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Hello. With GHB2 right around the corner I thought it would be fun to share my thoughts on how to balance the game. I realize the video is an hour long but to do a good job explaining it takes time. I would love to talk to people about how to make this idea better. I would also love to hear about other ideas people have.

If balance and math aren't interesting to you then I completely understand. It isn't something everyone likes to talk about.

I hope everyone is having a great day!

https://youtu.be/EQPfJahmt1A

I thought of fairly simple math cost for AoS earlier.

Add, the total wounds of a unit.
Device by armor save.
Add movement.

Summon and Reserves.
Summoned units are not purchased. When a unit is summoned the enemy models gets to bring in a "reserve" or summoned units of their own. "reserve" units do not need to be in the same Warscroll but can be any units from the Alliance.
Costs are calculated exactly as models were purchased at beginning of battle.

Example
30 1 wound models cost 30 pts. With a 5+ save unit cost would be 6pts. A move for the unit might be a flying unit so 14.
Totals units points would be 20.
If the unit had a save of 3+, the total unit cost would be 24.

When I did Azyr before GHB I had a formula that a statistician professor helped write up with me.

The damage outputs and defense of most things up until last November can be found here:

www.louisvillegaming.com/AOSStats.aspx

 auticus wrote:
When I did Azyr before GHB I had a formula that a statistician professor helped write up with me.

The damage outputs and defense of most things up until last November can be found here:

www.louisvillegaming.com/AOSStats.aspx

Hey Auticus - just went to that website and it tells me I can buy it? I would be interested in seeing your work so don't know what is going on there.

I mean this in the nicest way possible when I say it's been thoroughly proven that strict math cannot balance things, even with very complex formulas. Of all the comps that provided points for AoS pre-GHB it was only the ones which incorporated playtesting that stood the test of time. They all did baselines with formulas, but only to set starting values that were then edited based on feedback. Azyr comp was one of these as was SCGT, the latter being used as the basis for the GHB (unfortunately, as Azyr was.balanced better). Units like the Moonclan fanatics simply can't be quantified in mathematical form. As I recall the longest lasting major comp relying solely on math (SDK) went for about 6 months before shutting down.

mhsellwood wrote:

 auticus wrote:
When I did Azyr before GHB I had a formula that a statistician professor helped write up with me.

The damage outputs and defense of most things up until last November can be found here:

www.louisvillegaming.com/AOSStats.aspx

Hey Auticus - just went to that website and it tells me I can buy it? I would be interested in seeing your work so don't know what is going on there.

This is the correct one http://www.louisvillewargaming.com/AOSStats.aspx .

I'll listen through this soon. While I'm at it, here's a question a prima vista: I know that you'll be basically judging a unit's worth based on its printed stats, damage output and survivability. I'm interested, as ever, to know how much would you cost a model that presents you with three dice and if you fail any one of them there is a 1/3 chance of your model being removed from the table regardless of its condition. How would you compensate in your equation if suddenly there appeared another model which enables the first one to instantly teleport in B2B contact (so to speak) with any enemy monster or hero on the table?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I mean this in the nicest way possible when I say it's been thoroughly proven that strict math cannot balance things, even with very complex formulas. Of all the comps that provided points for AoS pre-GHB it was only the ones which incorporated playtesting that stood the test of time. They all did baselines with formulas, but only to set starting values that were then edited based on feedback. Azyr comp was one of these as was SCGT, the latter being used as the basis for the GHB (unfortunately, as Azyr was.balanced better). Units like the Moonclan fanatics simply can't be quantified in mathematical form. As I recall the longest lasting major comp relying solely on math (SDK) went for about 6 months before shutting down.

Yep, game design is a lot more nuanced than a single mathematical equation.

A lot of value is going to come from specific unit interations and contextual abilities, which cannot be properly evaluated along the same metric as unit stat-lines.

mhsellwood wrote:

 auticus wrote:
When I did Azyr before GHB I had a formula that a statistician professor helped write up with me.

The damage outputs and defense of most things up until last November can be found here:

www.louisvillegaming.com/AOSStats.aspx

Hey Auticus - just went to that website and it tells me I can buy it? I would be interested in seeing your work so don't know what is going on there.

Whoops

www.louisvillewargaming.com/AOSStats.aspx

And yeah pure math won't balance everything. Its a great baseline to build off of though

Azyr's main problem was that it wasn't backed by a big tournament. I said that on day-one when I published it though that if there ever would be a unified comp packet or "official" set of points it would come from a big-name tournament organizer regardless of the quality of the outcome good or bad.

auticus wrote:When I did Azyr before GHB I had a formula that a statistician professor helped write up with me.

The damage outputs and defense of most things up until last November can be found here:

www.louisvillegaming.com/AOSStats.aspx

I poked around the site but didn't find documentation about the method of calculating. Do you have the driving equation that you would be willing to share? What you did there is impressive.

NinthMusketeer wrote:I mean this in the nicest way possible when I say it's been thoroughly proven that strict math cannot balance things, even with very complex formulas. Of all the comps that provided points for AoS pre-GHB it was only the ones which incorporated playtesting that stood the test of time. They all did baselines with formulas, but only to set starting values that were then edited based on feedback. Azyr comp was one of these as was SCGT, the latter being used as the basis for the GHB (unfortunately, as Azyr was.balanced better). Units like the Moonclan fanatics simply can't be quantified in mathematical form. As I recall the longest lasting major comp relying solely on math (SDK) went for about 6 months before shutting down.

I don't agree that "its been proven its not possible" if you had watched the video you would have seen how I took into consideration all the things you talked about. I also discussed the areas where subjective judgment comes into setting up the evaluative parameters.
Do me a favor and watch the video. I realize its commonly held belief that it isn't possible but I don't think that is rational.

Thank-you all of you for replying! What wonderful folks you are to take time out of your busy days to engage in positive discussion!

The formula for that is pretty easy.

You sit down with a model. You calculate its average damage output against every type of save imagineable (from none to 2+) and then get that average. Thats its base output. Mortal wounds and things that bypass saves obviously inflate that value since no save can be taken against it and they are sure wounds.

For defense you take saves against every type of rend possible and including mortal wounds and get that value and thats the base defense score.

Efficiency scores are simply those base scores divided by points cost.

So if a unit does 5 points of damage and costs 50 points we say that it takes 10 points to do 1 point of damage.

If another unit does 10 points of damage and costs 50 points we say that it takes 5 points to do and thus is more efficient for its points cost.

Same for defense. If a unit can take say a wound before it suffers a point of damage (a 4+ save), you divide its point cost by that to get how many points you are paying for effectively one wound on average multiplied out by all the wounds in a warscroll.

From there you input every unit in the game and you'll get its ranking based off of every other unit in the game.

While this does not include abilities, it shows you what units don't need babysat with buffs and can operate on their own pretty well and is also how i baseline costed units in Azyr Comp (the abstract abiltiies you had to guestimate points additiions for)

In azyr my goal was to keep the efficiency scores very tight next to each other so that there weren't any grossly OP units by having their efficiency scores be super good compared to the norm. Thats how I accomplished that.

buffalozap wrote:

auticus wrote:When I did Azyr before GHB I had a formula that a statistician professor helped write up with me.

The damage outputs and defense of most things up until last November can be found here:

www.louisvillegaming.com/AOSStats.aspx

I poked around the site but didn't find documentation about the method of calculating. Do you have the driving equation that you would be willing to share? What you did there is impressive.

NinthMusketeer wrote:I mean this in the nicest way possible when I say it's been thoroughly proven that strict math cannot balance things, even with very complex formulas. Of all the comps that provided points for AoS pre-GHB it was only the ones which incorporated playtesting that stood the test of time. They all did baselines with formulas, but only to set starting values that were then edited based on feedback. Azyr comp was one of these as was SCGT, the latter being used as the basis for the GHB (unfortunately, as Azyr was.balanced better). Units like the Moonclan fanatics simply can't be quantified in mathematical form. As I recall the longest lasting major comp relying solely on math (SDK) went for about 6 months before shutting down.

I don't agree that "its been proven its not possible" if you had watched the video you would have seen how I took into consideration all the things you talked about. I also discussed the areas where subjective judgment comes into setting up the evaluative parameters.
Do me a favor and watch the video. I realize its commonly held belief that it isn't possible but I don't think that is rational.

Thank-you all of you for replying! What wonderful folks you are to take time out of your busy days to engage in positive discussion!

My point was that there is a basic problem with subjective values, but more importantly that we saw that problem play out in real life. All the comps relying on strict math died out. The ones that went beyond math didn't.

buffalozap wrote:


I don't agree that "its been proven its not possible" if you had watched the video you would have seen how I took into consideration all the things you talked about. I also discussed the areas where subjective judgment comes into setting up the evaluative parameters.
Do me a favor and watch the video. I realize its commonly held belief that it isn't possible but I don't think that is rational.

Thank-you all of you for replying! What wonderful folks you are to take time out of your busy days to engage in positive discussion!

Against my better judgement I actually went on and watched for a full 1 hour: 10 mins so if you've actually said anything mind bending in those last few minutes I apologise and take my words back. Otherwise - it's basic mathhammer with some added proportional adjustable factors..