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To be fair playtesters that you only know through email can be a risk. WE know first hand here how varied opinions can be from players based on the huge range of backgrounds and experiences those players have. Some are going to game and find the rules great evne if they are glaringly full of holes; others will see gaps and problems everywhere and many are going to not see flaws so much as personal preferences but will flag them as flaws etc....

This is without even considering the local meta; of how their opponents are just as important as the people testing themselves; how good their boards and terrain are (a player playing with little but one wood is going to give a very diffrent reaction to one playing on a board so choked with terrain that you can't fit a large base model on it easily)

Not AOS but from what I heard from a guy who knows some of the playtesters for 8th edition 40k, the playtesting they do is very limited. It's not really looking for combos, it's "Take these prebuilt armies and play them and see if anything feels off" which would explain why often the armybuilding parts are what seem to never get caught; for 40k at least it seems the playtesters were not actually expected to build their own lists but use what GW said to use.

If that's what they are doing for AOS as well, it's no wonder so many things slip by. Although it shocks me seeing how most of the AOS design team and playtesters are tournament guys, so they should be testing list building and combos as well as gameplay.

I'd agree with that.

Knowing how people are playing the game is paramount to understanding the data coming back.

An example from azyr comp testing days.

Khorne mortals vs dwarves. Hammerers were doing a ton of damage and dwarf player basically took an army of mostly hammerers. (this was back before battleline was a thing or we even knew what a matched play was).

The khorne player basically had 3x the models that the dwarf player had. Before the game even begun there were some negative comments about the point system in that it was obvious the khorne player was going to dominate the game because he had so many models.

The game ended up going to the khorne player... but it was as close a game as could be and the khorne player had two models left on the table when all was said and done (two blood warriors).

A lot of playtest comments coming back via email were "the points are whack they aren't balanced" without having played them or playing a couple times without putting any real context into them.

Me watching the games made a huge difference.

Another example: a player would complain that the points were screwing him over because he was losing all the time, and it was because he should have 20% more models based on his estimation and the points were just way wrong.

So we watched his games closely.

Five games.

Five sets of notes.

Player was constantly losing because player was playing very badly.

So we swapped things around and had that player build army lists and had another player play the list. It performed as we expected, with the games being very close (our goal remember was that 2000 points was really 2000 points meaning a 2000 v 2000 game should be close barring bad play)

Had we not been able to be there to watch that player play, we'd only have his input to go off of. That being the points were bad and he was getting destroyed every game because the points are bad. Because people rarely tend to look at how they could play better, they like to play armies that have a lot of advantages to cover up bad play.

Now there's some merit in that as well and something I strongly believe GW does. They do have intentionally easy armies like stormcast that allow people that arne't great at the game have an army that they can do well with because its easy or underpointed.

The problem comes into play when a GOOD player uses those armies and skews the rest of the game with it.

But conclusion: knowing the context of your playtest data is crucial. Otherwise if you are letting random people on the internet playtest and going off of their comments you don't really know anything other than their base opinion.

You can't see if "this army is soooo bad its broken and horrible" comments are legit or if its really "i'm a bad player that makes mistakes and i can't use an army like this effectively". Or vice versa "this army is fine" comments in the hands of a good player may very well be "this army is very bad" in the hands of a bad player.

We got a lot of those comments.

Unit X is soooo overcost it needs to come down in points!

Followed two emails down with:

Unit X is sooo undercost its OP it needs to come up in points!

Which is it?

My club playtested WHFB 6th and 7th and we were basically given stock lists to use and report what we thought about the mechanics. I don't know if the playtesting approach is different today.

Wayniac wrote:
Not AOS but from what I heard from a guy who knows some of the playtesters for 8th edition 40k, the playtesting they do is very limited. It's not really looking for combos, it's "Take these prebuilt armies and play them and see if anything feels off" which would explain why often the armybuilding parts are what seem to never get caught; for 40k at least it seems the playtesters were not actually expected to build their own lists but use what GW said to use.

If that's what they are doing for AOS as well, it's no wonder so many things slip by. Although it shocks me seeing how most of the AOS design team and playtesters are tournament guys, so they should be testing list building and combos as well as gameplay.

I would really like to see those pre-built lists. It'd be interesting to see what GW thinks a balanced list looks like.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pancakey wrote:


The marketing dept has truly taken over design dept!

Keep beating that dead horse. I'm sure it'll cross the finish line eventually.

 EnTyme wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Not AOS but from what I heard from a guy who knows some of the playtesters for 8th edition 40k, the playtesting they do is very limited. It's not really looking for combos, it's "Take these prebuilt armies and play them and see if anything feels off" which would explain why often the armybuilding parts are what seem to never get caught; for 40k at least it seems the playtesters were not actually expected to build their own lists but use what GW said to use.

If that's what they are doing for AOS as well, it's no wonder so many things slip by. Although it shocks me seeing how most of the AOS design team and playtesters are tournament guys, so they should be testing list building and combos as well as gameplay.

I would really like to see those pre-built lists. It'd be interesting to see what GW thinks a balanced list looks like.

I would too but I think the information is kept under NDA so I doubt we will ever know. I'd imagine something using Power Level rather than points, and probably like their armies in White Dwarf; usually one of each type of unit, very little spam (and when it's the same unit, different loadouts) and going for variety over min/maxing. So probably something like a couple tactical squads with different weapon options, maybe one in a Rhino, a unit of Terminators, a Predator, captain with plasma pistol and power fist, etc.

Not sure what that would equate to for AOS If they are testing the same way. But I doubt any of the playtesters for AOS will state what they are doing.

I had my first game against both Nighthaunt and Daughters Of Khaine yesterday. Both games were over for me by turn 2. They’re both brutal. But I was playing Ironjawz so maybe that’s not a fair assumption. Maybe I’m just unfairly complaining but I do wish it was possible to keep a game going beyound the second turn even in a tournament. For example, in my third game (against Rotbringers) it lasted down to the wire and was fairly evenly fought. It can’t be hard to achieve this can it? Maybe things like the Nighthaunts ability to fight twice if they get a good charge roll need looking at.

So long as listbuilding remains as important, then I don't see how you can achieve close games unless both lists involved are tuned against each other.

I think that the design ethos and fan base desires are very much opposite of wanting close games though. The design ethos was to encourage blowout games so that they ended faster so that game speed was increased, and I think the community overall as a majority want to be able to win before the first turn with a better list.

The amount of people I encounter that want close games seem to be in the minority.

Obvious disclaimer: thats my own experience combined with what I have read about in terms of the goal being to speed the game up by making it more devastating to kill more models faster.

And I think you're misinterpreting your data. The fact we want faster games doesn't mean we want the games to be non-competitive. I see a lot of complaints about the high damage output of AoS and 40k specifically because they don't want games to be over after the first turn. I want the game to flow faster with more player reactions. I don't really like Alternating Activations for reasons that are well-documented on this forum, but I would love to see alternating phases with casualties pulled at the end of the phase so I could immediately react to my opponent's turn before I have to remove models.

I want list building to matter because I want a layer of strategy to the units I'm bringing, not because I want to win in the list building stage of the game. I like reading through a battletome (or codex) and thinking "this unit would work really well with this leader, especially if I give the leader this artifact". You seem to think this make the system too gamey. To me, it makes list building important. You keep mentioning your philosophy that 2000 points should mean 2000 points, and I agree for the most part. Where I differ is that I think a 2000 point list doesn't have to be 2000 points at the start of the battle. When it comes to summoning, a 2000 point list means that over the course of a battle under normal conditions, 2000 points worth of models should be in play. I think summonable units should be prohibitively expensive to take as part of your base list, but their points cost should be baked in to the units that summon them. I'm not sure if I'm explaining that the right way, but hopefully you understand what I mean. You shouldn't be taking Skeletons as your battleline because they're too point-inefficient to take. You should be summoning them with a Necromancer who you paid a premium to take.

Disclaimer: I don't play Legions of Nagash. I'm just using Necromancer/skeletons as an example. I'm no necessarily making a comment on the balance of Legions of Nagash's points values or summoning mechanics since I don't see them much in my local meta.

Mainly my current stance is because when we were testing azyr, close games were actually discouraging people. Close games created a lot of tension and stress and were seen as a negative play experience by a lot of my playtesters.

That might be a culture thing where people are just used to tabling their opponent by turn 2 or whatever, I really can't say.

auticus wrote:
Mainly my current stance is because when we were testing azyr, close games were actually discouraging people. Close games created a lot of tension and stress and were seen as a negative play experience by a lot of my playtesters.

That might be a culture thing where people are just used to tabling their opponent by turn 2 or whatever, I really can't say.

That's definitely kind of a weird one, but something I can see; there are a lot of folks in this hobby, it seems, who like clubbing seals, and view a game that they can't win more or less instantly as "bad."

Personally, I actually really prefer games that aren't lopsided. At the same time, though, I am older and have less available free time for the hobby (and it's progressively harder to get folks together to play as they deal with their own lives; I avoid random pick up games with unknowns like the plague), so it's hard for me to get long games in. Something that has a good pace and "not too long" overall play time is highly attractive, but quick curb-stomps either way are not, for me, fulfilling.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I had my first game against both Nighthaunt and Daughters Of Khaine yesterday. Both games were over for me by turn 2. They’re both brutal. But I was playing Ironjawz so maybe that’s not a fair assumption. Maybe I’m just unfairly complaining but I do wish it was possible to keep a game going beyound the second turn even in a tournament. For example, in my third game (against Rotbringers) it lasted down to the wire and was fairly evenly fought. It can’t be hard to achieve this can it? Maybe things like the Nighthaunts ability to fight twice if they get a good charge roll need looking at.

A big part of it comes from the ability to bring stuff on later. It might sound silly, but I had this same thing happen when I was fighting Nighthaunt with my Idoneth. I had a Soulscryer, King, and Leviadon all come on at the same time and basically decapitating strike the Nighthaunt in one good wave(no pun intended!) of success.

auticus wrote:
Mainly my current stance is because when we were testing azyr, close games were actually discouraging people. Close games created a lot of tension and stress and were seen as a negative play experience by a lot of my playtesters.

That might be a culture thing where people are just used to tabling their opponent by turn 2 or whatever, I really can't say.

I would imagine that is cultural. I'm constantly seeing complaints about one-sided games on reddit. Personally, I don't think one-sided matches are any fun. If I'm roflstomping someone, I think I'm actually having less fun than the person I'm playing. I was never the kind of kid who pulled the wings off flies. I've actually been known to pull punches if I realize my opponent is in over his head. I do a lot of demo and intro games in my local area, so end up having to do this a lot just because I'm my opponents often don't have the experience to know how their army works.

I agree with Auticus that there is a certain desire for the 'listbuilding phase' to dominate (though I do not feel it is as severe). But I maintain that a huge and unseen factor is that the players looking for close/balanced games both outnumber them vastly and simply do not play AoS. I imagine that if AoS was made balanced there would be complaints about said, while the number of players overall shot up.

Also a very large amount of people get put off by the double turn.

auticus wrote:
Mainly my current stance is because when we were testing azyr, close games were actually discouraging people. Close games created a lot of tension and stress and were seen as a negative play experience by a lot of my playtesters.

That might be a culture thing where people are just used to tabling their opponent by turn 2 or whatever, I really can't say.

That is very strange. My experience is that close run games are the best. Everyone is laughing and having fun, it gathers attention from passers by and at the end the loser doesn’t feel so bad. It’s the ones that are effectly over after 1 turn that are the negative play experience. I’ve been on the receiving end of these so often and they make you wish you never bothered. It’s especially bad when you see it happen to beginners.

I could stomach an ability that lets you immediately fight after charging if you got a good charge roll if that was just the units activation period. It’s letting them do that on top of fighting normally latter that pushes it in unbalanced territory in my opinion.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I agree with Auticus that there is a certain desire for the 'listbuilding phase' to dominate (though I do not feel it is as severe). But I maintain that a huge and unseen factor is that the players looking for close/balanced games both outnumber them vastly and simply do not play AoS. I imagine that if AoS was made balanced there would be complaints about said, while the number of players overall shot up.

Also a very large amount of people get put off by the double turn.

Yeah. This is something that I think about as well. The game promotes a certain vibe, and if that vibe isn't gelling with an individual they won't be around. A lot of the guys I know that are more about balanced games still won't play AOS so for sure my data is skewed.

Only able to speak to personal experience, obviously, but I feel like every game I "remember" has been a close one. I love last turn, clever move to snatch one more VP wins... and feel like while I am pretty good at the math-hammer phase of almost any mini-game, the experience I actually love are the ones that required meaningful play.

auticus wrote:


The amount of people I encounter that want close games seem to be in the minority.

I think this is super important, to me at least. I hate games that are over at list building and its clear one side has won immediately. This has happened to me before in both sigmar, but mostly 40k, where I have lost half of my army to high str, high RoF shots that I cannot retaliate on the return. It has mostly turned me off of 40k. Sigmar, I've only had things happen a few times where I couldn't do anything and the game was over turn 2, one of the times being adepticon against a ghb playtester and heelanhammer player. I felt I lost at list building and so the game was seeing how far until I had to concede.

This thread feels like it has pretty rapidly turned into a 'people that play AoS have badwrongfun'.

I think we all know which side of the debate Farseer falls on.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
This thread feels like it has pretty rapidly turned into a 'people that play AoS have badwrongfun'.

That is an inaccurate assessment.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
This thread feels like it has pretty rapidly turned into a 'people that play AoS have badwrongfun'.

That is an inaccurate assessment.

Perception is reality - more to the point I've seen quite a bit of finger wagging regarding balance, bad players who need list writing to feel good, and baby seal clubbing to name some examples.

I don't think any of those indicate bad wrong fun. Especially considering any design course you take on game design is going to address all of the above as facets that you need to support in your game.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
This thread feels like it has pretty rapidly turned into a 'people that play AoS have badwrongfun'.

That is an inaccurate assessment.

Perception is reality - more to the point I've seen quite a bit of finger wagging regarding balance, bad players who need list writing to feel good, and baby seal clubbing to name some examples.

Can you quote where someone has said playing a certain way is bad?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
This thread feels like it has pretty rapidly turned into a 'people that play AoS have badwrongfun'.

That is an inaccurate assessment.

Perception is reality - more to the point I've seen quite a bit of finger wagging regarding balance, bad players who need list writing to feel good, and baby seal clubbing to name some examples.

Can you quote where someone has said playing a certain way is bad?

Listbuilding is more difficult in a balanced game, not non-existent. Having the right balance of front line, support, hammer, anvil, etc will still crush an army of randomly selected options. People know this. But some are afraid that without being able to get a dramatic advantage by making an overpowered list they won't be able to win as many games. Saying this sounds petty so there are other reasons brought up as a cover.

Sounds pretty derogatory to me.

That's definitely kind of a weird one, but something I can see; there are a lot of folks in this hobby, it seems, who like clubbing seals, and view a game that they can't win more or less instantly as "bad."

Doesn't really sound like a glowing endorsement (and is fairly hyperbolic to boot).

I don't know that I'm surprised - Dakka is one of the most negative places regarding the Tabletop hobby as a whole (not just AoS related).

I don't think it derogatory, but then again I've had to deal with those kinds of people.

We've got a duo that basically do exactly what is mentioned in that snippet. They'll sit in a corner by themselves and try to talk softly about it but they try to plan as much filth into a list as they can. It got to the point where they're just not asked or suggested to people just getting into AoS or 40k as potential opponents.

When they got upset about this and asked "why", had it explained to them they just claimed that they "only wanted to make purchases that would be useful units" and they "didn't want anything that they couldn't budget for". When it was pointed out to them that they basically are a revolving door of armies, they just kind of shut up and moved along.

Thats not really derogatory no. There are reams of forums discussions on this very topic with lots of players explaining that if they don't take an over powered list then their time would be wasted and they wouldn't place as high at tournaments or they'd get rolled in their casual pick up games.

The world isn't black and white. Its not "if you don't support this, then you think its bad and its negative".

auticus wrote:
Thats not really derogatory no. There are reams of forums discussions on this very topic with lots of players explaining that if they don't take an over powered list then their time would be wasted and they wouldn't place as high at tournaments or they'd get rolled in their casual pick up games.

The world isn't black and white. Its not "if you don't support this, then you think its bad and its negative".

Certainly not but I'm pretty used to finding a ton of negativity on Dakka. I'd hoped AoS was a bit different (perhaps a reflection of the real life community for the game) but its really no better than the 40k community here.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

That's definitely kind of a weird one, but something I can see; there are a lot of folks in this hobby, it seems, who like clubbing seals, and view a game that they can't win more or less instantly as "bad."

Doesn't really sound like a glowing endorsement (and is fairly hyperbolic to boot).

I don't know that I'm surprised - Dakka is one of the most negative places regarding the Tabletop hobby as a whole (not just AoS related).

Way to cherry pick. Though, I suppose it's reasonable to assume I meant this only for AOS, but I didn't (I did say "this hobby", but since this is in a thread about AOS I clearly must be talking about just the "AOS Hobby"). It's something I have seen in pretty much all of the gaming community, whether boardgame, minis, or video games. And yeah, the hyperbole was intentional, but I guess I need to make sure to use more disclaimers to avoid misinterpretation.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
This thread feels like it has pretty rapidly turned into a 'people that play AoS have badwrongfun'.

That is an inaccurate assessment.

Perception is reality - more to the point I've seen quite a bit of finger wagging regarding balance, bad players who need list writing to feel good, and baby seal clubbing to name some examples.

Can you quote where someone has said playing a certain way is bad?

Listbuilding is more difficult in a balanced game, not non-existent. Having the right balance of front line, support, hammer, anvil, etc will still crush an army of randomly selected options. People know this. But some are afraid that without being able to get a dramatic advantage by making an overpowered list they won't be able to win as many games. Saying this sounds petty so there are other reasons brought up as a cover.

Sounds pretty derogatory to me.

That's definitely kind of a weird one, but something I can see; there are a lot of folks in this hobby, it seems, who like clubbing seals, and view a game that they can't win more or less instantly as "bad."

Doesn't really sound like a glowing endorsement (and is fairly hyperbolic to boot).

I don't know that I'm surprised - Dakka is one of the most negative places regarding the Tabletop hobby as a whole (not just AoS related).

So your only evidence is circumstancial at best.

It seems that, as I stated, your assessment was inaccurate.

So in reviewing the game now and having seen or played in a few dozen games, some conclusions that I have come to.

* Our campaign starting up in September won't have any houserules. The changes in 2.0 are a good compromise, and include a lot of rules we had already houseruled the past three years.

* Listbuilding's importance is still very important. If you build a list that cannot summon a decent amount of free points or does not spam mortal wounds, and you are up against a list that does one or both of those things, the game is for the most part already finished before the first die is cast.

* The realm rules are pretty narrative and fun but really annoy competitive players with their random effects.

* Malign spells are a fun addition but only a scant few are regularly seen, indicating a balance issue with the spells. Additionally a lot of competitive players are calling for their removal at official major tournaments.

* The new terrain rules slim down the number of terrain warscrolls and brought back some semblance of intuitive rules, and break up the battlefield now.

Overall I give AOS a firm 6.5 / 10. There are some minor tweaks that I'd like to see, but overall the only real complaint that I personally have is that free summoning is now a cornerstone of listbuilding alongside spamming mortal wounds, and that perturbs me a little bit.