New "balance" change gets everything wrong

[pnkdth]

I think we also need to consider that AoS is a much smaller community and that if it was at the scale of 40k we'd also see a MUCH more competitive meta. When we look at 40k each big shift is going to be populated by a lot more players so each time something breaks it makes huge waves.

I also think the reaction stems from GW setting up expectations of new warscrolls, points changes, and more, and when delivering this it feels like a hit and a miss. It seems they've accidentally made the top tier armies a bit more cautious with what they bring...

And I think there's a key insight here. When looking at low tier armies they should instead give bonuses straight out of the gate + extra if they complete kills. Could this hurt the occasional fluffy army in a very casual setting, yes, but in my experience fellow lore nuts tend have very little issues with house rules.

This means that on the top you have risks associated with certain units. Going forwards unit combos might be included since rather than ruining both units in a combo because they happen to work as a pair they could add a game cost. Granting extra VPs is also a solid way of representing the army losing key units.

At the bottom, you'll have a leg up from the start and can get more into the game if you pull it off. The reason for guaranteed VPs at the start is to force the opponent to act and immediately be on the back foot. More importantly, you're not giving a bonus behind the very reason they're struggling and, in effect, giving the initiative to low tier army. Imagine it like you know your army is not as strong and the initial VP gain is to setting ambushes and whatnot. Not supposed to be a permanent fix but I think something like this would make these armies see the table more often.

TL;DR: Reward players for taking the difficult option, not just for killing units they were already struggling with.

 

 

 

[Kadeton]

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

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.

This is really insightful. Balance is just one symptom of design problems, but it's not the one that actually impacts players the majority of the time. Fixing balance (in terms of win rates at competitive events) doesn't fix dissatisfaction with the way an army feels to play.

Case in point - giving out extra VP for killing over-performing units will go some way to levelling out the win rates on top tables among the armies that can get to those tables. But most people seem to feel that this is the "wrong" way to do it, and I think you've hit the nail on the head as to why: it technically "improves balance" without making any real changes to the way the game feels to play.

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

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.

I don't think I can genuinely understand this position. Intuitively, for me at least, getting to buy raw stats (at least in terms of bodies and wounds, Beasts still have pretty poor damage output) cheaper than anyone else is exactly how a horde army should feel. I can't understand why anyone would think they should have higher points, although I can see how the pervasive attitude of "It's Beasts of Chaos, GW will find a way to ruin them somehow because that's what they always do" might lead you to expect changes in that vein - just not to think that they were justified.

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

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.

I'm definitely feeling the "2nd Ed Battletome effect" playing Nighthaunt. Not because I lose, but because so much of what makes 3rd Edition interesting and fun is just straight-up denied to them. Mystic Shield and All-Out Defence don't work at all, Finest Hour can only be used offensively, Monstrous Rampages aren't for you. The wealth of options and decisions that 3rd Edition armies get (and even other 2nd Edition armies get to a lesser extent) just aren't there, and the game feels flat and empty. I'm actually really looking forward to seeing what they come up with to make Nighthaunt work in 3rd Edition.

But I'm not mad that this Battlescroll didn't 'fix' Nighthaunt despite them being Hunters now. I'm fine with waiting for a battletome for that kind of broad, sweeping change - to be honest, while it can suck to be left waiting, I wouldn't want a massive overhaul of my entire army happening every few months.

[Arzalyn]

5 hours 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. 

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. 

In the article talking about this rules update they more or less confirm that they aren't changing the warscrolls to not invalidate books. Quoting directly from the article:

For this second Battlescroll, the team are trying something different, providing “a standalone mechanism for us to address balance without invalidating the content of the battletomes you have collected, clashing with points contained in upcoming books, or restricting the use of an army that you may have spent a lot of time collecting and painting”.

3 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

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.

Thats my biggest problem with the updates so far, rather than fixing the factions they are struggling they focus much more on nerfing the over performers. If everything inside those factions were overpowered I could understand, but its not the case. If this last update is temporary why can't they do something like "khorne mortals that charged get -1 rend/some kind of good attack buff" or "gitz/skaven gets +x reinforcements for they battlelines units". They just showed they can do something similar with beasts, its not like they don't know what to do.

To the majority of players, casual group of friends that don't tend to go to tournaments (at least frequently), this last update will hardly do anything. In a casual circle there is a high chance that the players already identified those units as problematic and stopped using them to get a better play experience. Its much easier to ask your friend "hey morathi and 15 bow snakes are to strong, could you bring something else next time?" than to ask them "hey gitz are really weak so I will bring 500 points more to compensate for that" or any other fix for a weak faction. One is asking just to change your list a little while the other ask players to start design rules to fix the situation and it can create some pretty bad experiences inside a group in the long run.

The game would felt more balanced if people could do just what they said in the article, "use an army that you may have spent a lot of time collecting and painting". Not been able to use your weak faction with your friend is much more problematic for the game than dragons doing 5/0 in tournaments.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Arzalyn

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

3 minutes ago, Arzalyn said:

In the article talking about this rules update they more or less confirm that they aren't changing the warscrolls to not invalidate books. Quoting directly from the article:

For this second Battlescroll, the team are trying something different, providing “a standalone mechanism for us to address balance without invalidating the content of the battletomes you have collected, clashing with points contained in upcoming books, or restricting the use of an army that you may have spent a lot of time collecting and painting”.

Personally, since this statement comes from WarCom, I would treat it as being run through a PR filter: Without accusing anyone of straight-up lying, it might not accurately represent the actual reasons the designers had. Much like the time we didn't get an FAQ and point adjustments when 3rd edition was about to drop, and the reason they gave was "not enough data". There probably really was less data than usual due to COVID, but the real reason was that the work would be wasted since 3rd edition was about to drop a few months later.

In this case, I think the following is true: They didn't adjust points because of upcoming books (GHB) and they didn't implement a straight-up ban list because it sucks to have models from your collection become unusable. But I think the statement that they didn't do warscroll or rules updates because they don't want to invalidate battletomes is kind of misleading. Their concern with not invalidating battletomes might be real, but I don't think it stems from a concern of delivering the best game to the players. I truly believe most players would have preferred warscroll updates of the problem units they identified in the battlescroll to what we actually got, and I think it would have been the better way to go both from a casual and competitive gaming perspective. Rather, I believe their concern for the integrity of the battletome stems from pressures put on the designers by their managers: Don't change warscrolls too much, especially don't nerf them, because that will make it harder to justify us selling our rules as physical books every three years or so. I don't believe the designers don't want to touch warscrolls because they actually think it's the best way to design rules. I think they are just told they are not allowed to rewrite them too much by their bosses.

On the last episode of Warhammer Weekly, Vince Venturella made a point that the handicap system from the battlescroll is really not a good solution to the balance problem, because it incurs tech debt and is not scalable. This means that they have to keep updating it as the state of the game changes (it needs to be updated along with battletomes and points now), and that this solution is not repeatable (they can't keep layering more handicap systems on top if this one does not work out; eventually the rules bloat becomes too much). With all this in addition to the other problems already discussed in this thread, I just have a very hard time believing that a group of designers competent enough to identify all the problem units and struggling factions would implement this system as their go-to balance fix without any outside pressures that prevent them from exploring other avenues.

[Malakithe]

22 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

On the last episode of Warhammer Weekly, Vince Venturella made a point that the handicap system from the battlescroll is really not a good solution to the balance problem, because it incurs tech debt and is not scalable. This means that they have to keep updating it as the state of the game changes (it needs to be updated along with battletomes and points now), and that this solution is not repeatable (they can't keep layering more handicap systems on top if this one does not work out; eventually the rules bloat becomes too much). With all this in addition to the other problems already discussed in this thread, I just have a very hard time believing that a group of designers competent enough to identify all the problem units and struggling factions would implement this system as their go-to balance fix without any outside pressures that prevent them from exploring other avenues.

Thats a great point and a big oof...its like backing yourself into a corner then building a fortress in the corner to defend the position you forced yourself into and now cant leave. Thats some self-fulfilling prophecy stuff right there. 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Malakithe

[zilberfrid]

Remember that they did nerf warscrolls outside of books, like Handgunners and Sisters of the watch.

[novakai]

Case and point would be if Morathi and Bow snake are all of a sudden reasonable in the next incoming tome, are they going to taken off the list or they made another mistake with them and they be kept on the list

[Kadeton]

40 minutes ago, novakai said:

Case and point would be if Morathi and Bow snake are all of a sudden reasonable in the next incoming tome, are they going to taken off the list or they made another mistake with them and they be kept on the list

As soon as the new tome is released, they're off the list automatically. That's how the list works, whether they update it or not.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Kadeton

[Gaz Taylor]

41 minutes ago, novakai said:

Case and point would be if Morathi and Bow snake are all of a sudden reasonable in the next incoming tome, are they going to taken off the list or they made another mistake with them and they be kept on the list

I think it depends on when the release will happen. They’ve just started with the articles for the new boxed set so I’m guessing that’s up for preorder in a few weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t do anything and leave it as is to see how things happen between now and the changes in the new book. 

Personally (and late to the party but real life happens and it sucks), I quite like the update. Doesn’t fix stuff but can make things interesting and may make some players try different things. Also GW are trying something new which is great. I’ve learnt over the last week that it’s not worth getting too upset about stuff like this and just enjoy playing.

[Dingding123]

A rules change and actual nerf to popular pieces that I'd like to see is All-Out Defense, All-Out Attack and Unleash Hell costing 2 CP's instead of 1.  That way CA's would get more tactical use outside of "better save it for the big guy".

[Gaz Taylor]

5 minutes ago, Dingding123 said:

A rules change and actual nerf to popular pieces that I'd like to see is All-Out Defense, All-Out Attack and Unleash Hell costing 2 CP's instead of 1.  That way CA's would get more tactical use outside of "better save it for the big guy".

I quite like that as it’s simple but would have a nice impact on the game without going too crazy.

[whispersofblood]

17 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? 

 

@Neil Arthur Hotep did a decent job explaining it, but I should probably explain it in my own words.

Think about buying a stock, the best time to buy it when you think the value of the stock is more than it is currently being offered for. You are interested in owning the stock so that you can gain the correction. You understand despite the market saying that the stock is worth X, that its fundamentals are that it should be worth Y.

There are a couple things that are true of all armies, number one is how much approximately 2000 points costs in models. Under the current point scheme without Start Collecting boxes for ease of matching, BoC armies are running about 600 GPB, while DoK for example are under 400 GPB. Yes, some armies cost more than other like SoB who are still only 480 GPB. Unless you are doing a very specific build 2000 points is under 500 GPB.  

The next is how the army looks on the board. The game has been trending for while to smaller armies, and this has been doubly true in AoS3, which makes sense the complexity of the rule has increased having fewer units speeds up the game. Because of the low points BoC are a massive army on the board, basically consisting of an attack profile and a save. This also runs afoul of the CMD point mechanics which push players towards having fewer more impactful units.

There isn't a thing I can point to directly and say ah ha. But, given the context of AoS I think there is enough information to correct surmise that BoC aren't what GW would want them to be. Meaning they will be hammered into something more closely related to what they aught to be. This is probably the peak of BoC meat strength, and likely units will get more utility abilities to bring them more in-line with the design paradigm. Which means for the most part units that are interesting first, and efficiency second. And, as @Lord Krungharr experience confirms my analysis of the faction on the table, I think reversion to the mean is likely. Their points and recursion make them efficient, not interesting, unique, or GW's version of fun. And, it pushes them outside the established cost framework.

There is more, including GW and the secondary market but tbh its a bit shop talky and I probably should do some work.

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by whispersofblood

[novakai]

53 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

I think it depends on when the release will happen. They’ve just started with the articles for the new boxed set so I’m guessing that’s up for preorder in a few weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t do anything and leave it as is to see how things happen between now and the changes in the new book. 

Personally (and late to the party but real life happens and it sucks), I quite like the update. Doesn’t fix stuff but can make things interesting and may make some players try different things. Also GW are trying something new which is great. I’ve learnt over the last week that it’s not worth getting too upset about stuff like this and just enjoy playing.

I wouldn’t say I am upset, I feel like the change is more of an unnecessary pain in the ****** compare to their usual tongue and cheek changes they usually do.

[yukishiro1]

I don't disagree with any of that re: what GW will ultimately do once a new BoC book comes out and they have the chance to change their rules to be more like other AOS factions. I just don't see how that means you can say that BoC are "undercosted" currently but also that they'd be bad if you "corrected" their points to the "proper" cost. That just doesn't make sense. When we say a unit is undercosted we're saying it's too cheap for its performance. It doesn't make sense to say that they'd be bad at the "proper" cost. The proper cost is the cost where they would be neither overcosted nor undercosted, i.e. neither too good nor bad. That's what the proper cost is. 

I guess we just disagree on the meaning of the words we use. 

P.S. BoC also has a lot more nuance to it than people give it credit for. Gavespawn and to a lesser extent Darkwalkers have a ton of jank built into them, and the Gavespawn rule is one of the most powerful in the game because there are no restrictions on how you can plop down the spawn. The stuff you can do with that rule is downright incredible, and the only thing keeping it from being S tier as an ability is that you have to roll that 2+ and you're going to sometimes fail and lose the game because of it. 

The dragon ogor d6" move in the hero phase is another thing that is super janky and lets you do all sorts of stuff you couldn't otherwise, though it suffers even more than Gavespawn from the randomness. 

They're not LRL in terms of a bajillion layered special faction rules, but then nobody is. The total package they now have from the allegiance + the suballegiance + the stuff in BR is actually pretty compelling as a package, the problem was just underpowered scrolls that didn't do enough damage or stick around long enough. And the herdstone fixes that.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Lord Krungharr]

Okay, I used my Taker Tribe (3 Kraken Eaters and a Gatebreaker) vs Lumineth (Teclis/30 Sentinel blob/2x10 Wardens/gazelle Regent and 5 horsey guys) last night in Savage Gains, 2000 points.  It took til the bottom of turn 5, with my going first and getting priority every turn, end score was 34-32.....Lumineth won.  That 8 extra VPs from the new "Balancing Act" was what gave him the victory.  So a top tier army got better vs an almost top tier army.  I was unable to kill either of his Priority Target models (isn't Teclis one of them too?)

So I will say based on my single experience they failed with their balancing, as lower tier armies will probably not be able to take down many of these Priority Targets.  IMHO a Priority Target should never get extra points for killing a Priority Target.  That would be more fairly balanced.  Also Lumineth need a points hike.

[WarLadle]

This whole thing is a prime example of Godhart's Law.

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." 

We want balance, on the whole, because it makes the game fun and keeps most armies viable. Until this point, we've been using the measure, winrate, to determine the state of balance.

GW have cottoned on to this fact, and have released a "Balance"slate that only addresses winrate. So the measure looks better! Yay! But the underlying target, balance, is almost unaffected.

 

(the true ultimate goal is fun, but that's so difficult to quantify and discuss we usually default to balance).

[Kadeton]

6 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

IMHO a Priority Target should never get extra points for killing a Priority Target.

That's exactly how it works already.

[Malakithe]

8 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

Also Lumineth need a points hike.

Do they though? Or do they need warscroll changes?

[whispersofblood]

9 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

Okay, I used my Taker Tribe (3 Kraken Eaters and a Gatebreaker) vs Lumineth (Teclis/30 Sentinel blob/2x10 Wardens/gazelle Regent and 5 horsey guys) last night in Savage Gains, 2000 points.  It took til the bottom of turn 5, with my going first and getting priority every turn, end score was 34-32.....Lumineth won.  That 8 extra VPs from the new "Balancing Act" was what gave him the victory.  So a top tier army got better vs an almost top tier army.  I was unable to kill either of his Priority Target models (isn't Teclis one of them too?)

So I will say based on my single experience they failed with their balancing, as lower tier armies will probably not be able to take down many of these Priority Targets.  IMHO a Priority Target should never get extra points for killing a Priority Target.  That would be more fairly balanced.  Also Lumineth need a points hike.

SoB are rated higher than LRL, and your point in LRL doesn't make sense. If they needed the extra VPs to win the game, that means they would have lost otherwise...  Why would they need a points hike? Teclis isn't a Primary Target, only Severith and the Spirit of the wind are. 

Also come the next GHB the bonus VPs for killing Monsters will be gone making this a win for you. This is a super close game unless it's a tournament what's wrong with that as the final result?

Lastly you can modify this result by taking mancrushers instead of more megas. They aren't Primary Targets and it probably would result in a more enjoyable game for the people around you.

[Joseph Mackay]

As a recent Sons Of Behemat player, I really hate this Battlescroll update.

my games so far have been pretty close on VPs, and applying this update to my previous games would have turned every win into a loss, and every loss into a landslide loss.

now as a Bonesplitterz player, I kinda like the Battlescroll update, but the issue has already been pointed out before - the armies that get extra points for killing the things on this list struggle to kill these things already and this update does nothing to change that

[yukishiro1]

It's basically just a massive incentive to take Kragnos. Who they are clearly pushing as a solution to bad destruction armies given the buff he got in the last of these too. And it also makes a bunch of money for GW selling a nice pricey kit...so it's a win/win from that point of view.

Not so hot for people who actually want to play those armies properly, not Kragnos + some junk. But I don't think GW cares much about that. 

SoB I dunno, the cynic in me says they decided that everybody who was going to buy gargants because they were so powerful for so long has by now, so it's time to nerf them. But the realist in me says I don't think GW really even operates with that level of organizationally joined-up thinking. I think the better answer is just to take them at face value on what they said in the post - all these things are just derived from a very simple operation they did on the data to get the warscrolls that give you the biggest win % bonus. If that value was above X they put it on the list. Very quick, no brain work required. 

And then nobody realized or cared that you can't do that with SoB because they only have 4 scrolls period, so of course the two good scrolls are going to have massively higher win % than the two bad scrolls. 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Lord Krungharr]

19 hours ago, Kadeton said:

That's exactly how it works already.

Ah, missed that part.  That's good.

 

16 hours ago, Malakithe said:

Do they though? Or do they need warscroll changes?

Given that they can more easily and periodically change points instead of warscrolls, yeah I'd say they need a little hike.  But I'd settle for only dudes with shields being able to get Shining Company, and limiting Power of Hysh to being a normal spell limited to one cast per turn.   I've played a bunch of armies and fought against bunches of armies, and very few things have been so efficient at killing with mortal wounds at 30" range, without line of sight, and after being able to move or being teleported across the table AND be ward saved AND being -1 to hit against everything in shooting and melee.  

15 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

SoB are rated higher than LRL, and your point in LRL doesn't make sense. If they needed the extra VPs to win the game, that means they would have lost otherwise...  Why would they need a points hike? Teclis isn't a Primary Target, only Severith and the Spirit of the wind are. 

Also come the next GHB the bonus VPs for killing Monsters will be gone making this a win for you. This is a super close game unless it's a tournament what's wrong with that as the final result?

Lastly you can modify this result by taking mancrushers instead of more megas. They aren't Primary Targets and it probably would result in a more enjoyable game for the people around you.

I was lending my megas towards the Lumineth player's training for Adepticon, so he wanted the hardcore matchup.  Don't have any Mancrushers currently but will be kitbashing a couple someday soon.

Who is doing the rating?  I've played many many games vs all tiers of armies with my big ladz and they are only just above a 50% win rate.  Yeah, the SoBs are good, but I don't think the Gateys and Krakeneys deserved 2 extra VPs for a kill. 

15 hours ago, Joseph Mackay said:

As a recent Sons Of Behemat player, I really hate this Battlescroll update.

my games so far have been pretty close on VPs, and applying this update to my previous games would have turned every win into a loss, and every loss into a landslide loss.

now as a Bonesplitterz player, I kinda like the Battlescroll update, but the issue has already been pointed out before - the armies that get extra points for killing the things on this list struggle to kill these things already and this update does nothing to change that

I completely agree with all of this.  For my Bonesplitterz, working on 2 more Wurgoggs.  Hopefully those don't get nerfed!

[whispersofblood]

@Lord KrungharrKrungharr according to The Honest Wargamer's most recent stats

SoB: 57%

LRL: 54% 

[mojojojo101]

39 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

@Lord KrungharrKrungharr according to The Honest Wargamer's most recent stats

SoB: 57%

LRL: 54% 

Should note both of those seem to be trending downwards both in win rate and meta %. 

Lunineth have a 48% since the Maggotkin release.

 

[Lord Krungharr]

Holy cow the Honest Wargamer has incredible buckets of stats!  Something I'm not skilled at digesting.