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It has, but for AOS proper it still seems to be the norm. Of course in my area Warcry, Killteam and Underworlds aren't that popular (Killteam is the most out of all of them, the rest are essentially unknown). But I still feel there's a lot less desire to accommodate new players until they have a "proper" army, which defeats the purpose of learning the ins and outs of the army.

 Stux wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Stux wrote:

 auticus wrote:

Why would anyone actively encourage and support years of that?

Because many many people, especially if you look outside of online communities frequented by the most emotionally invested of us, don't actually care that much about balance. They want some cool minis and to chuck some dice about with friends.

This is not represented in my real-world experience. My biggest obstacle to recruiting new players is balance. The biggest complaint I hear from existing players is balance. The main reason I lose players from my leagues is balance. Because people want to chuck dice with friends, not pick up their models while one of those friends chucks the dice.

This is the thing though - an FLGS is still an echo chamber. You need to factor in all the people who buy stuff and occasionally play with a buddy, but don't hang out at the shop. I know loads of people like that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For the record, I'm not saying I like that there's no balance, or that a casual game and balance are mutually exclusive. Of course you can have a game designed for casual play that has good balance.

What I am saying is if GW thought investing a lot of time and effort in creating a more balanced game would pay off for them in sales then I'm pretty sure they'd do it, or at least do more. I feel it's more likely they've reached an equilibrium point they're happy with.

So basically, my experience doesn't count in the face of your theory.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 auticus wrote:
At the power level, sure. Only in that at the power level there are more armies with a power build instead of a trifecta and thats it.

They continue to generate a minefield of trap units and continue to allow the one or two bulls to run amuk at all times.

The trap units being so plentiful and there not being rules to restrain powerbuilders in a casual environment are what kill it for so many.

Trap units tend to afflict armies that have too many units to begin with. This is also evident in 40k that has a plethora of armies that are old and bloated with units.

Perhaps the worst army in this is Stormcast. So many units and sometimes multiple options within the same unit. Easier to screw it up than not. I would say BoK faces a similar issue at a smaller scale with their mortal counterpart.

I play Nurgle, half the battletome is trap units. FEC and Fyreslayers are both small factions where one of their three troop options is strictly worse than using the others. Even Stormcast, their biggest trap unit is their only generic battleline and the one at the very top of the list. To say nothing of trap options within equipment/allegiance. Seraphon have 6 artifacts and 9 command traits, but one combination is so much better the charts might as well be labelled "narrative only." Nighthaunt have one command trait that renders the others pointless. Nurgle has one artifact that renders all others secondary. I praise GW when they publish a chart that isn't like that, because such a case is the exception.

Yep. Trap units are everywhere. In every army. Trap units destroy the user experience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I will also say my aos community is mostly dead. 40k is the big whale and the lure of itc world rankings and money in twitch streams and patreons and endorsements lured most of our players.

Warcry has a bigger following due to speed and less investment in money and time and less trap units.

Besides being cheaper is warcry less unbalanced, and am not asking if there is no army at the top, but more about how big the gap between armies 1--3 and rest is?

In an ideal game, the gap between the top armies and the lower performing armies, as well as between units within the same army, would be fairly low. In GW games, the gap seems to be grand canyon sized at best, and "across the pond" size at worst.

Karol wrote:
Besides being cheaper is warcry less unbalanced, and am not asking if there is no army at the top, but more about how big the gap between armies 1--3 and rest is?

As a Warcry enthusiast I can tell you the gap is significantly smaller. The basic Chaos bands (so, with the models out of the box) are all pretty much balanced against each other, with just Iron Golems suffering more than the others. When you come to building lists based on multiple boxes you can start doing crazy comps and there the Splintered Fang become really good because of the snakes.

There's a different balance with the generic factions though, they tend to be more powerful then the others simply because there's more freedom in list building, and they have access to powerful models. However Warcry is written in a way that the Matched Play missions are quite symmetric and with the Activation system you can't destroy the other band in one turn like in 40k. It requires a fair amount of strategy and thought and the victor is often more decided by the better player rather than the better band.

My experience in Warcry balance wise also has been much better than in AoS. But then Warcry has Bottle's influence all over it, and that shows in a very good way.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
My experience in Warcry balance wise also has been much better than in AoS. But then Warcry has Bottle's influence all over it, and that shows in a very good way.

He's one of the people I hope might start to make some headway into changing the attitude/style/approach of rules design at GW. Like I said its most likely only going to be as we get new blood like him in key positions that we will start to see a shift in attitudes and approaches to rules.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
So basically, my experience doesn't count in the face of your theory.

It's not that it doesn't count, it's that you have to recognise that people who go to a store to play regularly will tend to have a set of biases that may not tally with the wider population. Just in the same way that people who engage regularly in a forum will tend to have certain biases.

 Stux wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
So basically, my experience doesn't count in the face of your theory.

It's not that it doesn't count, it's that you have to recognise that people who go to a store to play regularly will tend to have a set of biases that may not tally with the wider population. Just in the same way that people who engage regularly in a forum will tend to have certain biases.

Official AoS balance was at it's worst during the launch period pre-GHB, where there was no balance. GHB1 hits, provides some balance, and popularity increases. GHB2 makes some improvements, popularity continues to increase. 2nd edition comes along...

There is a pretty clear trend.

I'd bet there's diminishing returns with each improvement too.

 Stux wrote:
I'd bet there's diminishing returns with each improvement too.

Eh so far AoS seems to be increasing in returns from what I can tell in the general chatter of people picking it up and the activity on forums and such. I would say that so far returns are increasing. Of course there is a diminishing aspect; but lets not forget that its not a straight correlation and other elements come into play. Furthermore we have to consider the long term aspects such as player retention. One issue that the previous management had was that not only were they focused on new customers; but they were so focused on it that they were bleeding experienced ones like crazy. Tighter, better rules means more chances of not just securing new customers, but also retaining the old ones. Now you might argue that once Dave has built his 5K army he's not going to buy many more minis and that's right. But you can likely get a new Battletome sold every few years; possibly the new characters and models every so often. Furthermore even if Dave isn't buying any more models and is only getting the rules via "free" methods then they are still appearing at the game club. If the rules are good and they are playing then they are playing other gamers; some of which will be new.

It's basically the same as free users in MMO games. Sure they aren't investing into the product much if at all, but they are providing games, community, interactions etc.... For wargames experienced people are far more likely to also run those local clubs and events. So retaining them is of critical importance toward the growth and health of the game.


There's no point ignoring the experienced customer and focusing only on the new because you just set yourself up for a fall. We saw that with the Old World - heck you can see it again with Privateer Press (slightly different as it was the PG shutting down that didn't help matters, but its the same concept of that long term, loyal customer being the cornerstone of providing for the new

Since when do veteran players actually stop buying models anyways? I've never seen that to be the case.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Since when do veteran players actually stop buying models anyways? I've never seen that to be the case.

Well I was going for worst case situation. You are right though, long term gamers rarely stop buying models unless life forces them. They either start building a massive single army (prime customers for Apoc) or they start building new armies. That Tyranid player gets some Stormcast or some Beastgrave. Plus as models evolve many active gamers evolve their army with the "newest". How many Slaanesh or heck even marine players are still using early generation models? Barring a few (those old deamonettes) most old sculpts tend to fall to the side as new stuff appears. GW doesn't even have to write them out of the rules, just provide new sculpts.

I do see some Vets slow down in purchases, often only because they've a huge backlog of models. But yeah actually stop buying is rarer

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Since when do veteran players actually stop buying models anyways? I've never seen that to be the case.

Not stopped but def slowed down - got the money but no more space!!

On a different note, had time to go through the Ogor battletome in detail and I really like it. GW did a good job with this one; it is reasonably well balanced with the only trap choices being the scraplauncher and most of the battalions. I've said before that I would much rather GW price battalions too high, essentially labeling them for narrative play, than risk the opposite. A good diversity of sub-factions that are all viable without one being clearly better (though some stand out a bit more than others). The terrain piece is a nice buff without being game-defining.

Options. Tons of them. This battletome technically has similar amounts to others, but the different is that so many of them are viable and offer equivalent benefits to one another. Nothing is auto-take and even for a dedicated optimizer there are many items to consider. On top of that everything is relatively tame, Ogors must be lactose intolerant because there's very little cheese here. Not to say that it is weak, however, because the tools Ogors need to compete on the tabletop are definitely here and here in abundance.

Well done GW, you did a good job with Mawtribes.

Both a nice thing to see and a frustrating reminder of the isolated approach they seem to take. They should be working as a team considering how the book will fit into everything they've built and how it's internal balance holds up.

Judging by the up and down quality of the books and their podcasts each book is handed to 1-2 people to complete which is a big part of this rollercoaster effect.

 Eldarain wrote:
Both a nice thing to see and a frustrating reminder of the isolated approach they seem to take. They should be working as a team considering how the book will fit into everything they've built and how it's internal balance holds up.

Judging by the up and down quality of the books and their podcasts each book is handed to 1-2 people to complete which is a big part of this rollercoaster effect.

It also seems (and has seemed for a long time) that their playtesting is equally as laid back as they are in general when you would think the point of playtesting is to find the broken parts. They seem to indicate that "playtesting" means setting up a game and having a go at it and sort of take notes, rather than apply a sort of scientific method where you set up a specific condition to see how it works (e.g. What if we take Unit X with Unit Y as allies and give them the Sword of Uberness as an artefact) so you can see how it works in the bigger picture.

Instead, it seems like they do each book in isolation, with a cursory glance at best to how it works against other armies (likely only the few they use to playtest, rather than consider all the armies)

That's still no excuse in my eyes. If the people they are giving the book to can't keep it in line with the others... give it to different people.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
That's still no excuse in my eyes. If the people they are giving the book to can't keep it in line with the others... give it to different people.

I think this goes back to the fact that the game is bloated with too many factions, with too many abilities and not enough consistent language, for the team to manage. It's worse in 40k but even AOS has too many independent factions and too many special rules and abilities that aren't really considered in the big picture, and that's before you take into account that it's the model design driving the rules, rather than them working in tandem. That alone is a huge problem because it means (most likely) your miniature designers aren't aware of or on the same page as your rules writers and vice versa. It could reasonably be assumed that they play the game, but they are disconnected from how the models they design are likely to interact with the rules. We haven't gotten complete insight to the process but what they've stated seems to indicate that the models are designed without any input or consideration for how they work in the game, and then get dumped on the rules writers to design rules that fit how the model looks, and fit it int the game background.

Wayniac wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Both a nice thing to see and a frustrating reminder of the isolated approach they seem to take. They should be working as a team considering how the book will fit into everything they've built and how it's internal balance holds up.

Judging by the up and down quality of the books and their podcasts each book is handed to 1-2 people to complete which is a big part of this rollercoaster effect.

It also seems (and has seemed for a long time) that their playtesting is equally as laid back as they are in general when you would think the point of playtesting is to find the broken parts. They seem to indicate that "playtesting" means setting up a game and having a go at it and sort of take notes, rather than apply a sort of scientific method where you set up a specific condition to see how it works (e.g. What if we take Unit X with Unit Y as allies and give them the Sword of Uberness as an artefact) so you can see how it works in the bigger picture.

A lot of game companies have the problem, unfortunately. 'Just play normally and give us ancedotes, demonstrating problems with math doesn't help' was a real (and baffling) problem during the playtest of the Pathfinder 1 RPG. I once volunteered to test a patch for the Temple of Elemental Evil CRPG and asked the dev running the testing group what he wanted us to focus on, how they wanted to divide up testing and got a blank 'Just play the game...' in response. I was utterly baffled. Granted, this was post launch and the publisher wouldn't pay for more patches, so they were doing this unpaid, but not setting up any standards or procedures just baffled me.

Game design is often amateur hour, especially in the testing phase. People with the math and science backgrounds to do playtests properly go get jobs that pay better.

Wayniac wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
That's still no excuse in my eyes. If the people they are giving the book to can't keep it in line with the others... give it to different people.

I think this goes back to the fact that the game is bloated with too many factions, with too many abilities and not enough consistent language, for the team to manage. It's worse in 40k but even AOS has too many independent factions and too many special rules and abilities that aren't really considered in the big picture, and that's before you take into account that it's the model design driving the rules, rather than them working in tandem. That alone is a huge problem because it means (most likely) your miniature designers aren't aware of or on the same page as your rules writers and vice versa. It could reasonably be assumed that they play the game, but they are disconnected from how the models they design are likely to interact with the rules. We haven't gotten complete insight to the process but what they've stated seems to indicate that the models are designed without any input or consideration for how they work in the game, and then get dumped on the rules writers to design rules that fit how the model looks, and fit it int the game background.

Still no excuse to me. When it takes me an hour or so going through the battletome and hashing out combinations to figure out areas that need balance improvement there is no reason someone being paid to do so can't do it. And I am FAR from unique in doing that. The reason it doesn't happen is because, for whatever reason, GW doesn't care. Or because (as Auticus theorizes) they actively put imbalance in.

An hour? Most of the super broken combos are found within minutes

I think Auticus' theory is right but the only problem then is why isn't everything super broken, or at least have a super broken option? Some (a lot more recently...) do, but some actually seem like they were written well. That leads me to think that it depends on who writes the book (which they don't tell us anymore) as it seems clear that some books are written by more powergamer inclined people (Ben Johnson?) and some are written by regular gamers who aren't looking to bust things open but want solid options. Naturally, the problem here is that there doesn't seem to be any sort of collaboration here to come to a happy medium and it's more like "Do whatever you want" which leads to one book being okay and the next being stupidly broken. I mean, I do think they bake imbalance in, that much is clear because they want to reward the competitive players' desire to "break the game" by finding and using the broken stuff. But it's the fact it's so inconsistent to the point of nearly being random chance if a given book will be OP, balanced or weak, makes me think it's not deliberate because if it is, then it's selectively being applied and applied poorly at that since the combos are discovered immediately; there is no "experimentation" period where various things are being tested to discover the best combos.

The only thing I can think of is some perverted idea of the system mastery/fool's gold concept: The factions that aren't broken are "newbie traps" or "hard mode" type factions while the ones that are broken are the ones you learn about and switch to when you "git gud". Similar to how Magic has cards that at face value seem good, but they're really not and are designed to "teach" you how to determine good cards from bad by not being as effective as you thought. The only reason I even consider this is because Jervis once stated for Blood Bowl (a game where this type of thing is at least acceptable) there were teams that were stronger than others to represent the game equivalent of Easy/Normal/Expert modes in video games (e.g. Halflings are deliberately weaker because they are akin to playing on hard mode, while say Chaos might be really strong so is an easy mode). That might work in Blood Bowl but I shudder to think if they really applied that to Warhammer proper.

I'd rather not think they do that intentionally because.. well, do I have to explain why that's a wretched, putrid and all-around ludicrous idea?

Its not really a matter of 'excuses,' its just how the industry functions.

Even people who complain about it accept it anyway, and keep playing.

Voss wrote:
Its not really a matter of 'excuses,' its just how the industry functions.

Even people who complain about it accept it anyway, and keep playing.

Which is a big part of the problem, because it reinforces the fact that it's not as big a concern as it should be. I haven't found any game other than Warhammer where you have such extreme (and random) cases of imbalance. Sure, other games may have issues with the "OP flavor of the month" but it's nowhere near as bad and you get the impression the designers of those games are at least trying to balance things, even if they miss the mark. With Warhammer though, it feels as though either it's random if something will be garbage or OP, or simply an intentional thing being done.

Or because (as Auticus theorizes) they actively put imbalance in.

Spike game design. Gotta have things that are busted for Spike. Spike likes min/maxing. They just take that and push it to 11.

Johnny and Timmy just need to not play Spike and everyone is happy. I'm told that by many people in many communities that powergaming is not really a problem, you just have to actively not play those people if you don't want to bring filth yourself.

Johnny and Timmy have their own paradigms specifically for them. This just screams GW aping magic the gathering game design which does the same thing.

The alternative is that the gw team are all imbeciles. And I don't believe thats true.

then is why isn't everything super broken, or at least have a super broken option?

Because if everything is super broken or has that option then everyone can powergame and that is not as attractive to Spike. The point of min/maxing is to have the BEST list. If everyone can take the BEST list there is no BEST list. That gives Spike a frowny face. The obvious lists that write themselves are there to attract Spike, and make no mistake, Spike is not a scarce minority.

But still shouldn't there be a level of depth that doesn't get theory crafted within minutes of a book release? Spike wants to power game, and as a result, only picks the stuff that lets him power game, so the idea there is that by having some things strong and some things not, the spikes only play the things that are strong and think they're clever at finding the broken combos? Especially since everyone has an equal opportunity to take the best list?

I never did understand that Spike/Timmy/Johnny thing. I get that they correspond to like the guy who wants big kewl stuff (Timmy?), the guy who wants to theorycraft everything and find the "best" combo and pwn n00bs (Spike?), and I forget the third trope. But how it actually applies to design I could never wrap my head around.

The whole Spike Timmy thing is very simplified gamer concepts. Very few people actually fit perfectly into any of the named categories and most often people are a blend of them; not just at one point in time but also through time as well (this might even be within hours - ergo a player can be a spike at one game and a timmy in the next).



As for combos that are harder to spot, mostly that only comes with either making the rules more layered and complex or simply doing what a lot of mmo games do which is throwing more and more and more and MORE options to muddy the waters. However in the day of the internet it only takes one person to spot the powerbuild for it to spread. So most often all you do then is create a lot of casual gamer "noise" within the game which just confuses more casual/newer players.



Personally I think that building armies to fit certain personas is a false concept because it focuses purely on the gamer who views models as statistics. Numbers on the table.
This works quite well in Magic the Gathering but less well in wargames. In a Wargame a model isn't just its numbers, its hours of building and painting. Not to mention that the physical elements of the model are very different to those of a card. A Dragon model is vastly different to a gryph hound - but in card form the only variation is in the artwork and name.

Furthermore swapping armies doesn't happen all that much. If you make Stormcast the "spike" army that is power win easy all the time; that's great for Stormcast players. But what about Spike who likes Orks and collects Orks. He's not going to sell those orks nor is he going to feel all that confident in having to buy a whole new army to win. Especially when we all know that those power builds chagne edition to edition and even (as now) year to year.



In the end a smoother playing field that has each army capable of winning on a much more even footing with less extreme power swings works. Because Spike will still get the power army build; they will still use it. But it will remain more balanced because now the power-swing difference isn't as great. It's still there; there's still the OP build; its just not a night and day difference.

To a lot of people, wargaming is just that... numbers on the table. The building / painting etc are not factors in their decision making.

I'm around folks who swap armies like their underwear. The buy/sell group in my city is constantly filled with old armies being sold for the new OP armies.

Seen that too, there are people who buy a new army per month if necessary and do not really care about "but I like Orcs more".

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Still no excuse to me. When it takes me an hour or so going through the battletome and hashing out combinations to figure out areas that need balance improvement there is no reason someone being paid to do so can't do it. And I am FAR from unique in doing that. The reason it doesn't happen is because, for whatever reason, GW doesn't care. Or because (as Auticus theorizes) they actively put imbalance in.

There is another possibility, the Books are written is an independent product, one at a time.
There is no game development with several factions being there to test, but just the stuff that is available by that the time and 1 new thing.

So playtesting of the yet new book happend at least 8-12 month in the past, with just the armies/rules that were available by that time in a bubble without any other releases or changes being considered
Result is that by the time the book is released the game is not the same that it was while the book was tested or better said the book was tested in its own bubble like a stand alone game

And I assume there is no big plan for what the game shall become or in which direction it should develop but the decision is made with each book on its own and can change several times during an edition