Discussing the quality of rules in AoS

[Feii]

9 minutes ago, JackOfBlades said:

Which ones?

Depends what you like but because no other company has 25 armies with rules and if fun to you means a lot of armies witht heir standalone rules then you have a hard time to find something better than GW 

 

having that said a lot of skirmish games has better rules than GW skirmish games. I also think the core rules of gw big games are 9/10 BUT they carry the army rules hard. 
 

To be fair vince and uncle adam made probably better rules for a skirmish game than a multibillion company...

[Feii]

Given what they said about the new heroic rules and CA you can activate in every turn I really fear the gap between armies with good rules and bad rules will become wider. 
 

Also quote me on this - Malerion elves will be the color Blue of AoS in that regard. 
 

 

[Hoseman]

So What will happen with this new armys?? I will probably collect both but will it be competitive? Will stormcast at last shine as her armour? The krule boyz seems like a lot of potential, will they be ok?? 

So many questions...

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, JackOfBlades said:

Which ones?

Cool Mini Or Not for example.

[zilberfrid]

10 hours ago, Feii said:

Depends what you like but because no other company has 25 armies with rules and if fun to you means a lot of armies witht heir standalone rules then you have a hard time to find something better than GW 

having that said a lot of skirmish games has better rules than GW skirmish games. I also think the core rules of gw big games are 9/10 BUT they carry the army rules hard. 

To be fair vince and uncle adam made probably better rules for a skirmish game than a multibillion company...

Haven't read that (or purchased it yet, want to watch Vince's video first), but between Frostgrave and Stargrave for skirmish, Rangers of Shadowdeep for coop and Oathmark for army games, I am already set.

[Fred1245]

19 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

People keep happily buying it no matter how sub-par the quality is. Space Marines for example had pretty much never been top tier until the end of 8th edition, but they've still flown off the shelves like hot cakes for decades. 

Why should GW invest manpower and money into making sure they have solid internal and external balance, well-written rules, etc, when they're going to sell just as well regardless? That's probably how they see it. Other games live and die by the quality of their game/rules - and even then, it's often not enough - but one consistent is GW's popularity ensures they don't have to care.

This is actually not correct, at least without a ton more qualifiers. Space Wolves were a top tier army in 5th until GK came out and was possibly the most OP faction 40k had seen up until then. 6th edition marines were decent but in 7th marines were a top tier army from when their codex came out to the end of the edition(battle company and all the many flavors of marine death stars) then in the indexes marines were crazy OP until multiple stormraven nerfs then marines were the best by default due to being the first codex.

So some flavor of marine has been top tier since at least 5th.

[Greybeard86]

18 hours ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

Agree that AoS has a design philosophy problem.  The better dynamic (though still not perfect as I know owning Tau and Tyranids) in 40k I think comes from a more settled set of factions.  I am really hoping that with 3.0 AoS settles into a more consistent set of factions allowing for either a design philosophy to emerge organically (best case) or be imposed too down (if necessary).

And right as we are discussing this here, we set yet another avalanche of new models.

There are more models in AoS than anyone could paint in a life-time (am I really exaggerating?).

Making sure existing models are actually usable should be a priority, IMO.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:

And right as we are discussing this here, we set yet another avalanche of new models.

What gives me some hope is that these are, in one way or another, expansions of existing factions (SCE and Orruk Warclans).  40k hasn’t stopped releasing new models.  In direct comparison Space Marines got a ton of new Primaris models and 40k Orks are going to get Beast Snaggas.  But in each case GW is building on what already exists so while we’ll have to wait and see for Beast Snaggas, Primaris didn’t fundamentally change 40k’s design philosophy and 8e nor was Primaris the prime driver of 9e design philosophy updates.

[Enoby]

One thing that I should mention, which was spotted on the Slaanesh thread that doesn't bode well for the rules writers is that the two twins have the wrong weapons.

The combat twin has a scourge in their profile (which they do not have on their model) and two claws (whereas they have three on their model). The casting twin has three claws (but has a scourge and two claws on their model). In addition, the rod and scepter may well be mixed around too.

Rules-wise, it's better that the combat twin has more attacks. The issue is that it seems very careless for a rules writer to mix up the models they were meant to be writing for...

[Mcthew]

33 minutes ago, Enoby said:

One thing that I should mention, which was spotted on the Slaanesh thread that doesn't bode well for the rules writers is that the two twins have the wrong weapons.

The combat twin has a scourge in their profile (which they do not have on their model) and two claws (whereas they have three on their model). The casting twin has three claws (but has a scourge and two claws on their model). In addition, the rod and scepter may well be mixed around too.

Rules-wise, it's better that the combat twin has more attacks. The issue is that it seems very careless for a rules writer to mix up the models they were meant to be writing for...

I laugh.

But not surprised. Rules don't often follow lore or even models. And sometimes I wonder if the writers have even seen the model. 

How quick will FaQs come out for BR book 4?

Or will they wait until AoS 3.0?

[yukishiro1]

Sums it all up right there, sadly. 

[Greybeard86]

2 hours ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

What gives me some hope is that these are, in one way or another, expansions of existing factions (SCE and Orruk Warclans).  40k hasn’t stopped releasing new models.  In direct comparison Space Marines got a ton of new Primaris models and 40k Orks are going to get Beast Snaggas.  But in each case GW is building on what already exists so while we’ll have to wait and see for Beast Snaggas, Primaris didn’t fundamentally change 40k’s design philosophy and 8e nor was Primaris the prime driver of 9e design philosophy updates.

Again, an issue of priorities. As I mentioned in the other thread, "new!!!"1!" seems to take priority over carefully balancing with existing ranges. I mean, SC have a laughable amount of units, how many are actually viable on the TT? Did they need the "bulkjer" SC now?

If the issue is providing choice, release new models for existing units, so that both can be fielded. But that is not what the GW of the last 10 years has been doing, compared to the GW of the first 2 decades.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:

Again, an issue of priorities

I think the tough part is we’re really talking three different parts of GW.  The people making the decisions that keep the lights on and the factories running, the people making the models and the people writing the rules.  The most common points of intersection between these three groups are decisions on new editions, new battletomes and new models.  Even at the prices they charge my guess is rule sets and tomes are a break even equation, and that overtime.  If you understand business break even drives you bankrupt because it doesn’t include all the overhead and other items that are a reality for businesses and ignores the timing if cash flows.  GW has to invest a lot of money upfront long before we plunk down our preorders.

So it is unrealistic to expect a new edition without new models to drive sales to cover those costs.  Similarly we know that the most likely catalyst for a new tome is new models.

So if we want GW to prioritize fixing issues in battletomes (or supplements like BR or WD) we have to accept that these investments in time and money are largely paid for via new models.  Put another way the rules writing team is massively subsidized by the models team.

Which isn’t to say they shouldn’t bolster the rules writing teams.  I think they clearly have.  It really is showing in 9e 40k so I am hopeful for 3e AoS.

That said I recognize how long a cycle it really is.  The most consistent figure I here is GW operates on a three year cycle.  GW has almost doubled in the last three years.  Yet it would’ve been foolish for GW to have budgeted as if they’d achieve the growth they’ve achieved.  As growth has exceeded budget forecasts I am not surprised GW remains a bit behind the curve hiring wise.  As I do expect a slowdown in 2022/23 fiscal year given all the demand pull forward from COVID, 9e, and 3e I am guessing that is when we’ll start to see them catch up.

[Frowny]

One of my frustrations is how obvious some of the balance stuff is. For example, the new sylbaneth revenant is a good warscroll but it is horrifically overcoated. 275 points for just 2 casts is an absolutely horrible deal.

Some comparisons:

belladonna Volga, released recently, has +1 save, +2 wounds, +2mv, +2 bravery, same damage output, a second unbind and a command ability. And she is 75 points LESS.

A skaven grey seer is 140 pts. 2 casts and unbinds, casts on a 3d6. Less sturdy, sure, but you can get 2 of them for the same price, easily equalizing the durability difference. And stand next to a warp hole for even better casting. 

Or to a slaan, who has quite similar base stats but is a 3cast/3 unbind wizard, also has a useful command ability, and generates 2 CPS on a 4+. And costs 15 pts LESS.

Or to a contorted epitome. 2c/2d, a useful fights last aura, and 65 pts less.

All of the above also have something equal to or similar to the +1 to cast, and all just blow this out of the water. Even within the battletome itself you could get 3 branchwriaths instead, for 3 casts and unbinds. 

it's true I picked some strong playable options as my comparison point, and things need to be balanced within a battletome. But at the same time, sylvaneth are clearly a weak battletome already and all of these comparisons are just so far ahead of her it's not even close. At 275 she is a hard pass in any serious list in an already weak book.

What's frustrating is that I didn't even have to try very hard for figure out this was hopelessly overcosted. I'd have hoped better from a multimillion dollar company tasked solely with making and designing a game.

[zilberfrid]

On 5/30/2021 at 6:28 PM, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

I think the tough part is we’re really talking three different parts of GW.  The people making the decisions that keep the lights on and the factories running, the people making the models and the people writing the rules.  The most common points of intersection between these three groups are decisions on new editions, new battletomes and new models.  Even at the prices they charge my guess is rule sets and tomes are a break even equation, and that overtime.  If you understand business break even drives you bankrupt because it doesn’t include all the overhead and other items that are a reality for businesses and ignores the timing if cash flows.  GW has to invest a lot of money upfront long before we plunk down our preorders.

So it is unrealistic to expect a new edition without new models to drive sales to cover those costs.  Similarly we know that the most likely catalyst for a new tome is new models.

So if we want GW to prioritize fixing issues in battletomes (or supplements like BR or WD) we have to accept that these investments in time and money are largely paid for via new models.  Put another way the rules writing team is massively subsidized by the models team.

Which isn’t to say they shouldn’t bolster the rules writing teams.  I think they clearly have.  It really is showing in 9e 40k so I am hopeful for 3e AoS.

That said I recognize how long a cycle it really is.  The most consistent figure I here is GW operates on a three year cycle.  GW has almost doubled in the last three years.  Yet it would’ve been foolish for GW to have budgeted as if they’d achieve the growth they’ve achieved.  As growth has exceeded budget forecasts I am not surprised GW remains a bit behind the curve hiring wise.  As I do expect a slowdown in 2022/23 fiscal year given all the demand pull forward from COVID, 9e, and 3e I am guessing that is when we’ll start to see them catch up.

Companies selling just books manage to turn a profit with better quality rulesets, higher pagecount, lower price and lower numbers.

If GW can't turn a profit at that price/page being the biggest in the wargaming industry, they are doing something really, really wrong.

[ZaelART]

I think the answers pretty simple.

Balance will always be an issue with AOS. There will never be a stable settled point in the mortal realms for everything to fall into place and be tweaked ad infinitum. Why? Because there will always be new releases, and lots of them. And they need to sell them.

Oh, forgot to mention. This doesn't matter, because the game is for the players, just house rule stuff and have fun. I'm afraid the competitive scene will always have some bias in it.

Edited May 31, 2021 by ZaelART

[RuneBrush]

9 hours ago, ZaelART said:

I think the answers pretty simple.

Balance will always be an issue with AOS. There will never be a stable settled point in the mortal realms for everything to fall into place and be tweaked ad infinitum. Why? Because there will always be new releases, and lots of them. And they need to sell them.

Oh, forgot to mention. This doesn't matter, because the game is for the players, just house rule stuff and have fun. I'm afraid the competitive scene will always have some bias in it.

I would agree with this.  The game wasn't originally designed with "balance" as the core selling point and the quantity of releases means it's a self fulfilling prophesy of never being able to be balanced.  That said, I do think that keeping an eye on power creep is one thing that can (and should) be done - although I have lost count of the number of times I've read claims of how new book X is going to dominate the game and it doesn't quite happen.

[Greybeard86]

Saying rules don't matter in a thread on "good" rules feels out of place.

Let me give you 3 reasons why rules matter a lot:

1. Have a look at how many players are selling their chorfs after they got squatted. In some case, they sold them right before they got squatted 🤔. So rules support matters, and "legends" is understood to be the kiss of deaths for armies.
2. That "good rules" matter was made crystal clear by players / buyers with AoS 1. And thus GW has reacted to that by completely changing the rules for the game.
3. Finally, GW acknowledges that rules have a big impact on the whole hobby experience and are one of the drivers of purchases. Otherwise, why bother releasing new editions? They could simply sell new models within the same edition and release new warscrolls.

Now, with the current boom in sales, can we say that "balanced" rules are important? Of that, I am not so sure. Some armies are popular even though they are bad rules wise (gitz), others seem to be driven by tournament wins (BR, seraphon), and finally some have good rules and are also popular because of their models (lumineth). So, to GW, what is the value of balance?

[Sarouan]

Well, it's more the context about saying "rules don't matter". Think about it : what really matters in the game, having fun or following blindly the rules ? More than one rule designer from GW has stated more than one time (including in the White Dwarf) than if a rule gets in the way of players' fun, it may be good to ignore it for the sake of the game being fun.

So rules aren't an excuse for everything. They're just tools to be used in the appropriate situation, it shoudn't be an obstacle. Fact is : rules can't cover everything in a game as large as AoS. It's not just limited to a chess board with set cases.

But there is a way to write and present them for sure so that they are easy to follow / find. We'll see how 3rd edition will be designed on that matter. From the few pages shown, I guess they put some effort into it.

 

As for balance's value...we already have the answer with equal game mode, anyway.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Sarouan

[Scurvydog]

The rules are in a strange place I feel. On one hand I think a tome like the new gravelords som competitively weak in comparison to nay of the strongest tomes, especially the top 5. 

On the other hand the game itself would probably be better if all books were in line with the power level seen in Gravelords, as this matches most destruction armies, and also matches up to others like cities, Sylvaneth or even bonereapers. On the other hand many of these tomes present less interesting gameplay options than the current top books. 

It seems to be very hard for GW to create interesting mechanics that works sort of outside the rules of the core book. We can quickly see that the more a book pushes the boundaries of the core rules, the more powerful it is. 

The game is probably better of if less rules break the core rule setup, but either adds to it or introduces more fun mechanics instead of ignoring core concepts. By this I mean how the melee meta broke, which was caused by armies manipulating the core fighting order, combined with the high dmg and low survivability, causes melee armies with this mechanic to dominate. Adding in some got access to fight twice made this worse, so armies like Slaanesh, FeC and Fyreslayers really pushed the envelope. Then the range meta began, as fighting these super units was sure to ruin any tournament, this was then encouraged by GW with the advent of the super wizards and the mortal wound spamming.

Now it seems GW is busy dialing back what made the melee meta in the first place, yet we are already long past that. Armies like Orruks that can boost damage lot with support heroes will still suffer, as it is now so easy to pick of these heroes. GW introduced bodyguard units to some armies relying on this, but not all, like the poor orruks.

If GW is playing catch up still trying to curb a strong melee Meta which has been dead and buried for some time, then that will create some big problems. I just hope 3rd edition brings some more choice back, however so far nothing seems to hinder the oppressive casting and ranged mortal wound spamming, on the contrary if units can suddenly retreat from chargers, it might make them even worse. I hope that will not be the case though, and we see some rebalancing, allowing support heroes on foot to actually do somehing and not just die to the whims of uber wizards and sniper units and have proper melee scraps where it is not just who deletes who first.

[Frowny]

20 hours ago, ZaelART said:

I think the answers pretty simple.

Balance will always be an issue with AOS. There will never be a stable settled point in the mortal realms for everything to fall into place and be tweaked ad infinitum. Why? Because there will always be new releases, and lots of them. And they need to sell them.

I disagree somewhat here, and the brand new warding revenant refutes a lot of them.

1) yes, balance will never be achievable, but at the same time, it doesn't always feel like they are even trying that hard. As i mentioned before, cross book comparisons in 15 minutes reveal it to be horribly overcosted. Just look for any other wizard in any other book at a similar price point and this is pretty obvious.

2) it's a gorgeous new model! They should want to sell it! So making the rules points for it at least playable seems quite important. But they didn't.

I totally agree with you that perfect balance is unachievable. Full stop you are correct. However, BETTER balance is very very easily achievable. 

I think GW could learn a lot from MTG actually. Mark rosewater has an awesome series of articles about designing games, balancing them and creating them. They have whole different teams for design and development yo enable this possibility. GW could easily do similar. Or just hire 1-2 more guys to do fulltime playtesting and interbook balancing.

[ZaelART]

1 hour ago, Frowny said:

I disagree somewhat here, and the brand new warding revenant refutes a lot of them.

1) yes, balance will never be achievable, but at the same time, it doesn't always feel like they are even trying that hard. As i mentioned before, cross book comparisons in 15 minutes reveal it to be horribly overcosted. Just look for any other wizard in any other book at a similar price point and this is pretty obvious.

2) it's a gorgeous new model! They should want to sell it! So making the rules points for it at least playable seems quite important. But they didn't.

I totally agree with you that perfect balance is unachievable. Full stop you are correct. However, BETTER balance is very very easily achievable. 

I think GW could learn a lot from MTG actually. Mark rosewater has an awesome series of articles about designing games, balancing them and creating them. They have whole different teams for design and development yo enable this possibility. GW could easily do similar. Or just hire 1-2 more guys to do fulltime playtesting and interbook balancing.

Agree that we should see evidence of better planning and execution in design to improve balance. Fans certainly shouldn't lower their expectations. They have a hell of a beast to tackle and the team do make some pretty random decisions that don't exactly help. The rules team are a bit of an enigma to be honest.

[Bosskelot]

GW have an incredibly insular studio culture that, even when it does do outside playtesting, is generally up its own ass and unwilling to listen to any other points of view. A comparison to Blizzard Entertainment of the mid-00's to late 10's is very apt; "if you aren't part of our system and don't do the things we do, you literally have 0 idea what you're talking about." There's a lot of discussion in the 40k community right now about this subject because a few of the youtuber batrep channels that playtested 9th edition have been pretty candid about some of their experiences and its highlighted how flawed GW's core design methodology and playtesting system really is.

Add to this a disconnect between what the designers are trying to achieve with a book and what players are looking for and a studio system that rewards people that can drink the corporate kool aid and show passion and enthusiasm for the IP over actual design skill, and issues like the new Sylvaneth model will keep happening.

[Greybeard86]

11 hours ago, Frowny said:

I think GW could learn a lot from MTG actually. Mark rosewater has an awesome series of articles about designing games, balancing them and creating them. They have whole different teams for design and development yo enable this possibility. GW could easily do similar. Or just hire 1-2 more guys to do fulltime playtesting and interbook balancing.

I agree that better balancing is possible.

However, I do not like MTG as the benchmark. They bake in imbalance in their design to reward "system  mastery" and also attempt please certain types of players with smoke and mirrors (flashy cards), but ultimately do not design the cards to be balanced.

I think warhammer should aim for balance, and to create a wargame that reflects the lore. That means that armies should ressemble their lore counterparts in composition, for the most part, and that units ought to deliver in line with what they portray. No unit should be worse at everything, per point, and we do have such things right now.

[zilberfrid]

31 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I agree that better balancing is possible.

However, I do not like MTG as the benchmark. They bake in imbalance in their design to reward "system  mastery" and also attempt please certain types of players with smoke and mirrors (flashy cards), but ultimately do not design the cards to be balanced.

I think warhammer should aim for balance, and to create a wargame that reflects the lore. That means that armies should ressemble their lore counterparts in composition, for the most part, and that units ought to deliver in line with what they portray. No unit should be worse at everything, per point, and we do have such things right now.

Yeah, WotC isn't a benchmark you want to achieve, they have quite a bit of powercreep in editions and phase out cards very regularely.

D&D isn't much better, with WotC unable to admit they can make any mistakes, as well as, again, powercreep.

Paizo would be a better company to look at, but there's a massive cultural divide there.