NPE (Negative Play Experience) in Age of Sigmar

[pnkdth]

5 minutes ago, Fert said:

A lot of this game is rock paper scissors.  At the competitive level the top tables players build lists that have the tools and make the right choices to deal with tough matchups.  Leverage low rend into hordes.  Leverage mortals into tough heroes.  Do the math on chance of success before you move into position only to whiff.  Have options baked into your list assist to deal with save stackers.. even if this means avoiding them.  Use control, use screens, use terrain, and/or movement.  You don't have to kill/smash/maim everything.  

Overall I feel that at competitive events people need to understand what they are signing up for.  You will play NPE games.  That's how it is.

For casual play, you need have the correct play group to avoid NPE.  Play path to glory.  Drink, laugh, have fun.  Read your friends reaction to the game.  If they have a bad time and quit... then your done playing as well.

NPE is not about being able to win or not. Casual/friendly play doesn't mean you're just flinging models at each other. Most players exist in between competitive and narrative, in a space you could call competitive casual games. This group still enjoy the matched play rules but voice concern over power creep, i.e. arms race between mechanics and factions.

That said, AoS seem to be veering heavily into becoming a much more competitive game. As evident by mindset and attitude both here and discords + new rules/seasons. Not saying it is a bad thing to be competitive, I'm just saying that you do not have to go all in win at all costs just because you use the matched play rules.

Furthermore, competitive players will make anything work regardless of NPEs so there's very little downside in addressing the more controversial rules and mechanics to make the experience better on a grander scale. I'd even say the competitive experience would improve as well since it will come down more to wits than abusing mechanics to gain an advantage.

 

[NinthMusketeer]

3 hours ago, novakai said:

MW are also facilitating more Ward saves now too, which also hurts rend and regular attacks since Ward units can possible get 2 chances to negate damage with save stacking (a little less if the weapon does multi damage) while MW only need to worry about the Ward saves

if GW is going through their usually arm race mentality we could possibly see more anti ward ability like Drakkfoot and that NH dreadscythe Harridan allegiance in the future.

Also ridiculous, since giving units wards against mortal wounds only requires "against mortal wounds" to be added. Three words GW. Three. ******. Words.

[Beliman]

6 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Also ridiculous, since giving units wards against mortal wounds only requires "against mortal wounds" to be added. Three words GW. Three. ******. Words.

It's a bit strange because a ward save is just another "defense-characteristic". A lot of other games are already using a similar mechanic:

• War40k: Save and Invulnerable Save. And it's from the same company!!
• Conquest: Last Argument of the Kings. Defense (basic save) and Evasion (save that ignores rend).
• Malifaux: Defense (basic save) and Willpower (Bravery & Save for magic attacks).
• Infinity: ARM (damage reduction) and BTW (Bio-technological shield, protection vs damage from special weapons).

Imo, mortal wounds are special damage, like monster/cavalry charges (but not all for whatever reason), spells, breath attacks, poison attacks, etc... but I have the feeling that AoS doesn't know how mortal wounds can interact with save-stacking, other high-rend attacks, etc... they are just there being the "best type of damage that you can do", and they play with other attributes like big numbers of models/wounds, etc... to make the line more blurry instead of making all damage sources a bit more balanced between them.

As you said before, there are more mortal wounds than high rend

Edited June 30, 2022 by Beliman
grammar

[JackStreicher]

Fixing Mortal wounds:

Every unit of a player can’t suffer more than 5 mortal wounds in between the player’s  own hero phases. All excess Mortal Wounds are lost.

 

Done.

[zilberfrid]

3 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

Fixing Mortal wounds:

Every unit of a player can’t suffer more than 5 mortal wounds in between the player’s  own hero phases. All excess Mortal Wounds are lost.

 

Done.

Make it 4 to give infantry heroes a chance, and you have a deal.

[Wordy9th]

GWs increased level of corporate speak on warcom is giving me NPE lately.

every time I see “easier/better/insert superlative here/ than ever before! A part of me dies inside. Does it really have to be in every article and multiple times?

[woolf]

On 6/28/2022 at 2:25 AM, NinthMusketeer said:

Here's a fresh negative play experience: when kruelboyz players compare what 90 points of gutrippaz do compared to 105 points of spite revenants.

haha well you can probably generalise that to: "compare what gutrippaz do to <enter random warscroll> do..." a personal favourite is dire wolves given how similar their profiles are (same except wolves have higher move & bravery with a better warscroll ability for 135pts vs 180pts...........)

[JackStreicher]

I found this:

Age of Sigmar Adaptations for Good Games

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by JackStreicher

[Fert]

21 hours ago, pnkdth said:

NPE is not about being able to win or not. Casual/friendly play doesn't mean you're just flinging models at each other. Most players exist in between competitive and narrative, in a space you could call competitive casual games. This group still enjoy the matched play rules but voice concern over power creep, i.e. arms race between mechanics and factions.

That said, AoS seem to be veering heavily into becoming a much more competitive game. As evident by mindset and attitude both here and discords + new rules/seasons. Not saying it is a bad thing to be competitive, I'm just saying that you do not have to go all in win at all costs just because you use the matched play rules.

Furthermore, competitive players will make anything work regardless of NPEs so there's very little downside in addressing the more controversial rules and mechanics to make the experience better on a grander scale. I'd even say the competitive experience would improve as well since it will come down more to wits than abusing mechanics to gain an advantage.

 

Totally agree with you and in a sense some of what I am saying... This game has the potential for bad matches (a symptom of many factions, rules, builds, bloat) but good players even casual ones know that there are tools and plays that exist. (i.e. They have the wits to work around tough matchups/NPE)

I like the place Aos is in.  As often as a double turns can seal a game into a loss they just as often save the game for a win.  We see a hand full of top factions and unfun builds, but not is completely blowing the scene out of the water like that of 40k (which has, imho, much more NPE).

I feel GW is tackling some controversial rules fairly, just not fast enough, and then when they do it a little heavy handed.  Living cities with SCE, Shoot cast, Sentinel Spam all took way to long, and then completely gutted them.  Give us smaller tweaks at shorter intervals.  GW can do better... i.e. KO disembark should not have taking a year to release an FAQ to address such a fundamental part of an army.

[NinthMusketeer]

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

I found this:

Age of Sigmar Adaptations for Good Games

 

This is the same sort of rules design that GW so often runs into problems with; sweeping generalized solutions for specific and/or nuanced problems, without thinking out the ramifications. Content like this is where the sentiment 'house rules are bad' comes from.

[NinthMusketeer]

42 minutes ago, Fert said:

As often as a double turns can seal a game into a loss they just as often save the game for a win.

A NPE either way.

[MotherGoose]

5 hours ago, woolf said:

haha well you can probably generalise that to: "compare what gutrippaz do to <enter random warscroll> do..." a personal favourite is dire wolves given how similar their profiles are (same except wolves have higher move & bravery with a better warscroll ability for 135pts vs 180pts...........)

I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a mention of what goes into points for units, and allegiance abilities and ability access goes into points decisions too - also don't forget gutrippaz have 2" range so always fight in 2 ranks minimum (big nerf with the new ghb with the 0.5 inch attacking in 2 ranks thing, but still 2 inch range is/has been great).

Before the new ghb dire wolves would find it extremely difficult to get more than 5 or 6 attacking without breaking cohesion, gutrippaz didn't care.

Dire wolves do f all in the save stacking meta, gutrippaz don't care.

The downside to gutrippaz for me is that they don't really fulfil a role that the army needs. You can build around them to be absolute glass cannons, but you already have boltboyz etc. For mortal wound output and heroes for hammers.

I can't see them reducing their cost without removing/changing access to mortals on 5s and 2 mortals on 6s etc.

Off topic a bit...

Edited June 30, 2022 by MotherGoose

[Fert]

3 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

A NPE either way.

For some.  This entire forum topic is truly subjective.  

Personally, I love the priority roll.  Others not so much.  Big learning curve understanding priority and tempo in Aos.  It really can feel bad if you are new to Aos.

[NinthMusketeer]

Having a 42% chance of 'winning' because I chose second then won a single dice off is a pretty negative experience. It's not even a win in anything but name, it's just me & my opponent setting up a game only to not have one. Because bar inexperience or a really bad mismatch of power between armies, that is exactly what a 1-2 or 2-3 double is; automatic win. I remember all four times I've lost with a 1-2 double, because I seriously messed up in each of them.

Some like the double because it covers over the terrible balance; even an army that is strictly underpowered compared to the opponent can win *sometimes* by virtue of a massive handicap given out at random by game mechanics. But for every unbalanced game it fixes, there is a balanced game that it ruins, so even at its best there is no net gain to that mechanic.

End of the day, random initiative is a NPE generator.

Edited June 30, 2022 by NinthMusketeer

[JackStreicher]

8 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

my opponent setting up a game only to not have one.

This is exactly the thing that makes me sad. Mortal wounds often contribute to a non-game heavily as does shooting.

A idea I might try some day is to resolve combats simultaneously: unless you one unit has strike first both units will hit one another with their full force. Could be good, or not.

Edited July 1, 2022 by JackStreicher

[Beliman]

39 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

A idea I might try some day is to resolve combats simultaneously: unless you one unit has strike first both units will hit one another with their full force. Could be good, or not.

With simultaneous combat and attack first/last, I think the game could feel completely diferent and fun to play. Attack first and attack last could change a lot how the game is played, but I'm pretty sure that the balance of the game will be worse.

Even that, I think that attack first and last should be a fully integrated mechanic and not a feature for a few armies/units.

[zilberfrid]

8 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Having a 42% chance of 'winning' because I chose second then won a single dice off is a pretty negative experience. It's not even a win in anything but name, it's just me & my opponent setting up a game only to not have one. Because bar inexperience or a really bad mismatch of power between armies, that is exactly what a 1-2 or 2-3 double is; automatic win. I remember all four times I've lost with a 1-2 double, because I seriously messed up in each of them.

Some like the double because it covers over the terrible balance; even an army that is strictly underpowered compared to the opponent can win *sometimes* by virtue of a massive handicap given out at random by game mechanics. But for every unbalanced game it fixes, there is a balanced game that it ruins, so even at its best there is no net gain to that mechanic.

End of the day, random initiative is a NPE generator.

I wouldn't say it's an NPE generator, but I do agree it's a really effective way to hide balance problems to have another unbalancing randomizer as part of the rules.

[pnkdth]

14 hours ago, Fert said:

Totally agree with you and in a sense some of what I am saying... This game has the potential for bad matches (a symptom of many factions, rules, builds, bloat) but good players even casual ones know that there are tools and plays that exist. (i.e. They have the wits to work around tough matchups/NPE)

I like the place Aos is in.  As often as a double turns can seal a game into a loss they just as often save the game for a win.  We see a hand full of top factions and unfun builds, but not is completely blowing the scene out of the water like that of 40k (which has, imho, much more NPE).

I feel GW is tackling some controversial rules fairly, just not fast enough, and then when they do it a little heavy handed.  Living cities with SCE, Shoot cast, Sentinel Spam all took way to long, and then completely gutted them.  Give us smaller tweaks at shorter intervals.  GW can do better... i.e. KO disembark should not have taking a year to release an FAQ to address such a fundamental part of an army.

The issue here is that we're doing in spite of the rules not because we want to. Tackling NPE helps everyone because I do not think the competitive scene would crumble if the Purple Sun lost its 1/6 of instantly killing a model, Sentinels suddenly requires a LoS to their target, Foxes being unable to move in the opponents turn, etc, etc. In most cases, the fix seem comparatively simple.

There's already plenty to engage with in terms of positioning and screening for a double, managing the high lethality of the game, save stacking + MW arms race, that we do not need extra moments of "oh, I lost the game on a single dice roll." I can already hear someone out there in the distance, "it is a dice game, bro", and yeah, it is, but that doesn't mean everything has to be so randomly random you feel like your own decisions doesn't matter. That's NPE in a nutshell, really, moments in a game that feel like BS, unfair, or completely unearned.

As a disclaimer, I also enjoy making stuff work in spite of this and doing the whole "anti-meta" thing. I just think some mechanics and rules doesn't belong in a two player game. Especially not since games can go for 2+ hours (more if setup is required). Much can be solved with setting proper expectations and understanding between players though, it is just some mechanics doesn't seem to consider it takes two to tango.

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, pnkdth said:

"oh, I lost the game on a single dice roll."

Horus Heresy 2.0 have some type of mechanic that prevents any Deep Strike to be an NPE (looking at you outflank-plasma dudes!): Reactions.

A Reaction is similar to a Command, but you can only use them in the opponent's turn. That means that if you are being double-turne'd, you can still Unleash Hell, All out Defense, All out Attack, etc... but the best part is that the enemy can't do any Command.

It's a mechanic made to help the opponent that is receiving the agression and it feels rewarding for the player even if it's a game with more lethality than AoS (appart from auspex+overwatch, but that's another point).

Initiative and simultaneous combat are still there, so it's not just one mechanic that fix all this issues. But the whole point is giving enough tools to stop an NPE to happen.

[Koala]

Reactions are just command abilities.

And AoS has anti - deepstrike/setup 9" away abilities. Just not available to everyone. If everyone had it the "legit fluff" deepstrike armies would curse everyone. 

I think the alternating activations in AoS are a nice compromise between easy gameplay and tactical challenge ( who do i pick first?). Simultanious combat is really a lot more bookkeeping than people think ( the sadly quite forgotten WH40k 8th Ed Apocalypse had it). And Initiative is basically like some armies having always strikes first - NPE waiting to happen. 

Most complaints happen when it is NOT alternating activations: shooting ( just the active Player), strike first (remember the double-tapping you -strike-last super-fast Keeper of Secrets? ) or simply killing everything with one activation. 

And we seem to always find new, fluffy reasons for these extreme rules...

[JackStreicher]

13 hours ago, Koala said:

And we seem to always find new, fluffy reasons for these extreme rules...

*fluffy* *cough* very fluffy,

 

  

Spoiler

 

 and alsonot even remotely breaking with the suspension of disbelief 🫢 

 

A Smith swings its hammer really hard : 2D6 mortal wounds

Being bitten by a bug: Instant death

Drinking coffe: Always strikes first

Going all out defense during a berzerk fit hacking and slashing through the enemy lines and therefore becoming nigh invulnerable.

Orks

Being whipped: Taking Damage  +1 to hit, +1 to wound 

Guy writes a name into a book: 2D6 Mortal wounds

Cannons that hit automatically. (Dwarven Engineers scream in disbelieve)
 

Shrugging of the impact of a falling star because you really, really like being close to your almost naked tattoed leader

A bird telling 30 brightly clad archers the exact location of the enemy (in a cave, below a ruin, on a different continent) so they can fire their weirdly burning arrows, creating a nuclear blast on impact while, like a razor, only hitting their target.

 

The 200,000 Years old inventor of necromancy, vampires and the undead, casually suffering a miscast while trying to boil tea water.

A 25 meter Giant smashes you with its club: Rend -1, 2 damage. - Wait, what?

🤣 one could actually create Comedy Clips for some of these weird rules

 

 

Siriously though most *fluffy* reasons don't explain why something is supposed to be powerful. I guess that happens when either marketing has a say or they really want to slap a powerful rule onto a Warscroll though they can't really justify it, so they make it fit for Game-Play reasons.

Edited July 2, 2022 by JackStreicher

[Beliman]

@Koala

I think that you misunderstood my post. 

I just pointed out what's the diference between Commands and Reactions. And don't say they are the same, that's a lie.

About DS armies, fluff reasons and strike first/last, I suggest to not compare on 1:1, as I said, it doesn't work. It's the whole game that needs to be made with all this mechanics in mind. If you give this mechanics to only a few random units, that's when some of them can turn to be NPE or toxic for the game. E.g: double-tap, ignore LoS, mortal wound without ward saves, etc...

Btw, fluffy reasons only work if they help players to understand the game or how their armies should work, not to make it more teddious.

E.g: Nurgle being slow and resilient is "fluffy". Being faster than Khorne or slaanesh is not fluffy.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Beliman
Grammar

[Neverchosen]

One hundred percent of my Negative Player experience comes from opponents. Even in the old Warhammer Fantasy days against the most tedious gunline and magic phase armies the opponent could make all the difference in the world. I remember people explaining how each action worked and painting a picture of their noble high elf archers and spell casters or playing with someone talking about the most recent episode of the Simpsons while tossing dice and making my dwindling army not seem like the worst experience of all time. 

Alternatively I have played fun matches where the opponent is so obnoxious hanging over my shoulder while measuring or asking to see my rule book at the top of the game and then silently looking something up without telling me and taking like 15 minutes when I typically know the army well enough to tell them... but that would ruin their 'strategy'. Power gaming and certain army builds are of course an example of this. I really want to play Lumineth, but I would go for a fluffy and purely Tyrionic force emphasizing martial prowess and not leaning to heavily into the magic and shooting phases. But army building and power gaming are still dictated by the opponent. No one told anyone to skip over the cool thrall units to build eel spam lists and no one told anyone to make a Gunline Lumineth army.

I do not have any issue with the latter group and I have fallen into the trap against certain opponents where I felt I really needed to win and sometimes someone is just having an off day. But for me the Negative Player experience is still entirely dictated by my opponent. 

Edited July 2, 2022 by Neverchosen

[woolf]

On 6/30/2022 at 9:19 PM, MotherGoose said:

I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a mention of what goes into points for units, and allegiance abilities and ability access goes into points decisions too - also don't forget gutrippaz have 2" range so always fight in 2 ranks minimum (big nerf with the new ghb with the 0.5 inch attacking in 2 ranks thing, but still 2 inch range is/has been great).

Before the new ghb dire wolves would find it extremely difficult to get more than 5 or 6 attacking without breaking cohesion, gutrippaz didn't care.

Dire wolves do f all in the save stacking meta, gutrippaz don't care.

The downside to gutrippaz for me is that they don't really fulfil a role that the army needs. You can build around them to be absolute glass cannons, but you already have boltboyz etc. For mortal wound output and heroes for hammers.

I can't see them reducing their cost without removing/changing access to mortals on 5s and 2 mortals on 6s etc.

Off topic a bit...

yeah I dunno, for me it's a bit of a neg that the army has such a ****** unit for battleline. I def dont think the 6s do mortal allegiance compensate them enough to motivate the point cost of that warscroll, also the rest of KB allegiance is pretty ****** compared to most other armies. 

and sure I get it that u can buff them but poison is very restrictive in how u can apply and you also pay points for sludgeraker and shaman so I dont think it's fair to add in cost to gutrippaz with motivation of them can receive buffs.. if so there is no way skinks should clock in at 75pts given how much u can buff those guys...

agree with u on the role though, they dont add much apart from battleline tax... at least now we can use hobgrots as well

[Fert]

On 7/1/2022 at 1:56 AM, pnkdth said:

"oh, I lost the game on a single dice roll."

But you can screen a purple sun or at least zone it.  However, I think it's rule should maybe be 1" instead of 3" to allow for easier screens.  

There are definitely aspects of the game that are lost with a single roll.  I feel GW needs to up it's game and roll out smaller tweaks and a higher rate to keep their finger on the pulse of NPE mechanics.