has to finish it's move flat and its base is massive, I can just put models where I don't want it to finish it's move, regardless of what it rolls. It's not dissimilar from why the Mawcrusher is less mobile than its profile would suggest.

But yeah as you can tell humans struggle for certainty in regards to the Doomwheel's and similar warscroll's ability. There isn't a reason for a bot to be significantly more certain given it is relying on the decisions of several thousand humans. To some degree the bots declaration is a reflection of what we the players consider strong rather than some objective unique insight into warscrolls. 

You named inly half of it’s strength mate😜.

give me some time and I’ll happily lecture you about the possibilities😁

[Golub87]

2 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

You named inly half of it’s strength mate😜.

give me some time and I’ll happily lecture you about the possibilities😁

I don't think that is important. What is important is:
 

3 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Nah it gave me a D for mobility while I had 3 Doomwheels and a warlock with the vial of the fulminator artefact.

it clearly is missing a ton of data

Don't get sidetracked by endless nitpicky discussions 😜

Edited April 23, 2021 by Golub87

[whispersofblood]

1 minute ago, Golub87 said:

What I find super interesting is how whenever there is a discussion about systemic issue, the loudest people tend to be those that insist that "there is no problem"/"problem is not as bad as it is claimed"/"it is all your fault anyway" as if their lives depend on it.

Which is kind of odd, given that, in this particular example, there are two possible outcomes:

1. Balance gets fixed

2. Balance does not get fixed.

Why are the people who claim that balance has little impact so invested into shouting down anyone who asks for 1.? Will something change for you if 2. happened, @whispersofblood? If you do not think that balance is important, why participate in this conversation at all?

Your argung against something I have not said mate... 

The answer is balance cannot be fixed, games will contain haves and have nots. We will live with some version of imbalance forever. So the question is what should that graph look like, what should we expect and  how do we explain that to new players. You can argue for better balance until you are blue in the face, but at some point you have to say what that looks like in practice and what it would do to the relationship that graph represents.

My argument is that graph is actually largely a good player friendly version of the world. Where even low effort results in relatively predictable results and players can choose to play easier or harder factions inside that relationship. Archaon is hard to use and powerful, KO Zilfin is easier to use and less consistently powerful we should want these spaces in the game exactly because there are different levels of player skill.

The question is what constrains factions from being good on the tabletop. I agree with JP's point, we as a community have a real problem letting factions be good at the thing they are good at. This directly contributes to factions not having tools to play the game as it expands. Basically we, to some degree or another continue to ask for GW to make the game like the AoS1 starter set and GW has repeatedly said they are not interested in making that game.

 

[pnkdth]

9 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

The question isn't if the game is balanced of course it's not. It about determining if and exactly how it could be better. The data shows even where faction strength is most impactful it's still less determinate than skill. And, the arc shows that faction strength as an effect not just as an effect of the factions we have right now.

Looking at more recent data (the feb 2021 TTS on honest wargamers) we see Seraphon winning 500% more than other factions, twice as many top3s, and half of their players end up in top10. Are you saying that all good players just happen to choose Seraphon and that we've had a massive influx of really skilled players (who also just happen to choose Seraphon)? I would say the data suggest that this army allows for otherwise unremarkable but decent players to earn top placings and great players to net even greater results.

Tournament players value consistency. Swingy armies are not worth their time because it gets in the way of their objective, to win. You can see it in the BoC data from the same batch. At first glance you see 60% win rate, and that must be good, right? But then you look at placings and you see a single top10 placing. Why? Because BoC don't win big. In contrast the higher placing armies like Seraphon, LRL, IDK, DoT, do.

Indeed, the other side of the coin of 'git gud' is the hard to swallow fact that certain battletomes will contribute to the success of a player. Both are uncomfortable since they chafe at our egos.

But just to be clear, I absolutely believe good players can get good result with most armies. It is the just the top and bottom pile that needs a look at cause the former excels in the current meta and the latter has to jump through way too many hoops to win (and rarely get a top placing despite winning more which must REALLY add to the frustration).

[Golub87]

Just now, pnkdth said:

Looking at more recent data (the feb 2021 TTS on honest wargamers) we see Seraphon winning 500% more than other factions, twice as many top3s, and half of their players end up in top10. Are you saying that all good players just happen to choose Seraphon and that we've had a massive influx of really skilled players (who also just happen to choose Seraphon)? I would say the data suggest that this army allows for otherwise unremarkable but decent players to earn top placings and great players to net even greater results.

Tournament players value consistency. Swingy armies are not worth their time because it gets in the way of their objective, to win. You can see it in the BoC data from the same batch. At first glance you see 60% win rate, and that must be good, right? But then you look at placings and you see a single top10 placing. Why? Because BoC don't win big. In contrast the higher placing armies like Seraphon, LRL, IDK, DoT, do.

Indeed, the other side of the coin of 'git gud' is the hard to swallow fact that certain battletomes will contribute to the success of a player. Both are uncomfortable since they chafe at our egos.

But just to be clear, I absolutely believe good players can get good result with most armies. It is the just the top and bottom pile that needs a look at cause the former excels in the current meta and the latter has to jump through way too many hoops to win (and rarely get a top placing despite winning more which must REALLY add to the frustration).

To be honest, tournaments and placings are really not that important. Even the data shows that good players perform well with any faction, but favor factions that will give them an edge. Meta-chasers if you will (and I do not mean that in any derogatory way - they take this seriously and pick the best tools for the job).

Kitchen table games are where the real problems lie.

[Phasteon]

12 minutes ago, Golub87 said:

What I find super interesting is how whenever there is a discussion about systemic issue, the loudest people tend to be those that insist that "there is no problem"/"problem is not as bad as it is claimed"/"it is all your fault anyway" as if their lives depend on it.

Which is kind of odd, given that, in this particular example, there are two possible outcomes:

1. Balance gets fixed

2. Balance does not get fixed.

Why are the people who claim that balance has little impact so invested into shouting down anyone who asks for 1.? Will something change for you if 2. happened, @whispersofblood? If you do not think that balance is important, why participate in this conversation at all?

So I‘m denying a bitter truth because I‘m afraid that changes could impact me or my army negatively when I‘m saying „Balance is not a general issue in AoS“ ? 

 

Like thats my honest opinion. 

I think the people who cry the loudest are actually those who open threads about balance issues because they play army X and want to win games but tend to lose alot, hence they call other armies except their own OP. 

Thats my experience. 

 

I think „overbalancing“ a game makes it feel bland in the end, because you always need to make sure that all numbers even out in the end, which makes experimental, hard to calculate rules (aka random results) pretty impossible to implement. 

 

You can strive for balance in a game like WoW or LoL, because those are purely numbers based, but in a dice game, where success or failure is decided by a random D6 roll, you cant possibly account for every % of outcome. 

 

Just let the game flow, let new armies/rules be created and be competitive about it in the sense that every mechanic has a work around, sometimes its just difficult or counter intuitive, but if you really want to win you can with every army. 

And if not, who gives a ******? In the end its a GAME - Tournament winners are no international Heroes or sth, nobody really cares in the end who wins or doesnt win a tournament. 

I rather have a game where my army feels strong against some armies and weak against other armies, where my units are defined by individual rules than a game where I have a 50% winrate all the time because all the numbers always work out the same. 

Thats just boring for me. 

 

Just my opinion on the matter. 

[whispersofblood]

3 minutes ago, pnkdth said:

Looking at more recent data (the feb 2021 TTS on honest wargamers) we see Seraphon winning 500% more than other factions, twice as many top3s, and half of their players end up in top10. Are you saying that all good players just happen to choose Seraphon and that we've had a massive influx of really skilled players (who also just happen to choose Seraphon)? I would say the data suggest that this army allows for otherwise unremarkable but decent players to earn top placings and great players to net even greater results.

Tournament players value consistency. Swingy armies are not worth their time because it gets in the way of their objective, to win. You can see it in the BoC data from the same batch. At first glance you see 60% win rate, and that must be good, right? But then you look at placings and you see a single top10 placing. Why? Because BoC don't win big. In contrast the higher placing armies like Seraphon, LRL, IDK, DoT, do.

Indeed, the other side of the coin of 'git gud' is the hard to swallow fact that certain battletomes will contribute to the success of a player. Both are uncomfortable since they chafe at our egos.

But just to be clear, I absolutely believe good players can get good result with most armies. It is the just the top and bottom pile that needs a look at cause the former excels in the current meta and the latter has to jump through way too many hoops to win (and rarely get a top placing despite winning more which must REALLY add to the frustration).

The top bit has kinda already been addressed to some degree. Faction has almost no impact on the outcome of games of highly skilled gamers.

Why you see more S and A tiered factions is because margins matter when you are going for a 5-0 in a way it doesn't matter if you aren't. Most players including the highly skilled are playing the best version of the army they want to play. TTS is going to over represent because of the ease of access to alternative factions, the low barrier of entry.

On the margins yeah having more tools is better than having less tools that's obvious. But there are diminishing returns but actually event placings aren't a good measure because the top 10% of gamers are finishing in the top 10% regardless. And, what the data shows is Billy Big Bollocks wins events or finishes 4-1 regardless of what faction he plays. 

The data shows that off the so called OP factions only Seraphon positively impacts a players results. That is interesting.

I've never disputed that some factions are easier to play than others, or that some factions provide more or better tools for low or no cost. The question is how much does that impact the outcome of games? And why are factions having an impact? Are averaged skilled players using factions beyound their skillset? Are the some books so inherently more powerful than others? There are a lot of assumptions built into the question you ask datasets and AI. 

My position again is in the middle I think we want player skill and faction choice to be roughly equivalent in determining outcomes of games so that players at that level can choose how much effort they want to put in.

This of course means that your favourite faction could end up not on top of the pile, and hard to play.

[pnkdth]

4 minutes ago, Golub87 said:

To be honest, tournaments and placings are really not that important. Even the data shows that good players perform well with any faction, but favor factions that will give them an edge. Meta-chasers if you will (and I do not mean that in any derogatory way - they take this seriously and pick the best tools for the job).

Kitchen table games are where the real problems lie.

Yes, though I'd say the issues I raised here applies to kitchen table games too, i.e. if certain armies can win by pushing models forward while others needs precise measurements and micromanaging abilities merely to function there's an issue with how battletomes are designed in relation to each other. So I think we can learn from both settings in terms of skill ceilings and mastery levels.

That said, if things get really bad perhaps the community will simply decide to go back to comp scores or even unofficial points changes. This in turn might inspire GW to perform more frequent erratas and points changes.

[Golub87]

Just now, Phasteon said:

snip...

Well, you are completely missing the point, hence your opinion is wrong. I do not care about tournaments and have consciously avoided them.

I also win about the same that I lose in my casual games.

The problem is, when I win, I win because my army is scissors and theirs is paper. And when I lose I lose because their army is rock and mine is scissors.

There is no point in actually playing. The numbers mostly do workout the same, barring the exceptional throw of the dice. And I do not need the whole AoS shell and hassle for exciting dice throws.

I am playing my first game in months this weekend because a buddy got a new army so I genuinely have no idea what is about to happen.
 

10 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

The answer is balance cannot be fixed, games will contain haves and have nots. We will live with some version of imbalance forever. So the question is what should that graph look like, what should we expect and  how do we explain that to new players. You can argue for better balance until you are blue in the face, but at some point you have to say what that looks like in practice and what it would do to the relationship that graph represents.

Straw-man, no one is asking for the mythic perfect balance. I'll bite regardless - graph needs to look the same for the mid tier players as for the top tier players. Even at the cost of getting skewed for the top tiers. GW should figure out if they are making a casual game for the lads and middle aged dads or a competitive spectator sport.

13 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

My argument is that graph is actually largely a good player friendly version of the world. Where even low effort results in relatively predictable results and players can choose to play easier or harder factions inside that relationship. Archaon is hard to use and powerful, KO Zilfin is easier to use and less consistently powerful we should want these spaces in the game exactly because there are different levels of player skill.

Graph is not good for the plurality of players. As for the niches and tools they need to exist within the armies. So if I am a low skilled player getting an army that I like to paint and look at, I have the easy option and high skill option. As it stands certain armies are traps and if you are not meta chasing you are out of luck as a mediocre player.

[Golub87]

11 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

My position again is in the middle I think we want player skill and faction choice to be roughly equivalent in determining outcomes of games so that players at that level can choose how much effort they want to put in.

Yeah... no.

Faction choice should never be roughly equivalent to skill at middle level. It should not even be significant.

Funny how you pivoted from "faction choice is not that important" to "It is important but that is how it should be".

So invested in something that does not seem to concern you.

[Phasteon]

47 minutes ago, Golub87 said:

blub..

How can an opinion completely based on subjective experience be „wrong“ ? Are you telling me that the things I encountered are a lie or sth? 

Get your ****** together man, just because its the internet you dont have to act like you are Mr. Big Brain. 

 

Also, its cool that you seem to know that your superior skill and knowledge of the game leads to you only winning or losing because of rock, paper, scissors but allow me to just call bs on that and say that you probably dont 100% know why you win or lose and your and your opponents skill plays a role in this. 

 

Anyway, you are pretty fun - i won‘t argue with you anymore but I will still keep on reading your posts, because they kind of amuse me. 

Keep on fighting the good fight lol. 

[wayniac]

I think it is rather disingenuous to assume that faction is not a major factor. Nobody cares about the top tournament results because those players are not in the normal curve and on top of that most if not all of them are never going to take a low tier army to an event they are going to take the army that performs the best to give them the best chance of winning.  The results from the top tournaments do nothing but skew the data and push the narrative that faction balance is a lot closer than it really is. Which goes back to the point that those people are not the people you want testing the direction of the game because while their skill is there they are oblivious to the actual problems under them. 

[whispersofblood]

1 hour ago, Golub87 said:

Yeah... no.

Faction choice should never be roughly equivalent to skill at middle level. It should not even be significant.

Funny how you pivoted from "faction choice is not that important" to "It is important but that is how it should be".

So invested in something that does not seem to concern you.

Well. First of all take a deep breath. I've not brought out the mythical perfect balance argument. What I said is we have to choose what sort of unbalance we can accept, because imbalance is inevitable. I also never said it wasn't important in the middle it has a .4-.6 correlation I can't say it's not important. What I said is that it's not largely determinate of the outcome of games. Which is not the same thing.

What I said previously is if you flatten the effect of faction choice you maximize differences in player skill, which means you can't have games of roughly equal player ability. This is because games then are decided by marginal differences in player skill. That's how relationships work. It also has the effect of chilling interesting faction development as there is no room for risk in design. 

The idea is each person gets to choose how they interact with that relationship, and have reasonable expectations as to the future based on that choice. That doesn't exclude the fact that sylvaneth, GSG, BoC need significant mechanical work.

I'm sorry you invested based on a lie, limited or incorrect information. But rules changes can't fix a constant that for you are experiencing. I have experienced engaging with the curve without information myself and it's not a good feeling. These facts notwithstanding the answer to most of the negative expressions is still community. 

I'm interested in AoS, I'm interested in data analysis professionally and in several of my other hobbies. Apparently the outcomes of my games are hardly impacted by faction choice at all, but I still am concerned for the larger AoS community. Which is why I'm so interested in education and community, I don't actually talk about "competitive AoS" on forums very much at all...