Discussing balance in AoS

[Beliman]

For me, balance is a mix between all  units and subfaccions that a battletome has (internal balance) and all other armies (global balance). But it doesn't matter if all units or armies are really "balanced" if their interactions become unfun for one or both players (that's my main issue).

KOs have really good internal balance (skywardens and Brokk being a bit meh, followed by frigattes but all of them are far away from being bad). And even  if you play Thryng, Urbaz or Nar, you could still compete!  Btw, we still carry the stigma to take out an entire army with one turn (and I 100% agree that it's not fun and I hope that  one day we could play around it without sacrificing too much in return).

But the point still remains: internal balance and options to win vs anyone is what all armies should try to reach (without being unfan to play with and against). In other words, I don't care if SCE are really high on tournaments if their gameplay is build around 1 toxic list.

[NinthMusketeer]

I would like to see certain 'lord' choices get a limit of 1 per army. Like named characters but without the other downsides, or it could be a new unit category alongside leader. It hits on benefits for both the fluff and optimization ends of the spectrum. And the points void they leave will still be filled with other models so GW doesn't lose sales.

 

@LuminethMage I tend to be harsher in my criticisms when I know that I and/or the community can do better. And back before the first GHB, we did. I feel it is also a matter of people being used to glossing over the 'wallpaper' options in battletomes--items that are present but never worth taking and may as well only exist to fill page space. There is a lot of it. So many options are not even included in people's minds when they think about balance because they aren't mentally recognized as part of the game (and justifiably so). Give me any battletome and I can give back at least 10 options that could be removed with no actual loss to the army.

Edited March 18, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[Joseph Mackay]

One issue I take with the tournament data is that it doesn’t go deep enough. The stats don’t distinguish between the different sub factions, and instead of showing that Petrifex Elite is doing better than it should for example, the data shows Bonereapers as a whole doing better than they should. This creates a situation where a lot of nerfs hit the other sub factions even worse than the problematic ones.

another thing that I think should be said. AoS is designed around Open and Narrative play, with Matched being the extra. Because of this, in my own personal experiences, I’ve found that a lot of the things that get complained about online aren’t actually a problem until you get into matched play, and that a lot of nerfs that resulted from tournament data saying ‘X is too strong’ negatively affected Open and Narrative/Casual play. I think certain units don’t belong in Matched play and shouldn’t be allowed (Nagash, Teclis level heroes).

with balance though, one issue I have is that I don’t believe allegiance abilities and sub factions are accounted for, except in some cases they seem to be. I think units need to have 2 different points costs, 1 for within its faction that takes the allegiance abilities into account, and another for Grand Alliance armies/allies where the allegiance abilities aren’t accounted for. I think sub factions should cost points like a battalion. Summoning, I don’t know what the solution is but the way gw factor that into a units cost is just wrong and makes units seem weaker by being overcosted, however I think the old way of paying points for summoning units was an even worse way to handle it. In regards to buff abilities, I think the unit providing the buff should pay the points for it rather than the units that benefit from the ability, and I don’t believe that is the case now. I would like to see less mortal wounds flying around, and an official term for ‘damage saves’ within the rules. Shooting I personally believe needs to be toned down a lot more, it feels too much like 40K these days. I play AoS for dragons and swords not guns and tanks. no mortal wounds from shooting, no rend, a lot less attacks in some cases. Shootings advantage is hitting the opponent and they don’t get to hit you back unlike in combat, shooting shouldn’t be massively powerful though to balance out that advantage. Not sure it’s a balance thing, but I’d like to see magic go back to how it was in fantasy where you have X number of dice to spend of casting spells, you could either use extra dice for a better chance at getting a spell off, or the number of dice you have determined how many spells you can try to cast, I’d like to see reference spell cards return too as they’re extremely helpful 

[NinthMusketeer]

21 minutes ago, Joseph Mackay said:

One issue I take with the tournament data is that it doesn’t go deep enough.

As long as Slaanesh remains strong it never will...

[Kadeton]

On 3/18/2021 at 4:10 PM, EMMachine said:

I mean we had stuff like multiple Abhorrant Archregent or Frostlords on Stonehorn. The first one is basicly a Emperor of multiple courts and the second is the leader of an Alfrostun. In both cases it is quite unlikely that their would be more than 1 of them in the same army (in case of Stonehorns that problem could even be bypassed because 1 Frostlord and 2 Huskards on Stonehorn are actually plausible to play).

Yeah, this sort of gets into internal balance problems. Frostlords kick ass; Huskards suck ass. I wouldn't be opposed to forcing "Supreme Leader" type characters to be one per army (and forced to be the General) as long as their subordinate Leaders weren't hot garbage.

[NinthMusketeer]

The army has other heroes than huskards you know. And ways to take them where they are perfectly viable. And they don't 'suck ass' except at tourney tier to begin with.

[Chaos Shepard]

On 3/18/2021 at 3:45 PM, Joseph Mackay said:

One issue I take with the tournament data is that it doesn’t go deep enough. The stats don’t distinguish between the different sub factions, and instead of showing that Petrifex Elite is doing better than it should for example, the data shows Bonereapers as a whole doing better than they should. This creates a situation where a lot of nerfs hit the other sub factions even worse than the problematic ones.

Tournament data does go deeper. You just don't always see it because its hard to fit all that data into a spreadsheet. That is why Petrifex specifically got a targeted nerf in a rules errata.

There is more to tournament data than overall placements and win/lose ratios. Any tournament worth its salt will have records of every list that participated. This data isn't always as easy to find or readily available without some digging. That's not to say that looking at the larger picture isn't helpful either. If an army continuously dominate the top 10 or has has a 70%+ win rate, there is probably an issue with it. That is when it warrants a closer look.  That is when you have look into the rest of the data. How popular is the army, is there a major difference between the high placing than the lower placing, are they spamming a particular unit, belong to the same sub faction, using the same combo or formation, ect.

Tournament data when looked at properly can show you what parts of an army need adjusting.

[NinthMusketeer]

Thing is, Petrifax should never have been a matter of tournament data. Everyone knew they were overpowered from the preview and only hoped that the battletome provided something to offset what was clearly far too strong a subfaction. Instead it gave them even more. It is absurd that such a set of abilities could even be a rough draft, let alone make it past playtesting. The sort of thing that would make sense as an April Fools joke it was so comically overpowered.

Petrifax went and trampled any attempt that could be made at fine-tuning OBR based on tourney data because did something win because X unit or Y option was OP, or just because Petrifax was? Is something being spammed across multiple lists because it is too strong or because it is too strong with Petrifax? Plenty of balance edges which could have been smoothed now have to wait another year because the first round got wasted on nerfing the painfully obvious.

[Kadeton]

On 3/19/2021 at 10:46 PM, NinthMusketeer said:

The army has other heroes than huskards you know. And ways to take them where they are perfectly viable. And they don't 'suck ass' except at tourney tier to begin with.

I don't know what to tell you, man - tournaments aren't the reason they suck, it's the fact that Frostlords only cost 80 more points for a vast upgrade. Heck, Beastriders are a noticeable upgrade, and they cost 20 points less. If Huskards weren't mandatory in the Beastclaw battalions, there would be no reason to take them. Sometimes units are just bad.

[NinthMusketeer]

Well let's break it down.

Beastriders deal an average of 1 damage to a 5+ save with their punches and kicked compared to 0.66 for the Huskard. A stonehorn is putting out 7.6, or a thundertusk 3 (I am using the second degradation line to compensate for that factor).

So we can put a rough baseline of damage at 8.6 vs 8.3 for a stonehorn or 4 vs 3.7 for a thindertusk. Pretty small difference in damage output, which does get smaller against enemies with a better save than 5+. Both are putting out additional damage from shooting/stone-shattering charge so relative to the overall damage output the extra punches and kicks (with a worse profile) are largely insignificant. 

A huskard on stonehorn will also get +1 bravery (meh, though it is useful in some matchups) and more importantly is able to use all the generic command abilities. That is a big deal as the likes to altering a run move to a 6, giving re-roll 1s for a phase, re rolling a charge, or battleshock immunity is worth a good deal. Easily worth 20 points and a tiny decrease in damage. And that is before factoring in eurlbad, which requires one and makes him indirectly viable even at tourney level for how strong it is.

A huskard on thundertusk gives a unit +1 to wound for a round every hero phase on a 4+. That is well worth the 30 points extra by itself, and he also gets command ability access and an everwinter prayer to boot.

The frostlord being so much stronger may make the huskard worse by comparison but it does not impact the actual effectiveness of the unit. So while a subjective term I find it very difficult to believe that huskards fit into the definition of 'sucking ass'.

Edited March 21, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[Gurgamel]

Newbie here, with limited knowledge.

Did not take me long to get that money greed feeling from GW, so i can understand that the new armies are a bit op. But thats just like any other competetiv pc game. But it is sad, shows lack of imaginated, Instead creat a uniqe army that grabs the attention of the playerbase that has been missing it.

Can also the  way people think the game is unbalanced, when some trigger effects does not grant that 10% increased effect. Instead that 200% increased effect. For exampel seen some warscrolls for cavalry where a succesful charge grants dubble the attacks. If the unit is balanced to charge and fails its value is halved. So 2000 points charge army could have the value of 1000 points. Of course dont take that literally only figuratively. Some units should ofcourse have that high reward high risk but to common and often not an option.

Also when comparing warscroll to warscroll its a joke. I belive that each unit should be balanced equal to its cost when comparing to others. Ofcourse some could counter others but that aside. If an army has some special bonus it should just be balanced to other armies and their specials.

[NinthMusketeer]

The imbalance is not so organized as new stuff being OP, or 'managed' meta swapping. It is basically random with some genuine effort to curb the worst elements mixed in. Very strange. The best explanation I have seen anyone come up with is intentional incompetence--GW knows it is bad at balance but also feels there is financial benefit from that and accordingly choses not to improve.

[Beastmaster]

I get the feeling that when they got a cool fluffy idea how an army or unit could bend the basic rules, they just run with it, balance being an afterthought. Main goal is that the gameplay doesn’t become stale. 

[Kasper]

On 3/17/2021 at 7:43 AM, LuminethMage said:

To include some of the tournament data (in-person) that were talking about: 

According to AOShorts: There have been 8 GHB20 events with 5+ rounds and 50+ players. Looking at top 5 spots

Seraphon - 8/40
KO - 7
DoT - 6
OBR - 3
Nurgle - 3
DoK - 3
Cities - 2
Big Waaagh! - 2
Slannesh - 1
Khorne - 1
S2D - 1
Fyreslayers - 1
Lumineth - 1
Mawtribes - 1

This does not look like 6 factions dominating everyone. 14 factions at least won one tournament with 5:0. If you just look at any tournament wins you can add: Idoneth, LoN, Stormcast, and FEC (18) to the list. If you go down to the 3rd place also Skaven, Slaanesh and Ironjaws (21). So ca. 20 out of 24 factions with a Battletome made it into the top 3. 

Looking at the situation right now compared to the start of 2020 it looks like this:

End 2020, start 2021: During the last 23 tournaments 12 factions (ca. half of those with a Battletome) have at least won one tournament. 21 factions were at least once in the top 5 (some are subsections of a Battletome). The 3 faction with the most wins are Seraphon, Stormcast and KO, with 3 wins each. 

If we compare this to the situation roughly a year ago (same amount of tournaments but a shorter period of time) we get this: 11 different factions won a tournament and 21 factions made it into the top 5. The 3 factions with the most wins were OBR 5, DoT with 4 and CoS with 3.

Of course these are not 100% comparable (difference of time period, and slightly more Battletomes now), but as such it doesn't look like the situation has changed drastically. If at all, one could say that Seraphon are a big outlier which are overall outperforming everyone else. But in the latest tournaments they seem to be less dominant, and a year ago we had periods with strong factions like Tzeentch and OBR too

If we look at win percentage right now, the situations seems to be this (for in-person matches, but TTS is very similar according to The Honest Wargamer data):

This is taken from ListBot (http://aoslistbot.herokuapp.com/sotm/), measuring tournaments from March 2020 to March 2021. A similar list is done by DKHM:

So how is the balance? If you look at the data, a big bunch is within the 45% to 55% win-rate. If you go to 40% to 60% then it includes almost everyone with an own Battletome. 

And again the big outlier which probably causes the most problems is Seraphon. They are very strong and are the most played faction in tournaments. There are 2 or 3 other strong factions, but I think it's hard to say that 6 factions totally dominate everything. Most factions are played within the 2% to 5% range, again the outlier being Seraphon. 

I tried to find older data to compare it to see if the situation is really worse than before, but sadly I couldn't find any. I have my doubts though, that something has fundamentally changed during the last several years (just because of how people talk about Slaanesh. FEC, DoK and so on). But older data would be really interesting to see. 

Personally dont believe tournament data is that important for the game. While I participate in tournaments and love it, flat data like a combined % says nothing in regards to how armies are doing against each other. Essentially if AoS balance was pure rock-paper-scissor, then your tournament data would show and indicate that AoS balance is absolutely "perfect", despite games being horrible. 

[NinthMusketeer]

5 hours ago, Beastmaster said:

I get the feeling that when they got a cool fluffy idea how an army or unit could bend the basic rules, they just run with it, balance being an afterthought. Main goal is that the gameplay doesn’t become stale. 

Yeah, and they certainly do a good job with that. Unfortunately losing games in the listbuilding phase gets far more stale, far more quickly.

[Gurgamel]

Comparing two wizards wich both cost 120 points. 

Stat                    Skink Starpriest                                            Liche Priest
Move                               8                                                                        4 
Wounds                          5                                                                        5
Save+                               5                                                                        6

Weapons
Missile            R18   A2   H3+   W3+   R-1   D1                       N/A
Melee              R1   A2   H4+   W3+   R-1   D1       R1   A1   H4+   W3+   R-1   Dd3

Abilites          Astral Herald                                                Hierophant scroll
         Chance to get extra comand point               Once per game garanteed
          every round.                                                              unbind of spell
                          Serpent Staff
        Buff,  sixes in wound phase grants extra
        mortal wound

Magic          Blazing Starlight                                          Righteous Smiting
                          debuff, -1 hit                                            buff, sixes in hit phase grants
                                                                                                    extra attack.

 

Skink has one more abilite and they can be used every round. Also has missle attacks., has better save, better move. How do GW value points?

[NinthMusketeer]

You are comparing it to a legacy unit that they do not update points for, so it is not a fair comparison. There has been an edition change and power creep in the years since that Liche Priest warscroll was made and costed. Legends units specifically have 'rough estimate' point costs even by GW's admission and are not legal in matched play without your opponent's permission.

[Chaos Shepard]

7 hours ago, Gurgamel said:

Comparing two wizards wich both cost 120 points. 

Stat                    Skink Starpriest                                            Liche Priest
Move                               8                                                                        4 
Wounds                          5                                                                        5
Save+                               5                                                                        6

Weapons
Missile            R18   A2   H3+   W3+   R-1   D1                       N/A
Melee              R1   A2   H4+   W3+   R-1   D1       R1   A1   H4+   W3+   R-1   Dd3

Abilites          Astral Herald                                                Hierophant scroll
         Chance to get extra comand point               Once per game garanteed
          every round.                                                              unbind of spell
                          Serpent Staff
        Buff,  sixes in wound phase grants extra
        mortal wound

Magic          Blazing Starlight                                          Righteous Smiting
                          debuff, -1 hit                                            buff, sixes in hit phase grants
                                                                                                    extra attack.

 

Skink has one more abilite and they can be used every round. Also has missle attacks., has better save, better move. How do GW value points?

On top of what NinthMusketeer already said, this isn't even as bad of a comparison as you initially claim. For starters the Liche Priest can take a free mount. This makes it the faster of the two and gives it additional attack in melee, would still probably prefer the missile attacks but its something of note. As for their spells and abilities I would say that they are on par with one another.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Chaos Shepard

[Gurgamel]

5 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

You are comparing it to a legacy unit that they do not update points for, so it is not a fair comparison. There has been an edition change and power creep in the years since that Liche Priest warscroll was made and costed. Legends units specifically have 'rough estimate' point costs even by GW's admission and are not legal in matched play without your opponent's permission.

That is sad, i mean i just looked trough the warscrolls on the app it that says nothing about what is inplay and not. But that gets me back to the original point being how do they balance and value? The smart choice to me would be when new additions come thay are balanced to what is already in play and not the other way around, becouse who wants to change 10 units or 1000 units? Could gw atleast did not give them some affektion before closing.

 

4 hours ago, Chaos Shepard said:

On top of what NinthMusketeer already said, this isn't even as bad of a comparison as you initially claim. For starters the Liche Priest can take a free mount. This makes it the faster of the two and gives it additional attack in melee, would still probably prefer the missile attacks but its something of note. As for their spells and abilities I would say that they are on par with one another.

Maybe no point in arguing since unit was legacy. In the web shop the liche could be sold without horse, meaning that it was a choice back there. But now expected in point value. Then i agree that their magic is even but no way do i see their abilites as being the same value. One has a ontime use and the other has two "spamable".

[azdimy]

4 hours ago, Gurgamel said:

how do they balance and value? The smart choice to me would be when new additions come thay are balanced to what is already in play and not the other way around, becouse who wants to change 10 units or 1000 units? Could gw atleast did not give them some affektion before closing.

They've released a few articles in white dwarf on this subject. They use their own point calculator. It takes into account the characteristic values in the warscroll, the abilities in it but also the allegiance abilities available to this warscroll within its battletome. And then sometime ajust the points based on customer feedback after its released 

[NinthMusketeer]

I remember that article! I didn't read it, because I know from the results that it doesn't work.

[NinthMusketeer]

9 hours ago, Gurgamel said:

That is sad, i mean i just looked trough the warscrolls on the app it that says nothing about what is inplay and not.

And yet to get the point cost one needs to download the specifically-labelled legends document...

[Aelfric]

On 3/18/2021 at 6:06 PM, NinthMusketeer said:

I would like to see certain 'lord' choices get a limit of 1 per army. Like named characters but without the other downsides

Perhaps taking certain troop units to unlock certain Leaders might fit your idea?

[NinthMusketeer]

Not exactly, because it still misses the point. The likes of a frostlord or archregent are extremely rare, very powerful leaders. They lead entire sub-factions, whole nations worth of their army. They don't just show up to the battlefield in multiples. It doesn't make narrative sense.

From a strictly matched play perspective, these are leaders that have a significant points investment and army role such that if they are being used in multiples it is because they are overpowered. There is no other reason to use them in multiples.

Accordingly, limiting them to 1 per army is beneficial for both sides. No one loses in that arrangement.

[whispersofblood]

5 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Not exactly, because it still misses the point. The likes of a frostlord or archregent are extremely rare, very powerful leaders. They lead entire sub-factions, whole nations worth of their army. They don't just show up to the battlefield in multiples. It doesn't make narrative sense.

From a strictly matched play perspective, these are leaders that have a significant points investment and army role such that if they are being used in multiples it is because they are overpowered. There is no other reason to use them in multiples.

Accordingly, limiting them to 1 per army is beneficial for both sides. No one loses in that arrangement.

Meh this used to be a troupe back in WHFB and basically we reached a point where people needed to not be so serious about nouns. Sure each tribe has one Frostlord but what if the Huskards in one tribe were so powerful they would be a Frostlord in another. Narrative fixed

Mechanically you just need to make sure that the abilities (warscroll) of each unit is useful, and not so over priced to be not worth taking. 

For example in WHFB a captain who wasn't a battle standard bearer offered little compared to a warrior priest. Then they got Hold the Line and you could actually have a conversation about one or the other.