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 Kilkrazy wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
Someone had the idea of tossing out points values and any other discernable, balanced method of structuring forces.

£10 on that someone being Jervis.

That... would not surprise me.

The other thing about getting rid of points is that it drastically cuts down on the time GW might otherwise have to spend on balancing forces... or at least get rid of the folks growling that GW wasn't spending the time needed to balance those forces.

The Auld Grump

If it wasn't for the massive number of fiddly little special rules, it would be simple to design an algorithm to calculate the points value of an AoS unit.

The special rules are increasingly a problem. Like at the new Dwarfadin FyreSlayers. They have a couple of rules like if they are within 12 inches of a leader and roll a 3+ on To Hit, then one hit becomes Mortal, or something. (The details are too tedious to bother to remember.)

This kind of "Gotta Catch 'Em All" approach is fantastic for 10 year old boys who delight in Top Trumps cards and the like. And to be fair, there are a lot of 10 year old boys in the world. It's just that everyone isn't a 10 year old boy and maybe a game could actually not have to primarily appeal to them by its peripheral mechanisms.

I really really disagree with this - one of the strengths of the new AOS rules was the idea of synergy which has been successfully proved by a variety of systems from Heroscape (which is IMO a better version of AOS), through Warmachine/Hordes and Malifaux.

Unless you feel that those games also "only appeal to 10 year old boys."

I love the Warhammer background and continue to do so - I hoped that AOS would be great and it was nearly so but just isn't good enough - I feel there were lots of good ideas but the lack of points system has really crushed it - along with the usual GW lack of FAQs etc and the price of new models.

 Matthew wrote:
Wouldn't AoS be perfect as an introduction or expansion to WHFB? Like someone before me said, why not just go forward in time or something?

If WHFB would be restored, it would be a system competing with AoS and provide a total mess. I think (and this has been said elsewhere a few times) GW is more into three systems AoS, 40k, and HH (combined with FW).

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The biggest mistake was GW not fully committing to the AoS concept by radically streamlining unit rules. AoS Battlescrolls are about 3x more complex than they should be. Had GW simplified the units like the core rules, AoS would be truly outstanding, instead of merely the best idea GW's had in a long time.

I agree with this and I would argue that by streamlining the scroll and the combat sequence down to two rolls, GW would have saved time, space and comlexity that could have been used to add more of a command and control aspect, giving more tactical interest.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
Someone had the idea of tossing out points values and any other discernable, balanced method of structuring forces.

£10 on that someone being Jervis.

That... would not surprise me.

The other thing about getting rid of points is that it drastically cuts down on the time GW might otherwise have to spend on balancing forces... or at least get rid of the folks growling that GW wasn't spending the time needed to balance those forces.

The Auld Grump

The removal of Jervis and his acolytes from the design studio would turn around GWs fortunes far more than anything else they can do.

In view of JJ, I complete agree that a new head of the ''game'' design unit could be an improvement. How about getting back Andy Chambers?

 vipoid wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
Someone had the idea of tossing out points values and any other discernable, balanced method of structuring forces.

£10 on that someone being Jervis.

Most likely. Jervis always was against points and balanced, competitive play for whatever reason, likely his own experiences as a wargamer; he seems old enough to have been part of the old grognard historical crowd, which is amusing because so was Rick Priestly and others who used to be with GW (Nigel Stillman springs to mind, who actually WROTE historical books for the WRG, and apparently is/was an archaeologist, sounds like a freaking awesome dude all around) and they seemed to want a balance between the two, even if Nigel had some "odd" views of army construction (his "Stillmania: Questing for the Grail" trilogy on collecting a Bretonnian army is one of my most tresured White Dwarfs, to the point I tracked it down years after losing my own copies). It was always Jervis alone who had the idea that one should trump the other and that in-game randomness was a good, wholesome thing that made the battle more "enjoyable" for everyone involved. It begs the question of just what kind of wargaming experiences he must have had as a lad...

The decision not to have points was taken by Alan Merrett. A number of points systems were created for AoS by Jervis et al, but Alan Merrett would not move on that position.

Personally I don't think it needs points. There are points in 40k, and that is a complete joke, a total illusion. However, I think it might have been helpful to give things 'Ranks' so there was a rough sense of comparability when trying to work out what to field.

Bartali wrote:
The removal of Jervis and his acolytes from the design studio would turn around GWs fortunes far more than anything else they can do.

If he isn't replaced by someone worse. Or at all...

GW is the kinda company I could see tasking customer service with game design if they really wanted to, because it seems GW is under the belief that the game doesn't matter at all and the models sell themselves anyway.

 Sidstyler wrote:

Bartali wrote:
The removal of Jervis and his acolytes from the design studio would turn around GWs fortunes far more than anything else they can do.

If he isn't replaced by someone worse.

I'm not sure that's even possible.

 vipoid wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:

Bartali wrote:
The removal of Jervis and his acolytes from the design studio would turn around GWs fortunes far more than anything else they can do.

If he isn't replaced by someone worse.

I'm not sure that's even possible.

JJ should switch places with ye ol' SM statue. Stick him under the stairs.

Is Jervis the current whipping boy then?

Gav Thorpe>Matt Ward>Jervis?

Blame the company, not the individuals, I reckon.

Jervis Johnson created Blood Bowl, Advanced Heroquest and Epic Armageddon amongst others.

I think they call that pedigree.

Is Jervis the current whipping boy then?

Gav Thorpe>Matt Ward>Jervis?

Blame the company, not the individuals, I reckon.

notprop

Jervis Johnson created Blood Bowl, Advanced Heroquest and Epic Armageddon amongst others.

I think they call that pedigree.

QFT. Jervis has done some pretty cool things over the years. While I also have to admit to occasionally having a laugh at some if the things he wrote in those Standard Bearer articles, we don't REALLY know who is doing what over there so it's probably a bit unfair to lay all the blame at the feet of a single person just because they're the most visible.

Tycho wrote:

Is Jervis the current whipping boy then?

Gav Thorpe>Matt Ward>Jervis?

Blame the company, not the individuals, I reckon.

notprop

Jervis Johnson created Blood Bowl, Advanced Heroquest and Epic Armageddon amongst others.

I think they call that pedigree.

QFT. Jervis has done some pretty cool things over the years. While I also have to admit to occasionally having a laugh at some if the things he wrote in those Standard Bearer articles, we don't REALLY know who is doing what over there so it's probably a bit unfair to lay all the blame at the feet of a single person just because they're the most visible.

While it's true that we don't really know who is responsible for what at the moment in GW's decision making, it is also true that one should never excuse someone's contemporary blunders based on previously successful endeavours, just like one can't do the reverse.

The irony is that AOS not having points makes it interesting from a narrative standpoint (if the game itself wasn't complete gak, of course). It makes it slightly easier to come up with weird, themed scenarios with unique victory conditions. That, in and of itself, is a good thing, although I strongly disagree with the fact it's the only "official" way to do things, as games also need to have a balanced way to just throw down (e.g. pick-up games).

While it's true that we don't really know who is responsible for what at the moment in GW's decision making, it is also true that one should never excuse someone's contemporary blunders based on previously successful endeavours, just like one can't do the reverse.

I agree with that and I'm certainly not excusing him any of his blunders either. Like I said, I found many (if not most) of his Standard Bearer articles to be real head scratchers. "Really Jervis? You're going to spend two whole pages of this fairly expensive magazine telling me how you once pouted through a game and that we shouldn't act that way?" Yeah. No.

The way I look at it is like this:

Look at the "Matt Ward Era" of codex writing. Many people hated it. They thought his books were over-powered and his fluff silly and out of place. I actually really liked his books. A lot. The reminded me of 2nd ed when the game had a twist of Grimm Dark, but wasn't taking itself so seriously. For me, the issue wasn't the codexes Ward wrote. It was the codexes he DIDN'T write. So you have the people who liked him and the people who didn't.The thing about that is, both groups of players were right in their own way. The real issue was the company itself. You can't have your writers/designers all taking such radically different philosophies on things as vital as actual rules writing. You need to create some form of institutional control on things so that everyone is free to write to their own styles while still keeping the rules within a certain set of parameters. So ultimately, that era was the company's fault. Not Matt Ward. He just got slammed so hard because he was a visible name. That's more the kind of thing I'm talking about.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
it is also true that one should never excuse someone's contemporary blunders based on previously successful endeavours, just like one can't do the reverse.

Could say the same about GW as a whole really.

I would say the idea of AoS was a bad idea, rebooting the WHFB world was not a bad idea, it was needed to consolidate most of the armies.
The problem was how bad the game is with its unclear rules, poor balance

 Matthew wrote:
Wouldn't AoS be perfect as an introduction or expansion to WHFB? Like someone before me said, why not just go forward in time or something?

In the same way that food poisoning would be the perfect introduction to Taco Bell, yes.

I agree that a smaller scale introductory game would have been a good idea - something akin to Mordheim, with small warbands doing battle.

But AoS?

No.

Taken on its own, even discounting the fact that it represents killing of a setting with decades of fond memories... the game just is not that good.

Not complaining about the length - there are some very good, very short, rules out there. (One Page Bulge, anyone?)

The core rules of Kings of War are very short - and I consider it to be vastly superior to every version of WHFB from fourth onwards. (Though fourth was the version that I actually played the most.)

But AoS... from the lack of balancing units, to the way that movement and bases, and miniatures are handled to the special cases for each and every unit... no, just not a well thought out rule set.

It looked and felt like something written on the back of a trayliner at a fast food restaurant, then never really worked on much past that point. (Hey, I write rules on the back of trayliners... it is an important part of my design process - but I also take a look at them before running with them afterwards.)

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* For the record - I think that Jervis might be the most fun person at GW to play games with - but even during the Blood Bowl days, he would say that winning and losing were not all that important to him - as he fielded an all halfling Blood Bowl team.... *EDIT 2* When somebody tells you that he doesn't care about winning - and fields an all halfling Blood Bowl team - he is telling the truth.

Balance is something better handled by a team (or even a committee) than a single designer - it is what playtesting is for.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Balance is something better handled by a team (or even a committee) than a single designer - it is what playtesting is for.

Also probably better handled by people who DO want to win, so much the better to figure out what the broken things are and get them out of there before it's too late.

 tomjoad wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Balance is something better handled by a team (or even a committee) than a single designer - it is what playtesting is for.

Also probably better handled by people who DO want to win, so much the better to figure out what the broken things are and get them out of there before it's too late.

It's funny, I hear a lot of '40k isn't meant to be balanced, it's meant to be fun'. As someone who enjoys thematic and story driven games, I have more fun with Malifaux and Infinity which are pretty well balanced than I ever did with 40k.

Balanced doesn't mean it's no longer fun.

 -Loki- wrote:

 tomjoad wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Balance is something better handled by a team (or even a committee) than a single designer - it is what playtesting is for.

Also probably better handled by people who DO want to win, so much the better to figure out what the broken things are and get them out of there before it's too late.

It's funny, I hear a lot of '40k isn't meant to be balanced, it's meant to be fun'. As someone who enjoys thematic and story driven games, I have more fun with Malifaux and Infinity which are pretty well balanced than I ever did with 40k.

Balanced doesn't mean it's no longer fun.

My thoughts exactly.
I'm a narrative fluff guy, but I also need a fair fight to have fun. One sided either way ruins it for me. Infinity has awesome scenarios and Malifaux's has very story-driven scenarios.

The fact that FFG makes rpgs, card games etc..and other companies still make video games set in the old world and that they are popular should have clued GW in that the problem with warhammer FB wasnt the setting. it was the rules. IMO the problem with AoS is the setting, not entirely the rules ( though if you took off the GW logo and someone else had produced it, AoS would never have had a chance, even kickstarter wouldnt have pulled it off)

 MWHistorian wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

It's funny, I hear a lot of '40k isn't meant to be balanced, it's meant to be fun'. As someone who enjoys thematic and story driven games, I have more fun with Malifaux and Infinity which are pretty well balanced than I ever did with 40k.

Balanced doesn't mean it's no longer fun.

My thoughts exactly.
I'm a narrative fluff guy, but I also need a fair fight to have fun. One sided either way ruins it for me. Infinity has awesome scenarios and Malifaux's has very story-driven scenarios.

I'm another that has switched to Malifaux and I agree with you two fully. The game tells a story in a way I didn't feel like 40k did any more, and I think that is largely due to the fact that it is well balanced, well designed, and fun enough that you don't end up bogged down in extraneous messes (like Formations and Tau/Eldar and poorly worded rules) at anywhere near the same rate.

I think it's rather interesting (and slightly amusing) that AoS tops the lists of both the best and worst ideas of GW in the two threads.

Clearly a very divisive subject

The fractured old-world fluff in AOS seems to have been a major foul-up.

Since you brought game designers I feel GW has a serious issue of not having game developers!

From interviews from GW ex game designers Jervis is regarded in high esteem and he might be a good game designer, but he probably cannot develop his designs in a good product.

Nice to see the issue of different approaches in codexes and army books been touched, in various stages of GWs history in all its game systems there was a dominant writer whose armies were overpowered, not exactly because he made the armies he liked overpowered but because the other designers assigned to other books were either more timid, less resourceful, less ambitious, or some other reason.

The studio never had the consistency a game developer would give, nobody to stand see codex A and codex B and say "these two seem to be from a different league, you spice it up, you tone it down".

Andy Chambers mentioned above has always gave me mixed feelings, at the end of second edition and a huge humble pie he managed to develop 2nd edition into something playable, it took him the best part of a decade, a huge amount of balance addressing FAQ, almost a rewrite of some sections of the rules and a complete rewrite of codex space marines, but he managed to deliver in the end a playable system, still the under-powered codexes (the ones he didn't write) needed OP combos to be relevant, but they kinda competed, 3rd and 4th had the same issues all over again, just never had the time to be balanced.

AC work in game design was better as a game designer delivering the fluff of the game, he did good work there and many of his background is still the plinth of the 40k mythos, although the thing I never forgave him was his last work the abomination Necros where (this single codex stopped my enjoying 40k, not because it was op, not because it was game breaking, but because it killed the established fluff in a bad way).

I am waiting to see the work he does in dropfleet to see what his work can deliver.

 Talys wrote:
I think it's rather interesting (and slightly amusing) that AoS tops the lists of both the best and worst ideas of GW in the two threads.

Clearly a very divisive subject

As someone wrote previously, GW's own Schrodinger's cat xD

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I would say the idea of AoS was a bad idea, rebooting the WHFB world was not a bad idea, it was needed to consolidate most of the armies.
The problem was how bad the game is with its unclear rules, poor balance

I have a feeling that AoS would have had more supporters if they at least had kept the Old World alive and kicking. The Old World going kaboom only widened the chasm between pro and anti AoS groups.

By the sheer bitterness it has caused, Age of Sigmar by a country mile.

How about renaming everything, in a vain attempt to have everything as IP?

Commander Baddus Latinus of the Whosimus Wasitosi!

The Auld grump