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If players need to consult each other to adjust the power levels of their armies, what is the point of using matched play system?

Are not points and restrictions ought to bring optimal balance without tedious process of moderating army balance done by players?

I am not against players discussing to decrease the gap between armies for more enjoyable games. But if this process is semi-compulsive even when using matched play, I daresay it shows how miserably matched play has failed as a system that aims to promote competitive games.

Sagittarii Orientalis wrote:
If players need to consult each other to adjust the power levels of their armies, what is the point of using matched play system?

Are not points and restrictions ought to bring optimal balance without tedious process of moderating army balance done by players?

I am not against players discussing to decrease the gap between armies for more enjoyable games. But if this process is semi-compulsive even when using matched play, I daresay it is an utter failure as a system that aims to provide competitive games.

Its like that for everygame every, even chess, there is a reason why in chess there are skill ranks. If a top player is asked to play he is going to ask what rating he is. You can't get around some imbalances no matter the game.

You should always talk to your opponent for everygame. I also used to play comp OW (Highest was 3,470 never could get masters) until Blizz f'ed up and bowed to china, when playing with IRL friends my rank was much higher than theirs, i had a 2nd account just for friends so it would find a more balanced team and i would play off heroes to practice and have more fun than try to win.

edit: spelling

Just because perfect balance cannot be achieved in any form of game does not mean degree of unbalance is same for all games.

Correct me wrong, but I am moderately shocked to see a chess come up as an example to advocate AoS balance issues. I heard going first creates unbalance problem in chess, but it is incomparably skill-based compared to AoS. At least in AoS players can attribute their loss to army tiers or specific builds. In no way can this happen in chess.

Sagittarii Orientalis wrote:
Just because perfect balance cannot be achieved in any form of game does not mean degree of unbalance is same for all games.

Correct me wrong, but I am moderately shocked to see a chess come up as an example to advocate AoS balance issues. I heard going first creates unbalance problem in chess, but it is incomparably skill-based compared to AoS. At least in AoS players can attribute their loss to army tiers or specific builds. In no way can this happen in chess.

Chess is by far a very balanced game, thats why it is brought up. No one is saying they are closely balanced, b.c they are not. I only used it to show even a balanced game you should talk to your opponent first, or at least "know" their level/rating.

Just walking up and saying "play me" could be extremely unbalanced just from a player skill level regardless of the games you are playing or the units in an army.

 kodos wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Infinity does have an easier time, because of how tiny the stat variation is between factions, and how generic the equipment is.

compared to AoS?
No, the differences between Armies and viable builds is much bigger for Infinity
Same for the dice rolls, a lucky roll for double turn in the right moment will decide the game, I can't see why this is so much better than crit mechanics in Infinity.

I mean, that's not what my experience has been. The difference is usually 1, maybe 2 stat-points apart. The "shooty" army of the game, PanO, has +1 BS vs the "melee" army of YJ. Both are in essence the same, the only difference is how easy it is to get MSV or missile launchers in each army.
And yes, double turn is strong, but not nearly quite as as say, losing a key HI unit because a 10-point cheerleader managed to roll a crit twice in the same burst, because crits make armor, a stat that is otherwise fairly heavily weighted in points, useless.

Cronch wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Infinity does have an easier time, because of how tiny the stat variation is between factions, and how generic the equipment is.

compared to AoS?
No, the differences between Armies and viable builds is much bigger for Infinity
Same for the dice rolls, a lucky roll for double turn in the right moment will decide the game, I can't see why this is so much better than crit mechanics in Infinity.

I mean, that's not what my experience has been. The difference is usually 1, maybe 2 stat-points apart. The "shooty" army of the game, PanO, has +1 BS vs the "melee" army of YJ.

which is kind of more different to the variations of 3+/4+ we get from AoS as 1 stat point difference already makes a shooty army.
Even different weapons in AoS throughout all the armies are more or less the same and difference can only be seen of you go full math-hammer and and see that there is a slight advantage for one against a specific enemy.

the main difference between AoS units and factions are army wide special rules, what you can take as battle line and access to buffs
and this causes the problem as most of those play the same but one get the better combination of army rules, battle line and buffs to get thinks working, combined with a lot of RNG.

I see the same in Kings of War (or Deadzone), one Stat-Point difference is enough to get a completely different play style while some people look at the stats and conclude that they must be all play the same, while in AoS every Army plays different.
But in AoS, they don't do because of the Stats, is there is no difference between factions at all.

After a game of Infinity, I am more often in the situation to say I lost because of 1-2 mistakes I have done than blaming the dice or poor army decision

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
It sounds like you and your opponents also work together to make sure the game is not overbearing for one or the other, which is good and will definitely give you a much better play experience.

I do a lot of open public games so some of my opponents will do that, but a good chunk of my opponents will plunk down three keeper of secrets and prepare to summon an additional 2000 points of models, that if I'm not bringing an equally filth list will not have much of a game against.

I play players that try to win and bring top style lists, i got to events even major GTs with 200+ people, i do teams and solo events. For pickup game nights yes we play nice, but a lot of the time's we do not. We enjoy both. We just say "friendly or not?" before each game, we also have a 24/7 gaming club with out own chat for local community, you can get pick up games and schedule serious or not, which we do. Last week it was all comp games practicing for a doubles event coming up.

To me it sounds like you are not talking to your opponents as to what game type you want for pick up games and making it sound like its other peoples problems.

You would be incorrect in that assumption. When we do public campaigns its in big bolded flaming words "do not bring your adepticon list". And people bring their adepticon list anyway. And then complain that they are being moderated or told to weaken their list and that that is not fair. There is no place in the world where I can take my slaves to darkness army and have a good game against the new tzeentch or 3 keeper of secrets list that will be any kind of fun or enjoyable.

And the pick up games at the store are the same. The expectation in my neck of the woods is: if its legal, deal with it. If you dont like being smashed by adepticon style lists, build your own adepticon style list, or don't play. Or be ok with getting smashed and play for beer and dice and not caring about who wins.

How your local group plays, or decides to collectively be unpleasant towards you is not indicative of the game as a whole. Telling people there's no point in playing the game because your local group overall sucks is just needlessly negative.

I could use my own group, where we play and have good friendly fun games regularly, as my opinion for the game's balance and say it's perfect and fine, but that would be wrong too. Pinning down a metric for what armies are actually balanced is a difficult thing, and it's my opinion that the best way to find stats is from tournament play, where the players are trying their best to win. Anecdotes and experience from pick-up games can only go so far.

Thats really not whats happening at all. The discussion was on the balance of the game, and how in many cases there is no need to play the game because you can figure out the outcome.

Somehow that has now morphed.

Pinning down a metric for what armies are balanced is not a difficult thing at all. Its actually quite easy to get a point based system in line with itself and be not perfect, but a lot tighter.

I think its a lot harder to point down a good matched play system in a game that lets you summon to the level AOS does and where mortal wounds get blown up so much as they are, but I don't think its very difficult or even difficult.

We (the community) did it several years ago.

I think saying that its difficult to do so it doesn't matter as much is a giant cop-out meant to hand waive the fact that balance isn't what you are after, and that its ok to have the disparities in the game that exist today because they are fine by you. Its ok to not be after balanced play. I realized a while ago that there are a lot of people that dont' care about balance so long as they have a giant community to interact with. I think in the end most if not all of us know what the real story is in regards to the power disparities, and that it should just be ok to say "we know the balance isn't great, but we simply don't care." instead of trying to hand waive it or say its not really that bad.

 Thadin wrote:
How your local group plays, or decides to collectively be unpleasant towards you is not indicative of the game as a whole. Telling people there's no point in playing the game because your local group overall sucks is just needlessly negative.

I could use my own group, where we play and have good friendly fun games regularly, as my opinion for the game's balance and say it's perfect and fine, but that would be wrong too. Pinning down a metric for what armies are actually balanced is a difficult thing, and it's my opinion that the best way to find stats is from tournament play, where the players are trying their best to win. Anecdotes and experience from pick-up games can only go so far.

I completely agree with this, and well said.

The game has too many variables and different army builds and different synergies that are hard to put in to points.

Using your previous examples of having a bell-curve where you put in unit stats and their point cost, to compare them to all the other units in the game and place them on a scale from under-costed to over-costed and anywhere inbetween, was it able to account for synergies and buffs between units?

Lets go with... If unit X is worth 200 points, and unit Y is worth 200 points as well, and both are perfectly balanced on your bell-curve. Unit Y has a special rule to improve the power of Unit X specifically, where do the points increase to keep them balanced? Increase the points of both units so they still sit balanced? Then, when they're not taken together, they become overcosted?

I'm actually interested to know if there was a way to account for this in the comp you had made, or if you have a solution to this situation. A system where different units have a different points cost depending on how your army is built?

Edit: I will concede that Summoning is busted. No way around it, free points are unbalanced.

In such a case you would determine the value of the buff to unit X and incorporate that into the point cost of unit Y. This is where subjective elements and playtesting come in, because the strict mathematical value of the buff is offset by both units needing to be fielded together for it to work. That makes it impossible to get a perfect value, but what people really want is 'good enough' which is not all that difficult to determine provided a set of designers/playtesters that are experienced, knowledgeable, and have the right intentions.

But... it isn't even that. Many would be very happy to have battletomes & codex where the OP and UP options at least require play time to determine instead of being readily obvious upon reading.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
In such a case you would determine the value of the buff to unit X and incorporate that into the point cost of unit Y.

I agree with this, to an extent. In the hypothetical example I put forward, unit Y only buffed the specific unit X and nothing else available to the army. Both X and Y are appropriately costed and perfectly balanced when they're separate, but together they're much stronger than what they're costed. Would it then be feasible to have a system where the same unit has different points costs dependant on the rest of your army comp?

Edit: Just thought of an example after posting. Warmachine and Hordes, your Warcaster/Warlock has a Jack/Beast Allotment for your army, and their allotment basically amounts to free points. A 50pt game of Warmachine will have your Warcaster, their free allotment of Jacks, and the rest of the points filled by extra jacks and units and so on. Depending on the strength and powers of the Leader of your army, you have a certain allotment of 'free' units. Perhaps something along that concept could work in AoS, or reworked or something? Just a thought I had, I'm by no means a game designer.

Unit Y would cost more points than it was worth on it's own, because using it that way means the player has chosen not to utilize it to it's maximum potential. Obviously players will always be able to ruin a unit's performance through error, or perhaps the specific context means that the cost to unit Y's mathatical effectiveness pays off in tactical value. (Using Evocators to camp a backfield objective is, generally speaking, a poor use but if it happens to win you the game it is still the right choice to make.)

To go further, if unit Y only offers a small buff to unit X then the increase to it's cost will be small or even zero and thus the 'penalty' to use it on it's own is also small. If the buff is large then the increase will also be but in such a case unit Y is designed to be a support unit intended for use with X. Sneaky snufflers' point cost, for example, is due to the buff they provide and only a fraction due to their own combat potential.

a unit that gives a buff to one unit is not the problem

a unit that gives the same buff to more units at the same time is one as you cannot adjust the point costs without setting the number of buffed units for the player

as with such a simple game like AoS, the player will figure out were the break even point is very fast (eg Lord Ordinator+2 Ballistas vs 3 Ballistas)

This is also were GW pre-select lists for the players, if you like a specific model, the best way to bring it on the table are obvious and much better than other options so that players feel they miss something if they don't take the combination

Army wide buffs are another problem if not all units profit the same way from it.


So yes AoS is hard to balance, but not because it has much more variation than other games (which it don't have) or such different stats or play styles
but because of design decisions at a basic level and the way how GW additional rules (everything is designed in its own environment and not written as complete game were basic concepts for all factions are layed out at the very beginning)

 Thadin wrote:
How your local group plays, or decides to collectively be unpleasant towards you is not indicative of the game as a whole. Telling people there's no point in playing the game because your local group overall sucks is just needlessly negative.

I could use my own group, where we play and have good friendly fun games regularly, as my opinion for the game's balance and say it's perfect and fine, but that would be wrong too. Pinning down a metric for what armies are actually balanced is a difficult thing, and it's my opinion that the best way to find stats is from tournament play, where the players are trying their best to win. Anecdotes and experience from pick-up games can only go so far.

That maybe true, but if it happens often enough to people from different countries, then it means that it is not just one store where auticus plays, but a general trend. And at what point does a general trend become reality? because I tell you it is way before it reachs happens to 100% of people. There are things that happen to less then 1% of population and people still live and act, as if you did them, it is going to happen to you 100% of time.

I think from the balance perspective that if you totally removed summoning, or made it a lot less than what you could do with it now, that a lot of the problems would back themselves up. Also the thought that certain units are over pointed to account for summoning just doesn't fly well with me, because when you can summon in 2000 points extra for free, I'd expect keepers to run 750 points a pop or something. As it is the keeper is also above the efficiency line in what it does summoning not withstanding. So I don't believe massive point drops are called for for armies that spam summons.

Triple keeper of secrets slaanesh armies without summoning are not that bad. Its when they are dumping 2000 extra points on top of you that the game has gone off the rails.

The game has too many variables and different army builds and different synergies that are hard to put in to points.

Hard yes. Impossible to baseline? No. Not at all. It just takes some effort. You aren't going to get 100% pure 50/50 balance and no one is suggesting that that is possible. However you can find that from a base statistical analysis of just the stats that a unit thats on average doing 12 wounds in combat and can tank 20 hits that costs 150 points is much better than the unit doing 14 wounds in combat, tanking 20 wounds, but costing 190 points. Optimizers with zero statistical background can figure that out and those are the kinds of things that exist in the army books to some degree.

After summoning, the second biggest issue are the battallion buffs. Without those, again the worst offenders aren't that big a deal.

Either make them worth their appropriate cost, tone them down to stop being ridiculous or remove them all together.

Those three things alone bring the game into a much better experience where people aren't winning by virtue of their army that they show up with and lessens the need for social engineering to try to beg and plead and convince your city's play group to not min/max because you don't want to chase the meta with them.

How your local group plays, or decides to collectively be unpleasant towards you is not indicative of the game as a whole.

The more open to abuse the game is, the more social engineering is required to enjoy the game. Which now makes the game also subject to the people around you as opposed to rules that just prevent the nonsense in the first place. So i disagree. If the rules allow a group to play in such a manner as opposed to the rules stopping all of that nonsense, that is indicative of the game's rules. Which is why I think the above things should be implemented or looked at.

The moment they said unfettered summoning was coming but not to worry it would be fine, I said that the game was about to get derailed hard. Free points are free points, and its obvious the more free points I have than you, the more of an advantage I have. To put it more cynically - thats pay to win. You don't just need your army now, you need your summoning side board.

Yep. Unlimited summoning obviously a cash grab idea from GW. It is so obviously bad for the game and benefits those with huge collections.

I have a huge collection that I’ve accumulated over time. I like the idea of being rewarded for having been a loyal customer for almost the past two decades. But yes, free summoning is rough. The in-game stretch goals aren’t the right way to go.

I think a better plan would be like 40k old “deep strike”: they’re points in your army, set them aside early, cant put more than half into “summoning”, comes down in movement phase and either scatters on impact outside of range of a “summoning tether” (hero, icon, gravemarker, etc) or focuses on the tether to come in where you want it. I don’t need free points. But playing like my old 4th/5th Ed 40k Daemons would be just fine for me. (Yes, this would bring back the scatter die. So what?)

And things like current horrors that have a hefty cost but allow for the unit size to increase based on conditions isn't "summoning a new unit"; it's baked into the cost. Models turning into Chaos Spawn or Princes aren't summoning new units: they're changing from one thing to another (yes, this includes enemies turned to spawn in spell casting). Heck, even "one off" models like Gaunt Summoners who can summon a single unit once per game pretty much have the unit's points baked into theirs (anything except horrors is 110pts/unit, and the GS is 240 or 260, depending on which one you take and it falls over if somebody even looks at it). Basically...Undead raising, Seraphon summoning, Depravity, Blood Tithe...stuff like that shouldn't exist; they should give you enhancements like the Blood Tithe original table did, but not "free" summons. The summons should be a point cost but not require a spell casting

It worked like that in 1.0, and it wasn't great either, because there's very little reason to deep-strike, and against a semi-competent player, it might even be nearly impossible to deepstrike anywhere but in your own deployment zone. That's still true, but at least you're not tying points up. I think the best option would be to put a hard cap on how many models you can bring down via summoning.

Cronch wrote:
It worked like that in 1.0, and it wasn't great either, because there's very little reason to deep-strike, and against a semi-competent player, it might even be nearly impossible to deepstrike anywhere but in your own deployment zone. That's still true, but at least you're not tying points up. I think the best option would be to put a hard cap on how many models you can bring down via summoning.

And yet, 5th edition 40k worked just fine with deep strike. In 1.0 it required you to have casters give up casting to summon and the model had to come down in a certain range without forgiveness. I'm proposing something different. Doesn't give up casting and units can DS wherever they want; but if you do it outside of the range of the tether you chance scattering.

So you suggest to remove the 9" no-drop bubble that is in every summon/deepstrike rule in 2.0?

Anyway, summoning is bad and no matter how you cut it, getting free units is bad for balance. if you don't get them for free, you're most likely hamstringing your army.
And none of it matters, cause GW knows free summoning is a great way to get people to buy multiple boxes...so it'll stay.

I would be fine with deep strike with no scatter, if you had to pay points for it.

Cronch wrote:
So you suggest to remove the 9" no-drop bubble that is in every summon/deepstrike rule in 2.0?

Anyway, summoning is bad and no matter how you cut it, getting free units is bad for balance. if you don't get them for free, you're most likely hamstringing your army.
And none of it matters, cause GW knows free summoning is a great way to get people to buy multiple boxes...so it'll stay.

Its not bad if points are taken into an account along with other balancing rules.

Sure. Remove 9”, but if you scatter onto something you mishap. Worked for 5th. Having the tether removes the risk and allows for charges. You can get reliable charge-placements, but you have to plop your tethers in enemy space and risk their health as the catch. It would provide risk/reward and kill off free summoning. Enjoy.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Sure. Remove 9”, but if you scatter onto something you mishap. Worked for 5th. Having the tether removes the risk and allows for charges. You can get reliable charge-placements, but you have to plop your tethers in enemy space and risk their health as the catch. It would provide risk/reward and kill off free summoning. Enjoy.

And everyone i knew in 5th other than marines with Drop pods hated those rules and there is a reason why its not in the game anymore.

When it comes to summoning I think if you are paying for it in points then the deep-strike should be pretty reliable for the player. In fact it should be as reliable as deploying units regularly to the battlefield at the start of the game.



If summoning is "free points" during the game then I think its better to have more risk to the summoning ability. You're basically adding to your army so having a degree of risk might help balance it out. Would that 3 Keeper army that summons 2 more keepers appear as deadly if there was a 50% chance of losing what you summon each time (or it landing really badly so it ends up taking a lot of harm very fast etc...). Furthermore would you be encouraged to summon keepers with such a high risk or would you rather summon three or four groups of deamonetts which have the same risk each, but because its happening multiple times for the same summoning cost; you get to reduce the risk that nothing gets through.


I do recall that when you paid for summoned units no one liked it when you could lose them in an instant.

I think that if you're going to let free points reign supreme in the game that you bring in the sudden death rules that are already a part of the game. If you want to vomit 2000 free points into my face, thats great, but my army realizes it can't win a traditional battle against a force like that and now needs some other victory condition to have a fun game with.

Thats what I've been using for 3 years now. It works - GREAT - other than the tournament guys that hate house rules and don't like that their min/max army now isn't guaranteed a win against the baby seals at campaign. It was voted in by the majority three seasons straight.

I'd rather the priority roll goes away instead of free summoning, i have 0 problems with the summoning. Well for ties summoning unit should count as 1/2 points at least or something.

When it comes down to a 4000 point game vs a 2000 point game with no change to the victory conditions, I don't find that to be much of a game. There has to be a point where someone reasonable finds a point where the free point train moves beyond "this is cool" to "this is pointless".