Double Turn begone! AoS should get rid of the double-turn

[Yondaime]

48 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

If you have a "close and balanced" game state at the end of a round, then whoever goes next will gain the advantage. In AoS, this is the person who wins a roll-off at the time. In 40K, it's the person who won the single roll-off at the start of the game. Are you saying that having one initiative roll to determine the outcome is better than having multiple initiative rolls?

I get it - for some people, a double turn will always be a feels-bad moment, and no amount of discourse on why those feelings don't necessarily match up with the probabilistic outcomes is going to make it feel better. That's okay. Some people don't like Vegemite either. As long as those people don't try to stop anyone else from eating Vegemite, it's fine.

Yep, I agree. The more interaction they add to the game for the inactive player in order to reduce this effect, the better (all the way up to and including reworking the core system for alternating activations, IMO).

Right now, the top meta list is Fulminators, Longstrikes and/or Stormdrake Guard. Everything else is second-tier at best.

I don't think it's about balance, except in the broadest possible sense. It's about creating unpredictable outcomes. It essentially emphasises the "gambling" aspect of the game, which is honestly one of the things GW does best. (They're certainly not very good at balance!) That increased uncertainty pushes the outcomes of games closer to the overall average, but it doesn't (and I imagine was never intended to) make any given match more balanced.

winrate of going first in 40k its not even close to the winrate of a good double turn, specially in some scenarios

about the meta list, yes, last month stormcast did really well, but if you notice the list its still a heavy shooting list with very aggressive first turn, and notice how its a monodrop? so if you want to be hyper aggressive you start first and move the dragon across the board and start sniping heroes, or you wait and go second (you can deploy very far and use double move or translocation) and get double, and do an obscene ammount of MW with longstrike, dragons, and fulminators

if you want to make a competitive game it has to have the less "unpredictables" elements possibile by nature you are not playing dice you are playing warhammer

take that list for example, lets say you play a melee army (like khorne) look at what is it playing against it, opponent make you go first because its monodrop and won the deploy (already huge advantage locked behind a dice roll) he deployes as far as possibile, he have the tools to move literally everywhere anyway, you do your first move and start to control objectives,

now he goes, and shoot with an unholy ammount of MW, probably removing you key elements, now this game can go in two ways:

 

a)its your turn and you try to counter attack properly 

b)you get absoultely annihilated because your opponent won a dice roll and shoot you out of your board, and if something its lucky enought to survive fulminators have probably an easy charge now, you lost with close to 0 interaction with the game, you opponent just played dices

 

GW dosnt put many random elements, double turn is here literally because its what makes aos different from 40k

ironicaly, Age of sigmar is also relatively well balanced, if you are not a 4 year tome or gsg

Edited January 24, 2022 by Yondaime

[Ferban]

Disclaimer: I play equal amounts of matched play and PtG, but only locally.  I haven't played tournaments and I have no interest in chasing the online meta.  Tournament players can feel free to disregard my thoughts since I'm clearly not playing "real" AoS.  

I think the turn priority roll is, on balance, good.  Could it be better?  Sure.  I think switching to an alternating activation would probably be ideal (though that brings its own problems as people pointed out above).  The priority roll creates uncertainty that must be played around.  Ideally, you have to set yourself into a position where getting double-turned is not an auto-loss.  That adds strategy and tactical considerations. 

Plus, like others, I think that it rarely seems to swing the game.  If you're losing and get doubled, you're just going to lose faster.  And that's OK.  No one should be sad that they lost in an hour rather than after two hours.  And if you're winning and get a double, same thing.  But if you're losing and get a double, it may just get you back in the game (although, if we're being honest, it can help but it's not as impactful as some have claimed).  

A change I might make is having the players score at the end of a battle round, rather than at the end of their turn.  I think this would provide a lot of benefit to going second and may reduce the benefit of the double.  

Again, if you're talking about the hottest meta list (oops, all dragons!) going up against an army that struggles (e.g. Khorne), getting doubled is going to widen the disparity.  But if we're being honest, Khorne was already going to lose that fight.  So having it happen quicker isn't necessarily a negative. 

[yukishiro1]

I think we maybe need to step back a moment and reevaluate things if we're seriously saying "the double turn is good because it lets dominant armies stomp weak ones even faster and nobody should complain about that!" 🤣

 

 

[JackStreicher]

4 hours ago, Ferban said:

Again, if you're talking about the hottest meta list (oops, all dragons!)

Makes me question everything you've just said XD

[Rors]

In my opinion they should just use the activation design used by Malifaux. It's objectively better as it's simpler and creates more nuanced choices.

The idea of a whole army taking it's turn is low interaction and has terrible synergy with how the game is designed to scale, because the more you put down, the more is unbalances.

Seriously though, I love AoS but if you want to look at a game that's actually  created a functional activation system for combat board games, check out Malifaux. IMO it sets the bar on where good game design is at.

 

[Kadeton]

9 hours ago, Yondaime said:

winrate of going first in 40k its not even close to the winrate of a good double turn, specially in some scenarios

Hmm... source? Just anecdotal, or is there actual collated data for this available?

9 hours ago, Yondaime said:

if you want to make a competitive game it has to have the less "unpredictables" elements possibile by nature you are not playing dice you are playing warhammer

GW dosnt put many random elements, double turn is here literally because its what makes aos different from 40k

Just about every mechanic in the game has a random element injected into it, often for no reason other than to add an extra dice roll, and therefore the possibility that something unexpected will happen. I have no idea what you're talking about with "GW doesn't put many random elements."

Honestly, I'm not sure how we're even talking about the same company. GW have consistently demonstrated that they don't "want to make a competitive game" with AoS. That's never been their objective, as far as I can tell. Their whole design approach suggests they want to make a game which combines the thrill of gambling with the themes of high fantasy, and produces dramatic narrative outcomes for the purpose of entertainment. Any considerations of competitive balance are purely an afterthought.

[Kasper]

20 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

That's not right. Everything I did I had to do anyways, double turn or not. I had to screen to survive his turn. Usually my opponent gets his turn after mine (or vise versa), so I have to screen to survive his damage. I shall not overextend or expose my charakters. This I have to do anyways. If my opponent received a double turn I would've run out of screens and he could have simply smashed my defences and finally would've tabled me. There's not really a difference. The only differences are the following:

- One Player could take the risk of trying to get the double turn, playing super aggressively. If this is rewarded the game is pretty much over for his opponent. If he does not get the DT he'll be in trouble. It's a feel bad in both cases since as I said: the double turn (to me) is a mechanic that gives an unfair advantage to one player (not neccessarily the one taking it).

- The possibility to turn a game around. Usually this means that grave mistakes were made (in the turns before / Listbuilding) so this mechaic is required. It's still not fair at all. If you make such horrendeous mistakes, you deserve to lose.

- The Easy DT: You don't need to place your important pieces aggressively because you either have great shooting, awesome magic or another trick up your sleeve to hurt your opponent from afar. Awesome, the biggest NPE gets to go twice in a row, so much player interaction, amazing.

So why exactly do we need the DT? That's right, we do not. It's not a good game mechanic it's simply a trademark of AoS for the sake of it.

 

It sounds like neither of you play with the DT in mind and are super aggressive or reckless. This can pay off, but its a strategy you bank on that also can heavily backfire. Im not really surprised you hate the DT if you dont respect it and play around it. 

 

Play some games without it if you hate it so much and post your findings. Mine has been that the game turns ****** under the current rules.

[JackStreicher]

Just now, Kasper said:

It sounds like neither of you play with the DT in mind and are super aggressive or reckless. This can pay off, but its a strategy you bank on that also can heavily backfire. Im not really surprised you hate the DT if you dont respect it and play around it. 

 

Play some games without it if you hate it so much and post your findings. Mine has been that the game turns ****** under the current rules.

You didn’t read my post, did you? XD

The „play around the DT“ is nothing but empty words used to justify a random element that makes no sense. Read my post I was very clear how the DT plays out.
 

tldr: There‘s no such as playing around it. You either try to abuse it by being aggressive or you don’t. If you don‘t you should already be in a defensive position - there‘s nothing more you can do.
 

It‘s fine if you like the DT. I don‘t for the reasons I mentioned in the other post.

[Beliman]

9 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Hmm... source? Just anecdotal, or is there actual collated data for this available?

40k Metawatch has some tables that shows  this things. Some armies that have better DS have a bit more winrate than others that can build a castle from the start.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Beliman

[Yondaime]

6 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Hmm... source? Just anecdotal, or is there actual collated data for this available?

Just about every mechanic in the game has a random element injected into it, often for no reason other than to add an extra dice roll, and therefore the possibility that something unexpected will happen. I have no idea what you're talking about with "GW doesn't put many random elements."

Honestly, I'm not sure how we're even talking about the same company. GW have consistently demonstrated that they don't "want to make a competitive game" with AoS. That's never been their objective, as far as I can tell. Their whole design approach suggests they want to make a game which combines the thrill of gambling with the themes of high fantasy, and produces dramatic narrative outcomes for the purpose of entertainment. Any considerations of competitive balance are purely an afterthought.

In every 40k metawatch there are statistics abount it, some armyes benefit it more (usually the top tier) and some dont, for some is even deletery, this changed even more after they changed how you score VPs

 

Mmmmh, gw actually demonstrated the opposite, with annual GH, regular faq, a consistent interest in tournaments, articles about the ongoing meta, hell even 3rd edition was sell like the most complete and balanced edition ever

 

To some degree you are right tho, double turn was introduced as an unique mechanic to aos when it was a competely different game, more pruned to narrative games (there was no point costs at the time lol), and it was fine with it you can say

 

Probably they couldnt remove it since as someone already sayed its a trademark rule that identify aos, but in a competitive scenario its a absurd advantage locked on a dice roll

 

 

Edited January 25, 2022 by Yondaime

[Marcvs]

26 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

Probably they couldnt remove it since as someone already sayed its a trademark rule that identify aos, but in a competitive scenario its a absurd advantage locked on a dice roll

 

 

Tbf, everything is locked on a dice roll. Getting your god model removed by hand of dust is utlimately locked behind a 4+ roll.

Apart from this, if you were to remove it from the "competitive" side of the game, you would basically need a separate ruleset for that mode of play. Keeping everyhting else the same would just give a massive incentive to alpha-strike armies (since risking the double turn is what keeps them in check) and a quick convergence to 1-drop which would make initative in the first turn massively important and... locked on a dice roll.

[Kadeton]

14 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

In every 40k metawatch there are statistics abount it, some armyes benefit it more (usually the top tier) and some dont, for some is even deletery, this changed even more after they changed how you score VPs

Neat. And the stats for AoS double turns that you're comparing it to?

14 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

Mmmmh, gw actually demonstrated the opposite, with annual GH, regular faq, a consistent interest in tournaments, articles about the ongoing meta, hell even 3rd edition was sell like the most complete and balanced edition ever

This is the very definition of an 'afterthought'. Write the rules to be exciting and dramatic (and saleable!) first and foremost, then figure out what adjustments need to be made in response to community outcry later.

But I'm more talking about the rules that GW produce, which speak for themselves in their intent to focus on unpredictable events instead of the reliable outcomes needed to support competitive play. They make everything reliant on random rolls, often with spectacular effects only occurring on outlier results. One of the most striking examples of this design philosophy is Kragnos - charge him into a monster and deal anywhere between zero and thirty-six mortal wounds. You can't 'balance' an ability that swings so wildly - depending on what you charge him into, that single roll can easily mean the difference between a total loss and a crushing victory.

14 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

Probably they couldnt remove it since as someone already sayed its a trademark rule that identify aos, but in a competitive scenario its a absurd advantage locked on a dice roll

They absolutely could remove it, but they have consistently decided not to... because they're not trying to make a balanced game as their primary goal. If they were, they would approach the majority of their design decisions very differently.

[Yondaime]

5 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

Tbf, everything is locked on a dice roll. Getting your god model removed by hand of dust is utlimately locked behind a 4+ roll.

Apart from this, if you were to remove it from the "competitive" side of the game, you would basically need a separate ruleset for that mode of play. Keeping everyhting else the same would just give a massive incentive to alpha-strike armies (since risking the double turn is what keeps them in check) and a quick convergence to 1-drop which would make initative in the first turn massively important and... locked on a dice roll.

pardon me, what kind of example is that 

You bring a 1000+ point model to do that, you PAY to have that rule, and you have some downsides to bring that rule on the table (low model count, low board control etc) aldo, you have MEANS to counter that, and this is not the place to discuss if its op or not

 

In every match there is that rule, there is no point cost, as i sayed its a big advantage/disadvantage on a dice roll

[Yondaime]

15 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Neat. And the stats for AoS double turns that you're comparing it to?

This is the very definition of an 'afterthought'. Write the rules to be exciting and dramatic (and saleable!) first and foremost, then figure out what adjustments need to be made in response to community outcry later.

But I'm more talking about the rules that GW produce, which speak for themselves in their intent to focus on unpredictable events instead of the reliable outcomes needed to support competitive play. They make everything reliant on random rolls, often with spectacular effects only occurring on outlier results. One of the most striking examples of this design philosophy is Kragnos - charge him into a monster and deal anywhere between zero and thirty-six mortal wounds. You can't 'balance' an ability that swings so wildly - depending on what you charge him into, that single roll can easily mean the difference between a total loss and a crushing victory.

They absolutely could remove it, but they have consistently decided not to... because they're not trying to make a balanced game as their primary goal. If they were, they would approach the majority of their design decisions very differently.

there are no stats on it afaik, but if you want in the next month ill be more than happy to do it and track it, but as GW admited, the winrate on initiative on 3rd turn was almost decisive, and this is why they put the remove objective tule

 

i played a lot of tournaments since 2nd started (i stopped because i was an aos denier) and in my opinion and personal experience its a bad rule, and hearing A LOT of players i am not the only one

 

And again. another guy did the model rule example, it simple dosnt stand as a point, you have MEANS to play with and vs sayed X model, and can play around luck, with DT you simply dont

 

EDIT: Re reading your point its seems like the discussion is more about if aos is a competitve game or not and that you agree that DT is an unfair rule

Edited January 25, 2022 by Yondaime

[Marcvs]

5 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

pardon me, what kind of example is that 

You bring a 1000+ point model to do that, you PAY to have that rule, and you have some downsides to bring that rule on the table (low model count, low board control etc) aldo, you have MEANS to counter that, and this is not the place to discuss if its op or not

 

In every match there is that rule, there is no point cost, as i sayed its a big advantage/disadvantage on a dice roll

Yes, you PAY to have that rule, so you might have PAID to have that rule do absolutely nothing or have PAID to completely destroy your opponent's centrepiece. All this based on a dice roll. If you count your MEANS to counter that, cool, now it's based on two/three dice rolls. Being an all or nothing situation, it causes a huge swing and it's based on a dice roll.

Also the argument "having means to counter" is exactly the argument "you have means to counter the double turn"

What would be your preference in a situation where the double turn doesn't exist? Rolling for initative in the first turn can also create a very toxic situation, that's what was happening last year in 40k which lead to a series of very good Goonhammer articles about the first turn advantage (and then to some changes which reduced the problem). At least, aiming for a double turn means leaving the iniative to the opponent and then banking on something that only happens in the 40% of cases + risking yourself a double turn with the same chance.

[Kadeton]

6 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

EDIT: Re reading your point its seems like the discussion is more about if aos is a competitve game or not and that you agree that DT is an unfair rule

Yep, pretty much. I certainly wouldn't say it's an unfair rule - it's equally available to all players and any advantage should completely average out over enough games - but it's most certainly a rule that is deliberately designed to introduce a significant, unpredictable point of imbalance into the game. Not unfair, but definitely anti-competitive, and pro-drama.

[Yondaime]

17 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

Yes, you PAY to have that rule, so you might have PAID to have that rule do absolutely nothing or have PAID to completely destroy your opponent's centrepiece. All this based on a dice roll. If you count your MEANS to counter that, cool, now it's based on two/three dice rolls. Being an all or nothing situation, it causes a huge swing and it's based on a dice roll.

Also the argument "having means to counter" is exactly the argument "you have means to counter the double turn"

What would be your preference in a situation where the double turn doesn't exist? Rolling for initative in the first turn can also create a very toxic situation, that's what was happening last year in 40k which lead to a series of very good Goonhammer articles about the first turn advantage (and then to some changes which reduced the problem). At least, aiming for a double turn means leaving the iniative to the opponent and then banking on something that only happens in the 40% of cases + risking yourself a double turn with the same chance.

Yes, it causes a big swing but there are so many risk of it, what if you play vs gargants? Or if the opponent know how to play against it (because there are means to play vs it, a good player will never be in HoD range), you choose to play the gambit 

Also, nagash dosnt do only HoD, and in high competitive scenarios where players know what they are doing HoD is not even taken into consideration most of the times,

and yes you can say the same about DT. if you know what you are doing you can play around it yes, but its frustating, and some armyes benefict so much more than others

 

I am not saying that DT should be gone, i am saying that with such a rule the game should revolve on it, and atm it dosnt, its just a "lets decide who goes and have a big advatage" 

 

 

Edited January 25, 2022 by Yondaime

[Marcvs]

2 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

Yes, it causes a big swing but there are so many risk of it, what if you play vs gargants? Or if the opponent know how to play against it (because there are means to play vs it, a good player will never be in HoD range) 

Also, nagash dosnt do only HoD, and in high competitive scenarios where players know what they are doing HoD is not even taken into consideration most of the times,

and yes you can say the same about DT. if you know what you are doing you can play around it yes, but its frustating, and some armyes benefict so much more than others

 

I am not saying that DT should be gone, i am saying that with such a rule the game should revolve on it, and atm it dosnt, its just a "lets decide who goes and have a big advatage" 

 

 

Ok, your final point is not far from what I would also suggest, that is, trying to make the double turn more meaningful and slightly less impactful.

As for the range of hand of dust and not being relevant in competitive settings, well, it depends...

 

[Yondaime]

28 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

Ok, your final point is not far from what I would also suggest, that is, trying to make the double turn more meaningful and slightly less impactful.

As for the range of hand of dust and not being relevant in competitive settings, well, it depends...

 

Ah yes, the infamous Nagash+arkhan combo where Hod had 6 range, they nerfed it last faq if i am not mistaken

 

Yes i would love if DT had some good tactic logic behind it instead of "lets see who goes", specially when heavy shooting is a thing

Edited January 25, 2022 by Yondaime

[Kasper]

One would think that the winners of tournaments would be very varied if the DT/priority mechanic was so awful and gamebreaking, but its kinda weird how top players consistently score high/win the tournaments. I suppose this means they either use cheater dice or they just have straight up extreme luck with games.

I cant imagine any other reason for this phenomenon.

[JackStreicher]

33 minutes ago, Kasper said:

One would think that the winners of tournaments would be very varied if the DT/priority mechanic was so awful and gamebreaking, but its kinda weird how top players consistently score high/win the tournaments. I suppose this means they either use cheater dice or they just have straight up extreme luck with games.

I cant imagine any other reason for this phenomenon.

First off: Awful does not mean gamebreaking. I know simplification is fun, but let‘s keep a logical separation.

Believe it or not: When you listen to top Players they drop comments like „the last DT cost me my 5-0“ and the likes.

Also important: Top players might handle the DT mostly fine, however this is utterly irrelevant since the vast majority does not consist of top players. It‘s like saying „oh the distribution of money seems to be fine, I mean look at those three people, they‘re doing exceptionally well and they are rich“, while ignoring one thousand people living on the streets.

[Pyrescribe]

At this point I love the double turn. The best part about getting double turned by your opponent is the surety of knowledge that nothing can stand between you and your next turn.

In my experience, unless you have an outstanding offensive double turn, the tide of battle can quickly turn against you. It can also be just what the underdog needs to get back into the game.

It wouldn't be AoS without it.

If I wanted to play a high-skill-cap game with clean rules to measure my nerd-****** against my foes, I'd play Infinity or something.

[WarLadle]

1 hour ago, Pyrescribe said:

At this point I love the double turn. The best part about getting double turned by your opponent is the surety of knowledge that nothing can stand between you and your next turn.

I don't really have a horse in this race, being quite ambivalent on the DT myself, but I have to point out how (intentionally?) hilarious this is.

"The best part of getting shot while playing Russian Roulette is knowing you aren't going get shot again right after."

I can understand how the double turn creates a (fun) anticipatory tension that feels great when it is released, but it's still very funny.

 

[pnkdth]

On 1/25/2022 at 11:44 AM, JackStreicher said:

Believe it or not: When you listen to top Players they drop comments like „the last DT cost me my 5-0“ and the likes.

Also important: Top players might handle the DT mostly fine, however this is utterly irrelevant since the vast majority does not consist of top players. It‘s like saying „oh the distribution of money seems to be fine, I mean look at those three people, they‘re doing exceptionally well and they are rich“, while ignoring one thousand people living on the streets.

It is also worth mentioning that many competitive players enjoy the DT. Seasons of War, for example, has many times explained why they prefer the priority roll over strictly IGYG. Because at one point a strict turn system will mean they're just going through the motion and much of the game will "won" in advance.

I'm not advocating for its removal either. I just want more interactions for the player who got doubled because the current iteration could be improved upon. A strict IGYG will also require a lot rules rewrites to the point where it would be indistinguishable from AoS. It would just look like 40k with less shooting... And 40k suffer a lot from so-called math-hammer, i.e. people break the game through sheer force of numbers and since they are able to plan out everything ahead. I forget the name (I think it was Tyranid player) who did it just to prove a point to show just how bad it had gotten.

Some of the justifications above seem a bit ill conceived as I think there's more to it than simply helping armies who's lost lose faster. I would, for instance, love it if you could do an out of sequence move during a double (not a random D6 redeploy) or something to give you more control. But yeah, I think it is important to not deny the significance between a guaranteed over versus randomised. It isn't JUST an advantage.

Edited January 26, 2022 by pnkdth

[Popisdead]

Let it go already.  

 

"waah waaah wah, something I cannot tactically think about so it should be removed".