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.. It's like everyone here has taken a side and if you don't agree your a WAAC competitive player or some scrub who doesn't want to learn. Honestly I'm not even sure some people even play AoS in this thread but have come to complain anyways.

How about something middle of the road? I mean really, I just enjoy having points because it enables some form of slight balance, I didn't enjoy AoS without points because without testing everything oneself it was hard to tell whether something truly would break anothers army.

I mean really narrative play can be played with or without points, that's always agreed upon but games where you actually want to play to win do need some sort of balance system and that tends to be points.

It's not like narrative games can't be played when points are introduced, go on have your last stand Stormcast battle vs armies at the gates, but don't decry people because they are competitive.

Yeah I think this argument is just going back and forth at this point.

This argument is as old as internet message boards existence. No one will ever change their mind until they want it changed.

 auticus wrote:
This argument is as old as internet message boards existence.

Yep, I remember similar arguments to this happening when Dakka was still on EZ Board.

Dakka, portent, warseer, you name it... this discussion has been rolling since the 90s. I used to be on the pro-tourney side. If you were getting stomped by my powerlisting then you just needed to "learn to play"

On the original topic.

It could be that GW realized (incorrectly) that points might be trouble than they are worth and could save a lot of effort by leaving out something that they're bad at anyway.

The no points games of AoS I played were more balanced than most of my 40k games, points in 40k don't add balance, they just validate imbalance.

For our group even the best attempts at balance ended in one side being stomped.

For my experience, I've seen vastly more one sided games using the GHB points than I did with no points or using Azyr.

The caveat being games where someone decided to bring the summoners that summon who can summon lists. Those always were very one sided.

Scenario #1
Casual games can be fun... but not all the time. Sometimes I want to bring my A game and go up against another similar player on a level playing field to see who is the better player. In these cases, the "gaming victory condition" is that I win. I don't really care if my opponent wants to flip the table afterwards. We're both playing to win.

Scenario #2
Competitive games can be fun... but not all the time. Sometimes I want to just throw something new or themed (but competitively weak) out on the battlefield and throw some dice with a like minded opponent. In these cases, the "gaming victory condition" is that every enjoys themselves. It's important that both players have fun and whether you win or lose is less important.

Age of Sigmar without points supports Scenario #2, but doesn't support Scenarion #1. Age of Sigmar with points supports both, with the caveat that the points probably need tweaking in some instances.

If you don't like AoS without points, just don't use points. If you find that your community isn't willing to play without points, then maybe AoS without points isn't a viable option for your community as a whole. You'll still probably be able to talk someone into a game here and there in the same way that you could talk someone into any obscure game very few people play.

 auticus wrote:
For my experience, I've seen vastly more one sided games using the GHB points than I did with no points or using Azyr.

The caveat being games where someone decided to bring the summoners that summon who can summon lists. Those always were very one sided.

I think part of the issue is that points sort of justify the choice; e.g. bringing a lot of Stormfiends (I think those are the OP Skryre unit) and saying "Well, I have the points for it". Without points, I feel you need to justify choices a lot more than just saying well it's 200 points for this unit, and we're playing a 1000 point game so tough, I'm fielding it. Which is weird because you would not think no points would do that (you would think it would be a lot more "Because I can" as justification) but I feel without points, you would be under more pressure to actually have a valid reason for fielding something, since you're basically being called out to defend your reasoning and most people don't want to look like a prick to their opponent by resorting to "Because nothing says I can't" as a valid argument.

It's a weird psychological thing to be sure. No points kind of makes me feel both people will try to be fair, so neither looks like TFG to the other, but having points provides its own justification so people will use it more on the assumption that the points alone mean it's balanced and ok, nothing else needed.

I don't think its weird to be honest.

Go back to what competitive gaming is. Its taking a ruleset and actively doing your best to bust it in an effort to win before the game even starts. Listbuilding as a "skill".

Once they put structure back into the game, people set out to bust it to win in the listbuilding phase.

Points justify that yes. Without points there is no point in trying to bust the game because there are no limitations or structure to bust in the first place.

 Kriswall wrote:
...If you don't like AoS without points, just don't use points. If you find that your community isn't willing to play without points, then maybe AoS without points isn't a viable option for your community as a whole. You'll still probably be able to talk someone into a game here and there in the same way that you could talk someone into any obscure game very few people play.

You make excellent, realistic points.
Non-points players (myself included) pretty much need to realize we won't be getting many games in most groups.
AoS non-points relies on people taking time and most gamers either don't have that time or aren't willing to use it for that type of play if the do have time available.

Correct. Non points players in most areas are going to have to accept that getting games is going to be insanely difficult.

 auticus wrote:
I don't think its weird to be honest.

Go back to what competitive gaming is. Its taking a ruleset and actively doing your best to bust it in an effort to win before the game even starts. Listbuilding as a "skill".

Once they put structure back into the game, people set out to bust it to win in the listbuilding phase.

Points justify that yes. Without points there is no point in trying to bust the game because there are no limitations or structure to bust in the first place.

List building with points is a skill. List building without points is an exercise in diplomacy.

In the first scenario, you're attempting to build the best list you can depending on your definition of best. For most competitive players, the best list is the one that gives them the best chance to win. For casual players, the best list might be the one that most closely matched their army's fluff. In either case, points allows them to participate in this enjoyable and solo activity.

Without points, the solo aspect of list building completely evaporates as you have no frame of reference for what you're allowed to put in the list. You need an opponent for that. You sort of need to see your opponent's list before you can decide what goes into yours. Pure Age of Sigmar actually handles this pretty well with the alternating deployments. You literally choose your army as your opponent chooses his. It's really a negotiation between two players... a game of chicken where one player says enough is enough and stops deploying first.

I would go further than saying that without points there is no point in trying to bust the game. I would say that there is no point in coming up with lists in your spare time. The best you could do is say 'this unit is cool... maybe I'll field it with that unit some day'. You can't actually build a list without an opponent present and a game about to start.

If you say "but we agreed ahead of time the structure and limits on what we'd bring... we don't need points", then you've just added points under a different name. How is "we'll take one hero, one monster and 50 wounds of other models" any different from "All heroes are 1 point, you have 1 point to spend on heroes. All monsters are 1 point, you have 1 point to spend on monsters. All other models cost 1 point per wound. You have 50 points to spend on all other models."? It's just points under a different name. It's a structured, pre-game list building mechanism.

Pure Age of Sigmar lacks a structured, pre-game list building mechanism. I can't think of another commercially successful game that lacks such a mechanism.

 Kriswall wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I don't think its weird to be honest.

Go back to what competitive gaming is. Its taking a ruleset and actively doing your best to bust it in an effort to win before the game even starts. Listbuilding as a "skill".

Once they put structure back into the game, people set out to bust it to win in the listbuilding phase.

Points justify that yes. Without points there is no point in trying to bust the game because there are no limitations or structure to bust in the first place.

List building with points is a skill.

Absolute bunk. It's as far from "a skill" as you can get in this day and age.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I don't think its weird to be honest.

Go back to what competitive gaming is. Its taking a ruleset and actively doing your best to bust it in an effort to win before the game even starts. Listbuilding as a "skill".

Once they put structure back into the game, people set out to bust it to win in the listbuilding phase.

Points justify that yes. Without points there is no point in trying to bust the game because there are no limitations or structure to bust in the first place.

List building with points is a skill.

Absolute bunk. It's as far from "a skill" as you can get in this day and age.

You don't think there is any skill involved in creating a 'good' army list? Please note that I'm not talking about simply downloading a net list and going to your shop with cash in hand to buy models. I'm talking about actually building the list yourself. Net-listing definitely isn't a skill.

Can you explain why you think there is no skill involved in learning the rules, considering possible interactions, considering possible opponents and creating a viable/competitive army on paper that actually translates into a good army on the field? I consider that something you need to be good at (i.e. skilled at) to be successful.

Net listing is just standing on the shoulders of giants, it takes zero skill or intelligence to see what's won a competitive event and copy it.

Yeah. The reason list building is often pooh'd on as a skill is because a good chunk of people don't build their own list, they go to forums and netlist copy.

Kind of like how competitive gamers get tarred with the WAAC brush even if they are simply following the rules. Once someone is exposed to a WAAC player that also TENDS to be competitive, people apply the brush to ALL competitive players.

hobojebus wrote:
Net listing is just standing on the shoulders of giants, it takes zero skill or intelligence to see what's won a competitive event and copy it.

It takes zero skill to straight up copy it, but there is some skill involved in modifying it without 'breaking it'. You have to be able to understand what the original author was thinking and then decide how much you can change without invalidating the effectiveness. Copying a 2000 point Skyrefyre list from the internet and playing it doesn't require any list building skill. Copying the same 2000 point list and then modifying it to fit into a 1000 point framewok DOES require skill because you can no longer fit all the required models into the points available. You need to make decisions. Should I just forget the Battalion and rely instead on the 'digger' weapons team's ability? Will I need to change my Stormfiends loadout? Do I still need to take multiple Warlocks? They're no longer mandatory, but I'll lose shielding and unbinding abilities. A skilled list builder can answer these questions. An unskilled one just goes back to Google and looks for ultra-competitive 1000 point net-lists.

Also, having a net-list doesn't mean you know how to play it. I've seen tons of meta topping tournament lists get tabled because the player has no idea how to play it. Very few lists are actually point and click. Most require playing skill.

Copying a list is not a skill, making a list is. Even net lists had to be written by someone.

Also, just copying a list you saw probably won't work as well for you as making your own list.
Different metas, playstyles and player skills means a "good" list can be pretty awful for you.

Sometimes yes. Some lists do well no matter what. The skaven skyre list that pumps out 30-50 mortal wounds is one example.

 auticus wrote:
Without points there is no point in trying to bust the game because there are no limitations or structure to bust in the first place.

I think it's more that anyone who cares about list-building or wants to play competitively realizes that a no-points game is unplayable garbage and moves to a better game. So without points you're left with the handful of stubborn players who really want to play the game for whatever reason and are willing to do all of the pre-game negotiation and compromising required to make it interesting instead of just an exercise in "I have more money to spend on this game, I win". The game still has the "break it to win" appeal, it's just that everyone who wanted to do that is already gone.

 Peregrine wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Without points there is no point in trying to bust the game because there are no limitations or structure to bust in the first place.

I think it's more that anyone who cares about list-building or wants to play competitively realizes that a no-points game is unplayable garbage and moves to a better game. So without points you're left with the handful of stubborn players who really want to play the game for whatever reason and are willing to do all of the pre-game negotiation and compromising required to make it interesting instead of just an exercise in "I have more money to spend on this game, I win". The game still has the "break it to win" appeal, it's just that everyone who wanted to do that is already gone.

That still sounds like the lesser evil to me, since you tend to not attract the people who want to "break it to win" in the first place because there's little or no structure that they can rely on.

Wayniac wrote:
That still sounds like the lesser evil to me, since you tend to not attract the people who want to "break it to win" in the first place because there's little or no structure that they can rely on.

Only at the cost of attracting hardly any players, period. Would you rather play a game against competitive players who try to build powerful lists or show up on AoS night and stand around watching all night while everyone else plays Warmachine/KoW/etc and ignores your attempts to get a no-points AoS game going?

 Peregrine wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Without points there is no point in trying to bust the game because there are no limitations or structure to bust in the first place.

I think it's more that anyone who cares about list-building or wants to play competitively realizes that a no-points game is unplayable garbage and moves to a better game. So without points you're left with the handful of stubborn players who really want to play the game for whatever reason and are willing to do all of the pre-game negotiation and compromising required to make it interesting instead of just an exercise in "I have more money to spend on this game, I win". The game still has the "break it to win" appeal, it's just that everyone who wanted to do that is already gone.

Absolute nonsense. The "I have more money to spend on this game, I win" and "break it to win" crowd were also the people who most whined about the lack of points. They came up with ridiculous scenarios like multiple Nagashes or Archaons or Glottkins; stuff that wouldn't happen in most cases because who really wanted to have multiples of a single character model?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
That still sounds like the lesser evil to me, since you tend to not attract the people who want to "break it to win" in the first place because there's little or no structure that they can rely on.

Only at the cost of attracting hardly any players, period. Would you rather play a game against competitive players who try to build powerful lists or show up on AoS night and stand around watching all night while everyone else plays Warmachine/KoW/etc and ignores your attempts to get a no-points AoS game going?

It helps to have a shop that actually promotes AoS or teaches the rules right rather than just ignoring customers wanting to play or be introduced to it.

Again, I think it would speak volumes to the type of uncreative, wannabe tryhard players that are so uncreative that they can't play a narrative game that encourages coming up with things on the fly. Really, that seems to be everything here, and I honest to God blame the "game store" mentality in the USA, where people don't want to do anything to build a club or community but want to go down to a game shop for all their needs (which then has the double edged sword of promoting this "pay where you play" stuff). It's easy to get a group of like minded people together and NOT rely on random pickup games with who knows what, but people don't seem to want to do that and honestly I do not get why it's so popular in Europe and the UK especially, and almost unheard of in the US.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Absolute nonsense. The "I have more money to spend on this game, I win" and "break it to win" crowd were also the people who most whined about the lack of points. They came up with ridiculous scenarios like multiple Nagashes or Archaons or Glottkins; stuff that wouldn't happen in most cases because who really wanted to have multiples of a single character model?

And you know why they complained? Because they understood what you can do when you try to bring a powerful list in a no-points game, and that no-points games are garbage. Obviously none of those ideas were ever going to go beyond theory because nobody wants to spend that much money on a game just to prove that it's a bad game. They all said " this garbage" and moved to other games (including AoS with third-party points). But the fact that everyone dumped no-points AoS instead of spending money to break it doesn't change the fact that it's a "pay to win" game and inferior in every way to an alternate AoS with a balanced point system.

It helps to have a shop that actually promotes AoS or teaches the rules right rather than just ignoring customers wanting to play or be introduced to it.

Why would any store want to promote no-points AoS? It's a terrible game that encourages one-sided massacres and offers nothing in return. And it's not like the store makes extra money by selling a new customer no-points AoS instead of Warmachine/KoW/third-party AoS variants/etc. The obvious right thing for a store to do if a customer asks about AoS is to say "it's unplayable without points, but if you like fantasy games here are some better options" and then sell the customer the better games. The only reason to encourage no-points AoS is if you're a GW store where obedience to corporate dogma is the most important thing, and far more important than the best interests of the customer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:
Again, I think it would speak volumes to the type of uncreative, wannabe tryhard players that are so uncreative that they can't play a narrative game that encourages coming up with things on the fly.

Why would we want to come up with things on the fly instead of playing a well-designed game and story-based scenario that works properly "out of the box"?

Really, that seems to be everything here, and I honest to God blame the "game store" mentality in the USA, where people don't want to do anything to build a club or community but want to go down to a game shop for all their needs (which then has the double edged sword of promoting this "pay where you play" stuff). It's easy to get a group of like minded people together and NOT rely on random pickup games with who knows what, but people don't seem to want to do that and honestly I do not get why it's so popular in Europe and the UK especially, and almost unheard of in the US.

Sounds like you're basing this on ridiculous stereotypes about "competitive" vs. "fun" players. The only difference between playing in a game store and playing in a club is that the store has free gaming space already available while the club requires you to pay extra to rent space. I suspect that the only reason clubs are common in the UK is that the UK is infested with GW stores that have driven out most of the independents and paying a little extra to avoid having to play in a GW store is an easy deal to sell.

What is your proof that it "encourages one-sided massacres" because I seriously fething doubt that anything like that ever happened.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Absolute nonsense. The "I have more money to spend on this game, I win" and "break it to win" crowd were also the people who most whined about the lack of points. They came up with ridiculous scenarios like multiple Nagashes or Archaons or Glottkins; stuff that wouldn't happen in most cases because who really wanted to have multiples of a single character model?

And you know why they complained? Because they understood what you can do when you try to bring a powerful list in a no-points game, and that no-points games are garbage. Obviously none of those ideas were ever going to go beyond theory because nobody wants to spend that much money on a game just to prove that it's a bad game. They all said " this garbage" and moved to other games (including AoS with third-party points). But the fact that everyone dumped no-points AoS instead of spending money to break it doesn't change the fact that it's a "pay to win" game and inferior in every way to an alternate AoS with a balanced point system.

Sure, in some circumstances I am sure that happened.

I can say that, locally for me? That was not the case. Several of those people dumped money into armies(I sold my Death army to one of those people during the initial few weeks of AoS) before they basically drifted off as they tended to play at "a different level".

It helps to have a shop that actually promotes AoS or teaches the rules right rather than just ignoring customers wanting to play or be introduced to it.

Why would any store want to promote no-points AoS? It's a terrible game that encourages one-sided massacres and offers nothing in return. And it's not like the store makes extra money by selling a new customer no-points AoS instead of Warmachine/KoW/third-party AoS variants/etc. The obvious right thing for a store to do if a customer asks about AoS is to say "it's unplayable without points, but if you like fantasy games here are some better options" and then sell the customer the better games. The only reason to encourage no-points AoS is if you're a GW store where obedience to corporate dogma is the most important thing, and far more important than the best interests of the customer.

Why would any store not want to promote a product they're stocking?

I saw a few people get effectively turned off from some of the local shops that did nothing but badmouth Age of Sigmar and try to push Warmachine/Kings of War(which is a joke) and instead head to a local GW during the launch week.