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TheWilddog

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Posts posted by TheWilddog

    Speculation: Will AOS ever be balanced or is this as good as it gets?

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    2 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

    The only group powercreep is a sales-factor To are competitive gamers, which are the minority.

    the whole powercreep business has the opposite effect of attracting people in my area, no one wants it because it is unfun and no one wants to play your absurdly strong new toy which leads to people skipping the broken faction/models.

    So I assume that powercreep is either very ill adviced or it is caused by sloppy rules-writing and a lack of review and thoroughly testing the product, which makes GW‘s products overall lack in quality (to me) though they charge for a premium product. 

    I disagree. Not just power gamers are attracted to power creep.  How much buzz has there been with the release of each of the newer, overpowered books? The casual players are drawn to "good" rules too. I know several local FEC players who have never got anywhere close to a tournament that went out and bought AGKoTG like they were going out of style. 

    Magic is the the exact same. Casual players want cool cards, that do cool things, Wizards keeps making cooler more powerful cards to appease the casuals as well as the competitive. It's less about competitive play and more about constantly having cool stuff to sell, it just happens that the easiest way to do that is to ramp up the power. 

    I agree with all you guys that power creep and rules to sell models are not the most positive thing but I also contend that almost all big tabletop war gaming companies and collectible trading card games do it.  In the case of Wizards Of The Coast and GW they have been very successful and have a lot of data on who their customers are and what they are willing to buy. That is what leads to the constant product churn and the accompanying rules push to sell the new coolness.

     

    • Like 2

    Speculation: Will AOS ever be balanced or is this as good as it gets?

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, Panzer said:

    The big difference is that MTG gets completely carried by what's strong and competetive while Warhammer gets also carried what appeals to the customer aesthetically. That's not to be underestimated. The actual hardcore tournament players are only a small part of the whole customerbase.

    I agree and that is part of the issue.  For GW the emphasis is on what looks great and what rules will get people to buy it. The way the balance plays is at best a distant second that comes well after the first. 

    As a long term magic player I would argue that Magic is the same. Wizards of the Coast has repeatedly stated that casual players are 90 percent or more of their sales. In recent years they have dumped more and more resources in casual formats like Commander, and put emphasis on the "cool" and "unique" features of each new set to appeal to the casual crowd.  

    GW and Wizards know where their bread is buttered, they want to give us enough balance to make us happy while delivering the power creep and new hotness to drive sells.  Again, nothing against it but to expect something outside this industry standard seems unrealistic.

    Speculation: Will AOS ever be balanced or is this as good as it gets?

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    5 minutes ago, Panzer said:

    Considering the usual replies, explanations and actual actions GW gives/takes and sometimes even immediate nerfs after a release I'm pretty confident that strong releases are less of a business decision and more of them simply underestimating the impact of their new releases.

    MTG designers and pretty up front about the fact that they are constantly trying to balance introducing cool new toys to generate interest and promote sales verses the concerns of internal game balance. 

    GW and most of the industry has borrowed heavily from this approach. In my opinion GW has a conscious plan to weight sales and appeal over balance as a marketing philosophy.  That is the reason the release schedule is fueled by the new. Every week new stuff is pushed for us to buy.  Primaris replace old marines, ect. Their focus is on the rules pushing the new models. Yes they want a modicum of balance, but their main focus is pushing out the next product.  They will now react to obvious overly powerful rules, but they still value pushing the rules power for sales over balance. Again this is not inherently bad, in fact it is the industry standard and a proven winning technique.  I just don't see any other companies taking a drastically different approach in our niche. 

    Speculation: Will AOS ever be balanced or is this as good as it gets?

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted · Edited by TheWilddog

    Again my basic position is that GW has made a business decision, that to my mind all other successful large scale tabletop war games and collectible card games have made, get a vague modicum of balance where the new stuff is pushed to increase sales. I play War Machine and this is true, especially true with the new Grykim and Infernal releases, I have played Kings Of War and the general modicum of balance seems about the same, Magic, particularly in the Standard format is the same.  

    You can argue that smaller skirmish games like Mailifuax and similar games have better balance but that is almost a different genre than large scale battles. Also you can argue that fan projects without the sales incentive, like the 9th Age have better balance because they are not constantly using rules to push models. However, what other model are people asking GW to adopt? Most other games of AOS's size I have played suffer from the same commercial driven unbalance and I would argue that it is intentional and mostly the industry standard. 

    • Like 1

    Speculation: Will AOS ever be balanced or is this as good as it gets?

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

    I am a tournament magic player and I agree with you mostly.  However, when the designers introduce things like the summoning mechanics which are going to be off the wall with what they can do to break the game and frustrate players, I have to wonder why they would shrug their shoulders at imbalance and then simply add more things that are known to cause the game to break on top of that.

    Its one thing to realize that the games will never be balanced and cannot ever be balanced, its another to build foundations in your system that are based off of creating imbalance in the first place.

    Summoning has some issues, but I think the only place it is currently breaking things is in the context of Slaanesh. The Depravity Mechanic will take a hit to get it back in line. Nurgle, Khorne, Serephon LoN and I would argue FEC summoning are mostly fine and don't break the game system. 

    As for Magic, R and D has consistently pushed new mechanics that broke the game and frustrated players for the purpose of introducing new "cool stuff" and driving sales. Affinity, Storm, Phyrexian Mana, Energy, they do it over and over. I just don't really see a difference. 

    • Confused 1

    The Rumour Thread

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted · Edited by TheWilddog

    34 minutes ago, Overread said:

    I don't think they divide people the most. I think its just that they are the newest adn thus the I like/don't like comments come far more often. There are loads of people who hate Stormcast; or Wood elves; or Tyranids or Space marines or Imperial Guard. Thing is those armies had their big "I like/don'tlike" releases years, sometimes decades ago. So there's less of the focus on them. Those who don't like them just move on. 

     

    Reapers are just having their day, plus without a physical release as yet there isn't as much to latch onto for fans of them. 

    I agree.  I think that almost all of the truly new (conceptually) AOS releases have been divisive at first. The Stormcast in the very beginning were divisive in the extreme. The KO had those that loved them and those that thought they were too high tech for the setting. The Idoneth people either loved the aesthetic and went all in or hated it and passed.  I think it is just the nature of truly new armies (as opposed to those based on the expansion of existing aesthetics, like DOK or Gloomspite). 

    • Like 1

    Speculation: Will AOS ever be balanced or is this as good as it gets?

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted · Edited by TheWilddog

    I have played and still play a variety of table top war games and other competitive games like MTG (many at relatively high levels of competitive play), and honestly most every other system I have played exhibit the same imbalance that we currently see in AOS.  I have played dozens of Standard MTG formats over the years and in almost everyone there were 3-5 best decks that were truly competitive tier 1 and everything else would be dominated by, in fact the current standard format is dominated fairly heavily by 1 deck with most people playing it if they really want to win.  The same goes for War Machine. For most of the game's life each faction has had certain casters that dominated and 80 percent of the rest of the range was just left on the shelf. The CID structure has rotated what is good based on the set themes and the meta chases the top builds, while most other lists are relegated to non-competitive.  These other games spend way more time and resources than GW on game balance and rules writing and end up in similar spaces.  It is honestly the model of the modern competitive/collectible game, a constantly shifting unbalanced meta where new things are promoted to induce sales. This reality is only more frustrating for us as war gamers because unlike magic players we can not just move on to a new deck and recycle the old ones very easily, due to the hobby investment in painting and building the models.   

     

    • Like 1

    AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

    in Skaven

    Posted

    21 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

    I hate to do this but I'm going to indulge myself in a bit of complaining. I'm dutifully working on my Skaven project and really enjoyed setting up my clanrat units. They have been super easy to clean up and despite the simple design it's not hard to make a unit where each model is unique.

    My unit of Plague Monks, however, is taking forever to clean. Is it just me or is the sprue design of this kit just atrocious? The mould lines are awful and the sprue gates are in the worst places. Anyone else hate building this kit?

    The Plague Monk kit  is just the worst.  They are a much older kit and unfortunately show their age quite a bit.

    AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

    in Skaven

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

    Well if they would have thrown out all finecast/metal/ bad looking models, there wouldn’t be much left.

    the range would literally consist of a Warlock bombardier, that isn't for sale yet, clanrats, Stormvermins, plague priest and on plague furnace, all Grey seer types (including thanqoul), those 4Verminlords, doomwheel, warplightning cannon, Stormfiends, clalword and hell pit abomination.

    loosing basically 75%of the army would have been a massive hit to the skaven faction that  wouldn’t keep much of it’s original taste of madness and scientific horrific weapons.

    I think gw decided  to keep them, because of the range that is made out of fail-cast etc. Is basically what makes the skaven so unique, losing them would basically mean loosing the skaven range.

     

     

    I agree it would have been too big a hit but what do you think it means for the future? Are they going to go in a new directions with Skaven conceptually or will they still stick to the clan model? Should we expect our next big model influx to be Eshin or Moulder or something in a totally new direction?

    AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

    in Skaven

    Posted

    Quick question for you guys.  Since the tread with some of the new books seems to be to cut out a lot of the old metal and finecast models when the army gets updated to AOS 2.0 (Free cities being the big one of course and the rumors of the trimming of the Ogres line) why do you think Skaven kept so much of its older stuff?  We lost a few bits here and there, the Isle Of Blood stuff and a couple of characters, but keep a lot of the really old models.  Just wondering what it means for us going forward and the future of the range.

    AoS 2 - Gloomspite Gitz Discussion

    in Destruction

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Okonomiyakimarine said:

    the orange looks good, but that flesh-tone on top of green in the face looks even better.

    Thx. I was just mocking up the flesh to see how it would go with the orange.  I love a little flesh tone in my orc and goblin faces, but the skin is far from done.  Just trying to settle on a scheme for the cloaks as it will be the dominate color of the army. I am a little afraid the orange will not play well with my red squigs.  I will probably mock up a test squig rider and see how it looks.  

    AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

    in Death

    Posted · Edited by TheWilddog

    8 minutes ago, Qrow said:

    Ok so, the exact wording is "if it includes any mortarchs, then it must also include lady olynder and she must be your general"

    That is the exact wording, to me that states that she only HAS to be your general if you bring another mortarch. So I'm going to assume, until errata'd, that you can take olynder and make another model you general; unless you bring another mortarch, if you bring another mortarch then she must be your general.

     

    It is almost the exact wording of the other Legions in the LoN Book.  So just like in Legion of Sacrament if you take Arkan the Black he must be the general.

    The Rumour Thread

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted · Edited by TheWilddog

    34 minutes ago, Sigmarusvult said:

    Can FEC still use their battletraits as mercenaries ? I hope so because I really struggle to see the benefits of taking them without their double pile in and after saves.

    Nope, all the fancy FEC abilities are Allegiance Abilities. The only things that work are abilities on the warscroll like summoning.  It seems to work just like allies but with some minor tweaks.  

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