Discussing the quality of rules in AoS

[Greybeard86]

3 minutes ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

GW can be competent or incompetent when writing rules without it having anything to do with whether they use specific war scroll rules for sales.  

As @NinthMusketeer has already pointed out GW is actually pretty darn competent.  AoS and 40k are massively multivariate though even the most competent writers will have hits and misses.  Even the most competent writers on a deadline will have hits and misses.  Combine massively multivariate with deadlines and you’ll certainly have hits and misses.

To me at least, that is a simpler explanation than GW intentionally sacrificing some units (paying a high price in inventory costs as a result) to artificially boost others.

They forecast sales when they produce units. We know there must be "bad" units in order for there to be "good" units. They run a tighter ship that most think but of course they aren't perfect.

At this point though I think our positions are clear and we can move on to talking about rules, not their business

[stratigo]

6 hours ago, PrimeElectrid said:

Well, no. The evidence suggests the opposite. For every new model with strong rules, there is a just as many (if not more) new models with bad rules. Kragnos. Sons of Behemat. Warsong Revenant. Slaanesh twins. All Slaanesh 2021 releases. Even Kroak is arguably nerfed. Some of the new Soulblight stuff is good, some of it is the Wight King. 
 

Clearly, in AoS, GW does not write strong rules to push new models. Otherwise all these models would have strong rules.

And the point of my post is that they never have. None of the new Lizardmen models in 8th had good rules. Of the Warriors new models, only chariots were made better - the monsters were garbage. Of the Dark Elves, most of the new models got better rules - but some didn’t. These exceptions wouldn’t happen if such a strategy existed.
 

I’m testing the limits of my memory now but the case is made: if GW write rules to push new models we would see a pattern. But there is no such consistency. Either the resulting inconsistency is that GW is very bad at writing strong rules to push new models (which is not credible as this takes more effort than writing the strong rules); or -gasp- they are actually trying to write semi balanced rules regardless of model status and making mistakes in both directions because this is quite hard to achieve. 

 

I'm not entirely sure you understand game design here. And while I agree that the AoS rules writing team doesn't seem to have the plan that the 40k team does and their releases just have this feeling of being haphazard, you need to create winner models and looser models to differentiate the two, especially within factions. People are comparative, they need things to compare.

 

I mean GW is also not trying to blow the power curve up (usually, sometimes a suit seems to tell the designers to do this, but the anecdotes I know are all kirby era), but here they DO fail. There is, however, like, a clear pattern of power growth for both games and there always has been. It's why they had to slam the 8th ed reset button and why in like 4 to 5 years they'll have to slam that button for AoS (and 40k again). Power creep is super obvious.

 

 

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

30 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

They forecast sales when they produce units. We know there must be "bad" units in order for there to be "good" units. They run a tighter ship that most think but of course they aren't perfect.

At this point though I think our positions are clear and we can move on to talking about rules, not their business

I think we do both agree that there are good and bad units as well as that too many are quick to point to the bad as evidence of incompetence.  Agree we disagree on the intent behind good and bad units.  

As regards the rules themselves I am actually happy that Lake Wobegon (where all the factions are strong, all the models are good looking, and all the war scrolls are above average) is NOT one of the Mortal Realms (guessing it would be tucked in somewhere between Hysh and Ghyran?).  I get a lot of pleasure riding up and down the unit and faction quality curves.

The positive for me is that I think this spectrum is a feature of a complex dynamic system, not a bug.  At the same time I recognize how easily this could spin out of control until the whole system breaks down. Happily for me it does seem there are enough competent mechanics working at GW burning the midnight oil to keep this from happening.

[Zappgrot]

44 minutes ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

I think we do both agree that there are good and bad units as well as that too many are quick to point to the bad as evidence of incompetence.  Agree we disagree on the intent behind good and bad units.  

As regards the rules themselves I am actually happy that Lake Wobegon (where all the factions are strong, all the models are good looking, and all the war scrolls are above average) is NOT one of the Mortal Realms (guessing it would be tucked in somewhere between Hysh and Ghyran?).  I get a lot of pleasure riding up and down the unit and faction quality curves.

The positive for me is that I think this spectrum is a feature of a complex dynamic system, not a bug.  At the same time I recognize how easily this could spin out of control until the whole system breaks down. Happily for me it does seem there are enough competent mechanics working at GW burning the midnight oil to keep this from happening.

The changing meta is a lot of fun. It always is in games. Better a living game then a dead game that never chances. But it is kinda expensive to keep up whit it. 

[stratigo]

32 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:

The changing meta is a lot of fun. It always is in games. Better a living game then a dead game that never chances. But it is kinda expensive to keep up whit it. 

That's the point

[Zappgrot]

8 minutes ago, stratigo said:

That's the point

For GW obviusly yes. For me not so much 

[Feii]

4 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

They forecast sales when they produce units. We know there must be "bad" units in order for there to be "good" units. They run a tighter ship that most think but of course they aren't perfect.

At this point though I think our positions are clear and we can move on to talking about rules, not their business

don't think that is true. This is not MTG. 

[Zappgrot]

1 hour ago, Feii said:

don't think that is true. This is not MTG. 

About the good and bad units?  Cause that is not a magic thing. That's a logic thing.  It's a fact of life.  Values like good or bad are relative.  They exist as pairs. 

[Enoby]

I think the problem with creating "bad" units to make "good" units look good is that it still costs a lot to make these bad units. For example, Chaos Knights and Warriors have worse scrolls than marauders, but it would have cost considerably more to produce the new warriors and knights than to just continue having marauders. What benefit do they get for making warriors and knights poor?

Same for Slaangors. I imagine creating the cast for Slaangors cost nealry as much as the cast for Slickblades. So why lose sales and make one considerably worse? Having Slaangors be even just okay wouldn't make Slickblades less good - it just drags down the rest of the book and leaves a bad taste in someone's mouth.

What I'm trying to say is, if they want to make "bad" units, why make those "bad" units the ones that have cost a lot to make and haven't yet made their money back? Why not just change some old models to have bad scrolls, if this is an intentional decision?

Edited June 2, 2021 by Enoby

[Xil]

4 hours ago, Zappgrot said:

The changing meta is a lot of fun. It always is in games. Better a living game then a dead game that never chances. But it is kinda expensive to keep up whit it. 

Not only the price is an issue, also time invested in your armies is. The time for me is the bigger factor. I don't like my units i invested much time to be just dust holders

[Grimrock]

3 hours ago, Enoby said:

I think the problem with creating "bad" units to make "good" units look good is that it still costs a lot to make these bad units. For example, Chaos Knights and Warriors have worse scrolls than marauders, but it would have cost considerably more to produce the new warriors and knights than to just continue having marauders. What benefit do they get for making warriors and knights poor?

Same for Slaangors. I imagine creating the cast for Slaangors cost nealry as much as the cast for Slickblades. So why lose sales and make one considerably worse? Having Slaangors be even just okay wouldn't make Slickblades less good - it just drags down the rest of the book and leaves a bad taste in someone's mouth.

What I'm trying to say is, if they want to make "bad" units, why make those "bad" units the ones that have cost a lot to make and haven't yet made their money back? Why not just change some old models to have bad scrolls, if this is an intentional decision?

I figure they avoid doing that because it would create a trend that disincentives purchases. If old models consistently get worse and new models are always amazing on release then people would just abandon buying models all together when a release was around the corner. No reason to buy something if it's just going to be useless in 6 months or a year. As it is now when there's an upcoming release there's always hope that x unit will still be good. Maybe even get a buff. There's always a reason to keep the money flowing at a regular rate up until the release. Then if your old models are actually good after release you're happy and more willing to buy the new models since the investment seems more secure. Maybe you'll even break the budget a bit just to get that one extra exciting kit.

Personally, if my collection became more or less useless after a given release and only the new models were worth anything I think I'd be far far more likely to just give up and abandon the army all together than go through all the effort of essentially starting over.

[Xil]

5 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

I figure they avoid doing that because it would create a trend that disincentives purchases. If old models consistently get worse and new models are always amazing on release then people would just abandon buying models all together when a release was around the corner. No reason to buy something if it's just going to be useless in 6 months or a year. As it is now when there's an upcoming release there's always hope that x unit will still be good. Maybe even get a buff. There's always a reason to keep the money flowing at a regular rate up until the release. Then if your old models are actually good after release you're happy and more willing to buy the new models since the investment seems more secure. Maybe you'll even break the budget a bit just to get that one extra exciting kit.

Personally, if my collection became more or less useless after a given release and only the new models were worth anything I think I'd be far far more likely to just give up and abandon the army all together than go through all the effort of essentially starting over.

Totally agree.

I am at this point with my Craftworlds from 40k. The kits i have painted and used have not gotten any love over the past almost 10 years i own the army. I have almost lost all interest in it and i don't know if a range refresh would bring me back quickly. In the whole i also almost never play 40k anymore. I don't have a second painted army that goes beyond 1k and i didn't feel like investing.

[Feii]

9 hours ago, Zappgrot said:

About the good and bad units?  Cause that is not a magic thing. That's a logic thing.  It's a fact of life.  Values like good or bad are relative.  They exist as pairs. 

the thing is the spread of good and bad elements in this game even within one army has no right to be the same as somewhere in mtg. I fully understand that if you have over 20 000 cards and the limited environment you will have a lot of bad cards but then you look at let's say on release IDK and how can you achieve 1 good warscroll 1 mediocre warscroll and another 10ish trash tier scrolls and call it the way of life. 


It is not the way of life it is what it looks like if you writers are incompetent.  In mtg you have intentionally pushed or trash cards but there is no room for such a huge spread in AoS if you have competent designers. 

[Greybeard86]

9 hours ago, Enoby said:

I think the problem with creating "bad" units to make "good" units look good is that it still costs a lot to make these bad units. [...]

What I'm trying to say is, if they want to make "bad" units, why make those "bad" units the ones that have cost a lot to make and haven't yet made their money back? Why not just change some old models to have bad scrolls, if this is an intentional decision?

I think everyone needs to read that MTG article to get an idea of how these things are designed.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03

GW is designing with different target players in mind. This is thus a complicated balance, and they cannot simply make all units "mostly balanced" and thus sell to all types at once. If that was the profit optimizing strategy, they'd follow it. It doesn't take an advanced degree in math to figure out undercosted or broken combinations in AoS (or 40K). Do you think they do not detect outliers same as you do?

Quote

What benefit do they get for making warriors and knights poor?

They need good and bad units to please powergamers, same as they need good and bad armies. The good thing for GW is that they can and do tweak rules regularly, meaning that they can switch which units are designed for powergamers at will.

Here some on designing good and bad units:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28

When GW pushes a new army, or a new set of rules, they do it after deciding on a target demographic, and on how it will interact with the rest of the armies and units out there. There is a reason why Kragnos is currently regarded as "very crabby" from a competitive standpoint, and it is not that they don't know how to design powerful centerpieces. Same for SoB not dominating tournies.

Sometimes, they make mistakes. They think something will be appealing to some crowd, and it is not. Other times, they have armies that tank because they were designed under a different paradigm (FS). So, mistakes are made, but design is deliberate.

 

[Feii]

20 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I think everyone needs to read that MTG article to get an idea of how these things are designed.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03

GW is designing with different target players in mind. This is thus a complicated balance, and they cannot simply make all units "mostly balanced" and thus sell to all types at once. If that was the profit optimizing strategy, they'd follow it. It doesn't take an advanced degree in math to figure out undercosted or broken combinations in AoS (or 40K). Do you think they do not detect outliers same as you do?

They need good and bad units to please powergamers, same as they need good and bad armies. The good thing for GW is that they can and do tweak rules regularly, meaning that they can switch which units are designed for powergamers at will.

Here some on designing good and bad units:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28

When GW pushes a new army, or a new set of rules, they do it after deciding on a target demographic, and on how it will interact with the rest of the armies and units out there. There is a reason why Kragnos is currently regarded as "very crabby" from a competitive standpoint, and it is not that they don't know how to design powerful centerpieces. Same for SoB not dominating tournies.

Sometimes, they make mistakes. They think something will be appealing to some crowd, and it is not. Other times, they have armies that tank because they were designed under a different paradigm (FS). So, mistakes are made, but design is deliberate.

 

How many layers of ideology and being unable to admit flaws in ones own thinking does it take to make a comment that on the one hand says they are not designing it like they do with magic and then quote MTG designer post to support the same argument. 🤡

You are wrong. 

[Greybeard86]

2 minutes ago, Feii said:

How many layers of ideology and being unable to admit flaws in ones own thinking does it take to make a comment that on the one hand says they are not designing it like they do with magic and then quote MTG designer post to support the same argument. 🤡

You are wrong. 

¿...? I genuinely don't understand the comment. They follow, I am sure, similar design principles, but obviously the product is different. For example, it does not have its rules printed on the model.

[Enoby]

52 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

GW is designing with different target players in mind. This is thus a complicated balance, and they cannot simply make all units "mostly balanced" and thus sell to all types at once. If that was the profit optimizing strategy, they'd follow it. It doesn't take an advanced degree in math to figure out undercosted or broken combinations in AoS (or 40K). Do you think they do not detect outliers same as you do?

I agree that there are different design philosophies for some units. For example, Kragnos isn't too strong, but he appeals to certain players as he does tonnes of damage. To those players, they may not care that he can't get over screens and does damage to his own units - all that matters is that he wrecks face. Totally understandable ideology.

That's not my issue though. My issue is with things like Slaangors - who do they appeal to, and why make their scrolls so poor. Slaangors may appeal to a painting crowd, sure, but good rules doesn't suddenly make a model less paintable. They aren't smashy like Kragnos, they certainly don't have a competitive edge, and they don't have any special combos that make them fun to score a win with. They appeal to no type of player rules wise. They are also new models that would have cost a lot to make. Finally, their poor design is visible from a 5 minute look at the scroll. 

My issue isn't with Kragnos or SoB not reaching top tables. As you said, that's just for a different demographic who want smashy models. My issue is for warscrolls that are just plain bad. 

You ask if GW doesn't see those outliers while others do? I think sometimes it's a case that everyone needs to wait and see where a unit stands, and there's no issue there. But sometimes I wonder why undeniably bad warscrolls get produced - ones were you can see in 2 minutes that they're just plain bad for everyone, like the Wight King on Steed's command ability, or Slaangors, or Black Knights. Why aren't these spotted earlier?

The other article you posted attempts to address this, but it does in a way that is quite unique to Magic. They mention 'Volcanic Hammer' as an example, which was just the worse version of another card, but it saw play after that other card went out of the format. We don't have formats in AoS, and while a new warscroll could be introduced that buffs one of these bad scrolls, it takes a long time for a model to be produced and there's no guarantee. I think if you say "Slaangors are potentially good because they may release a Slaangor Lord which gives them +1 damage and doubles their attacks", I don't think that would leave anyone feeling better about Slaangors because there's no guarantee. 

Their point that all cards cannot be good - that there'll always be a better card and that designing a perfect set means that the next set will struggle. But we're not asking for every Waracroll to be good - we're asking for no Warscroll to be utterly bad. For example, fiends are generally worse than Slickblades and yet they cost very similar points. I don't mind this as fiends have their own niche and are still usable, but not optimal. Slaangors have no such luck - they are not sub-optimal, they're just poor.

Their second point about different players was addressed above. Kragnos being a big uncompetitive smash monster is fine. Black Knights hitting like wet toilet paper and tearing just as easily is not. Being just plain bad appeals to no one.

Their third point about discovery again is more applicable to a game like Magic where there are many interactive rules, and each card may have a niche but good use, and players (experienced and new) have to play them to find out. AoS on the other hand is a much more simple game where interactions are limited on keyword, and so you can see the potential of a unit usually with a flick through the book. If a buff isn't keyword limited, it goes on the stronger model. Not only that, a new Magic player testing out some bad cards may have spent a small amount of money on them (especially if buying them on EBay for like 99p). A new player testing out bad AoS models will have spent a lot on even just one box. Going off YuGiOh, oftentimes you learn something is bad because the activation condition is too hard to get off, or it doesn't provide card advantage, or it has no protection - something looks good, but you discover it's not due to deeper rules interactions. This is a bit like Kragnos, who looks great on paper but struggles to perform due to slow movement, no allegiance abilities, and no fly. Slaangors, on the other hand, need no discovery to see their warscroll is poor - a new player tries them once and just sees they underperform. There is no deeper rules discovery.

Onto the fourth point, I don't think this is applicable to AoS as it's talking about metagames - the Lion's Eye Diamond card was good in a particular format of the game because it existed alongside other cards which (I believe) were phased out. This doesn't happen in AoS, and warscrolls very rarely interact the same way that cards do (through combos to end at an advantageous end state). 

The fifth point sounds like they're saying bad cards need to exist because having bad choices traps new players, and lets good players have the opportunity to make better decisions. In a card game this is fine because bad cards have no connection to them and are often cheap - you don't get the same disappointment of seeing an awesome model with a bad warscroll. A new player spending £30 on a unit that will be a load of rubbish on the table is disheartening - it's a lot easier to move on a from a bad card you pulled from a pack.

The sixth point again has more relation to MTG - hidden gems can exist in AoS, but because the game is not about creating combos to get to an end goal, usually the power of a warscroll is much more obvious. Occasionally you do get hidden gems in AoS because of keyword interactions. But because keywords usually limit buffs, it's rare to get a non-obvious keyword interaction. For example, the Brayherd keyword is needed to get some of the allegiance abilities in BoC, the Slaangors not having this Keyword just lowers their potential, and it doesn't act as some sort of distraction from the true hidden gems.

The seventh and final point is impossible to argue against (unless the rules team is secretly genestealers) and I would wager is probably the cause of most truly bad warscrolls. I guess my point is that some of these human errors are spotted within minutes, and I have no clue how the rule's team misses it or why they let it slide. 

To sum up, it's an interesting article but I don't think it translates to AoS simply because Magic plays very differently, especially with how formats and combos work.

[Greybeard86]

Great reply, dropped a trophy for you since you make very good points.

Yes, there are some differences between the games and you pointed them out well. My point with the link was to give insight on how those decisions are made, since it is very likely a similar "R&D" process is happening in GW's HQs.

Your key question, out of respect for the time you took to write this:

Quote

You ask if GW doesn't see those outliers while others do? I think sometimes it's a case that everyone needs to wait and see where a unit stands, and there's no issue there. But sometimes I wonder why undeniably bad warscrolls get produced - ones were you can see in 2 minutes that they're just plain bad for everyone, like the Wight King on Steed's command ability, or Slaangors, or Black Knights. Why aren't these spotted earlier?

My claim: not only they are spotted, oftentimes they are left subpar by design.

Here is something that, IMO, you discarted too quicky:

Quote

The fifth point sounds like they're saying bad cards need to exist because having bad choices traps new players, and lets good players have the opportunity to make better decisions. In a card game this is fine because bad cards have no connection to them and are often cheap - you don't get the same disappointment of seeing an awesome model with a bad warscroll. A new player spending £30 on a unit that will be a load of rubbish on the table is disheartening - it's a lot easier to move on a from a bad card you pulled from a pack.

You are right that the "bad feeling" from badly balanced models is way worse than that of bad cards. But that isn't stopping GW (this has happened for decades). This design approach is not exclusive to GW, it is called things like "rewarding system mastery" or "white tower design" (and similar things), though there are debates over technicalities on this. GW goes above and beyond though, to have obvious winners and losers among models (ocasional mistakes do happen).

Your point that why design models that may not be used by people other than collectors has an answer too. GW can and often will rotate the spotlight on models and armies for them to have "good rules". Since we already established that under the "rewarding system mastery" paradigm you need to create imbalances, it follows that by rotating those imbalances you can get powergamers/spikes to chase the full range of models.

So, to sum it up: i) GW targets different demographics, and those may chase things other than "effiency", ii) to have "efficient" units, you must have "inefficient" options, iii) GW can rotate love across models and armies, so they make sure they maximize sales.

[Feii]

28 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

Great reply, dropped a trophy for you since you make very good points.

Yes, there are some differences between the games and you pointed them out well. My point with the link was to give insight on how those decisions are made, since it is very likely a similar "R&D" process is happening in GW's HQs.

Your key question, out of respect for the time you took to write this:

My claim: not only they are spotted, oftentimes they are left subpar by design.

Here is something that, IMO, you discarted too quicky:

You are right that the "bad feeling" from badly balanced models is way worse than that of bad cards. But that isn't stopping GW (this has happened for decades). This design approach is not exclusive to GW, it is called things like "rewarding system mastery" or "white tower design" (and similar things), though there are debates over technicalities on this. GW goes above and beyond though, to have obvious winners and losers among models (ocasional mistakes do happen).

Your point that why design models that may not be used by people other than collectors has an answer too. GW can and often will rotate the spotlight on models and armies for them to have "good rules". Since we already established that under the "rewarding system mastery" paradigm you need to create imbalances, it follows that by rotating those imbalances you can get powergamers/spikes to chase the full range of models.

So, to sum it up: i) GW targets different demographics, and those may chase things other than "effiency", ii) to have "efficient" units, you must have "inefficient" options, iii) GW can rotate love across models and armies, so they make sure they maximize sales.

Wrong. Bad take after another bad take I wish I was so sure about being right when I am wrong 

[PJetski]

It's a lot easier to believe that GW is just making mistakes constantly instead of believing that they purposefully write bad rules for brand new models in some kind of plot to shift powergamer focus across different units over time.

GW is great at making miniatures and paints, and until the virus of undetermined origin arrived they were also really good at getting those items to their customers. Everything else surrounding those miniatures - such as the rules writing - has always been questionable at best.

[Banshee1978]

For me the rules of the core book are fine the way they are.

 

The rules of the units on the other hand are not.

If you are a player who plays once a month its nearly impossible to remember all the special buffs, rerolls, special circumstances where you get a bonus or malus etc. Even with exce lists aos reminder sheets , warscroll cards etc most of the time you dont play or make tactical descisions or even roll dice. Instead you have to fly through your documentations or search desperately within your memory for the „one special rule which might give a +1 on save but only if charged or was it just rerolls if you roll a one or was there a ignore rend -1 or did i have a second save but only against missles?“ or do I stand close to a wood which gives -1 to shooting? Are damn too late  we already do save rules maybe next time but good to know that my opponent forgot that when he throws a 6 on to hit he scores two hits and if the player of the unit makes 10 squats he makes three..

 

 

thats where I see AOS not casual player friendly and not very transparent for anybody. Here is where they would have to streamline the effects  and in general solve more by using faction specific rules (or even extent the core rules like they want to do „all units with keywords monaters can do the following“

you could do the same by introducing new keywords for a specific role (warmachines/cavalary etc) and pimp them a little more faction specific by adding some buff to this type of unit   But you stay away from adding 1000 rules to each unit and focus on keywords and stats instead  

 

 

 

 

[Scurvydog]

I think what rubs people the wrong way is when the rules are either so far of the mark it blows the mind the second you look at the warscroll, or that it does not fit with the look or lore of the model at all.

Perfect example of lazy off the mark rules is poor Garvus Steelsoul, he lands like superman, creating a crater where he lands, he goes toe to toe with Belakor in the novel (he loses, but puts up a fight), yet he uses the basic Lord Celestant on foot warscroll but with a worse armor save! he has 4 attacks with 1 damage and a 4+ save instead of 3+ of the regular celestant on foot, and boy do we not see many lord celestants on foot as is... insanely lazy and clearly made by someone who never played Stormcast and reviewed by 0 people.

We are talking rules being mocked the second they go out the door, any kind of critical eye on this work would spot and ask for a correction. If this was like free updates from a small company, fine, but this is a big company charging quite a lot of money for these books and it sometimes is just so sloppy and lazy. 

Broken realms has been quite a stark example of this, with some armies getting absolutely terrible additions, or simply pointless ones, like why even make the OBR battalion, it is the exact same setup as in the battletome, just worse rules... But the Aelves all in all did well for themselves, which widens the gap and player perception of the have and have nots of GWs attention and effort.

[Frowny]

What I wish most of all is that GW had transparent and obvious discussions about WHY they make decisions and that it seems like they have some reason for doing them. My comparison to MTG is more about their communication and style rather than their actual balance. 

I agree fully with @Enoby (who seems to consistently have thuoughtful posts here but also in many other places) that the design rules for AOS are different from those for MTG

But, their communication is independent of the actual balance. Balance aside, MTG does a way better job communicating with their community and explaining their design choices. They even sometimes admit they were wrong, when they notice decks too powerful, and have to explain why they are banning something or why one set has lower power than the previous one.

I would love love love if GW published articles about their design philosophy, explained how they arrived on things. 

Another good example is the recent 40k druchari points changes. I think they did a good job toning down one of the most op armies they've released recently. All it would take is a 1-2 paragraph explanation to go along with their chapter approved to make that change really hit home, to make it seem like they are aware of the situation and fixing it. Because to their credit they were! and made reasonable changes quickly! They just need to sell it!

My problem is that right now, for much of AOS, feels like they don't have a design philosophy at all. Units like slaangors tell me that, where a casual player who doesn't play the army looking at the points and warscroll for 5 minutes with a spreadsheet can see it fits nobody. This contrasts with a model like kragnos who is probably overpointed competitively but at least is super cool and smashy, which is always fun. He bothers me much less. This contrasts with Allarielle, who is similar expensive. Not really that smashy, not competitively pointed, Kind of a general utility piece but without the cool combos doable with tecils (who is also competitively playable). It just leaves.me wondering what GW was going for. Given how.lbmuch work they put into designing, shipping and marketing these models, a little marketing of their rules design would go a long way, to me at least.

I do think they are moving slowly in the right direction, as the druchari changes show, but they still have a bit more to do.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

One of my favorite movies growing up was “The Dirty Dozen”, especially the war games scene where they capture the General who has been harassing them by “breaking all the rules”.  Interestingly this was actually based on a real event during WW2 when an intelligence officer used some local irregulars to completely disrupt some planned war games in Puerto Rico.  History is actually full of examples of these broken war games where a creative individual or team finds a new approach that completely disrupts the plans & thinking of the higher ups who set up the game.  Too often those higher ups don’t learn from this but simply reset the game prohibiting the disruptive actions (only to have to learn the hard way on actual battlefields these same lessons).

I’m trying to thread a very fine needle here by specifically referencing war games since bringing up actual historical references seems to really anger some players.  The point is that even when the stakes are much, much higher than we will ever see on the table top designing the rules and learning the right thing is incredibly hard.  I think we lean into arguments of either incompetence or intentional malfeasance way too quickly ignoring again that no war game is fought in Lake Wobegon, where all the factions are strong, all the models good looking and all the war scrolls are above average…

[pnkdth]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

The seventh and final point is impossible to argue against (unless the rules team is secretly genestealers) and I would wager is probably the cause of most truly bad warscrolls. I guess my point is that some of these human errors are spotted within minutes, and I have no clue how the rule's team misses it or why they let it slide. 

My guess is deadlines and a last minute nerf which goes too far. The reason it stays is because there's already a miniature for it. They rather release a bad warscroll with an already finished model and fix the rules later than removing it from the battletome. I think this swings both ways, creating overly powerful units or bad units.