TGA Official Generals Handbook 2 feedback

[pforson]

1 hour ago, Rogue Explorator said:

I have to disagree here.

But some units are simply unplayable (and also downright boring) as it stands.

I'm not advocating that everything should be super duper über powerful, but that weaker (boring) units should be improved in order to give them a purpose.

[Rogue Explorator]

45 minutes ago, pforson said:

But some units are simply unplayable (and also downright boring) as it stands.

I'm not advocating that everything should be super duper über powerful, but that weaker (boring) units should be improved in order to give them a purpose.

Improving some units is fair and square. I'm just trying to advocate for an even hand here. Powercreep has sadly proven its destructive qualities repeatedly.

[pforson]

27 minutes ago, Rogue Explorator said:

Improving some units is fair and square. I'm just trying to advocate for an even hand here. Powercreep has sadly proven its destructive qualities repeatedly.

But this is not Powercreep.

Powercreep is when GW releases a new army - the ClementWeather Eternals - and proceeds to make them better than everything else that already exists.

I'm suggesting that weak units be improved upto (not beyond) the power level that has already been established.

I realise this kind of balance is not easy to achieve, but it should at least be the aim.

[hobgoblinclub]

3 hours ago, pforson said:

I think this is a key point.

Don't ruin the fun of people playing with powerful units by increasing their costs, instead improve the effectiveness of units that are currently not being used - this way everybody wins.

I think I'll be the same thing. You're just changing the price gap whichever way you do it. The only difference between increasing the points of the powerful stuff or dropping the points of the weaker stuff would be the impact on the average size of an army. 

[CoffeeGrunt]

I personally prefer the idea of finding creative ways to give weak units a role to fill, rather than just lowering their points.

[Squirrelmaster]

I think maybe they should try to nerf the top 25%, buff the bottom 25%, and leave the middle 50% where it is.

If you try to fix things either with all nerf and no buff, or all buff and no nerf, it causes the average power level of the game to creep one way or the other regardless.

I would much rather see some gentle tweaking that doesn't quite go far enough, than a massive re-point that just throws things further out of balance.

[Rogue Explorator]

1 hour ago, pforson said:

But this is not Powercreep.

Powercreep is when GW releases a new army - the ClementWeather Eternals - and proceeds to make them better than everything else that already exists.

I'm suggesting that weak units be improved upto (not beyond) the power level that has already been established.

I realise this kind of balance is not easy to achieve, but it should at least be the aim.

Yours is just an particularly blatant example of power creep, I'd even call it a power jump. There is no dictionary definition of “power creep”, but, going by the compound words , I'd say we can fairly define "power creep" as "Any scenario in which the overall impact of individual units on the game increases over time, however slowly this happens".

This would be fulfilled, if all weaker units where brought up to the established power level, as currently formations like Kunnin Rukk define the established level of damage output. Let us say once that is done and everything has been brought to deal with such a damage output appropriately to its point cost, I have no confidence in even the greatest game designers to ever walk the earth (none of them, where game balance is concerned, are GW) not to regularly bring out something that pushes over the established power level unintentionally. Should we buff everything else each time that happens, rather than weaken that one unit? Do you think that couldn't happen or wouldn't be power creep?

 

Semantic arguments about gaming buzzword aside, my argument stands. Your initial post on the issue, as written, stated that only ever should units be increased in power or lowered in cost to balance the game.

If that was not what you meant to say, fair enough, but I can only answer what I read. And I read a suggestion that I considered dangerous to the game. I am not looking to pick a fight here, I just saw a critical flaw, that, to me, warranted pointing out.

 

[daedalus81]

1 hour ago, Squirrelmaster said:

I think maybe they should try to nerf the top 25%, buff the bottom 25%, and leave the middle 50% where it is.

If you try to fix things either with all nerf and no buff, or all buff and no nerf, it causes the average power level of the game to creep one way or the other regardless.

I would much rather see some gentle tweaking that doesn't quite go far enough, than a massive re-point that just throws things further out of balance.

Who determines what the top, middle, and bottom are?  Is it objective?  By what measure are they 'top'?  Is it damage output?  Damage soak?  Maneuverability? Command ability access?

 

[Squirrelmaster]

29 minutes ago, daedalus81 said:

Who determines what the top, middle, and bottom are?  Is it objective?  By what measure are they 'top'?  Is it damage output?  Damage soak?  Maneuverability? Command ability access?

1. Whoever is responsible for determining the points, by whatever metric they use.
2. No, it's probably not objective. I suppose they might have some statistical data based on tournament rankings, I don't really know.
3. Probably they would be ranked on overall effectiveness and value-for-points.

I'm well aware than no points system is perfect, but if you're trying to balance the game then that implies you have some measure of the relative value of the units. A Necrosphinx costs the same as 50 skeletons. Someone, at some point, decided that was "fair". If someone now attempted to make that judgement, using the same criteria, they might decide that it should be worth the same as 45, or 55. By that measure, you can decide the top & bottom for over/under-costed warscrolls.

[pforson]

2 hours ago, Rogue Explorator said:

If that was not what you meant to say, fair enough, but I can only answer what I read. And I read a suggestion that I considered dangerous to the game. I am not looking to pick a fight here, I just saw a critical flaw, that, to me, warranted pointing out.

Dangerous to the game? - we're discussing toy soldiers, not the Pentagon Papers.

In fairness, I was simply responding to someone else who suggested the strengthening of weak, boring, unusable units in order to bring them more in line with everything else. Something which I wholeheartedly agree with, as there's nothing worse than having a load of beautifully painted paper weights sitting on the shelf.

[Rogue Explorator]

1 hour ago, pforson said:

Dangerous to the game? - we're discussing toy soldiers, not the Pentagon Papers.

Yeah, dangerous to the game. Which means it would make playing with my toy soldiers (I spend a lot of time and effort building) a whole lot less fun.

If I see I put my cup on an unsteady table, that is dangerous to my coffee. I like my coffeee and my cup, so I try to prevent that. Doesn't mean its an act of state if I fail. I'm sure no presidents will step down and nobody will die.

Not everything dangerous to something is a huge deal.

1 hour ago, pforson said:

In fairness, I was simply responding to someone else who suggested the strengthening of weak, boring, unusable units in order to bring them more in line with everything else. Something which I wholeheartedly agree with, as there's nothing worse than having a load of beautifully painted paper weights sitting on the shelf.

Point taken. Consider me to have answered to the previous poster as well. I didn't mean to pick anyone in particular out by quoting, I just quoted to make clear what particular stance I am refering to.

[Murkforge]

Here's my annoyingly long list coming from the perspective of a casual player who plays a lot of Vanguard size games ...

• Update points ongoing online in living document
• Measure base to base
• I like Battleline in army building but play many vanguard size battles. Many unit buffs seem to be holdovers from 8th where you need to have 20 or 30 plus models to trigger i.e. Bloodletters. This makes it restrictive in smaller games.
• Multi-player battleplans would be great
• More matched play battleplans to the current 6 that encourage diverse army building
• More 4' x 4' battleplans
• Change spell casting so a spell can only be cast once successfully.
• Simplify pile in mechanic, I find it confusing currently and should allow models to retain base contact and move around enemies to enable more combatants to move in in subsequent turns.
• Ability to buy extra models for units after the base or at least in smaller denominations of 5 for example (refer comment above about smaller games)
• More fleshed out map campaign rules with army character advancement as it progresses
• Possibly restrict shooting in combat to only the models in combat
• I like the random initiative mechanic but think it can swing some games if a player is unlucky (or lucky) … perhaps get +1 to the roll if you lost initiative the previous roll or draws goes to the player who lost it previously
• Clarify multiple uses of the same artefact across multiple Heroes in the same army
• Improve ability or reduce cost of rarely played units … don't nerf good units
• Unpredictable Destruction is just well … unpredictable as a good alliance ability
• Check the points costs of big bads for possible point reductions i.e. Archaon 
   

Edited December 2, 2016 by Murkforge

[ElectricPaladin]

38 minutes ago, Murkforge said:

• Clarification on summoning costs i.e. bloodletters banner returning D6 Bloodletters … can this take the unit above the starting number, do they cost points?

This is actually addressed already.

[Malakithe]

Not sure if this has been mentioned but adding points to more battalions would be nice. Maybe not all of them but a hefty amount from the RGW books.

Also Vulkite Berserkers need to be cheaper or their minimum unit size set to 10.

[DeadlySarcasm]

@pforson and @Rogue Explorator

 

It's obvious you disagree, let's just leave it at that please and get back to giving constructive feedback on changes to the GH without arguing with each other.

Thanks

[KHHaunts]

On 27/11/2016 at 1:19 AM, Sete said:

I'm trying to make a skirmish system like Heralds of Ruin but so far no one was actually interested to help on it.

I never played Mordheim so I can really comment on it.

Ill HELP!

[Ratamaplata]

Clear up confusion of wound/damage. It should be...

1. roll to hit

2. roll to damage

3. armour save

4. determine no. of wounds

5. additional saves

Would make all the various special rules for inflicting or saving wounds/damage, and mortal wounds, tie up much easier.

[ElectricPaladin]

4 hours ago, KHHaunts said:

Ill HELP!

Me too!

[Nico]

Quote

I like Battleline in army building but play many vanguard size battles. Many unit buffs seem to be holdovers from 8th where you need to have 20 or 30 plus models to trigger i.e. Bloodletters. This makes it restrictive in smaller games.

I don't think they have much choice but to work out points on the basis of a 2,000 point game. Some things scale up really well (Nagash, Kroak, Drycha) or down really well (Arachnorok and 10 Spider Riders at 500 points) and others scale down really badly (Fyreslayers - as I found out).

Quote

Change spell casting so a spell can only be cast once successfully.

Wizards are definitely weak at the moment. Your amendment would help, but only by buffing what is already the main reason for bringing one cheap wizard (Mystic Shield off a Grot Shaman) Perhaps Arcane Bolt could be removed from the Rule of One - it would also buff Tzeentch - who need help.  

Quote

Simplify pile in mechanic, I find it confusing currently and should allow models to retain base contact and move around enemies to enable more combatants to move in in subsequent turns.

This would remove a tactical consideration of activating a unit first - purely so that it can touch base and stop the enemy from piling in, which I quite like. On the other hand piling in can chew up time.

• Possibly restrict shooting in combat to only the models in combat

Please stop asking for this. It's such a drastic change compared to say adjusting the costs of the Huskard on Thundertusk and maybe nudging Judicators up to 170 points. The fact that Bloodbound are on the top tables (e.g. Pano at Blood & Glory on the weekend, Russ Veal obviously) is one indication that shooting isn't too bad.

• Clarify multiple uses of the same artefact across multiple Heroes in the same army

There's no ambiguity - this could be a balance change to nerf Battlebrew. I'm leaning towards either once per game for it (matching Quicksilver potion which is also amazing - but overshadowed by the Brew); or only having the single swig option, but you take D3/D6 mortal wounds for taking that single swig at the end of your battleshock phase (once) - as opposed to the start of your next hero phase, so your opponent can at least damage it more easily after one turn of immense killy.

• Check the points costs of big bads for possible point reductions i.e. Archaon 

I'm assuming that Nagash is getting a fat spell lore - a 48 inch range -2 to hit with shooting attacks (Deluge of Bats) would be a good start.

After using him at Blood & Glory - I'm lost all reservations about Gordrakk and the Megaboss on Maw Krusha coming down in cost by quite some margin (see the community points suggestions compiled by @scrubyandwells. Ardboyz also need to be inherent Battleline. Destruction are all about mixing it up with different factions and the inability of Ironjawz to do this is their biggest handicap.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Nico

[Sete]

9 hours ago, KHHaunts said:

Ill HELP!

 

4 hours ago, ElectricPaladin said:

Me too!

I have a thread, realms of conflict on page 2 of general discussion, drop by read what I have up and throw ideas in

[Carnelian]

I would like to see active points changes following tournaments. for example they recently revealed the top 5 lists from Blood and Glory. the would be great if they said hey, we've seen many many people taking X (warscrolls/battalions) and we've noticed that it's super powerful so we have added a little bit of points to it so it's just a wee bit harder to squeeze in to 2000 points. Let's see if that makes a difference at the next tournament!

[Sleboda]

On 11/28/2016 at 0:54 PM, CoffeeGrunt said:

I personally prefer the idea of finding creative ways to give weak units a role to fill, rather than just lowering their points.

This is why I find Narrative Play to be superior. All units have a place.  All. If something is weak, it doesn't matter because you are not taking it at the expense of something else.

I'm not sure, after 30+ years of trying, that there is a way for GW to appropriately cost all units for Matched Play.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Narrative pay is nice for a campaign, but not much good for quick pickup games. Victory also often goes to the one with the larger collection. In Matched Play you at least get something of a level playing field.

[TerrorPenguin]

13 hours ago, Sleboda said:

 

I'm not sure, after 30+ years of trying, that there is a way for GW to appropriately cost all units for Matched Play.

This should probably be acknowledged more, perfect balance via points is not achievable without making the game incredibly dull by making everything the same. 

While GW can strive for it, Im pleased to see a focus on narrative and open to give people an alternative.

[PJetski]

On 11/29/2016 at 4:43 AM, Ratamaplata said:

Clear up confusion of wound/damage. It should be...

1. roll to hit

2. roll to damage

3. armour save

4. determine no. of wounds

5. additional saves

Would make all the various special rules for inflicting or saving wounds/damage, and mortal wounds, tie up much easier.

This is exactly how it currently works though...

Am I missing something?