New "balance" change gets everything wrong

[Malakithe]

48 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

You do know they're two completely separate sets of individuals in different physical offices? 

No. How would I possibly know that? Do they have multiple locations across the town or something? Different offices, unless in separate buildings, isnt a good reason to not be able to collaborate with co-workers. I work and live in the USA but im still able to contact and collab with our other sites in Ireland or Israel if I need to via this fancy tencho-sorcery called 'the internet'. 

Theres no reason that someone cant send out an email and ask 'hey can I get some fresh eyes on this rule or ability?' 

[RuneBrush]

2 hours ago, Malakithe said:

No. How would I possibly know that? Do they have multiple locations across the town or something? Different offices, unless in separate buildings, isnt a good reason to not be able to collaborate with co-workers. I work and live in the USA but im still able to contact and collab with our other sites in Ireland or Israel if I need to via this fancy tencho-sorcery called 'the internet'. 

Theres no reason that someone cant send out an email and ask 'hey can I get some fresh eyes on this rule or ability?' 

I didn't think you knew, which is why I asked (also, please don't be sarcastic).  In short, each GW design studio is autonomous of each other, with it's own management structure and generally everything is kept secret and not discussed outside the design studio.  An AoS game dev won't be even able to get into the 40k design studio offices because everything is behind security doors with pass keys.   If memory serves, this was put in place when GW was suffering from a load of leaks and the change plugged this.  The other benefits is that it ensures that staff are working on what they're meant to be, plus those staff can actually enjoy the excitement of new releases from the other studios.

[Malakithe]

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

I didn't think you knew, which is why I asked (also, please don't be sarcastic).  In short, each GW design studio is autonomous of each other, with it's own management structure and generally everything is kept secret and not discussed outside the design studio.  An AoS game dev won't be even able to get into the 40k design studio offices because everything is behind security doors with pass keys.   If memory serves, this was put in place when GW was suffering from a load of leaks and the change plugged this.  The other benefits is that it ensures that staff are working on what they're meant to be, plus those staff can actually enjoy the excitement of new releases from the other studios.

Thats fair and makes more sense but there is definitely a failing going on somewhere in the chain. Somewhere between the writing stage, reading and QA stage, and the beta stages. Something needs to change cuz AoS isnt doing so hot lately.

GW is still suffering from crazy leaks. More so now then ever before. Im currently reading the full rules and watching vids for the Nids codex. 

[Enoby]

10 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

Something needs to change cuz AoS isnt doing so hot lately.

I actually wonder if this is the consensus in the general community. Not that it necessarily matters for this discussion, but the general community is the one who buys so their opinion holds the most weight. 

Personally I think AoS feels like it's on the backburner and that the rules writers don't/can't put that much passion into the rules of some armies, but when looking at some 40k groups, there were a good number of people saying "40k is an absolute mess at the moment, I'm moving to AoS" and others agreeing, saying that AoS was a much better game.

Now, that could just mean than 40k is especially bad currently, but I'd waged it's more that being a new or casual/less invested player lets you overlook most of the flaws of a game. That "blissful ignorance" (for lack of a better word) isn't always going to last, but from talking to new or casual players, their complaints are limited to "I don't like the double turn" and "I don't like how spread around the rules are". I've never seen any casual (e.g. not involved in the online community at all) player give some of the complaints that people (including myself) have shared here. 

That's not to say that AoS isn't or is in a bad state, but I think that it's in a 'fine' state from a casual perspective. However, personally, I think it can feel frustratingly shallow at the moment when you try to get more deeply involved in the game.

[whispersofblood]

Well a) you can't patch GSG, Khorne et all into relavancy.

b) This patch is clearly more about the bring the top factions closer to the middle factions without too heavily impacting the games between the top factions.

Which it does. Anecdotally between the games I've seen post patch and reports from friends abroad it's actually having a positive effect. To the point that I have Seraphon and SCE players making changes after playing 4-5 games under the new package.

So despite my initial reaction, I have to give GW a round of applause.

[pnkdth]

9 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

Well a) you can't patch GSG, Khorne et all into relavancy.

b) This patch is clearly more about the bring the top factions closer to the middle factions without too heavily impacting the games between the top factions.

Which it does. Anecdotally between the games I've seen post patch and reports from friends abroad it's actually having a positive effect. To the point that I have Seraphon and SCE players making changes after playing 4-5 games under the new package.

So despite my initial reaction, I have to give GW a round of applause.

While I think you could supply GSG and Khorne with a refresh in allegiance abilities to give them a significant bump, I agree, this update will do more for the top tier + high mid tier to steal some extra wins. These are the armies who actually has the tools to get these points.

For the low tier it is a "100% of nothing is still less than 50% of something"-situation.

[RuneBrush]

1 hour ago, Malakithe said:

Thats fair and makes more sense but there is definitely a failing going on somewhere in the chain. Somewhere between the writing stage, reading and QA stage, and the beta stages. Something needs to change cuz AoS isnt doing so hot lately.

I think Covid threw a bit of a spanner in the works because test games couldn't be played - both at GW and for playtesters.  Now I'm not going to pretend that if they had been played we'd be sitting on a perfect edition, but it certainly didn't help.  I doubt we'll actually know what battletomes this had an impact on, but I'm hoping we do see things start to sort themselves out in the next year or so.

[Lord Veshnakar]

I have to say that I am not entirely sure I understand the vitriolic bandwagon over this. It’s not incredible obviously but people are talking like it has upended AOS. 

I assumed from the outset that the “hunt” is a seasonal change only as it’s themed to the realm of beasts, and therefore temporary until a new season hits. It also shows that they are aware of most of the problematic units and so when the next GHB comes out it will likely be addressed then.  

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by Lord Veshnakar

[PrimeElectrid]

2 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Well a) you can't patch GSG, Khorne et all into relavancy.

b) This patch is clearly more about the bring the top factions closer to the middle factions without too heavily impacting the games between the top factions.

Which it does. Anecdotally between the games I've seen post patch and reports from friends abroad it's actually having a positive effect. To the point that I have Seraphon and SCE players making changes after playing 4-5 games under the new package.

So despite my initial reaction, I have to give GW a round of applause.

You definitely can patch weak factions into relevancy: see BoC and Nighthaunt.

 

[whispersofblood]

1 hour ago, PrimeElectrid said:

You definitely can patch weak factions into relevancy: see BoC and Nighthaunt.

 

BoC are only good fundamentally because they still have the bottom basement pricing, they are significantly undercosted at the moment which is artificially boosting their perceived power. Expect point increases in the GHB. 

NH have good fundamentals, but lack a dedicated top tier player base and marginal warscroll issues. They are still a far way away from BoK and GSG from a competitive perspective. They don't need a redesign they need to be further honed which you should expect given its their first ever battletomes.

Even HoS despite the meme level shithousery aren't fundamentally bad, and I've seen them compete first hand. They just have a lot of cringe warscrolls and recursion in a meta that is about sprinting rather than a marathon. They also don't struggle into the middle tier as much as people feel they do . But, even there they are getting some benefit from these new rules as they have decent shooting and decent combat units at their disposal.

[Skreech Verminking]

5 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Well a) you can't patch GSG, Khorne et all into relavancy.

b) This patch is clearly more about the bring the top factions closer to the middle factions without too heavily impacting the games between the top factions.

Which it does. Anecdotally between the games I've seen post patch and reports from friends abroad it's actually having a positive effect. To the point that I have Seraphon and SCE players making changes after playing 4-5 games under the new package.

So despite my initial reaction, I have to give GW a round of applause.

How do you think skaven will be faring against the seraphon, with this new update

[whispersofblood]

20 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

How do you think skaven will be faring against the seraphon, with this new update

Honestly? Don't know enough about Skaven to guess. I don't know anyone who plays them anymore and I'm not interested myself. My standing opinion of Skaven is that they are the result of the internet over reacting to anything that has the appearance of being strong, and without your own loud and popular community to defend it, typically resulting in factions getting nuked. See also; KO, HoS.

[novakai]

Well looking at the THG stats Skaven had a 23% win rate against Seraphon, so i am guessing at best it about 1 or 2% improvement in those game you manage to keep it close but I can’t say it going to get any better then that lol

Edited March 17, 2022 by novakai

[yukishiro1]

 

3 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

BoC are only good fundamentally because they still have the bottom basement pricing, they are significantly undercosted at the moment which is artificially boosting their perceived power. Expect point increases in the GHB. 

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. BoC are good because their warscrolls have gone from terrible-to-decent value for points to decent-to-good value for points thanks to the patch that increased their effectiveness? Um...yes? How does that refute the point that you can patch factions to be better?

As for the idea that they'll get points increases in the GHB...I mean, it's GW, anything's possible, including very stupid things. But that would be pretty silly even by GW's normal standards. Why would they take away what makes BoC a decent faction without adding something to compensate? I would expect BoC to maintain their current status until there is a tome that can change them up to be more like other AOS factions. That would be the logical thing to do. 

If your point is that "efficient brute strength without a lot of special rules" isn't great faction design, sure, that's fair. But I don't see how that refutes the idea that you can patch a faction into relevance. What you really seem to be saying here is that patching a faction into relevance doesn't generally result in top-tier design. Which is probably true, and I doubt anyone would disagree with that. It's better to get a full rework than a patch. But doesn't seem to be really here nor there to the point being made that you can patch a faction to be functional, even if it doesn't result in the prettiest results. 

They definitely could have patched Khorne into similar relevance to BoC. GSG I agree is more difficult due to the way the book is structured, but I don't think that'd be impossible either, it'd just take a bit more thought on what you need to do. 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

31 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

They definitely could have patched Khorne into similar relevance to BoC. GSG I agree is more difficult due to the way the book is structured, but I don't think that'd be impossible either, it'd just take a bit more thought on what you need to do. 

Given that a Kragnos+Squigs build is kinda decent, Gitz might already be relevant after becoming a Prime Hunters faction.

[whispersofblood]

38 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

 

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. BoC are good because their warscrolls have gone from terrible-to-decent value for points to decent-to-good value for points thanks to the patch that increased their effectiveness? Um...yes? How does that refute the point that you can patch factions to be better?

As for the idea that they'll get points increases in the GHB...I mean, it's GW, anything's possible, including very stupid things. But that would be pretty silly even by GW's normal standards. Why would they take away what makes BoC a decent faction without adding something to compensate? I would expect BoC to maintain their current status until there is a tome that can change them up to be more like other AOS factions. That would be the logical thing to do. 

If your point is that "efficient brute strength without a lot of special rules" isn't great faction design, sure, that's fair. But I don't see how that refutes the idea that you can patch a faction into relevance. What you really seem to be saying here is that patching a faction into relevance doesn't generally result in top-tier design. Which is probably true, and I doubt anyone would disagree with that. It's better to get a full rework than a patch. But doesn't seem to be really here nor there to the point being made that you can patch a faction to be functional, even if it doesn't result in the prettiest results. 

They definitely could have patched Khorne into similar relevance to BoC. GSG I agree is more difficult due to the way the book is structured, but I don't think that'd be impossible either, it'd just take a bit more thought on what you need to do. 

 

 

My point concerning BoC is that the patch didn't suddenly make them well designed and capable. What makes them good at the moment is that they are probably 20% undercosted and have very fast recursion. Meaning they do enough damage but mostly they just have too many wounds to fold them over during the objective game. But also, they seem to still lose on battle tactics because it's easy to deny their heavily projected battle tactics.

Maybe I'm wrong but this is just my opinion based on the reports I've had access to. They are still bad, they just aren't pathetic or laughable I guess. I still see them comfortably below the middle factions which seem to have gained the ability to punch up against the best stuff.

*I should clarify I mean BoC are still poor, when properly priced. Not as is at the moment*

Edited March 17, 2022 by whispersofblood
Clarity

[Lord Krungharr]

I just used my Warherd vs a strong Soulblight army and took home victory at 36-23!  The extra rend makes up for the lack of being able to hit much with Bullgors, and the new Monstrous Action to get more Primordial Call points allowed me to actually summon my Dragon Ogors and a unit of more Bullgors by turn 3.  While I fear a severe points increase in the GHB2022, they'll still be better than they were for a long time.  Would have liked a new tome with plastic Centigors, Shaggoth, and a god tier Beast named Morghur!

None of the new hunter/target stuff was in effect or relevant even in that game, but I do think my Sons of Behemat army will face challenges now.  But I don't think people will suddenly only be using Stomper Tribes with 2 Warstompers and Mancrushers to avoid the Gatey and Krakeny extra points. 

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

Honestly? Don't know enough about Skaven to guess. I don't know anyone who plays them anymore and I'm not interested myself. My standing opinion of Skaven is that they are the result of the internet over reacting to anything that has the appearance of being strong, and without your own loud and popular community to defend it, typically resulting in factions getting nuked. See also; KO, HoS.

Yes, that is the definition of the skaven.

can’t wait till they bomb the stormcast out of existence.😝

ps: don’t worry mate, if we the skaven go, you can bet your warpstone tokens, that we will take the whole aos system with us-us😝😝

it is the way of the ratman

 

1 hour ago, novakai said:

Well looking at the THG stats Skaven had a 23% win rate against Seraphon, so i am guessing at best it about 1 or 2% improvement in those game you manage to keep it close but I can’t say it going to get any better then that lol

Welp that’s just sad.

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by Skreech Verminking

[yukishiro1]

52 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

*I should clarify I mean BoC are still poor, when properly priced. Not as is at the moment*

But what does that even mean? If they would be bad if you increased their points, how would that points increase be "proper?" Isn't the "proper" points value the value needed to make something, well, not bad? 

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Malakithe]

4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

But what does that even mean? If they would be bad if you increased their points, how would that points increase be "proper?" Isn't the "proper" points value the value needed to make something, well, not bad? 

 

Thats not how points work. GW changes them on a whim. Sometimes based on 'data' from tourneys and sometimes, most of the time, seemingly at random. It doesnt matter what you or I or anyone thinks about the points if they are good or balanced. GW will still change them. The current trend for 3.0 its to increase everything so BoC is 100% getting points increased. 

You want an example of points that dont make sense? Look at what they did to Fyreslayers 

[yukishiro1]

Oh I'm sure they'll go up in the 3.0 BoC book. That's certainly been the pattern with every other book and I would expect it would hold true for them too - units will get stronger and points will go up. 

But I don't understand the statement that BoC are 20% undercosted made together with the statement that they'd be bad if restored to their "correct" point values. 

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Malakithe]

56 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Oh I'm sure they'll go up in the 3.0 BoC book. That's certainly been the pattern with every other book and I would expect it would hold true for them too - units will get stronger and points will go up. 

But I don't understand the statement that BoC are 20% undercosted made together with the statement that they'd be bad if restored to their "correct" point values. 

 

Thats because they are undercosted when compared to other factions. GHB doesnt change warscrolls, just points. So if they get hit by a points increase before they get a new book then they will dip back down into the 'oh these guys are still here?' tier. Of course when they get new book its entirely possible they will still be bad. That is also a trend

[Chikout]

There's a lot of hyperbole going on here. 

If you look at the stats, the top end of AoS isn't doing too badly especially when compared to 40k. No army has a win rate of over 60%. There are a few problem warscrolls which need rewrites and I still don't understand why gw doesn't just change them. The Autarch change was very well received.

It's really the bottom end where the problems are. Nighthaunt, Skaven and Slyvaneth are getting new books soon so hopefully that will help. That leaves Khorne, Bonesplitterz, Gloomspite and Slaanesh. 

Some of those factions can be helped by points which should arrive with the ghb, and hopefully Gloomspite will get a new book by the end of the year. 

I really think that the limitations of physical books that is holding things back. It's not too difficult to imagine a situation where has written a new improved Gloomspite book but don't want to introduce any if those changes until the book is out. 

 

As for the studio, the recent article introduced us to Matt Rose, who accorded to the internet has been the new boss if AoS for six months. If it's the same guy, he used to be a producer at Ubisoft.  Given that new books are usually completed a year in advance,  it will be a while until we see his impact on the game. I hope it changes things for the better. 

[RuneBrush]

38 minutes ago, Chikout said:

As for the studio, the recent article introduced us to Matt Rose, who accorded to the internet has been the new boss if AoS for six months. If it's the same guy, he used to be a producer at Ubisoft.  Given that new books are usually completed a year in advance,  it will be a while until we see his impact on the game. I hope it changes things for the better. 

More key is that he worked at Relic and was involved in Space Marine 😉  Will be interesting to see how this pans out, hopefully we start to see the various armies being designed in relation to each other rather than feeling like they're one off projects.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

If you look at the stats, the top end of AoS isn't doing too badly especially when compared to 40k. No army has a win rate of over 60%. There are a few problem warscrolls which need rewrites and I still don't understand why gw doesn't just change them. The Autarch change was very well received.

It's really the bottom end where the problems are. Nighthaunt, Skaven and Slyvaneth are getting new books soon so hopefully that will help. That leaves Khorne, Bonesplitterz, Gloomspite and Slaanesh. 

I think this is worth talking about. While it seems hard to deny that there is something not quite right about the state of AoS at the moment for a lot of people, I don't think it is primarily a balance problem, much less a competitive play balance problem. Depending on your frame of reference, AoS is not even especially unbalanced by the standard of competitive games. A good 2/3s of factions has a real shot at winning a tournament, with probably about 1/2 being in real contention at any time. I have certainly seen much more dire looking states of affairs in other competitive games. What people currently don't like about AoS is probably not fixed by pushing competitive results closer to the 50% mark for all armies.

Let's imagine for a moment that the new battlescroll succeeds and some Kragnos Bonesplittaz or Gitz list suddenly becomes a tournament staple. People would justifiedly say that this does not constitute Bonesplittaz and Gitz being fixed. That army would still have real struggles running any other list archetype. Having one tournament viable list does not change that. Conversely, if Longstrikes or Stormdrake Guard are no longer tournament staples because of their new VP tax, they don't become non-problematic units. They still do entirely too much, too easily.

You can see people trying to make sense of this in the State of the Game thread, where some are currently arguing the somewhat paradoxical position that Beasts of Chaos are only good because they are underpointed, but would be bad if pointed correctly. On the face of it, that makes little sense: How could a different point level be correct if it would make the army bad? But I think we can intuitively understand the position: Winning with Beasts currently still kinda feels like you are winning with a janky army that doesn't really play right, but you are getting away with it because you get to buy raw stats (models, wounds, damage output...) cheaper than anyone else.

The problem with the game as I experience it is that the 3rd edition update made a lot of 2nd edition tomes play pretty badly by invalidating things they could previously do, but not giving them the means to take advantage of the tools that the new edition offers. This hit bottom tiers more strongly than anyone else. All the tomes that are currently suffering are the same ones that were already not in a good place before the switch to 3rd, with the addition of OBR. At the same time, good armies with deep benches were not only able to adapt to the new state of the game, but could even exploit the new mechanics to excell. What's more, it feels like the current bottom tier is deteriorating as more battletomes come out. The gulf between, for example, Skaven and other armies becomes wider as more updates come out, not narrower.

People like to frame their complaints in terms of balance, and that is understandable, because if your army does not play well against others that will probably also result in more lost games for you. So the army's janky design and inability to satisfyingly play the game result in imbalance as well. But the imbalance is not the root of the problem, and fixes aimed at competitive win percentage will only improve the game for a tiny minority of players.