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NinthMusketeer wrote:The above seems like the classic discussion boiling down to debunking and re-hashing "those examples of imbalance don't count."

Or maybe it's more complicated than "I don't see the units so they must be bad/imbalanced". Again, there are very few units that are actually "bad" when it comes down to it, just don't mesh well with current builds or in the current meta. You see "forgotten" units pop up all the time.

Eldarsif wrote:

When you put it that way it sounds like a logical and effective way to produce great miniatures and fun factions. It would then follow that people are willing to put up with wild imbalance because the game is fun enough when it does work, and the miniatures good enough looking, that it compensates. One could further follow that this is the reason that the imbalance exists to such an extent, and seems to get worse with more popular wargames; because they do not HAVE to fix it to attract players. The other side of the coin being that balance is still obviously an attractive factor (else smaller games with less resources but a greater need to attract players would not bother) and so to some extent these popular wargames are allowing themselves to 'rest on their laurels' rather than really refine their product. This reasoning would of course need to come with the caveat that it is but one of multiple factors and not the whole explanation itself.

I would add that it is apparent they do want balance, but since they are chasing their tail with analog - ie. hard copy book - releases I am not that optimistic they can properly do that. In digital game development we do have very strict staging dates. A build goes into a staging branch and we do final preparations for mass release. Now, because we are doing this digitally we can release hotfixes as needed, but this is not something you can do if you have a master that must be released to the printers at the beginning of staging where any delay can cost a lot of money. This is why Chapter Approved/General's Handbook will have less fixes than most people desire, and often followed with complaints that the books are not taking into account recent books.

This is why I kinda wish GW would embrace the digital revolution and have an app or something where they can update points on a monthly basis based on internal reviews of external data. I liked Jervis' interview about his approach to balancing, but I would also greatly prefer a more direct input from the developers of why they take certain approaches to their designs much like many digital game companies are doing these days. Sometimes a design decision is taken to directly address a certain meta. They did this with Overwatch when they wanted to address the GOATS meta and I would love if GW would explain their thoughts process better. The strange thing is that White Dwarf is the perfect place for these discussions if they do not want to make more videos than they are already making.

Eh, tabletop games I don't think work with fast updates like that. I'd be all for going full digital, but monthly just wouldn't work. There's not enough data in short time frames, especially when most of their audience is getting probably 1-5 games in a month. They could nerf/buff serious outliers as they arise... but often what happens is that the community finds something they think is a broken outlier, and before it gets nerfed, there's a new build or release or something that makes it not so scary and it doesn't seem so bad anymore. You see this all the time - a new list smashes some tournament, there's much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but then a new counterbuild or meta shift happens and it's a non-issue.

4 months is maybe as fast as I'd want updates, enough time to gauge if something is really in need of a patch, but faster than the current turnaround.

 Eldarsif wrote:

When you put it that way it sounds like a logical and effective way to produce great miniatures and fun factions. It would then follow that people are willing to put up with wild imbalance because the game is fun enough when it does work, and the miniatures good enough looking, that it compensates. One could further follow that this is the reason that the imbalance exists to such an extent, and seems to get worse with more popular wargames; because they do not HAVE to fix it to attract players. The other side of the coin being that balance is still obviously an attractive factor (else smaller games with less resources but a greater need to attract players would not bother) and so to some extent these popular wargames are allowing themselves to 'rest on their laurels' rather than really refine their product. This reasoning would of course need to come with the caveat that it is but one of multiple factors and not the whole explanation itself.

I would add that it is apparent they do want balance, but since they are chasing their tail with analog - ie. hard copy book - releases I am not that optimistic they can properly do that. In digital game development we do have very strict staging dates. A build goes into a staging branch and we do final preparations for mass release. Now, because we are doing this digitally we can release hotfixes as needed, but this is not something you can do if you have a master that must be released to the printers at the beginning of staging where any delay can cost a lot of money. This is why Chapter Approved/General's Handbook will have less fixes than most people desire, and often followed with complaints that the books are not taking into account recent books.

This is why I kinda wish GW would embrace the digital revolution and have an app or something where they can update points on a monthly basis based on internal reviews of external data. I liked Jervis' interview about his approach to balancing, but I would also greatly prefer a more direct input from the developers of why they take certain approaches to their designs much like many digital game companies are doing these days. Sometimes a design decision is taken to directly address a certain meta. They did this with Overwatch when they wanted to address the GOATS meta and I would love if GW would explain their thoughts process better. The strange thing is that White Dwarf is the perfect place for these discussions if they do not want to make more videos than they are already making.

As has been mentioned before, fan comps did it and got way better results. TBF much of that was prior to allegiance rules that undoubtedly complicate things, however there were still some that trailed on after that which still produced much better balance. I am willing to give GW some leniency because, as you say, they have a breakneck release pace and a ton of factors to manage. It can also be more difficult to balance the same things one is designing because the perspective is entirely different--like evaluating the quality of a book one wrote themselves. However, when players can tell literally within minutes that certain things are OP and give a pretty decent run-down of problem areas within a few days, that speaks to an effort not being made pre-release. Hell, balance would improve dramatically if they just asked Auticus for his formulas & spreadsheets then referenced them when point costing new/updated warscrolls. And that could easily be done before and between rounds of playtesting (though I strongly suspect their playtesting process is not done properly).


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Requizen wrote:

NinthMusketeer wrote:The above seems like the classic discussion boiling down to debunking and re-hashing "those examples of imbalance don't count."

Or maybe it's more complicated than "I don't see the units so they must be bad/imbalanced". Again, there are very few units that are actually "bad" when it comes down to it, just don't mesh well with current builds or in the current meta. You see "forgotten" units pop up all the time.

Can you quote where someone said just that without any further explanation? Can you explain how that accounts for imbalance of entire factions and game mechanics? Can you show stats that support a broad balance between both factions and units within a faction?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit: To clarify, I do not think armies without allegiance 'count' as their own faction. But if it has a set of allegiance abilities it's fair game. And I did see the stats you posted earlier, but that came with the caveat of ignoring a good chunk of them to say things are balanced, which rubs me the wrong way.

I'm still waiting for objective battle report proof that the game is totally fine beyond the tournament level and casual or for fun lists are just fine in a power gamer environment, which would indicate a balanced or fine environment.

All I'm seeing is a circular discussion about how everything is just fine, people need to learn to play, and I'm asking for some proof or some solid examples, written, or video, that show that this is the case.

None have been presented.

I am not surprised because every - single - tournament - powergamer - that - has - claimed - that - the game - is just fine - has never been able to produce any evidence other than "well at these events some non normal list went 4-1 so that means the game is fine!" without really giving a run down of who they played, what armies they faced, what their roster consisted of, or even what the record of the people that they faced were.

Hell I can take my slaves of darkness trash list and go 4-1 down at the store if I'm playing newbs and guys that are just not that good. That doesn't make slaves to darkness a viable list when my good friend Tom the Powergamer shows up with his Adepticon list and rubs everyone's nose in their own feces with it because not only is he an ok player, his army is 10x more powerful. But I can say "hey I went 4-1 with slaves to darkness, that is PROOF that AOS is in a great place!" Because I read that on the daily on here, or twitter, or facebook without any context on who they played, or what lists they faced, or the actual skill level of their opponents. Only that they went 4-1. So its fine.

I've given years of math, been told that doesn't count, given years of examples, told those don't count, and now i'm asking for objective report to demonstrate how the game is just fine.

If that isn't going to happen, which we all know its not going to happen, then there's nothing more to discuss in those regards. You can't just say the game is fine and then not have any objective statistics and data to back that up short of non-provable anecdote.

It is objectively known that a solid half of the game is unplayable against power factions. And that, again, is the point of this thread. And not all of those factions "dont' have a modern book".

So its ok to say "i don't give a **** about balance and balance doens't exist but I'm ok with the game." Thats fine. Its ok to say "yeah power lists are going to **** all over your face if you don't take a power list too." And thats fine.

Its fullblown malarchy to say "yeah the game is just fine. Everyone is just fine. Every faction is finely balanced, you all just don't know how to play right."

@ auticus

Do you have your statistics for unit performance to hand? I may have missed it and I’m keen to see.

Also I had a quick glance through the malign sorcery book; on the whole, I think that the realm spells and artifacts are ok, but there’s a few that need dialled back. You probably know the ones...sword of judgement, I’m looking at you.

[redacted]

You know what? I'm done. I've realized that having a reasonable discussion about this game on this board is impossible. I hope you guys can find a game that you actually enjoy playing.



All good things,

EnTyme

auticus wrote:
I'm still waiting for objective battle report proof that the game is totally fine beyond the tournament level and casual or for fun lists are just fine in a power gamer environment, which would indicate a balanced or fine environment.

All I'm seeing is a circular discussion about how everything is just fine, people need to learn to play, and I'm asking for some proof or some solid examples, written, or video, that show that this is the case.

None have been presented.

I am not surprised because every - single - tournament - powergamer - that - has - claimed - that - the game - is just fine - has never been able to produce any evidence other than "well at these events some non normal list went 4-1 so that means the game is fine!" without really giving a run down of who they played, what armies they faced, what their roster consisted of, or even what the record of the people that they faced were.

"I want game proof that things are fine."
"Not that proof, the right proof. By my boundaries on my specifics otherwise it's meaningless and I'll ignore it altogether."

You know what, you're right, clearly no one can refute you. And unlike everyone else in the world, you have no burden of proof of anything, despite having a pretty unsubstantial claim. Lucky!

Your game is indeed broken. Alas, you cannot fix it, so might as well stop playing.

Requizen wrote:

auticus wrote:
I'm still waiting for objective battle report proof that the game is totally fine beyond the tournament level and casual or for fun lists are just fine in a power gamer environment, which would indicate a balanced or fine environment.

All I'm seeing is a circular discussion about how everything is just fine, people need to learn to play, and I'm asking for some proof or some solid examples, written, or video, that show that this is the case.

None have been presented.

I am not surprised because every - single - tournament - powergamer - that - has - claimed - that - the game - is just fine - has never been able to produce any evidence other than "well at these events some non normal list went 4-1 so that means the game is fine!" without really giving a run down of who they played, what armies they faced, what their roster consisted of, or even what the record of the people that they faced were.

"I want game proof that things are fine."
"Not that proof, the right proof. By my boundaries on my specifics otherwise it's meaningless and I'll ignore it altogether."

You know what, you're right, clearly no one can refute you. And unlike everyone else in the world, you have no burden of proof of anything, despite having a pretty unsubstantial claim. Lucky!

Your game is indeed broken. Alas, you cannot fix it, so might as well stop playing.

Where is your proof?


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 EnTyme wrote:
[redacted]

You know what? I'm done. I've realized that having a reasonable discussion about this game on this board is impossible. I hope you guys can find a game that you actually enjoy playing.



All good things,

EnTyme

Enjoying a game and being critical of its faults are not mutually exclusive. And throwing up your hands to say reasonable discussion is impossible when pushed to provide evidence is not itself very reasonable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For the record, here is a good piece of evidence to show the game is quite imbalanced. Requizen actually linked it last page to show the game is balanced, which I think says quite a lot.

Eh, tabletop games I don't think work with fast updates like that. I'd be all for going full digital, but monthly just wouldn't work.

The monthly is more like a release cadence that would be optional rather than mandatory. Also, testing of various things takes time so if they are working with results of matches from Q1 then it could be spread over Q2/Q3 depending what QA they need to do. One month they could release point changes to Shining Spears and perhaps explain their reasoning, then next month they'd address Castellan and Dark Reapers. Just an example. I think we can all agree that yearly revisions are just way too slow and at this point they should probably aim for at least 6 month updates to keep things going.

As has been mentioned before, fan comps did it and got way better results. TBF much of that was prior to allegiance rules that undoubtedly complicate things, however there were still some that trailed on after that which still produced much better balance. I am willing to give GW some leniency because, as you say, they have a breakneck release pace and a ton of factors to manage. It can also be more difficult to balance the same things one is designing because the perspective is entirely different--like evaluating the quality of a book one wrote themselves. However, when players can tell literally within minutes that certain things are OP and give a pretty decent run-down of problem areas within a few days, that speaks to an effort not being made pre-release. Hell, balance would improve dramatically if they just asked Auticus for his formulas & spreadsheets then referenced them when point costing new/updated warscrolls. And that could easily be done before and between rounds of playtesting (though I strongly suspect their playtesting process is not done properly).

To be fair early AoS was a different beast. Ultimately I am beginning to suspect - based on some of the comments here and elsewhere - that the AoS team is balancing the game based on the meta which means they are approaching the army as a whole and not unit-wise. This means that if the army - warts and all - can face against the worst of the worst, and perhaps move the meta a bit, they might consider it a job well done. I am also suspicious that individual units can be balanced without doing a full on index rewrite like Warhammer 40k did as many units are just all over the place in regards to force multipliers and special cases.

There is also one thing I would love for GW to do is to start releasing Matched Maps. Basically layouts of battlefields they are playing with so we can at least play with something similar. I have tried a lot of different types of battlefields and have found the games(40k/AoS/KT) to change drastically with it. When I play Sector Imperialis with my friend who runs Ultramarines with a small Deathwatch ally and I play full-on Craftworld the game is suddenly a different beast. Different enough that at first I didn't really understand why people were complaining about the Space Marine Codex. It is these wild cards I would love to get more insight into when GW is working on these books. As I have probably said ad nauseum: I just want a bloody commentary on these tomes and related material from GW.

To be fair early AoS was a different beast.

I can promise you that the people involved with the fan comps before could do an equal job at balancing the game today.

ou know what, you're right, clearly no one can refute you. And unlike everyone else in the world, you have no burden of proof of anything, despite having a pretty unsubstantial claim. Lucky

Except that I've spent the past three years posting numbers and explaining those numbers to the point where repeating myself in every thread got to be pointless.

Your proof is posting tournament results. We've already rode that merry go round about how that isn't proof. Tournament results are not proof that the game as a whole is fine. Its proof that the tournament scene is fine.

I've already laid out a legit scenario to provide evidence for. A mortal khorne army, a faction on its current 2nd AOS book, cannot be viable against a current tournament level FEC or DOK army build.

Thats the postulation. Thats the argument. So my request is to prove that that is wrong. I even gave the caveat of just linking to some battle report somewhere on the internet that i missed showing in detail a weaker faction topping a tournament build.

The response I get is "well you don't have to prove it so ..."

We prove it every day by having to live it. You were the one that made the pointed assessment that the game is fine, we just don't know how to play right. The onus is on you at that point to prove your statement and show us how we're not playing right. So show me. Show me what I'm missing.
I sure as hell know if I was going to go up to someone's thread and tell them to git gud and that their claims were unsubstantial that I'd pretty quickly have a way to demonstrate how to git gud and show how their claims were unsubstantial.

You know what? I'm done. I've realized that having a reasonable discussion about this game on this board is impossible. I hope you guys can find a game that you actually enjoy playing.

You get cranky when people complain about the game. This is a thread specifically about balance. If you don't like talking about the balance in the game, this thread is pretty clear on what its subject matter is.

There is a general discussion thread for just general conversation. There are all kinds of things that can be discussed about the game. Avoid topics that you will find not interesting or that you strongly disagree with. Or prove that the game is just fine by linking a battle report showing that the game is just fine, so that I can be a believer too. I know your assertion is that the game is fine because the social contract means powergamers won't play casual players with power lists, and you already know that I disagree with you because it happens pretty much weekly all around me and because the powergamers won't tone down their lists, I have to write specific campaign rules barring those type of lists (ie houseruling) because they feel the game is just fine and we all need to just git gud.

If you feel the game is just fine as it is, then this isn't a thread that would interest you. That doesn't mean our stance on imbalance is unreasonable, there are plenty of components to back the game's balance at a faction level being bad. If you have some other nugget that is not beiing considered, by all means throw iit out there. Just as long as you aren't trying to use tournament placings as some proof that the game is great on all levels.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Do you have your statistics for unit performance to hand? I may have missed it and I’m keen to see.

http://www.louisvillewargaming.com/AOSStats.aspx

Though it is about 18 months out of date so the data you will find there is currently not worth anything. I have a personal database on my gamedev machine that has up to date statistics but I don't publish them any more because I got tired of being told math is useless in balancing the game. It does not have your Kharadron Overlords on it, but on my version at home many of the units there are in the lower left quadrant ( meaning that for their point cost and for their damage output and their defensive capabilities, they are mostly trash, they need a massive point reallocation and a boost to their damage, which I am sure you already know lol)

I use it to develop my campaign books like Deus Vult though so that I can point cost things appropriately and not create some OP monstrosity that drives my players off (or create a wet napkin that no one wants to use)

I think what I find most obnoxioius is people pointing to event results as "proof" things are fine. This is the same line of horsegak that FLG uses to say the game is balanced "Look at the diversity!" when it's really no diversity at all.

"Joe Nobody won LVO with this army!" doesn't mean the army is fine and balanced and everyone who isn't curbstomping people need to just git gud and learn to play.

Now I will admit AOS has less balance issues than 40k but there's still a large (too large IMHO) disparity between casual lists and competitive lists; THIS is what GW consistently has failed to grasp. In virtually every other game, the gap is extremely smaller. In fact in Warmahordes it was often that you would see more casual lists beat the netlists in the hands of a skilled player or just by virtue of being something unexpected and therefore not prepared for. I can't think of any case where I've seen similar happen in any Warhammer game in the past 15 years at least.

I feel AOS is in better shape than 40k yes. 40k is... well... I haven't touched 40k in a few years now because of the imbalance over there.

Though people will argue its in the best shape of its life.

auticus wrote:
I feel AOS is in better shape than 40k yes. 40k is... well... I haven't touched 40k in a few years now because of the imbalance over there.

Though people will argue its in the best shape of its life.

Well, considering the dumpster fire 7th was and the abomination 6th and end of 5th I would have to agree that it is in the best shape of its life. Of course, best shape is a relative term and does not exclude further improvements or new heights.

auticus wrote:
Except that I've spent the past three years posting numbers and explaining those numbers to the point where repeating myself in every thread got to be pointless.

Your proof is posting tournament results. We've already rode that merry go round about how that isn't proof. Tournament results are not proof that the game as a whole is fine. Its proof that the tournament scene is fine.

I've already laid out a legit scenario to provide evidence for. A mortal khorne army, a faction on its current 2nd AOS book, cannot be viable against a current tournament level FEC or DOK army build.

Thats the postulation. Thats the argument. So my request is to prove that that is wrong. I even gave the caveat of just linking to some battle report somewhere on the internet that i missed showing in detail a weaker faction topping a tournament build.

That's not how it works. This thread, and you as one of the primary posters, put forth the argument that the game is broken. The burden of proof is on y'all as the conversation starters, to prove something. Not to put forth a random, subjective statement and assume you're right until someone proves you're wrong.

PS - Mortal Khorne still isn't a faction. Buy different models if you want to win.

auticus wrote:
The response I get is "well you don't have to prove it so ..."

We prove it every day by having to live it. You were the one that made the pointed assessment that the game is fine, we just don't know how to play right. The onus is on you at that point to prove your statement and show us how we're not playing right. So show me. Show me what I'm missing.
I sure as hell know if I was going to go up to someone's thread and tell them to git gud and that their claims were unsubstantial that I'd pretty quickly have a way to demonstrate how to git gud and show how their claims were unsubstantial.

el
oh
el

"I don't have to prove it, I LIVE IT. I don't need to listen to your data, facts, or statistics, my feelings tell me it's true." This line of logic is on the level of an anti-vaxxer or flat earther.

So yeah, it's more complicated than "git gud" but guess what? The game is always going to be somewhat unbalanced due to size and complexity, and that's the point of GHB and Big FAQs throughout the year (not to mention all the new releases bringing older armies up to high levels). No matter what, being a Timmy is always going to be hard in a game heavily populated with Spikes and Johnnys. Asking them to change the game and cater the game to you specifically when it's fine for a majority of other players, and indeed is going through a massive spike in popularity and growth, is pretty laughable.

Mortal khorne is one of the two factions in the blades of khorne book. The other being demons of khorne.

It can be as laughable to you as you want. You still have not shown me where these factions that are just fine are doing fine in an analysis.

You don't have data, facts, or statistics. Your data, facts, and statistics are "in these tournaments some dude went 4-1 so the game is fine". and your facts have been to this point 100% tournament placings which don't show us anything other than in a pool of 120 players or so, some guys in little seen factions sometimes get up there in standings, but doesn't show who they played against or the combined win/loss record of those players, which makes it as useful as me saying "DOK are fine, because I went to a tournaemnt with them last weekend and went 2-4, if they were busted I should have done really well". Either of those are useless in terms of being objective data points.

Those aren't statistics.

I've already explained why tournament results are not valid statistics.

You have chosen to hand waive that.

Objective data points are mathematical numbers showing avg outputs, avg inputs, and demonstrating faction a vs faction b from an objective standpoint. Not - dudes went to a tournament and played some unknown people and did well, erego game is fine.

Asking them to change the game and cater the game to you specifically when it's fine for a majority of other players

Do you have a citation or statistic that shows this also to be true? That the majority of players overall is fine with this? Or are you saying the majority of tournament players that you belong to are fine with this?

There is a large difference in those two player pools after all.

So yeah, it's more complicated than "git gud" but guess what? The game is always going to be somewhat unbalanced due to size and complexity

Which is a whole different story than "the game is fine, all the factions are fine, you all just need to learn to play"

What you are really saying , as I interpret it anyway, in a thread discussing the poor balance of the game is:

"the game is imbalanced, but no one cares, its expected, just buy different models if you want to win".

Really you could have left your original post at just that, and no one would have probably replied otherwise since yeah, thats a known perspective. Instead you went with the more abrasive gaslighting format of "its all in your head, there is no imbalance, you just don't know how to play the game right, so learn to play and get good and you'll be fine".

The problem is, he(Auticus) has put forth proof of mathematical imbalance found in units, by having a software that can rate the performance of a unit with their various different stats as compared to their points cost, which then shows as a bell curve. Units in the middle are well performing, models to the left or the right are underperforming or overperforming. And this same system was used to fill the gap, back when AoS did not have point values, and people wanted them. General opinion was that this was a fine method.

We're not here to discuss if the game is balanced for tournament play. That's all you've put forth as data, tournament results. They're trying to find and come up with ways to balance the game for all levels of play. If you'd care to read the thread, you would have known that.

Myself personally, I don't want there to be such a difference between tournament caliber lists, and a casual lists. I'd rather execution and general strategy be the deciding factors, mixed in with dice rolls and of course, optimizing lists. I don't want to have to leave my shiny fun toys at home, such as Warp Storm Vortex endless spell, because though it may be cool, it's obscenely strong for it's cost.

auticus wrote:
Mortal khorne is one of the two factions in the blades of khorne book. The other being demons of khorne.

Nah son. The faction is Khorne. Mortal Khorne and Daemons of Khorne do not have different Allegiance Abilities. There's a couple different tables, but that's like saying Ghouls and Horrors are different armies within FEC. It's just factually incorrect.

auticus wrote:
You don't have data, facts, or statistics. Your data, facts, and statistics are "in these tournaments some dude went 4-1 so the game is fine". and your facts have been to this point 100% tournament placings which don't show us anything other than in a pool of 120 players or so, some guys in little seen factions sometimes get up there in standings, but doesn't show who they played against or the combined win/loss record of those players, which makes it as useful as me saying "DOK are fine, because I went to a tournaemnt with them last weekend and went 2-4, if they were busted I should have done really well". Either of those are useless in terms of being objective data points.

Those aren't statistics.

I've already explained why tournament results are not valid statistics.

You have chosen to hand waive that.

"Explained"
Once again, nah son. You've given your stance on on why you'll just ignore statistics.

By the by, I have posted Statistics in this thread, you just ignored them. Here, I'll do it again: https://thehonestwargamer.com/aos-stats-5th-march/

And here's some charts from that page





Oh look, Blades of Khorne is sitting at a 49% win rate since AoS2, 48% win rate since 2.2 (aka big FAQ). That's pretty freaking close to perfectly statistical.

auticus wrote:
Do you have a citation or statistic that shows this also to be true? That the majority of players overall is fine with this? Or are you saying the majority of tournament players that you belong to are fine with this?

Maybe the fact that AoS is selling better now than the WHFB did for a decade (decades?), or the fact that AoS events are growing and still selling out past max numbers, or the fact that the online community has grown by leaps and bounds in the time since GHB1 released? But I'm sure they're just buying, supporting, and playing a game they hate and wish would change completely, or something like that.

auticus wrote:
Which is a whole different story than "the game is fine, all the factions are fine, you all just need to learn to play"

What you are really saying , as I interpret it anyway, in a thread discussing the poor balance of the game is:

"the game is imbalanced, but no one cares, its expected, just buy different models if you want to win".

Really you could have left your original post at just that, and no one would have probably replied otherwise since yeah, thats a known perspective.

Factions are statistically fine. Pretty much all factions can be brought at a casual level and played with little to no problem. With some outliers, pretty much all factions can be brought at a competitive level and played with little to no problem.

Your argument last page was literally "I can't play a casual list against a tournament list and that's bad", which it's not, and it's crazy that you even think it is.

The other hand waive of bad balance is simply "just enforce the social contract and don't play with gits that will powergame in a casual setting."

Which would be less of an issue if the game itself were actually balanced for all levels of play. Like it was in the fan comp era.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You're posting tournament statistics again to prove that all levels of play are just fine. Again. You're posting useless numbers that don't show what those armies faced. You're posting "some dudes went to a tournament and won half their games against unknown nebulous opponents, so the game iis fiine"

Your argument last page was literally "I can't play a casual list against a tournament list and that's bad", which it's not, and it's crazy that you even think it is.

Thats probably as polar opposite to what I am saying as black is to white.

Pretty much all factions can be brought at a casual level and played with little to no problem.

Based on tournament statistics, the casual level is just fine.


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Maybe the fact that AoS is selling better now than the WHFB did for a decade (decades?), or the fact that AoS events are growing and still selling out past max numbers, or the fact that the online community has grown by leaps and bounds in the time since GHB1 released? But I'm sure they're just buying, supporting, and playing a game they hate and wish would change completely, or something like that.

There are many reasons why AOS is selling better now. Its not because the balance is somehow better.

The online community has grown by leaps and bounds because no one would play a game without official points. Had the game in 2015 on first release had official points, the mass exodus would not have happened.

As many polls show, at least half or more of the wargaming community simply does not care about balance.

But then the postulation would be injecting better balance would somehow make the game sell less.

auticus wrote:
The other hand waive of bad balance is simply "just enforce the social contract and don't play with gits that will powergame in a casual setting."

Which would be less of an issue if the game itself were actually balanced for all levels of play. Like it was in the fan comp era.

Rofl what? If you think the community comp was balanced you crazy. And the most popular community comp (SCGT) was used to make the General's Handbook, so if you think early community comps were balanced... then at least the first GHB should literally be balanced by the same thing.

inb4 "well obviously not that one, that was a bad comp and I preferred X comp"

auticus wrote:
You're posting tournament statistics again to prove that all levels of play are just fine. Again. You're posting useless numbers that don't show what those armies faced. You're posting "some dudes went to a tournament and won half their games against unknown nebulous opponents, so the game iis fiine"

I'm sorry, are you telling me thousands of points of data aren't ok because they took place at a tournament?

Literally, actually, honestly, what do you think facts are? Is there a limit to what you'll discount?

This has to be some crazy amount of trolling. You can't ask for facts and then ignore facts. That's a new level of low thinking that I can't even begin to imagine.

"oh but it could have just been matchups"
Yeah dude, I'm sure all 142 of those Khorne players across the world just got good matchups and actually they should be at a 20% win rate.

auticus wrote:
There are many reasons why AOS is selling better now. Its not because the balance is somehow better.

The online community has grown by leaps and bounds because no one would play a game without official points. Had the game in 2015 on first release had official points, the mass exodus would not have happened.

Hahaha this is a new level of reaching.

"It's only getting bigger because there's points now" There's been points for 3.5 years now, if it was that bad then people would have dropped it in 2017. Instead, every AoS event and community has grown year over year for the past 3 years. Tell me why that would happen if the game was so bad it was obvious to every single person, and not just you.

Thanks for sharing the link auticus.

I too think that aos is in a better shape than 40k is atm. It’s method of handling allies and command points is a lot more balanced. Definitely no complaints there from me. As we said, if we can get mortal wound spam, mortal wound blocking and summoning under control, with appropriate price adjustments too, we’ll have nailed it. Oh, and boosts for those weak units and factions as well.

I went through all the realm artifacts and spells etc. The latter actually seem ok to me as is, but the former? They’re mostly ok, but there are two that strike me as problematic; Uglu and Aqshy. You know the ones; sword of judgement, the doppelgänger cloak and the Ignax’s scales. They’re better than everything else, and the cloak in particular really pisses me off when it’s used on a monster riding hero.

My suggestion; change the Sword Of Judgement to a simple “on a hit roll of 6+ against Heroes and Monsters, it scores a mortal wound in addition to its normal damage”. Now, this makes it exactly like the Jadewound Thorn. Actually, worse than the Jadewound Thorn, because that one works on everyone, not just heroes and monsters. So, to keep balance, I’d change the Jadewound Thorn to “on a hit roll of 6+, it scores a mortal wound and the attack sequence ends”. So in comparison, the Sword Of Judgement is better, but only against heroes and monsters. This also brings them into line with the Magmaforged blade, which is an mortal wound on top of normal damage for a wound roll of 6+ against everyone. Now, all three weapons roughly fall into the same bracket. See? Balance is easily done!

The cloak, that people abuse the hell out of? Just put in a requirement that it doesn’t work if the hero has the monster keyword, or more than a certain number of wounds. In other words, it only works on foot or small mount characters, not great big giant flying monsters. Simple.

And the scales? I think they work ok as they are (4+ save against mortals only). But other artifacts that do the same but worse? The god wrought helm for example? Tweak them slightly. 6+ save, but against both mortal wounds and regular wounds. Narrow the scope between artifacts.

EDIT: I see the thread moved along quickly there. That’s why I wish, when I tell someone to give me a minute to type out a message, they’d actually do it instead of arguing about it with me...

And the most popular community comp (SCGT) was used to make the General's Handbook

This is an interesting point. Jervis admitted to doing this in his interview.

 Eldarsif wrote:

And the most popular community comp (SCGT) was used to make the General's Handbook

This is an interesting point. Jervis admitted to doing this in his interview.

Auticus *WROTE* a better fan comp than SCGT that actually had balance since his math showed SCGT (IIRC) undercosted monsters because people weren't using them or something like that.

What the people arguing with him forget is that auticus isn't just some random throwing his opinions around, he wrote a popular fan comp in the days before GHB and has actual math and statistics to back up his balancing (to the point where he was told it was TOO balanced, and therefore made Listbuilding not a huge deal and therefore was bad)

SCGT wasn't the most popular comp. SCGT was the comp written by guys in the UK that hung with the design team. We know that SCGT was used as the foundation of points because a warhammer community article was posted saying that the SCGT point system is what they were going to use.

SCGT was popular yes, I'm not saying it wasn't popular. I'm saying objectively it was chosen because those guys live in the UK and hang out with the design team. It was the comp that covered the entire UK's tournament scene. GW is based in the UK.

The SCGT comp author also said he intentionally undercosted monsters in his system because he wanted to see people take more of them in his events on the warhammer org forums a few years back.

Overall as my memory stands there were roughly five fan comps that were in wide circulation and used. I think that had any of those five been chosen as "official points" that the global community altogether would have been fine and happy, they just wanted points.

As to tournament guy and his tournament arguments, we will never reconcile that tournament balance != overall game balance, and we can leave it at that and jump off the merry go round circular pissing contest. I've already explained multiple times why I don't consider tournament win/loss records as a valid measure of balance to the entire game. If you choose to ignore those, then so be it. You consiider them to be biblical canon, I do not. There's nothing else to say.

auticus wrote:
As to tournament guy and his tournament arguments, we will never reconcile that tournament balance != overall game balance, and we can leave it at that and jump off the merry go round circular pissing contest. I've already explained multiple times why I don't consider tournament win/loss records as a valid measure of balance to the entire game. If you choose to ignore those, then so be it. You consiider them to be biblical canon, I do not. There's nothing else to say.

Alright, let's step through your arguments, shall we?

This part of the argument seems to be that at tournaments, you don't know what the lists that the person played against were, and therefore somehow the games are null and void because maybe they got matched up with garbage lists:



But, that's exactly the same as any casual pickup game of AoS. When you walk into the store, unless you have a rigid gaming structure, you don't know who you're playing against or how much effort they put into their list. You don't know if that casual game you're getting in at a casual environment is going to be against a player who just swept units off his shelves or just bought what seemed cool. So an army that seems good or bad at your FLGS can be completely influenced by what everyone else is playing and how much time they put into their lists. So the question I have is... how is this different?

You want a matchup of a Mortal Khorne army beating a Daughters of Khaine army (or equivalent). How do I know those armies and players are equivalent? It could be a bad player vs a good player. Or a complete noob vs someone who has run the matchup a hundred times. The mission could favor one, or the dice rolls. How is this casual matchup any different from a tournament matchup other than where it takes place? In fact, many (if not most) of the 3-2 or 2-3 placings at events are casual people who are just coming to a tournament to get 5 games in a weekend. Are their games somehow not relevant because it's not a FLGS, despite playing the same armies they'd play at home?

You're always going to be against a random player, whether it's a tournament or a local game. So why are tournament games against randoms somehow less legitimate than local games against randoms? It's not a completely different game, and if you've built a list to try and win (whether it's a netlist or not), then the outcomes should be similar no matter where you play your game. I could go to a local store with my non-Rukk Bonesplitterz and win four more games than I lose over the course of a year, is that somehow more relevant information than going to an event and going 4-1 with them, even though it's statistically the same result at the end of the day?



This part of the argument has more to do with "power builds" and "tournament armies" as being a different game altogether:

In my experience nearly every time, if an army's overall damage output + its defensive capabilities is below a certain threshold vs its opponent, it loses.

We're talking about 1,500 games recorded in my database with lists and power scores for both sides as well as results to include scenario.

I have developed games much more complex than AOS and it uses similar approaches to breaking a unit down by its numbers. I don't think AOS is too complex for math.

The core tenants of list building in AOS are mortal wounds (buffing offensive output), summoning spam (buffiing defensive output) and speed (getting where you need to be when you want to be there, of which alpha striikiing is a part of that factor) coupled with having as high of force multipliers as you can (heroes that giive you extra attacks, make you mortal wound on a 6, etc) as that is essentially buffiing offensive or defensive output.

I think most people agree with that anyway.

Those result in an overall score, which by themselves aren't iindiciative of a wiinner, but will tell you the odds at which two people of equal skill will have against each other.

Nearly every time, players of roughly even skill could be determined victory-wise by their army score.

I even built a handicap system for bad players but that fell out of favor because the good players didn't like being handicapped, so I removed iit from my events.

Also I'm not saying that it has to be the perfect balanced game. As a game designer with many projects under my belt, I know that is a pipe dream.

But you can break down each and every actual faction, and address them and bring them up to speed.

For example you consider Blades of Khorne the only khorne faction. There are two represented in the book, demons & mortals (they have their own military org breakdown and people buy the book consider those two separate factions)

So Blades of Khorne can do ok, and I'm not disputing that, because you crutch heavily on blood thirsters and bloodletter bomb to do your work with priest and bloodsecrator buffs.

That however is not very good internal balance in that book, by my standards anyway. For customers that pick up the book and see the big bad chaos lord on the front to find out never take him because he's bad is what I'm talking about.

And the game is riddled with those.

So for me driving 45 min to my game store, I have a mortal khorne army collection. If I drew Joe Powergamer who is running his adeptiicon FEC army, there is no reason for me to even bother playing that game.

Now if the mortal khorne army actually had a good build, I could take a list just for Joe Powergamer and at least not get rick rolled, and I could take a normal casual campaign list for everyone else, and my money hasn't been set on fire and made useless.

For a Kharadron Overlords player, they REALLY have to be paired up against casual lists or just not care about the outcome.

Those are examples of balance issues that I feel need to be addressed because people go in and find the faction that compels them, and then they may find out that faction is just garbage on the table, get frustrated, and quit.

When I play games like warlords or KOW, both of which like any game have some issues, I can't help but compare how pretty much every FACTION is viable, so everyone has something that they can bring to the table that isn't enhancement talent for their opponent to look good.

Speaking as a former powergamer and a guy that placed in the top 10 at the big GTs, I understand the concepts of powergaming and model choice. I also recognize that that is not applicable in every situation but people will use the rules as a crutch to bring abominations to the wrong venue that have to be sorted out that I feel hsouldn't have to even be a thing iif the design team made inter faction balance an actual priority.

auticus wrote:
In my experience nearly every time, if an army's overall damage output + its defensive capabilities is below a certain threshold vs its opponent, it loses.

We're talking about 1,500 games recorded in my database with lists and power scores for both sides as well as results to include scenario.

I have developed games much more complex than AOS and it uses similar approaches to breaking a unit down by its numbers. I don't think AOS is too complex for math.

The core tenants of list building in AOS are mortal wounds (buffing offensive output), summoning spam (buffiing defensive output) and speed (getting where you need to be when you want to be there, of which alpha striikiing is a part of that factor) coupled with having as high of force multipliers as you can (heroes that giive you extra attacks, make you mortal wound on a 6, etc) as that is essentially buffiing offensive or defensive output.

I think most people agree with that anyway.

Those result in an overall score, which by themselves aren't iindiciative of a wiinner, but will tell you the odds at which two people of equal skill will have against each other.

Nearly every time, players of roughly even skill could be determined victory-wise by their army score.

Ah, like Ironjawz with an overall score of B which will usually beat Daughters of Khaine with an overall score of C. Your numbers.

But it turns out special rules, combinations, and trickery makes Daughters of Khaine much better, and in fact one of the top 3 armies in the game by most reckonings. Crazy how that works.

auticus wrote:
For example you consider Blades of Khorne the only khorne faction. There are two represented in the book, demons & mortals (they have their own military org breakdown and people buy the book consider those two separate factions)

So Blades of Khorne can do ok, and I'm not disputing that, because you crutch heavily on blood thirsters and bloodletter bomb to do your work with priest and bloodsecrator buffs.

That however is not very good internal balance in that book, by my standards anyway. For customers that pick up the book and see the big bad chaos lord on the front to find out never take him because he's bad is what I'm talking about.

GW doesn't consider them different factions: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/03/12/mar-12-battletome-preview-blades-of-khorne-big-changesgw-homepage-post-2/

Each faction is designed to work within itself. That doesn't mean every unit is viable at the same time, but things are balanced assuming each Faction is using the best tools provided to it. If you're only taking Mortal Khorne, you're missing out on half the options of your faction. If you're talking faction vs faction, you can't talk Mortal Khorne vs Any Other Complete Faction. I would never talk about Vanguard Stormcast vs Skaventide (though maybe Sacrosanct, but even those lists use models from other Chambers).

Internal balance means using everything inside. The Chaos Lord on the front might fare better if he's supporting a Mortal Khorne unit or two while Bloodthirsters run up the flanks. But if you gimp yourself...

auticus wrote:
So for me driving 45 min to my game store, I have a mortal khorne army collection. If I drew Joe Powergamer who is running his adeptiicon FEC army, there is no reason for me to even bother playing that game.

Now if the mortal khorne army actually had a good build, I could take a list just for Joe Powergamer and at least not get rick rolled, and I could take a normal casual campaign list for everyone else, and my money hasn't been set on fire and made useless.

Yes. A fluffy list that purposefully gimps itself will always lose to a honed list. Now, ask Joe Powergamer to instead make an army of only Ghouls, no Monsters no Knights no Allies, and see how the game plays out. It's a fluffy subfaction that's talked about in the book!

auticus wrote:
For a Kharadron Overlords player, they REALLY have to be paired up against casual lists or just not care about the outcome.

You mean KO, one of the few factions in the game with the potential to bust Nagash in a way few if any other factions can? With Eindrinriggers and Arkanauts, extremely efficient melee and shooting units that work well together?

They need a bit of internal help on the boats, but that faction is actually fine, people are just not playing them since the meta lists got hit with the nerf bat. I've played plenty (both casually and tournies, before you ask) that felt really strong by using 30-dwarf Arkanaut units raining fire with Skyhooks. It's quite good, especially as the meta shifts towards shooting (which it will).

auticus wrote:
When I play games like warlords or KOW, both of which like any game have some issues, I can't help but compare how pretty much every FACTION is viable, so everyone has something that they can bring to the table that isn't enhancement talent for their opponent to look good.

That depends on your definition of Viable.

The only armies I don't think I could build a list for and go at least positive overall with are Gutbusters, Dispossessed, Aelves, and Slaves to Darkness. Maybe toss in Ironjawz. Everything else I bet could probably go 50% win rate or more with over the year. I would consider those armies viable.

But some of them are limited on build. The faction is viable, all the units aren't. And I would consider that fine overall, as long as it's the same across most if not all factions. If there was one faction that could literally build anything out of the book and win, but no others could, that'd be silly, but I don't think any can.

Those tourney stats prove the game is imbalanced. Look at the number of wins relative to meta %, look at the disparity of win % between armies. And it is even worse than that because tournaments match losing players verses losing, and winning players verses winning, creating a huge draw towards 50% after the first round. And it STILL shows that large disparity. That they are being touted as showing the game is balanced and the argument "buy different models if you want to win" is being thrown out is ludicrous and probably the most damming proof of all that the 'AoS is balanced' side of the argument has no legs to stand on.

So let me make this more clear because this is incredibly frustrating:

There has been no data, not one. Single. Source. To show the game is balanced provided in this thread. NONE. The tournament data shows the game is unbalanced. The math shows it. The feedback shows it. Even the posts of those who say it is balanced make reasonable sources to show that it is not. There is no debate, just people insisting the sky is green.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Those tourney stats prove the game is imbalanced. Look at the number of wins relative to meta %. That they are being touted as showing the game is balanced and the argument "buy different models if you want to win" if being thrown out is ludicrous and probably the most damming proof of all that the 'AoS is balanced' side of the argument has no legs to stand on.

What's imbalanced about it? Some armies are popular, others aren't. Meta % is based on how many people are playing them, you can't force people to play armies. SCE and LoN are high because a lot of people have those armies.

No one is arguing that the tip top Nagash and DoK builds are balanced against mid-table stuff, but that's slight tweaking needed and not an issue with the core of the system.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There has been no data, not one. Single. Source. To show the game is balanced provided in this thread. NONE. The tournament data shows the game is unbalanced. The math shows it. The feedback shows it. Even the posts of those who say it is balanced make reasonable sources to show that it is not. There is no debate, just people insisting the sky is green.

What does balanced mean to you? Every army played exactly the same amount with a 50% win rate? Dream on, dude, even White wins more than Black in chess and no one is complaining about it.

Requizen wrote:
even White wins more than Black in chess and no one is complaining about it.

51:49 and players switch colours
So instead of saying chess is doing fine, people recognise that there is a balance problem and found a solution to it

If AoS every get close to 51:49 for all factions a lot of people would be more than happy but instead the mantra is "change nothing, the game is fine"

 kodos wrote:

Requizen wrote:
even White wins more than Black in chess and no one is complaining about it.

51:49 and players switch colours
So instead of saying chess is doing fine, people recognise that there is a balance problem and found a solution to it

If AoS every get close to 51:49 for all factions a lot of people would be more than happy but instead the mantra is "change nothing, the game is fine"

I don't think it's "change nothing because it's fine" so much as it is "the things being offered as change will only shift the meta into a different shape but with a similar win percentage spread, and change for the sake of change doesn't actually do anything".

Requizen wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Those tourney stats prove the game is imbalanced. Look at the number of wins relative to meta %. That they are being touted as showing the game is balanced and the argument "buy different models if you want to win" if being thrown out is ludicrous and probably the most damming proof of all that the 'AoS is balanced' side of the argument has no legs to stand on.

What's imbalanced about it? Some armies are popular, others aren't. Meta % is based on how many people are playing them, you can't force people to play armies. SCE and LoN are high because a lot of people have those armies.

No one is arguing that the tip top Nagash and DoK builds are balanced against mid-table stuff, but that's slight tweaking needed and not an issue with the core of the system.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There has been no data, not one. Single. Source. To show the game is balanced provided in this thread. NONE. The tournament data shows the game is unbalanced. The math shows it. The feedback shows it. Even the posts of those who say it is balanced make reasonable sources to show that it is not. There is no debate, just people insisting the sky is green.

What does balanced mean to you? Every army played exactly the same amount with a 50% win rate? Dream on, dude, even White wins more than Black in chess and no one is complaining about it.

*facedesk*

Percentage meta as compared to percentage tourney wins. If X% of player play a given faction but that factions wins 2X% of those tourneys then there is a skew towards that faction being better. And I believe you know that is exactly what I meant. The second bit is such a blatant strawman I barely know how to respond. And you have still not addressed that there is no proof the game is balanced, unless you consider over 60% or under 40% win rate balanced.


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Requizen wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Requizen wrote:
even White wins more than Black in chess and no one is complaining about it.

51:49 and players switch colours
So instead of saying chess is doing fine, people recognise that there is a balance problem and found a solution to it

If AoS every get close to 51:49 for all factions a lot of people would be more than happy but instead the mantra is "change nothing, the game is fine"

I don't think it's "change nothing because it's fine" so much as it is "the things being offered as change will only shift the meta into a different shape but with a similar win percentage spread, and change for the sake of change doesn't actually do anything".

This argument only makes sense if the speaker feels the game is unbalanced and balance should be improved.

Maybe provide some reasoning as to why the proposed changes will not improve balance. Show us why summoning & mortal wound based armies are not stronger than those which are not. Give us some examples, data, or even anecdotes.