What is Your Idealized Rate of Model Loss in a Game?

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

3 hours ago, Koala said:

Because it does not Matter if you feel list building should decide the game or not, If you want to play cutthroat competative or funny narrative. 

The WHEN question still does apply.

And Not Just for balance reasons. Eg Early losses speed up the later turns while later losses mean the game ends with a big bang. 

On that note I find the results after a little less then 48 hours very interesting.  There clearly isn’t a consensus opinion, nor even an answer with close to majority support.  

Still holding onto a lead is agnosticism.  To me this makes some sense given how many players run multiple different lists both within a given faction and across different factions.  So while some of these players might not enjoy getting alpha struck or caught on the wrong side of a R1/R2 double-turn they’ve run an alpha strike list or two in their time and benefited from the double turn once or twice.  More than that they appreciate the dynamism that comes from the game offering a variety of options and opportunities and accept the good with the bad, responding with equanimity to a less fun game knowing a more fun game is probably right around the corner.

Closing the gap with agnosticism is a balanced game.  Models are going to be removed but lots of different factors (my favorite in this thread again being able to keep a clean table by having time to put does a I in their carrier 😎) seem to make a steady pace preferable.  Again, I think this is consistent with a lot of what I’ve read in the other threads that prompted this poll.

Thanks again to everyone who has responded to the poll and in the comments.  Finding this fascinating, particularly in comparison and contrast to how some other threads seem to lean into more extreme takes then the polls show.

[yukishiro1]

To me the big takeaway from the poll is that people don't like an alpha-heavy game style where games are over or effectively in the first turn or two. Which also tracks with the results of Vince's NPE survey. People don't like games where they put down their models and then pick them back up before they've really had much of a chance to do anything, go figure. 

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

2 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

To me the big takeaway from the poll is that people don't like an alpha-heavy game style where games are over or effectively in the first turn or two. Which also tracks with the results of Vince's NPE survey. People don't like games where they put down their models and then pick them back up before they've really had much of a chance to do anything, go figure. 

Front-Loaded definitely the least popular option.  But after reading, for example, the what people want in AoS 3.0, which turned for a while into a heated debate re:the double-turn it would not have been unreasonable to expect a very barbelled response.  Yet agnosticism still in the lead suggesting that there is a not small contingent of players for whom alpha-strike or double turn isn’t the biggest area of concern...

[yukishiro1]

Well sure. But when you see a breakdown like that from a design point of view, there's a pretty clear path to take: do what makes the people who care happy, because the people who don't care, won't care.

I.e. if you have 5 people out of 10 who don't care about something, 4 who want it like A, and one who wants it like B, it behooves you to do it how the people who want it like A want, because you then end up with 9 happy people instead of 6. 

BTW I think the double-turn is quite distinct from overall lethality, though it obviously contributes to it. Even when nobody gets a double turn, a lot of games in AOS are over by the end of T2. I think there's plenty of room to not mind the double turn but want a game that isn't so extraordinarily lethal from T1.

I know for example that personally, one of the first things I do when designing a list is try to find a build I can use to slow down the game and play it more methodically, because I hate those games where both sides go in hard T1 and the game's over by halfway through T2. I'm not a big fan of the T1/T2 double turn either, as people here are probably aware, but my bigger issue with the game is just how fast everything dies; I probably wouldn't care about the double much at all if it didn't result in such quick games when someone gets it on the T1/T2 transition.

Edited February 5, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

2 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Well sure. But when you see a breakdown like that from a design point of view, there's a pretty clear path to take: do what makes the people who care happy, because the people who don't care, won't care.

I.e. if you have 5 people out of 10 who don't care about something, 4 who want it like A, and one who wants it like B, it behooves you to do it how the people who want it like A want, because you then end up with 9 happy people instead of 6. 

BTW I think the double-turn is quite distinct from overall lethality, though it obviously contributes to it. Even when nobody gets a double turn, a lot of games in AOS are over by the end of T2. I think there's plenty of room to not mind the double turn but want a game that isn't so extraordinarily lethal from T1. 

Completely fair.  Though I’d note that designers also know that changes can quickly make the agnostic passionate in surprising ways, especially in as complex a system as AoS and thus it is unsurprising when status quo persists despite the passions of a minority for change.  In other words the premise that those who don’t care won’t care has proven catastrophically inaccurate curate at times leading to a preference for first do no harm.  Not saying that’s right approach just saying I know that risk exists and that type of thinking persists.

As I am not secretly a designer for GW (though if you guys are reading this and hiring feel free to give me call 😉) I was curious to see whether the community was truly polarized on certain aspects of game play or not.  Happy though to see what others get out of the poll.

[MitGas]

I'll kindaquote Ivan Drago "If they die, they die". 

I'm in the pretty agnostic/even across the rounds-camp, although I'm not a fan of crippling losses in a short time of the game that more or less decides the outcome. Hence why I'm still torn on double turns. 🤔
 

[Galas]

When I spend more time unpacking my models and talking about the mission with my opponent than playing then thats the kind of game I don't enjoy.

[swarmofseals]

I have a couple of different takes on this.

1. If we assume that the game stays largely the same in other aspects (eg: the way battleplans work, number of models on the table), then I think I favor early focused losses, although perhaps with the peak coming in turns 2 and 3 instead of turns 1 and 2. The reason for this are twofold. With the current battleplan model, if you are behind on VP you really need to start tipping the scale no later than turn 3. If the losses are backweighted or even it will mean that games are likely to be decided VPwise before much of the action happens, and the big swings will all be movement related rather than combat related. The second factor is time. Early attrition helps the later turns go more quickly, which is very important especially in tournament settings with current model counts. The game would be a huge drag if both players were pushing around most of their armies for 3 full turns before starting to take real losses.
2. If we assume that the game overall is adapted to accommodate the pace of attrition then I'd like to see a more even pace such that the key turns tend to happen in 3/4/5. I think games like this are more exciting, but like I said above the rest of the way the game is designed just wouldn't work well with this model.