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Jancoran wrote:TEXT WALL

Back then in 3E/4E the big thing was that you alternated deploying and the aforementioned tank shocking Mechdar also had to survive a 6th turn to even do what you suggest was possible; and the enemy knew it was coming, allowing them to target prioritize in a way they really cant now in 5E because they might have to UNecessarily sacrifice shooting if it goes to a 6th.

Mechdar in 4E were ridiculous, the invincible skimmerspam armies were labelled thus for a reason. Mechdar had no problems surviving to turn 6, all they needed to do was survive turn 1 if going 2nd, and with so much more terrain blocking LoS completely even if only half an inch thick, it was much easier to survive that 1 turn. Between the ridiculous SMF rules, wave serpent energy fields, vectored engines, and holofields for prisms/falcons, Eldar skimmers very rarely had to deal with being shot down. For many armies, they'd have an easier time taking down a Baneblade than an Eldar skimmer under 4E rules

With that, the Eldar player basically had free reign to nab everything on the last turn without much consequence.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

TedNugent wrote:

I didn't say "everyone should be subjected to tournament rules" or "no one should play for fun" or "there should be no way to play with random game lengths," I said that a truly competitive environment requires limiting random factors like random game lengths to a reasonable minimum so that the skill of the players comes forth.

How much skill is there in going "I KNOW it will finish turn 5, so I hide everything and last turn tank shock, as I am gong second - automatic win"? Answer: none. Precisely zero. It's a great way to ensure a dull, dull game, and to almost entirely reduce the game to the single dice roll for first or second.

Random game length is more important in a tournament than almost anywhere, as it means you have to have multiple plans to deal with a turn 5, 6 and 7 game. If you cannot see how that increases the tactical depth required to consistently win, then you have some odd ideas about 40k and games in general

Both teams know that the game is going to finish by X turn, therefore the winners are those that play the best. It's not a matter of the magnitude of skill that's required, it's a matter of isolating and expanding the margins between player gaps.

The whole point of tournament play is not to facilitate the most interesting game, but to isolate the most effective player and the most effective tactics.

Plus, there's no reason the game needs to end on turn 5. That sounds far too short for my tastes anyway, to be honest. That's part of my problem with the random system, not that it makes the games longer than they might have been, but that it makes the game end at an arbitrarily short demarcation. It could just as easily end on turn 10 or until the opposition has been annihilated. The fun thing about making a tournament is that you can make the rules. These things aren't set in stone.

TedNugent wrote:Both teams know that the game is going to finish by X turn, therefore the winners are those that play the best. It's not a matter of the magnitude of skill that's required, it's a matter of isolating and expanding the margins between player gaps.

But you're missing their point. Having determined game length gives big advantages to certain ARMIES. It is a matter of codex balance, not player skill. You wouldn't be testing one person's player skill against the other's, you'd be testing one person's ability to pick the army that best suits the meta better than the other. This fact is already ridiculous enough as it is without exacerbating it. Army choice shouldn't trump player skill, and when it does, the game actually requires LESS skill, not more.

Kaldor wrote:I know this is wildly off-topic, but this is the same as the random charge lengths in WHFB. Some of the more serious tournament players decry the system because it is 'untactical' when in actual fact it is more tactical as it forces generals to plan for the eventuality of a failed charge.

well...

So, the entirety of player skill in 40k can really be boiled down to figuring out how to play the odds. Random game length gives just another odd to play, which, in a sense, does mean that random game length requires more player skill.

I think the problem here is the particular manifestation of this skill. With other odds that you play, you get to play them several times over the course of the game, whereas with things like determining first player and deciding when the game ends, you just roll that one, single, magic die to determine everything. In the world of small numbers, you "feel" the impact of luck a lot more. Players who want to believe that they should win or lose games based purely on their personal skill will be insulted when a game is determined by a single die roll.

Of course, these people also miss the fact that 40k is a game of dice, and that EVERYTHING is determined by luck, whether you "feel" it acutely or not. It seems like a knee-jerk reaction to me. If you want to completely earn victory rather than have it be based on luck, then you're going to want to minimize the random element as much as you can. As I noted earlier, though, this is vain - if you don't want things to be determined by the result of die rolls, you should stop playing 40k.

Ailaros wrote:

TedNugent wrote:Both teams know that the game is going to finish by X turn, therefore the winners are those that play the best. It's not a matter of the magnitude of skill that's required, it's a matter of isolating and expanding the margins between player gaps.

But you're missing their point. Having determined game length gives big advantages to certain ARMIES. It is a matter of codex balance, not player skill. You wouldn't be testing one person's player skill against the other's, you'd be testing one person's ability to pick the army that best suits the meta better than the other. This fact is already ridiculous enough as it is without exacerbating it. Army choice shouldn't trump player skill, and when it does, the game actually requires LESS skill, not more.

You're right! I did miss the point. Stumbled right over it. In fact, after inspecting it, I still don't see your point.

I still fail to see how a predetermined game length gives a big advantage to certain armies. What is the suggestion, that your armies shouldn't be thrust against eachother until they expire? Why? Because the armies are imbalanced? Then why not balance the armies against each other in the same fashion? How does having a random number of turns affect game balance? That doesn't make any sense. If it's random, then it could end in the favor of the side that favors shorter games, whether that's because the footslogging horde hasn't reached you yet or whatever, or it could favor the army that favors longer games, if you are a plodding mass of durable facemelters. That puts it at the mercy of the dice rolls rather than making it a matter of player skill, and as a matter of fact the inequality still exists, it's just a matter of probability who gets to exploit the outcome.

Now, if you want to argue that planning for random contingencies is a matter of player skill, I would say that you might be better suited to playing craps. Running a bunch of probabilities doesn't make you cool. What's important is maneuver, placement of resources, and list building. Those are the critical skills. Dealing with some unforeseen contingency like a monkey dropping on your head at half time is just purely academic.

Ailaros wrote:
So, the entirety of player skill in 40k can really be boiled down to figuring out how to play the odds. Random game length gives just another odd to play, which, in a sense, does mean that random game length requires more player skill.

By "skill," you mean "luck."

Ailaros wrote:
Of course, these people also miss the fact that 40k is a game of dice, and that EVERYTHING is determined by luck, whether you "feel" it acutely or not. It seems like a knee-jerk reaction to me. If you want to completely earn victory rather than have it be based on luck, then you're going to want to minimize the random element as much as you can.

No kidding. Almost like what I argued. You want to have as many controls as possible in a tournament environment so the best man wins. It's not up to probability or random contingencies, it's up to just plain tactics and application of resources.

Like a science experiment. You would control for all the things that might affect the outcome so that you can isolate causal factors. Probability is just a matter of averages. The point of a tournament is not to discover how probabilities affect outcome, the point of a tournament is to discover who is the better player all other things held constant.

Ailaros wrote:
As I noted earlier, though, this is vain - if you don't want things to be determined by the result of die rolls, you should stop playing 40k.

Now that is a sensible point. Yes, it is in vain. No question. The entire idea of competition and tournament play for 40k is pretty academic, but some people find it fun, warts and all. If asked, should 40k dislodge itself from random dice rolls, my answer would be no. It would be more sensible for the person who isn't interested in dice rolls to find something better to do. But it's also a reasonable point to say, if you are going to have such a thing as a tournament circuit, it makes sense to make a very basic control and say that there is a fixed number of game turns.

TedNugent wrote: What is the suggestion, that your armies shouldn't be thrust against eachother until they expire? Why? Because the armies are imbalanced? Then why not balance the armies against each other in the same fashion? How does having a random number of turns affect game balance? That doesn't make any sense.

The point people have been trying to make is that not all armies can exploit fixed-length games equally. Specifically, they give an advantage to faster armies over slower armies. The only way to handle this would be to make it so that all armies were roughly equally mobile, which would greatly reduce the diversity of different codex and play styles. If that's what you want, then that's fine, but most people don't WANT a guard army and a dark eldar army to be equally mobile.

Having a fixed length to games allows the person who goes second to know that they have a time coming up where they can act with absolutely no fear of reprocussions whatsoever, allowing them to do things that would be suicidal otherwise. Armies that give you the ability to be frenetically suicidal (unlike, say, a guard army but including any all-skimmer army) would be able to exploit this advantage more than armies that don't.

If you don't want all armies to be able to exploit a free turn equally, that's fine, but then you need to rebalance the codecies to take this into consideration. Currently, the only thing that keeps shunting dreadnights in check is that if they mis-time their shunt, the unit might be killed before it does what it's supposed to do. Taking that risk out means that you should have to pay a premium for not having that risk anymore, which current codices don't account for.

If they redesigned the rules and codices to properly balance things for a fixed-length game, that would be fine. Otherwise, though it wouldn't increase skill (if anything, it would decrease it as you now have less you've got to think about when chancing things), but rather just re-shuffle what armies are competitive based on the peculiarities of their codex, not player skill.

Why not just set the fixed game length so that it falls in the middle of whichever army on the dock?

There's gotta be a happy medium in there somewhere.

I'd imagine that a middle ground would be something with a fixed length, but with some sort of option to continue. For example, let's say that a game is only 5 turns, but a player can expend something to bump the number of turns by 1 at some sort of risk or cost.

That way, you would have a fixed length most of the time, but players could make a strategic move to sacrifice something in order to keep the game going, whether it's because victory is just out of reach, or because opponents are trying last-game shenannigans.

Adding in a choice adds back in strategy, while also diffusing problems of set-length games.

Well if you're attaching a cost to extending the game then you're still favoring armies that do better in shorter games.

Well, but it would be in such a way where if a person who has a long-game army chooses not to lengthen the game they get some other advantage, so they get to choose which would be better for them. Alternatively, you can make the game of medium length by default, and you have to pay to either make it longer OR shorter.

That or, instead of making it a cost, you could make it a risk instead.

... of course, how would you set up the risk? How about by placing your hopes on the roll of the die...

... like, perhaps, a random game length...

I favor a medium length with having to pay to make it longer or shorter. Otherwise you're favoring whoever gets the baseline outcome.

On a related note, isn't there already a little something like this? Isn't there a space marine special character or something that basically allows you to pay points in order to guarantee the game goes on for an extra turn?

TedNugent wrote: I still fail to see how a predetermined game length gives a big advantage to certain armies...

Running a bunch of probabilities doesn't make you cool. What's important is maneuver, placement of resources, and list building. Those are the critical skills. Dealing with some unforeseen contingency like a monkey dropping on your head at half time is just purely academic...

it makes sense to make a very basic control and say that there is a fixed number of game turns.

Random game length requires a player to grab the objectives on turn five, AND be able to hold those objectives through turns six and seven.

Being able to take the objectives, and hold them for the rest of the game requires careful maneuvering, placement of resources, and an appropriately built list.

It is, in fact, a more accurate test of a players abilities to do these things.

Exactly what Kaldor said. As one of my most common opponents is playing Eldar, turn five ending with suicidal falcons, serpents and fireprisms jumping on all of the objectives is something I see about every second game, often resulting in the eldar player winning by holding one objective and contesting all other when the turn ends right then. He does this at the risk of Ghazghkull Thrakka or a unit of nobz, boyz or whatever tearing open his tanks on turn six. If there was no variable game length, he could just hide his vehicles all game and get a guaranteed win against any opponent with less troops than objectives in the last turn.

I would be less apt to speak in superlatives which most every post here does. Superlatives get us in trouble much of the time.

It is an objective fact that in the same round of the same tourney on the same mission, players are not getting the same amount of time to play. That is an objective truth no one can dispute.

So what we are really disputing is how we feel about that. Your feelings are NOT an objective fact, they are the definition of subjective.

Some of you are acting hard nosed and not answering the essential.question: do you want it to be equal among players.

I just came up with an answer, for tournies after pondering all these responses. Not sure how it would work logistically so thats another issue entirely but...

CONSIDER THIS:
What if the TO rolls for random game length and if it goes on for another turn, it goes on for everyone. Then it is both random AND fair to everyone.

Jancoran wrote:

Some of you are acting hard nosed and not answering the essential.question: do you want it to be equal among players.

It is. All players, or rather all games, have an equal chance of going for either five, six or seven turns.

I'd personally change it in three ways:

1. As mentioned, there should be a way for all players in a tournament to have the same random game length rolls. But I have no idea how to achieve this, given that people play at different paces, and that players can't know in advance. Call this one aspirational, rather than practical.

As an aside, it also irks me when a random number of objectives mission is rolled once per table and the mission battle point table doesn't change. Any table that rolls 3 objectives will always score less battle points than one that rolls 5. Either remove the randomness, or roll once for everyone.

2. The roll for random game length should take place a turn in advance. So rather than "I rolled a 1, game over" it's "I rolled a 1, next turn is the last turn".
3. Lastly, having 6 turns should be more likely than 5 or 7 (perhaps 2/3 chance of 6 turns, 1/6 each for 5 or 7).

Kaldor wrote:

False. If you remove or limit random factors then, in turn, you remove or limit the need of the player to react to unexpected or unlikely scenarios, and so a large part of player skill will go untested.

Oh yes, you haven't tested all their skills yet. While we're at it, let's throw a chicken at them while they're playing. Maybe they can draw up a contingency plan, plus it'll test their reflexes. Will they dodge or parry? Wear a rubber suit? Very important skills.

Perhaps we should start making the finish line random in Olympic sprinting contests, y'know, to keep the sprinters on their toes.

Nonsense.

TedNugent wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

False. If you remove or limit random factors then, in turn, you remove or limit the need of the player to react to unexpected or unlikely scenarios, and so a large part of player skill will go untested.

Oh yes, you haven't tested all their skills yet. While we're at it, let's throw a chicken at them while they're playing. Maybe they can draw up a contingency plan, plus it'll test their reflexes. Will they dodge or parry? Wear a rubber suit? Very important skills.

Perhaps we should start making the finish line random in Olympic sprinting contests, y'know, to keep the sprinters on their toes.

Whatever blows your hair back buddy.

Me, I'd settle for testing their ability to maneuver, place resources and build effective lists.

All of which are, quite obviously, better tested by the current random game length mechanic (and also the random charge distance mechanic in WHFB) than by a set turn number.

Feel free to disagree. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

It's just that some of them are wrong.

Jancoran wrote:
CONSIDER THIS:
What if the TO rolls for random game length and if it goes on for another turn, it goes on for everyone. Then it is both random AND fair to everyone.

This would result in the TO being lynched by half the players and canonized by the rest. It also runs into practical problems. If the TO waits for everyone to get to the end of turn 5, a huge amount of time will be wasted as a result of that one player who plays slower than everyone else. Alternately the TO could not wait, but then for anyone who hasn't reached that turn the game is, in effect, fixed length, and we wil still see last turn objective grabs with falcons and such. So, I don't think this will work.

An interesting question. But possibly the wrong solution.

If you want the game to be more competitive the real question isn't should there be random game length or set length.

Te real question should be why do objectives not matter until the game is over.

TedNugent wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

False. If you remove or limit random factors then, in turn, you remove or limit the need of the player to react to unexpected or unlikely scenarios, and so a large part of player skill will go untested.

Oh yes, you haven't tested all their skills yet. While we're at it, let's throw a chicken at them while they're playing. Maybe they can draw up a contingency plan, plus it'll test their reflexes. Will they dodge or parry? Wear a rubber suit? Very important skills.

Perhaps we should start making the finish line random in Olympic sprinting contests, y'know, to keep the sprinters on their toes.

Nonsense.

Apparently you just dont get the game then.

If I know the game will definitely end this turn, and I'm going second with fast tank skimmers, I can g'tee I win. Every time.
"nonsense" is thinking fixed game lengths has anything to do with increasing skill - it definitively reduces it.

TedNugent wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

False. If you remove or limit random factors then, in turn, you remove or limit the need of the player to react to unexpected or unlikely scenarios, and so a large part of player skill will go untested.

Oh yes, you haven't tested all their skills yet. While we're at it, let's throw a chicken at them while they're playing. Maybe they can draw up a contingency plan, plus it'll test their reflexes. Will they dodge or parry? Wear a rubber suit? Very important skills.

Perhaps we should start making the finish line random in Olympic sprinting contests, y'know, to keep the sprinters on their toes.

Nonsense.

Some of your responses are hilarious TedNugent. Really and genuinely funny (and I can't say i disagree with the way you think either). Seriously. That is twice now that I have just been laughing out loud (in a good way).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

Jancoran wrote:
CONSIDER THIS:
What if the TO rolls for random game length and if it goes on for another turn, it goes on for everyone. Then it is both random AND fair to everyone.

This would result in the TO being lynched by half the players and canonized by the rest. It also runs into practical problems. If .

Not clear on why the players would care who rolled actually. As long as no one is jipped, It's pretty immaterial. I know there would be logistical challenges but...if it could be done? it seems a very good solution.

Tournaments are already a clusterfeth of time constraints, forcing everybody to sit there waiting, staring angrily at the ork guy on table 4 because he has 150 models to move every turn and hasn't gotten to the bottom of 5th yet, before they can even know if they sat there waiting for a reason or if the game ended anyway and they could have been packing up and getting ready for their next matches or getting something to eat/drink or whatever like normal/current, is a bad idea.

Random game length is totally fair. If you and your twin brother fighting another pair of twins get different results do to random game length you were probably playing it wrong. If your entire strategy revolves around absolutely needing the game to go a turn over or under what it did you need to take a long hard look at your list and tactics and think about how you got in that situation, not shake your fist at the heavens blaming the bad dice. For every time someone has lost because of variable length, the other guy has won. It's absolutely the same as demanding if the guy on table 2 hit with his lascannon, your lascannon should have hit too.

Ironic. We have a pair of twins who play at our store. Lol.

You're worrying about logistics. But what I am saying is, if it can be done, it would be fair. so now the only question is, how to do it so that it works for everyone. There's the trick.

On an only slightly related note, 4 of us played a 4000 point battle last night in 3 hours. when youre having fun and no one is freaking out about things, the game goes pretty fast!

To me it is an important part of your game to play for variable game length.

It adds a layer of strategic uncertainty to what is otherwise a fairly mechanistic game.

The only time I would agree to removing random game length, is if capturing objectives gave points per turn rather than just being vital at the final turn.

This way Eldar and it's various speed factions won't truly be overpowered on the final turn. Not to mention force people to actually fight.

You mean like in our Super Eclipse mission?

http://www.40kambassadors.com/missions.php#mission1

It creates variables that a good commander will be prepared for.

yes, I think random game length is a good idea.

GCMandrake wrote:As an aside, it also irks me when a random number of objectives mission is rolled once per table and the mission battle point table doesn't change. Any table that rolls 3 objectives will always score less battle points than one that rolls 5. Either remove the randomness, or roll once for everyone.

The tournies I've been playing in lately have scored based on whether or not you control more objectives than your opponent, rather than scoring points per objective.

Jancoran wrote:[

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

Jancoran wrote:
CONSIDER THIS:
What if the TO rolls for random game length and if it goes on for another turn, it goes on for everyone. Then it is both random AND fair to everyone.

This would result in the TO being lynched by half the players and canonized by the rest. It also runs into practical problems. If .

Not clear on why the players would care who rolled actually. As long as no one is jipped [sic], It's pretty immaterial. I know there would be logistical challenges but...if it could be done? it seems a very good solution.

The TO would be lynched by players who don't like losing because someone not involved in their game rolled a number that didn't favour them.