New "balance" change gets everything wrong

[AaronWilson]

[Charleston]

Reading the list is weird. You get VP for killing:

• Almost unkillable units, at least from weaker factions PoV (Bastiladon, Morathi, Wind-Spirits, Mega Gargants)
• Units that likely toppled the balance of the game anyway and that most likely already put your opponent several VP ahead (Longstrikes, Dracothian Guard, Stalker,Fulminators).

Also punishing single units will automatically lead to heavier punishment when those are used in fluffier lists. I use 5 Blood Stalker without Morathi in my DoK to have just some utility shooting and now I have a biiig prime target which will always put me back a VP because reasons. 

 

Edit: Btw, HOW are Blades of Khorne no Prime-Hunters considering them being bottom Tier of the meta?! 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Charleston

[Kadeton]

56 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

The vast majority of AOS players have not even memorized all the scoring rules for each battleplan, much less all that other stuff.

Oh, neither have I, but a) those haven't changed, and b) you look them up at the start of the battle, you don't need to check them again. You might look at the battle tactics as a reminder at the start of the round. You should already know which units are monsters.

When you build your list, you're aware of which units that you put in are targets. There's like three at most for any given army, and if you're in the competitive scene at all you probably already know the entire list off the top of your head, because they're the ones that people complain about all the time. I really don't see how it's difficult to go "Oh, that's the last Fulminator gone. They're a target by the way, gain 1 VP." And if you're really in the position where you can't remember whether Morathi is a target, when a unit dies just glance at your army list, where you put a big red mark next to their entry to remind yourself.

56 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

(Assuming the result isn't just that nobody ever takes Sin list units any more).

This is a totally acceptable way of completely avoiding any additional complexity from this update, if you struggle to remember this sort of thing. And it achieves the goal of reducing the prevalence of these units without nerfing them into the ground.

56 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

I mean FWIW I agree it's not the looking it up per se that takes the most time, it's integrating that into your strategy as you play. For example battle tactics probably add a solid 20-30 minutes to a game of AOS3 vs not having them, but even if you have to look them up every time, 75% of that time is spent thinking about them rather than looking them up. But thinking about the consequences of all the moving parts is part of having said moving parts.

I think you're right in that we must play quite differently - I wouldn't spend more than a minute at most considering what battle tactic to do in a given turn. There's almost always a clear, most-easily-achievable option, and then you've still got 55 seconds left to ponder whether there's actually another one that is a little harder to do right now but might not be achievable later. Once you've decided and announced it, you don't need to think about it again, just spend the turn doing whatever is was you needed to do to achieve it.

56 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

In any game where Sin list units are involved it is going to add significant time to the game (or force you to compromise elsewhere) in order for players to take into consideration the Sin list rules while planning and executing their actions, especially if there are Sin list units on both sides, in which case you end up with this weird minigame on top of the normal game where you're trying to wear down their Sin units with yours without actually killing them, so you can score the points by finishing them off with something else. Or where the owner of said Sin unit is deliberately trying to fail battleshock on their last model to deny the other player the points. Etc etc. There are a lot of non-obvious ways this can come into play and impact strategy and therefore game time and mental load.

Yeah, as I said that's the major point where I hope for an improvement in the second draft of this idea. If it didn't matter whether a target unit was the one that struck the final blow, then all that extra consideration just evaporates and you can play as normal. (Failing battleshock doesn't deny the points, by the way.) You could leave counting the VP until the end of the game at that point, so none of this would appear in your end-of-turn scoring list at all.

But in terms of consideration required, this is a very different prospect to battle tactics. Tactics are declared, and restricted to the turn; if you fail, you lose that scoring opportunity forever. Hunt rewards always happen regardless of when they occur, so they don't need to exert strong influence on your target priority. Though let's face it, all of these units are almost always the highest-priority targets available anyway.

[Enoby]

As mentioned previously, GW has likely already written the GHB 2022 and so feel as if they can't pre-emptively write points changes before they're in the physical book, and re-writing warscrolls isn't much of an option if those warscrolls are being edited (or having their points changed) in the next GHB.

Now, it is GW's fault for tying everything to a physical copy, but this could well be the most rules writers are allowed to do.  

It's better than nothing an it's an interesting promise that may allow for more diversity at the top tables, but likely won't uplift any poor factions. 

I think, out of everything, it does at least reassure me that GW know what's performing too well or too poorly (besides overlooking Khorne). It gives me a small amount of hope that the GHB will bring meaningful changes to these factions.

[PrimeElectrid]

While I’m all for giving struggling factions a boost, I’m extremely cautious about GW creating another balancing tool when they don’t have a great track record with all the balancing tools they have currently (eg points).

I think it’s pretty wild that GW have just chucked in a new system for scoring extra VPs with no apparent consideration for how this will actually affect games. There’s nothing in the post to suggest that they’ve done any sort of analysis on game VP differential to understand what effect this will actually have. Have they even looked at the battleplans to see how these are affected by extra VPs available? Of course not.

It’s also slightly counter-intuitive in that it just encourages people to double down on the Sin list units. Why take small units of Fulminators that give up 2+ extra VPs every 12w dealt instead of one unit giving up 2+ VP every 24w which you can also better buff? 

There’s also the fact that the list isn’t equal at all. You get 2VP from doing 12 damage to a 4+ save (Longstrikes), and 1 VP from doing 12 damage to a 4+ over 4 turns (Morathi). One of these is not like the other. Same with salamanders vs dragons.

SCE world problems, but I’m also not keen about the fact that 3 of the only good units for dealing damage can’t earn bonus VP. This doesn’t encourage me to use the rest of the book, because the other units are held back for other reasons (Annihilators) or simply don’t do enough damage (Paladins, Evocators, other Dracoths).

The notable absence of Idoneth and Gotrek is baffling.

Finally this is going to play havoc with any tournament system using VPs as a scoring system. A few extra VPs for killing monsters is fine but there could be 8 or more extra VPs floating about here which some armies can get and others can’t. 

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by PrimeElectrid

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

5 minutes ago, Enoby said:

As mentioned previously, GW has likely already written the GHB 2022 and so feel as if they can't pre-emptively write points changes before they're in the physical book, and re-writing warscrolls isn't much of an option if those warscrolls are being edited (or having their points changed) in the next GHB.

Now, it is GW's fault for tying everything to a physical copy, but this could well be the most rules writers are allowed to do.  

It's better than nothing an it's an interesting promise that may allow for more diversity at the top tables, but likely won't uplift any poor factions. 

I think, out of everything, it does at least reassure me that GW know what's performing too well or too poorly (besides overlooking Khorne). It gives me a small amount of hope that the GHB will bring meaningful changes to these factions.

It is absolutely right that GW themselves are at fault for not being able to use their existing avenues of balancing the game (warscrolls and points) because of how they cling to their book sales. And we should absolutely be clear that the strategy of putting out these kinds of updates in the GHB is not for the benefit of the game or the players. It is purely so that they have an easy annual book to sell. They could remove points from the GHB entirely if they wanted to and do them as a digital supplement. They could do warscroll updates whenver they want. They choose not to because these things drive book sales.

I think the new battlescroll is not a case of incompetence. I think it is the rules designers working within the bounds of corporate mandates. You can tell that the rules people know what they are doing because they more or less correctly identified all the over- and underperformers. But there is no world in which the handicap system they introduced is the first choice to adress the existing imbalances.

I very much feel like this update is aimed at competitive players with a laser focus. Because those kinds of players are the ones that will actually feel an impact from it in a way they care about. As someone who does not play in tournaments, the update is really immaterial to me. If my Nighthaunt army previously felt bad to play against Sons of Behemat, this does nothing to adress that.

[Vastus]

While I'm not impressed by the execution, I think there may be a good idea here if you narrow it down. Giving extra VPs for powerful named (especially God) characters and monsters is an interesting idea to combat the hero/monsterhammer that AoS is prone to by adding more risk to these resilient models.

I don't think it should be extended to regular units, and I do not like the 'hunters' idea though as it feels like a lazy bandfix for weaker armies.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Vastus

[zilberfrid]

This has a decidedly pointy haired boss feel.

• Some armies have very low win rates.
• Some units are overtuned. For instance, it's too hard to kill them.

Solution, look only to the win rate as an easy metric to design a new subsystem.

So let's give players a bureaucratic extra layer where they can get VP for killing them.

• This makes distraction carnixes even more distractiony.
• Defensive overtuned units are hardly nerfed. 
• Armies that have problems killing enemy units are not buffed.

[Skreech Verminking]

5 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

This has a decidedly pointy haired boss feel.

• Some armies have very low win rates.
• Some units are overtuned. For instance, it's too hard to kill them.

Solution, look only to the win rate as an easy metric to design a new subsystem.

So let's give players a bureaucratic extra layer where they can get VP for killing them.

• This makes distraction carnixes even more distractiony.
• Defensive overtuned units are hardly nerfed. 
• Armies that have problems killing enemy units are not buffed.

Personally I prefer this then having another 5points reduction on 3 units that are never being used anyways

Edit: at least with the battle-scroll they showed us that they truly understand what factions are currently struggling and what units are currently over-performing

Edited March 15, 2022 by Skreech Verminking

[Gitzdee]

2 hours ago, AaronWilson said:

This is the main problem here. Bottom tier is still bottom tier, top tier is still top tier. Nothing changed. It maybe shifts the meta for top tier armies a bit and thats about it. Still dont see a Mawkrusha losing to some gitz.

[Marcvs]

Apart from other criticisms, I don't think I like how this is completely based on "killing stuff" as a way to gain points. It further shifts away the focus from playing the objectives and could provide some weird incentives particularly in scenarios with the max 3 points from objectives per turn.

Seeing how the have basically created a tier list of armies, they could have gone further with the idea and give the Prime Hunters the victory points just for playing against a list with Predators. That would have had a (potentially) direct impact on tournament points for the players using the Predators, at least if differentials are being used, and possibly created a real incentive not to take these units.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

5 minutes ago, Vastus said:

While I'm not impressed by the execution, I think there may be a good idea here if you narrow it down. Giving extra VPs for powerful named (especially God) characters and monsters is an interesting idea to combat the hero/monsterhammer that AoS is prone to by adding more risk to these resilient models.

I don't think it should be extended to regular units, and I do not like the 'hunters' idea though as it feels like a lazy bandfix for weaker armies.

I wouldn't dislike this approach nearly as much if the extra VP were integrated more strongly with the actual game rules. Besides the fact that this new system really does not tackle the game play problems that lead to imbalance, the new rules are just completely detached from the rest of the game.

Mechanically, there is nothing in the rules that allows you to figure out for yourself which units are prime targets and which factions are prime hunters. It does not flow from anything related to the core gameplay system. These units and factions produce extra VP only because they were declared to do so, not because of any unifying characteristic of those units in game play terms. It's not a case of "all WARMASTERS give up extra VP when killed". Prime targets are prime targets exactly because they are on the table of prime targets. Having to look up information like this, which you could never figure out for yourself no matter how good your understanding of the system is, from a table is just an awful player experience. Peak exception based design.

Narratively, these rules are a miss, as well. VP are a really abstract resource. They work fine as a representation of what is supposedly happening on the battlefield in a game of AoS, where two armies are trying to each take control of the territory. But suddenly an eclectic list of units is also worth extra VP. What do those VP represent? Why do you get them for killing Vanguard Hunters with Longstrike Crossbows, but not Vanguard Hunters with Hurricane Crossbows? Why do Nighthaunt get more VP for doing so? It's just completely detached from the fiction.

[vinnyt]

I love how everyone pretends that any actual warscroll changes wouldn't have triggered an absolute tidal wave of outrage. Could you imagine if SDG were raised in points or altered again?! The SCE community would lose their minds. This is a benign little stop-gap approach where they're trying something new (yay!) before the actual update hits this summerish. 

Honestly, kudos to them for trying a new approach to competitive balancing. Nobody is forcing you to play matched play and you're free to ignore this update if you/your gaming group want. If it's too complicated for you to remember, don't use the ruleset and don't attend tournaments that do. Simple as that. If you've been playing the game for a long long long time, this update really doesn't add much complexity. It's actually not that many units.

It may not be perfect, or even that good, but it shows GW is willing to think outside the box in regards to competitive AoS and I think that's a good thing. 

[Ragest]

I allways thought that the designers were disconnected from competitive scene but no, they made a complete list of where the problems are, but then they refused to do their work.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

49 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

I love how everyone pretends that any actual warscroll changes wouldn't have triggered an absolute tidal wave of outrage. Could you imagine if SDG were raised in points or altered again?! The SCE community would lose their minds. This is a benign little stop-gap approach where they're trying something new (yay!) before the actual update hits this summerish. 

Honestly, kudos to them for trying a new approach to competitive balancing. Nobody is forcing you to play matched play and you're free to ignore this update if you/your gaming group want. If it's too complicated for you to remember, don't use the ruleset and don't attend tournaments that do. Simple as that. If you've been playing the game for a long long long time, this update really doesn't add much complexity. It's actually not that many units.

It may not be perfect, or even that good, but it shows GW is willing to think outside the box in regards to competitive AoS and I think that's a good thing. 

GW thinking outside the box is a lot less impressive when they stuck are inside the box of their own volition because being in the box is more profitable. GW makes all the rules. Both the game rules and the rules about what can and cannot be changed outside of a printed book. Tackling problems of their own making in a creative new way is really not something that will make me cheer for them when they could easily change their business model for the sake of making the game better.

Also, I am unconvinced that Stormdrake Guard won't go up in points and/or get a warscroll rewrite in the GHB.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Gitzdee]

I want to add that i dont like feeling bad about picking a model i like just because of a rule like this. It just leaves a bad taste. I wonder who this thing is aimed at. I dont see any positives here at all. 

I also want to say that i like the idea of hunter and prey kind of theme. Might use it in a different narrative context someday.

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Iksdee

[Yondaime]

This is literally the most boring choice possible lol

aos beauty is that it’s a very simple yet hard to master game

and they keep adding patches on patches, like the double cp on dt

 

seriusly 40K is becoming more simple than aos lol

[Rebluff]

This is GW conceding that they can't design balanced warscrolls.

[Fulcanelli]

Very lazy approach. Too much bookkeeping. Doesn't solve anything.

[RuneBrush]

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Narratively, these rules are a miss, as well. VP are a really abstract resource. They work fine as a representation of what is supposedly happening on the battlefield in a game of AoS, where two armies are trying to each take control of the territory. But suddenly an eclectic list of units is also worth extra VP. What do those VP represent? Why do you get them for killing Vanguard Hunters with Longstrike Crossbows, but not Vanguard Hunters with Hurricane Crossbows? Why do Nighthaunt get more VP for doing so? It's just completely detached from the fiction.

The new Battlescroll rules aren't narratively based in the same way as only having 4 artillery units isn't.  In truth I don't think anything that's related to balance is done with narrative games in mind.

----

Having both a Khorne and Nighthaunt army, I'm looking at these rules and going "they're better than nothing, but not really going to gear my armies up".

Is it lazy?  No, lazy would be simply not doing or acknowledging there's an issue.  What I do think is that this is GW seeing if this type of addition could work to give lower power armies a bit of a step up.  There are always going to be weaker and stronger armies in AoS, the real issue is that currently the difference between the top and bottom armies is too large.  If this were able to be reduced (new battletomes, points updates etc), then Battlescroll could help those armies which naturally live at the lower of the pack compete - I don't think this was ever intended to make an army flick from 0-5 to 5-0 at an event though.

[NauticalSoup]

4 hours ago, vinnyt said:

I love how everyone pretends that any actual warscroll changes wouldn't have triggered an absolute tidal wave of outrage. Could you imagine if SDG were raised in points or altered again?! The SCE community would lose their minds. 

I mean they have to get nerfed again. I'm an SCE player, telling you, they HAVE to get nerfed again. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

The new Battlescroll rules aren't narratively based in the same way as only having 4 artillery units isn't.  In truth I don't think anything that's related to balance is done with narrative games in mind.

In all fairness, the arbitrary limits on stuff like behemoths and artillery are another piece of AoS design that I find unfortunate, haha. Much like with the new battlescroll, I think having to arbitrarily limiting the number of artillery is a minor design failure, because ideally artillery spam being bad should be an emergent property of the core mechanics. However, I can recognize that there can be merit to the decision of having certain rules just for the sake of gameplay even if they don't mesh well with the narrative. But I also feel like having these kinds of rules be related to the list building stage of the game, where the fiction is not "alive" for lack of a better term, is less bad than having them come up when the game is in the process of being played. Because that part of the game at least to some degree simulates the epic battles the lore tells us about. I am more invested in that than whatever the list building stage represents.

The reason I brought up the narrative/fiction of the game in the first place is because this update really is a tripple whammy of unpleasant design for me. Mechanically, I think it aims at the wrong problem. Narratively, it doesn't work well with the fiction of the game for me. And from a user experience perspective, it is inelegant to have to look up non-rule governed stuff in a table.

[Dingding123]

I'm pretty sure the Gloomspite Gitz are hunting nothing but the Bad Moon btw lol

[NauticalSoup]

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

Is it lazy?  No, lazy would be simply not doing or acknowledging there's an issue.  

You don't think this is a bit generous? Like generous to a fault? That the bar for lazy is "Literally doing nothing whatsoever"?

I know you guys are basically obligated to go to bat for GW but this seems a little silly.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Just now, NauticalSoup said:

You don't think this is a bit generous? Like generous to a fault? That the bar for lazy is "Literally doing nothing whatsoever"?

I know you guys are basically obligated to go to bat for GW but this seems a little silly.

I personally genuinely don't think laziness is the issue here. At least on the part of the rules guys. I'm sure they would be happy to do more if they could. In fact, I would be willing to bet the decision to publish battlescrolls in the first place didn't originate from management or marketing or whatever. Obviously I don't have any inside info, but it really feels like the kind of thing that someone on the rules team probably lobbied for.

Rather, I think it's highly probable that the rules guys would want to just do warscroll rewrites or points adjustments if they could, but have their hands tied because the GHB is already at the printers. And the responsibility for that lies with the corporate entity of GW as a whole because of the business model they chose for their game books. But even that is not laziness.

I can agree to this being a "lazy update" in so far as it doesn't adress the core problems of the game, though. But even then, I am sure the motivation is there. The corporate entity GW just makes it impossible for themselves to do in a timely manner.