AoS NEW *rumor*

[Canas]

This is not an exploit of the game, this is growing in skill and learning how to use the abilities your units have. If that's exploitative, than by that definition, being a good player is nothing but exploitation.

In a sense, yes being a good player by definition means you'l be closing in more and more on 'exploits' from the point of view of a lesser player.

The main question here is what are you expecting a good, bad and average player to be capable off exactly.
Do you give good players free reign to exploit whatever advantage they can get, even if bad players won't ever have the skills to respond to that? Or do you reign them in when it turns out weaker players struggle to deal with a particular strategy/mechanic/ability?
Do you expect the worst players to still have extensive knowledge of the game, so they know that something like the scenario with those eels is even a realistic possibility? Or do you think that a situation like that involving 6 units, requiring 3 different abilities, requiring high damage potential to the point of easily annihilating the screen & requiring perfect positioning so everything is exactly in range might be a bit too complex a situation for a bad player to ever realistically oversee?
Or do you think that the only difference between a good and bad player should simply be that the good player makes more accurate predictions and makes less mistakes, but ultimatly isn't capable of anything the weaker player can't do reliably?

And finally once you've answered these questions. Who do you balance around? Do you go along with the good players finding 'exploits', reward them and tune around those to encourage them min-maxing even more? Risking your game evolving into something unrecognizable over time. Or do you protect the weaker players, and turn down these 'exploits' to more manageable levels to keep it closer to the original flow & spirit of the game before it was min-maxed?

All wizards know at minimum 3 spells. Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield, and their flavored one on the warscroll beside Wizard rule. Which mentions the two previous spells.
How is using two wizards impossible again?

It's not impossible, but it is awkard as the thing that usually makes a wizard special is their flavoured spell. You already know you're not going to be able to use that special spell on both, so one of the two wizards is purely taken as a vehicle for generic spells, or at best as a back-up. Which is awkward at best. And at worst makes certain strategies impossible.

well they also did a battle plan with gotreck fighting the 4 greater deamonds and constantly put out things that are narrative over standard i don't think they are at all taking things seriously

Well, maybe this supports the whole point that min-maxing and taking the game too seriously is kind of detrimental to the overall state of the game as even the designers themselves seem to actively avoid it.

one last time bad balancing is not the players being eploitative nore is a good macanice a exploit you are arguing bad intentions where there are none.

I'm not saying the players have bad intentions. I'm saying the effect on the overall state of the game is ultimatly the same from the point of view of more casual gamers.

And while the competitive players don't do anything wrong, they just try to have fun their way. The issue is that

1) they're very visible & vocal, and thus have a great impact on balancing
2) They have particular preferences and priorities, which means a certain bias if you only listen to them, which is quite likely due to 1)
3) By their nature, they end up dictating the (local) meta, because all it takes is a single min-maxer to force everyone else to join the arms-race. After all, ultimatly even the most casual of players likes to win occasionally, and if they want to stand a chance against that min-maxer they'l have to play along to some extend.

And the only way to really stop all that from happening is if the designers of a game activly squash the worst of the min-max excesses.

And again for clarity; Competitive players don't do anything wrong. They're not evil or bad. But the logical consequences of allowing them free reign is that everyone will eventually be forced to min-max, and will need to play on their level or accept they'l lose.

I think a lot of this also comes down to the recent explosion of warhammer information on the internet. 5 years ago there wasn't nearly this level of discussion, youtube videos, tournament streams, etc. This just so much more information, discussion, and conversation around that I think the community is still trying to wrap its head around so much coverage.

This is honestly one of the saddest things about the internet, and gaming in general. 5-10 years ago you could have fun in most games, do whatever you want and stand a reasonably chance of winning. Nowadays information is so easily available that playing sub-optimally can get you ridiculed and kicked in certain communities because you're basicly throwing the match on purpose at this point. Not to mention the effects it can have on balancing as the only thing people now care about is optimal play. It's rather ridiculous...

 

[Putzfrau]

This is honestly one of the saddest things about the internet, and gaming in general. 5-10 years ago you could have fun in most games, do whatever you want and stand a reasonably chance of winning. Nowadays information is so easily available that playing sub-optimally can get you ridiculed and kicked in certain communities because you're basicly throwing the match on purpose at this point. Not to mention the effects it can have on balancing as the only thing people now care about is optimal play. It's rather ridiculous...

I'm not sure at all how you got that from what i said. In the very next paragraph (where i actually quoted you) i go on to say how the player contract should be taken more seriously in "casual" style games.

Your never ending gripe with the death of "suboptimal play" is self inflicted. I have literally zero problems playing whatever kind of game i want with whatever kind of list i want.

If you're part of a community that does any of the things you listed, it's a shitty community and you should take steps to remedy the situation.

To put it bluntly, if you want to play suboptimal lists against other suboptimal lists it should be as easy as "hey i'm bringing x, y, and z, would you mind not bringing your tournament list?"

Any tournament player will say yes. Tournament players are not rolling up to casual tables and destroying people. It's not beneficial to them, teaches them nothing about their army, or about the matchup. The only people that do that are assholes or self proclaimed kings of the local gaming table that get their jollies by beating up on players with no interest in being competitive because they know in an actual competitive setting they'd get toasted and their ego can't handle it.

edit: i can't help but feel that your general playing experience hasn't been a good one and if that's the case, that truly sucks man. I know TTS isn't the same, but i'll gladly play you on TTS anytime if you'd like to start building some game experience that doesnt feel as negative as the situation you're describing.

i regularly play brand new or nearly new players in this game and sometimes it's been in literal tournaments. When that happens i'm talking them through everything, giving suggestions at the table (if requested), and generally just making sure that their experience is a good one even if they are unquestionably less skilled then i am. They'll walk away from that table hopefully learning a lot and excited to continue to grow as an age of sigmar player. If it's a tournament game, my list is probably pretty nasty so i'm not intentionally making mistakes but i'm walking them through exactly what i'm doing and why. If it's not at a tournament game, i've tailored a list to provide the most fun, dynamic tabletop experience.

Everyone that plays age of sigmar is an ambassador of the game in some way, and i think it's important we all act like it as well. The social contract between players is a critical way that comes to life.

 

[Carnikang]

The main question here is what are you expecting a good, bad and average player to be capable off exactly.

I expect them to be capable of playing the game. That's it. Anything else is their own personal expectation of themselves, especially if considering skill. Naturally players will transition through those phases of skill level as they play. Or they won't, because they refuse to acknowledge something they may have learned/were taught.

Do you expect the worst players to still have extensive knowledge of the game, so they know that something like the scenario with those eels is even a realistic possibility?

No, but I expect that they may learn that it happens and, as I stated, grow as an expectation o themselves to account for that.

Or do you think that the only difference between a good and bad player should simply be that the good player makes more accurate predictions and makes less mistakes, but ultimatly isn't capable of anything the weaker player can't do reliably?

So you don't like there being various ways of showing skill in the game. Everyone should do the same thing, and not be able to gain an advantage through positioning and prediction? That is what I am getting from this "or do you" run on.

Who do you balance around?

You balance around making the game work. If there is an over abundance of something in a competitive sense, it's likely trampling the more casual player base. So you fix it.

It's not impossible, but it is awkard as the thing that usually makes a wizard special is their flavoured spell.

I disagree. Wizards are utility pieces. Sure, some have excellent spells, but having two standard ones that have decent effects themselves allows choice. And having two of the same also gives you redundancy alongside that choice.
Your "it's impossible" backpedal to it being awkward or impossible in certain cases (which in those cases was actually fixing an exploit no?), is a bit perplexing when the discussion centers around exploits. It's not impossible, and it's part of a fixed exploitative system that we experienced early on in AoS. The Rule of 1 is good for everyone. From the lowly WAAC to the most Chad narrative gamer that can choose not to use it since it's not part of Narrative.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

I'm certainly not winning GT's anytime soon, but i try to participate a fair amount in tournaments. I suppose like your post to canas about defining exploits, we'd have to define what qualifies as a tourney player/WAAC player as well.

i was talking more about packing up and showing up in person at a event but you are right i was a bit dismissive. you have my apologies

 

[Canas]

I'm not sure at all how you got that from what i said. In the very next paragraph (where i actually quoted you) i go on to say how the player contract should be taken more seriously in "casual" style games.

This was more a gripe I have with the evolution of games in general, not specificly AoS.

AoS mostly suffers from it in organised enviroments. And playing a local game with friends is fortunatly less suspectible to it. Though the effects it has on balancing do eventually cascade down into more casual playstyles. E.g. something gets nerfed cuz it's part of some super powerfull competitive combo, ends up breaking a casual list that relied on it. And similarly that one min-maxer in your local meta will either slowly cause everyone else to start min-maxing to some extend or will simply find himself without opponents, the first is usually more likely.

Also, the next paragraph wasn't there yet when I quoted you, so yeah that happened again

I expect them to be capable of playing the game. That's it.

The question is, what does that mean? Does that mean they know about and can pre-empt that example situation with the eels and similar issues? Or does that mean they know the 2 pages of basic rules alongside the 6 warscrolls they're currently using? There's a very very wide spectrum of what can be understood with "capable of playing the game".

So you don't like there being various ways of showing skill in the game. Everyone should do the same thing, and not be able to gain an advantage through positioning and prediction? That is what I am getting from this "or do you" run on

No, showing skill is in itself fine. The point I'm trying to make is that there will be a difference in skill between good and bad players and this affects their experiences. And the designers need to decide how big that difference is allowed to be. Make the game super complex, and the good players will be happy, cuz they can express their skill. But the lesser players will drop out. Make it too simple and the good players will lose interest, while the lesser players are happy.

Finding an appropriate balance there can be difficult, and imho the tendency of game designers to focus on the competitive scene as a measuring stick for that balance is bad as it more often than not ends up slowly sucking the original soul of the game for the sake of a competitivly balanced enviroment.

You balance around making the game work. If there is an over abundance of something in a competitive sense, it's likely trampling the more casual player base. So you fix it.

And what do you do about the things which might be fine in the competitive sense, but still trample the casual player base? Those are completly ignored if all you care about is the competitive scene. Or what about things which are only problematic in the competitive scene because it only is an issue as part of this one very specific combo that isn't much fun to play (so gets ignored by casuals) but is very effective (so gets used by some tournament players). You can end up destroying legitimate casual strategies simply because they include a part of a super competitive combo that needs nerfing.

I disagree. Wizards are utility pieces. Sure, some have excellent spells, but having two standard ones that have decent effects themselves allows choice. And having two of the same also gives you redundancy alongside that choice.

The redudancy is good, the fact that what made that wizard special is (partially) thrown away while he is redundant is not. Especially when you'd like to send wizard one to your left flank and wizard two to your right flank. Wizard one can use his full potential, wizard two is awkwardly hovering at 80% potential because wizard one got to cast first.It also doesn't help that this ends up outright forbidding several strategies which would be viable without being problematic.

Especially as great deal of the various spells wouldn't be exploitative even if they were spammable to begin with. As evident by the rise of similar copy-cat spells that popped up immeadiatly after the introduction of the rule of one to ensure your wizards actually had something to cast.. instead of casting 3 arcane bolts now you cast one arcane bolt, one mystic bolt and one firebolt all doing more or less the same at more or less the same casting value.....

 

[Putzfrau]

i was talking more about packing up and showing up in person at a event but you are right i was a bit dismissive. you have my apologies

No worries at all man. Been to a couple of those style tournaments as well but 2020 was the year i had most of my big tournament plans and... well, we all know what happened to 2020 haha.

Got my Atlantic City Open ticket, on the waitlist for nashcon and hoping for a few others towards the end of the year so 2021 might shape up nicely!

This was more a gripe I have with the evolution of games in general, not specificly AoS.

AoS mostly suffers from it in organised enviroments. And playing a local game with friends is fortunatly less suspectible to it. Though the effects it has on balancing do eventually cascade down into more casual playstyles. E.g. something gets nerfed cuz it's part of some super powerfull competitive combo, ends up breaking a casual list that relied on it. And similarly that one min-maxer in your local meta will either slowly cause everyone else to start min-maxing to some extend or will simply find himself without opponents, the first is usually more likely.

Also, the next paragraph wasn't there yet when I quoted you, so yeah that happened again

touche

I guess i just always look at this sort of problem through 2 lens.

1) Competitive Tournament Play - I dont see an issue with what you're describing in this style of play because its by intention a more competitive setting. I do find that tournaments are often great for gamers without cut-throat lists and they make up the vast majority of the scene. After the first game or 2 in a tournament, that "middle band" starts to form and most players are playing against like minded/like "listed" folks.

2) Casual "LGS" Play - Again, I don't see an issue here because the social contract should be used to curtail the situation you are describing. Min maxing shouldn't slowly cause either of the situations you described unless zero conversation between players in the community is ever happening. In my opinion a third option of the commuunity talks to the one min-maxer (or he to the players he's facing) and there are min-max games sometimes (when both players agree to it) and other times there arent, is far more likely.

I guess the long and short of it is, i feel like AOS already does what you want... it just doesn't necessarily force you to do it that way. It relies on players working together to find the game style that works for them.

Basically, GW gives you tons of options and then steps back and lets individual communities decide what to do next. It's not like a video game or board game where a complex game is always going to be a complex game because in AoS everything from your list to your allegiance is variable and can scale up or down depending on how nasty you want to be.

 

[Carnikang]

Finding an appropriate balance there can be difficult, and imho the tendency of game designers to focus on the competitive scene as a measuring stick for that balance is bad as it more often than not ends up slowly sucking the original soul of the game for the sake of a competitivly balanced enviroment.

I need you to explain what the Soul of AoS is and how it's been tarnished by competitive play. The competitive scene shows both the good and bad of a game, and as has been gone over numerous times in this short few pages of the thread, is the most accessible and available feedback. How is a publisher supposed to take ethereal feedback that isn't put into words, or is shown through action?

The question is, what does that mean

Playing the game as per how it's set down. Knowing the basic rules (The Core 15 pages presented for free in the App is good enough), and possibly learning Matched Play specific rules if there in that environment. Anything else is on them, and as I stated, a matter of their own willingness and expectation of themselves.

And what do you do about the things which might be fine in the competitive sense, but still trample the casual player base?

Such as?

Especially when you'd like to send wizard one to your left flank and wizard two to your right flank. Wizard one can use his full potential, wizard two is awkwardly hovering at 80% potential because wizard one got to cast first

So you've made choices, that's good. Likely, you have moved these two wizards, having a plan in your head about what they can and possibly should do. You've already decided who needs to cast their normal spell. You've already decided maybe that spell isn't worth casting right now. I don't see why this is an issue.
Your example is lacking, and I assume not taking into account faction allegiance spells allotted to these characters as well.

 

[Putzfrau]

Gotta say, i think there have been some great discussions across this forum the last few weeks. It's nice to see these things pop up and not completely devolve into degeneracy haha.

 

[Canas]

The competitive scene shows both the good and bad of a game, and as has been gone over numerous times in this short few pages of the thread, is the most accessible and available feedback. How is a publisher supposed to take ethereal feedback that isn't put into words, or is shown through action

Make sure to acquire feedback from other parts of the community as well. You know, the basics of any sort of research; make sure your samples are an accurate representation of the true population so you avoid biasses. Feedback which you get by seeking out your population.

Competitive players will simply have different priorities from casual players. And looking at only one group is inevitably going to lead to inbalances in your general design.

Focusing purely on competitive design tends to lead to a game that losses it's original soul as the min-maxers make a lot of what originally made it fun unviable and it eventually becomes needlessly complex, scaring away the weaker and newer players.

Focusing purely on casual design tends to lead to a shallow game that losses it's complexity and becomes little more than pretty colours and shapes you move around until it says you win, chasing away anyone looking for any sort of challenge.

Neither is good, and both parts of the community need to be sought out to get feedback from if you want to keep your game healthy.

Also, for clarity; these remarks hold in general. They are not specific to AoS. They are things that hold for any game.

Playing the game as per how it's set down. Knowing the basic rules (The Core 15 pages presented for free in the App is good enough), and possibly learning Matched Play specific rules if there in that environment. Anything else is on them, and as I stated, a matter of their own willingness and expectation of themselves.

Someone who only knows that is constantly going to find themselves in situations where an opponent does something unexpected based on faction abilities, unique abilities on warscrolls, artifacts, powerfull spells, unexpected interactions between those etc. which that player simply does not know and cannot prepare for. And dealing with stuff you simply cannot know or prepare for is generally not considered fun. If that is what you expect the "average" player to know, how long do you think they will last before giving up in frustration because their opponents seemingly keeps pulling nonsense moves out of nowhere because they have some special rule that isn't listed in the core? Is that truly what you expect from an "average" player, or even a "bad" player?

Such as

God-models come to mind. In general, things with a lot of raw power, that are relativly simple to use tend to be more problematic at lower levels of play even if they're balanced at higher levels of play.

So you've made choices, that's good. Likely, you have moved these two wizards, having a plan in your head about what they can and possibly should do. You've already decided who needs to cast their normal spell. You've already decided maybe that spell isn't worth casting right now. I don't see why this is an issue.

The issue is that there's plenty of situation in which I would like to be able to use their special spell on both flanks. Instead of arbitrarly being limited to using it only on one flank. Especially as I can still do this with Command abilities and plenty of other similar skills. Magic is just an exception cuz the designers deem this needed in the name of balance.

I guess the long and short of it is, i feel like AOS already does what you want... it just doesn't necessarily force you to do it that way. It relies on players working together to find the game style that works for them.

There's two issues with this.

1) GW still balances the overall game, and competitive players have a larger impact here, on account of being more vocal, visual and easier to get feedback from. So while you and your friends might be playing super casually, GW is still liable to make design decisions based on that competitive mindset. Which will have effects for you and your friends.

2) This quickly falls apart when you're playing with larger groups or people who you don't know as well and who you only see for the on match. At which point one competitive player is going to have a fairly large impact, unless you outright ban him. Which is a tad harsh. You and your friends can agree on a level of competitiveness. But it's a lot harder during a spontanious pickup game with a stranger at the LGS.Or what if the LGS organising a small casual tournament for fun with 10 people? 20? 30? You're going to vet all of those? It only takes 1 min-maxer to force everyone else to also min-max in if they want to stand a chance of winning. What about a slightly bigger tournament? When is it still safe to expect a "casual" tournament to actually be casual? Especially when we don't have clear formats to use, like MTG or tierlists like pokemon which can be used to communicate the type of tournament this is going to be.

And yeah, you can try and figure out how to communicate that yourself. But imho, GW should support this and provide official frameworks beyond pitched matched play.

 

[Carnikang]

Focusing purely on competitive design tends to lead to a game that losses it's original soul as the min-maxers make a lot of what originally made it fun unviable and it eventually becomes needlessly complex, scaring away the weaker and newer players.

Focusing purely on casual design tends to lead to a shallow game that losses it's complexity and becomes little more than pretty colours and shapes you move around until it says you win, chasing away anyone looking for

Yet they seem to have casual play in mind, using the competitive feedback as a counterweight to their own philosophy. You yourself talked about how the designers didn't seem to even register how competitive players will play the game, instead looking to fun or fluffy gameplay when designing.
How does that fit in with what you fear is happening?

Make sure to acquire feedback from other parts of the community as well. You know, the basics of any sort of research; make sure your samples are an accurate representation of the true population so you avoid biasses.

Research does not always include every sample population, more often it includes one sample, and the others are additive/taken from another round of study. Building blocks of feedback, which can be seen in the evolution of this game.

If that is what you expect the "average" player to know, how long do you think they will last before giving up in frustration because their opponents seemingly keeps pulling nonsense moves out of nowhere because they have some special rule that isn't listed in the core? Is that truly what you expect from an "average" player, or even a "bad" player?

I think you're placing bad players in the position a new player would be in. That's kind of dishonest. New players often. Know they're coming in blind to many possibilities, whereas a bad player chooses not to learn and adapt. A bad player will not acknowledge their faults or what they have done wrong, whereas a new player who is learning will often be more open to seeing these issues.
An Average player, on the third hand, will be aware of some things they might not have found a way to counter yet. Or vaugely aware of their local meta and will have experienced it already.
The warscrolls, rules, and everything else are available. More often than not your opponent will also gladly show you where this ability or spell is listed, and if not some beardy WAAC may even give said new/bad/average player tips to play against it.

God-models come to mind. In general, things with a lot of raw power, that are relativly simple to use tend to be more problematic at lower levels of play even if they're balanced at higher levels of play.

I do not believe these models are simple to use. Of the three present, excluding Archeon, only Teclis is fairly common and he is actually pretty complicated to use. I have a friend who often gets muddled with choosing what to do with him as he has so much that he can possibly perform.
In lower levels of play, these models present a large portion of a force, and are meant to be the nut you must crack. If in casual play that doesn't happen often, perhaps the social contract that @Putzfrau Mentions should be invoked. Perhaps casual tournament organizers could even bar named characters altogether?

Edit- Forgive me, I forgot poor Morathi, newly elevated to Godhood. She can definitely be problematic to deal with, but again, she's a nut presented to crack in one way or another.

The issue is that there's plenty of situation in which I would like to be able to use their special spell on both flanks. Instead of arbitrarly being limited to using it only on one flank.

Arbitration is the means which innovation of invocation happens. You're made to choose because the designers felt that spells as a whole were better limited than free to be cast consistently. They've left avenues to perform similar actions multiple times, so I do not see the issue.
Give me a specific example, otherwise this point is moot.

 

[Canas]

Yet they seem to have casual play in mind, using the competitive feedback as a counterweight to their own philosophy. You yourself talked about how the designers didn't seem to even register how competitive players will play the game, instead looking to fun or fluffy gameplay when designing.
How does that fit in with what you fear is happening?

Don't get me wrong, yeah they seem to play fairly casually in their battlereports in white dwarf and such. But if they have casual play in mind, then why do they do so little to actually provide frameworks for more casual play? The only framework they activly support is pitched matched play. Are they expecting casual players to tailor make narrative games like the designers do for their articles whenver they want to play? If so they should probably communicate that more clearly (and honestly, provide a framework for that as well...)

It's all rather inconsistent.

Research does not always include every sample population, more often it includes one sample, and the others are additive/taken from another round of study. Building blocks of feedback, which can be seen in the evolution of this game

If your research is only usefull as part of a meta-analysis because your data is heavily skewed and doesn't represent your population you've done some terrible research...

I think you're placing bad players in the position a new player would be in. That's kind of dishonest.

You defined an average player as "someone who knows the core", I would agree this definition fits more with new players than with average players. But it's the definition you gave...

So what exactly do you expect a bad, average and good player to know if that was not it?

I do not believe these models are simple to use. Of the three present, excluding Archeon, only Teclis is fairly common and he is actually pretty complicated to use. I have a friend who often gets muddled with choosing what to do with him as he has so much that he can possibly perform.

Easy to use in this case refers to the fact that you don't really have to do anything complicated to be set up, like carefull positioning, stacking synergies etc.
All you need to do to use Teclis to a reasonable degree is three things:
1) dump him in the middle of the battlefield, so as many friendlies as possible are covered by his aura
2) Auto-cast spells
3) Avoid combat with stuff like a bloodthirster.

That isn't exactly complicated...

Now obviously if you want to use him optimally it gets more complicated. The decision to use 4 or 2 spells might be difficult as is the decision about which spells to cast. But the casting in itself isn't exactly difficult. He just does that without any setup...

Arbitration is the means which innovation of invocation happens. You're made to choose because the designers felt that spells as a whole were better limited than free to be cast consistently. They've left avenues to perform similar actions multiple times, so I do not see the issue.

The issue is that
1) It ain't fun, especially if you like wizards. Why are they limited to the rule of one when other abilities that do the exact same aren't?
2) It doesn't match with the fluff, so it doesn't even have that going for it.
and
3) It's an arbitrary gamey decision and solely done in the name of balance

It might 'work', it might be balanced, but it sacrifices a chunk of the fun potential that wizards bring to achieve that. Hence I dislike it.

 

[Putzfrau]

There's two issues with this.

1) GW still balances the overall game, and competitive players have a larger impact here, on account of being more vocal, visual and easier to get feedback from. So while you and your friends might be playing super casually, GW is still liable to make design decisions based on that competitive mindset. Which will have effects for you and your friends.

2) This quickly falls apart when you're playing with larger groups or people who you don't know as well and who you only see for the on match. At which point one competitive player is going to have a fairly large impact, unless you outright ban him. Which is a tad harsh. You and your friends can agree on a level of competitiveness. But it's a lot harder during a spontanious pickup game with a stranger at the LGS.Or what if the LGS organising a small casual tournament for fun with 10 people? 20? 30? You're going to vet all of those? It only takes 1 min-maxer to force everyone else to also min-max in if they want to stand a chance of winning. What about a slightly bigger tournament? When is it still safe to expect a "casual" tournament to actually be casual? Especially when we don't have clear formats to use, like MTG or tierlists like pokemon which can be used to communicate the type of tournament this is going to be.

And yeah, you can try and figure out how to communicate that yourself. But imho, GW should support this and provide official frameworks beyond pitched matched play.

I feel like i've addressed both of these points already, specifically the first one at length.

to reiterate:

1) the idea that competitive players are more vocal is IMO unsubstantiated at best, completely untrue at worst. Building your entire opinion off an assumption thats unarguably tenuous isn't setting yourself up for success. I also don't understand how something like, raising skinks by 10 points is going to drastically effect your casual playing group because you are, by the very definition, playing in an environment where these kinds of tiny tweaks are simply not as important.

2) If you're playing a spontaneous pick up game, again there is an opportunity to have a conversation. Unless you literally only own the models for 1 nasty, cutting-edge, leave-your-enemy-crying list, theres still an opportunity to tailor your list. I've done this on multiple occasions, it's not difficult. Make your list at the table based on what they have. Ask them at the table what their experience level is.

If its a small casual tournament then.. it's a tournament. It's specifically a competitive situation and you should expect to see competitive lists. If you don't WANT to play a competitive list you don't have to and most likely will spend most of the event playing people in your "list level." That's an intentional choice your making by participating in a competitive event without competitive aspirations. If matching up against any semblance of a competitive list at any point is going to ruffle your feathers, you have no place participating in a "small, casual TOURNAMENT" because its clearly not the type of event for you. There are slow grows, narrative events, campaigns, tons of other community driven events that tailor to a less competitive crowd.

I know literally dozens of people that are good players that like a certain army or list archetype regardless of its competitiveness and have no problem going to a tournament with it... even though they know its going to get stomped on by an equally skilled player with a better list.

Alternatively, there are "fat middle" tournaments that ban the best armies. There are "commander" style tournaments that force you away from spamming and countless other iterations of tournament rulesets that create "casual" playing environments. Ask your local TO to do something like that.

I just don't understand what the end game is here. The game you want to play is readily available with just a little bit of effort between you and your local community. I dont understand why you seem to position it like it's some impossible task to overcome when countless community leaders and organizers already accomplish it.

 

[Carnikang]

Are they expecting casual players to tailor make narrative games like the designers do for their articles whenver they want to play? If so they should probably communicate that more clearly (and honestly, provide a framework for that as well...)

How about all those campaign books and battleplans that are available? Clearly frameworks present and available to all players, and often don't require the inclusion of matched play to be useful.
Unless those aren't a framework for a game by your definition. It's hard to tell with you.

It's all rather inconsistent.

I disagree here, GW's quality is consistent enough that you can tell when something is made with a competitive mindset or a fun mindset.

If your research is only usefull as part of a meta-analysis because your data is heavily skewed and doesn't represent your population you've done some terrible research...

So you're saying the Competitive feedback is useless unless it's part of a greater scheme of feedback? Meaning that your hemming and hawing about it being the only feedback really doesn't hold weight? Or that it's a terrible set of research, despite having positive effects on the game?
Please expand on this, you seem like you are familiar with data sets that would be relevant.

You defined an average player as "someone who knows the core", I would agree this definition fits more with new players than with average players. But it's the definition you gave...

Here are my words, in reference to you asking what I expect a Good, Average, and Bad player to know. That is my 'definition' of said players. There are addendums to define more closely, but you did not ask me to define an Average player. Read carefully. You can also reference the post that these were in response to.

I expect them to be capable of playing the game. That's it. Anything else is their own personal expectation of themselves, especially if considering skill. Naturally players will transition through those phases of skill level as they play. Or they won't, because they refuse to acknowledge something they may have learned/were taught.

Playing the game as per how it's set down. Knowing the basic rules (The Core 15 pages presented for free in the App is good enough), and possibly learning Matched Play specific rules if there in that environment. Anything else is on them, and as I stated, a matter of their own willingness and expectation of themselves.

.

That isn't exactly complicated...

Again, disagree. For you, or someone who is supposedly a good player, it isn't. A new, average, or even bad player, definitely. Playing those models incorrectly can have them dead before you know it.

The issue is that
1) It ain't fun, especially if you like wizards. Why are they limited to the rule of one when other abilities that do the exact same aren't?
2) It doesn't match with the fluff, so it doesn't even have that going for it.
and
3) It's an arbitrary gamey decision and solely done in the name of balance

1) I find it fun. Spells are unique, just as Command Abilities use a resource, and Prayers are on a single die roll.
2) Disagree. Often spell casters are much rarer, and I find that more often than not, there are not two Slann on the field, and if there are, often they're using different spells.
3) Good.

Edit- Spelling errors.

 

[JscoobertDoobert]

As a very casual and relatively new player in the grand scheme of things, I’d like to put my two sense in since the debate seems to be about how balancing the game around high level play staunches my fun. I would 100% disagree on this, especially considering the fact that high level play and casual play are two completely different games.

When I play with my friends on the weekends the goal is to get together and push around the cool dinosaurs I just painted and hopefully they kill some stuff. I’ll bring my list of a two carnosaurs and a dread saurian cause it’s epic, knowing they’ll probably get mulched but it’ll be awesome the whole way. We’ve had weekends where someone decided to try out a cool list they saw online and it annihilated the competition, and then those lists don’t come back cause we all felt bad at the end.

Conversely, if I was to play at a tournament where the goal was to see how good I am compared to the rest, I’m obviously going to play differently. The goal isn’t the same here. The fun here is the competition and pushing the limits of your skill, and understanding the limits of your army is part of that skill. This obviously where GW should focus on balancing. Actually good players will be able to show what the armies/units are capable of. Stuff that’s OP at my level of play sometimes has simple counters or work around a that I just haven’t learned or understand yet. Also, high skill expression armies balanced around the lowest tier of play would end up dominating the highest tiers as safety nets are introduced to balance the weaknesses that are supposed to offset their strengths.

This is from the point of view of a noob player, but I thought maybe I could contribute something of value since it seems the discussion is about how I can’t have fun if better players are playing the game better than me. If I were to play against one of you guys in a tournament my only hope would be to learn about your decisions pre game and post game while I got whooped, but again, that’s why I would participate in a competition anyways rather than just play a chips and beer game.

 

[Dread Saurian]

As a very casual and relatively new player in the grand scheme of things, I’d like to put my two sense in since the debate seems to be about how balancing the game around high level play staunches my fun. I would 100% disagree on this, especially considering the fact that high level play and casual play are two completely different games.

When I play with my friends on the weekends the goal is to get together and push around the cool dinosaurs I just painted and hopefully they kill some stuff. I’ll bring my list of a two carnosaurs and a dread saurian cause it’s epic, knowing they’ll probably get mulched but it’ll be awesome the whole way. We’ve had weekends where someone decided to try out a cool list they saw online and it annihilated the competition, and then those lists don’t come back cause we all felt bad at the end.

Conversely, if I was to play at a tournament where the goal was to see how good I am compared to the rest, I’m obviously going to play differently. The goal isn’t the same here. The fun here is the competition and pushing the limits of your skill, and understanding the limits of your army is part of that skill. This obviously where GW should focus on balancing. Actually good players will be able to show what the armies/units are capable of. Stuff that’s OP at my level of play sometimes has simple counters or work around a that I just haven’t learned or understand yet. Also, high skill expression armies balanced around the lowest tier of play would end up dominating the highest tiers as safety nets are introduced to balance the weaknesses that are supposed to offset their strengths.

This is from the point of view of a noob player, but I thought maybe I could contribute something of value since it seems the discussion is about how I can’t have fun if better players are playing the game better than me. If I were to play against one of you guys in a tournament my only hope would be to learn about your decisions pre game and post game while I got whooped, but again, that’s why I would participate in a competition anyways rather than just play a chips and beer game.

A lot of people in this forum have vastly differing playstyles that are hard to take too much useful information from. Positioning is useful yes. Killing is best(fight me). But the best method is to go into it with an open mind. And most importantly. Have fun

 

[Carnikang]

As a very casual and relatively new player in the grand scheme of things, I’d like to put my two sense in since the debate seems to be about how balancing the game around high level play staunches my fun. I would 100% disagree on this, especially considering the fact that high level play and casual play are two completely different games.

When I play with my friends on the weekends the goal is to get together and push around the cool dinosaurs I just painted and hopefully they kill some stuff. I’ll bring my list of a two carnosaurs and a dread saurian cause it’s epic, knowing they’ll probably get mulched but it’ll be awesome the whole way. We’ve had weekends where someone decided to try out a cool list they saw online and it annihilated the competition, and then those lists don’t come back cause we all felt bad at the end.

Conversely, if I was to play at a tournament where the goal was to see how good I am compared to the rest, I’m obviously going to play differently. The goal isn’t the same here. The fun here is the competition and pushing the limits of your skill, and understanding the limits of your army is part of that skill. This obviously where GW should focus on balancing. Actually good players will be able to show what the armies/units are capable of. Stuff that’s OP at my level of play sometimes has simple counters or work around a that I just haven’t learned or understand yet. Also, high skill expression armies balanced around the lowest tier of play would end up dominating the highest tiers as safety nets are introduced to balance the weaknesses that are supposed to offset their strengths.

This is from the point of view of a noob player, but I thought maybe I could contribute something of value since it seems the discussion is about how I can’t have fun if better players are playing the game better than me. If I were to play against one of you guys in a tournament my only hope would be to learn about your decisions pre game and post game while I got whooped, but again, that’s why I would participate in a competition anyways rather than just play a chips and beer game.

I believe your post is excellent, and a well spent two cents.

I actually have a fun list that's going to be centered around two Carnos and a Dread. How do you like the feel of such a list? I haven't put it down on the table yet, but bashy is my impression.

 

[JscoobertDoobert]

I believe your post is excellent, and a well spent two cents.

I actually have a fun list that's going to be centered around two Carnos and a Dread. How do you like the feel of such a list? I haven't put it down on the table yet, but bashy is my impression.

It’s definitely fun. The big guys storm in and chomp whatever they can get at. The dread is fun too for just parking in a choke so the other guy has to spend a turn or two smacking him around before they can get to the objective. Definitely falls apart against my friends blightkings but also what doesn’t really.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Edit- Forgive me, I forgot poor Morathi, newly elevated to Godhood. She can definitely be problematic to deal with, but again, she's a nut presented to crack in one way or another.

you forgot a few more. at the moment we have 6 god models in the game we have alariel(a objectively terrible warscroll) we have the fist of gork and mork, we have tecles we have morathy we have nagash and we have achion. of those half regularly see play being archy techless and morathy. nagash is sometimes taken in fun lists and the other two are ignored completely

 

[Canas]

1) the idea that competitive players are more vocal is IMO unsubstantiated at best, completely untrue at worst. Building your entire opinion off an assumption thats unarguably tenuous isn't setting yourself up for success. I also don't understand how something like, raising skinks by 10 points is going to drastically effect your casual playing group because you are, by the very definition, playing in an environment where these kinds of tiny tweaks are simply not as important.

Skinks being raised by 10 points won't be an (big) issue for casual players. But something bigger like say the rule of one being introduced and making your little wizard list where you want to use a particular spell 2-3 times did. Similarly new battletomes, some of the FAQ's, the occasional GHB (bit less now that everyone has an updated tome) have bigger chances that will affect casual play drasticly.

As for competitive players being more vocal; Competitive players are by definition an active, fairly passionate, highly visibile and highly vocal group. Why? Cuz they are the ones who go to tournaments & events, while the more casual players sit at home and occasionally play a game with their friends. The competitive event visitors are the easiest to reach, the easiest to get feedback from and one of the more active groups.

This really shouldn't be a controversial claim... Obviously someone who's willing to regularly spend an entire day, or weekend, at an event and sometimes even travel large distances for it is going to be more passionate and vocal about the hobby than someone who occasionally spends an evening playing a game with a friend or his family.

2) If you're playing a spontaneous pick up game, again there is an opportunity to have a conversation. Unless you literally only own the models for 1 nasty, cutting-edge, leave-your-enemy-crying list, theres still an opportunity to tailor your list. I've done this on multiple occasions, it's not difficult. Make your list at the table based on what they have. Ask them at the table what their experience level is.

To an extend sure. Swapping out a model or two shouldn't be an issue. But when trying to do a small pick-up game generally people don't want to wait around for 10-15 minutes while someone readjusts their list. Plus, it might just not be logistically possible to bring enough models for different lists. In practise I find it to rarely work out too well for a pick-up game if the two players arrived with a different initial mindset

If its a small casual tournament then.. it's a tournament. It's specifically a competitive situation and you should expect to see competitive lists.

The issue is that there's gradations in competiveness of tournaments, or at least there is for basicly every other hobby. If you join a local football tournament you can be reasonably sure about the level of the local players based on the prestige and size of the tournament. However, for something like AoS you can't be sure that no-one is going to show up with some ridiculous optimized lists. Even if it's a fairly bad player nothing stops him from just finding a high-powered optimized list and performing far above his own level by sheer virtue of having a min-maxed list. In contrast, no-one at the football tournament is going to play like Ronaldo after watching an interview where he explained a particular trick he uses...

Alternatively, there are "fat middle" tournaments that ban the best armies. There are "commander" style tournaments that force you away from spamming and countless other iterations of tournament rulesets that create "casual" playing environments.

Literally never seen those for AoS (or 40K, or WFB, or any wargame actually...), but that might just be my luck.

How about all those campaign books and battleplans that are available? Clearly frameworks present and available to all players, and often don't require the inclusion of matched play to be useful.
Unless those aren't a framework for a game by your definition. It's hard to tell with you.

Battleplans aren't frameworks for creating a (somewhat) balanced game.
They're just different objects & maps.

Simply put battleplans provide:
- An objective
- A map lay-out
- Occasionally some special conditions/rules, e.g. you're fighting at night so units can't see far, all ranged attacks are limited to 12".
- Occasionally they provide the two armies involved; however this is nearly always a specific list (e.g. the attacker is tzeentch, and he brings units X, Y & Z.)


They usually do not provide:
- A way to pick the armies involved in a generic manner such that you can easily translate this to whatever collection you may have available yourselfs Both for this specific battleplan, and more in general.

What is missing is a generic framework to pick armies that avoid (or minimize) the worst excesses of min-maxing, both for specific battleplans and more in general. And yeah, avoiding say god-models isn't too difficult a house-rule to implement. But it gets rather iffy once something like say buffed up plaguerats becomes problematicly powerfull in your casual game. Banning your opponent from not using his basic battleline in his clan pestilence army is a bit of a difficult thing to ask.

So you're saying the Competitive feedback is useless unless it's part of a greater scheme of feedback? Meaning that your hemming and hawing about it being the only feedback really doesn't hold weight? Or that it's a terrible set of research, despite having positive effects on the game?
Please expand on this, you seem like you are familiar with data sets that would be relevant.

Like I've been saying, activly seek out feedback both from both competitive and casual players (as well as lore-focussed players and whatever other part of the community may exist).

Right now it seems like GW is complacent and mostly relies on passivly getting feedback. This feedback will mostly come from tournaments/events & from people motivated enough to send in emails. Both of those groups will predominantly be competitive players as they're one of the more motivated groups within the community.

Here are my words, in reference to you asking what I expect a Good, Average, and Bad player to know. That is my 'definition' of said players. There are addendums to define more closely,

This does not anwser my question as to what the different types of players are as all I can see here is the same beginner-type you described earlier.

but you did not ask me to define an Average player. Read carefully. You can also reference the post that these were in response to.

I appoligize if my initial question was not clear, but that was what I was intending to ask.

.

Again, disagree. For you, or someone who is supposedly a good player, it isn't. A new, average, or even bad player, definitely. Playing those models incorrectly can have them dead before you know it.

Sure, you can easily overextend and get them killed. But I am assuming that even the worst of players is smart enough to realize that Teclis is not a combat unit, and not charge him headfirst into combat frst chance he gets.

Imho what I expect from even the worst of players is to
1) Recognize the archetype & corresponding roles of his own units. E.g. Teclis is a wizard, wizards stay in the back and throw spells. Skarbrand is a melee monster, those go into the frontline and murder stuff
2) Have a basic sense of self-preservation. E.g. Skarbrand might be powerfull, but having him fight 4 carnosaurs at the same time is probably not a great idea, he should probably bring some friends too.

Neither of those are exactly difficult, and once you can manage those basics it's not exactly difficult to have say Teclis survive a couple of rounds and throw around a bunch of spells unopposed thanks to his auto-casting.

1) I find it fun. Spells are unique, just as Command Abilities use a resource, and Prayers are on a single die roll.

Disagree, there's no reason why 99% of the spells should be unique. Most of them are generic basic spells like arcane bolt.

I might agree with it if every spell was something grand and special, like say comet call. But seeing as most aren't this doesn't really work.

2) Disagree. Often spell casters are much rarer, and I find that more often than not, there are not two Slann on the field, and if there are, often they're using different spells.

For two slann, sure. For two starpriests or two necromancers, or two vampires, or two Collegiate wizards etc. there's no fluffy-reason why an army would be limited to one.

3) Good.

AoS is not an abstract game where you're just moving random shapes around and the only thing that really matters is game-balance. It is a fluffy game that's supposed to represent things that make sense in the AoS universe. Making decisions based purely on game-y balance-motivated grounds undercuts that and removes a significant part of what makes games like AoS fun. So no, not good.

 

[Killer Angel]

1) the idea that competitive players are more vocal is IMO unsubstantiated at best, completely untrue at worst. Building your entire opinion off an assumption thats unarguably tenuous isn't setting yourself up for success.

As I've said previously, competitive / optimizer players are more vocal.
It's perfectly natural, people wants to improve their army, and you are not gonna find tutorials on how to play a suboptimal but fun list based on BG (at most you can find BatReps for that), but you can find very easily things as:
Strongest AOS armies and why - top winners most feared Age of Sigmar armies and tournament list
Warhammer Age of Sigmar 'Centrepiece Models' Tier List
(with relative debates about the bias of the author/s...)

on many gaming forums you'll find plenty of discussions on how to optimize a list.

and this brings us to:

you forgot a few more. at the moment we have 6 god models in the game we have alariel(a objectively terrible warscroll) we have the fist of gork and mork, we have tecles we have morathy we have nagash and we have achion. of those half regularly see play being archy techless and morathy. nagash is sometimes taken in fun lists and the other two are ignored completely

If people play Teclis and Morathy, it's why they are strong heroes with strong rules, and not because they have nicer models.

On gaming forums (not LO, luckily), it's incredibly easy to find people that are going to bash your list because "this is garbage".
There are many players that tend to forget that the game is not only tournaments and WAAC.

It's a thing common to basically every aspect of our society: people with "extremist" views, are always more vocal than other people, there's no doubt about it.
We could debate, however, on the impact these people have on the community and the game as a whole.
In a game as Magic, the tournament meta strongly influences the game, to the point that with every release of an expansion, after a very little time there are more or less 3-4 strong decks, and after a couple of turns you know exactly the deck of your opponent, without even the need to look at it.