This got me thinking about the Civilization series, at least when it comes to PVP. One thing that balances out first move advantage is the fog of war - players won't be able to see what the other player is doing until later in the game. Any advantage gained is also negligible compared to the random benefits people get based on the resources in the area, their AI neighbours, etc...
Love the way Frozen Synapse did this. Each player planned there where there pieces will go or do for what will happen in the next few seconds. After both players are done planning they go into real time and the pieces go about what they where told to do in the planning phase, unable to do commands until those seconds happened.
One cool way of balancing for this is to decide who goes first smartly. Like, in a tabletop game where there is a first-player advantage, if the game is designed for families, it's easy to include the rule that the youngest person starts. That way, you know that more often than not, the children get the first turn, and at the very least, the adults don't get to use that advantage. Another thing you might have mentioned is that it's not always true that the first player is at an advantage. For example, often the second player is at an advantage because they can get a general idea of their opponent's strategy before playing their first turn.
"often the second player is at an advantage" While this is technically true, it often forces the second player into a defensive strategy. This is what happens in chess, the blacks are one step behind so they have to overcome the advantage to start attacking and have enough "tempo" to do the moves to win.
Actualy go is balanced the way: the weakest player go first.If you want to be fair when you're playing against a lower-ranked opponent, you'd even give him X turns in advance (which is a great way to track your progress - oh look, I beat you with an advantage of 5 turns, next time I'll go for 4)Shogi (japanese chess) actualy goes the other way around for handicaps: the stronger player would play with less pieces. That's like saying, you're too strong at chess, try beating me without a queen)
George Marques In a game like chess I don't think it's fair to say 2nd player goes on the defensive, since for chess it's clearly a disadvantage in the first place (And they do go defensive). OP is right that going first can cause someone to go on the defensive, in poker for example going first is a significant disadvantage, and the button is most profitable position by a notable margin. This is mitigated by rotating who goes first each hand.
Yugioh by Konami somewhat fixed this basis in their turn based card game by making the first player not conduct their draw phase. This has changed the game greatly, because of many reasons. One of them being that way back when, there used to be a prominent thing called "ophion control." The first player used to get 7 cards when their turn was over, possibly emptying their deck by two, putting them at a net 3 advantage. Now even though it may not be a prominent thing anymore, with the first player getting 5 cards, they generally have 6 cards by their turns end, which has changed the game, simply by making the first player not conduct the draw phase.
There is one big example of how not to balance a game that I feel you guys neglected to mention: Yu-gi-oh. The play of yu-gi-oh has gotten faster and faster, and therefore the first-turn advantage has gone up, but the only boon the second player has gotten is being able to attack first. It's gotten so bad that I've heard news from my friends (some of whom are pretty serious tourney players) remark that some players have gotten mad at a coin flip that decides the order of play.
I am working on a static (most of the time) turn-based game and made a simple solution. It is this: Red goes first and has one move. Blue is next, he has two moves. Red again - he plays two moves and so on. The way it works is that in the first turn red has a turn advantage. Blue makes it equal with his first move and gains the advantage on the second. Red equalises and is then one turn above blue. The idea is - Both players have the same amount of turns with a turn advantage, being equal, and being against a player with the turn advantage.
The argument against this is you get a better prediction of the opponents next move. ___________________________________________________________________ I play a lot of Guild Wars 2 so I'm going to use that as an example. I see a Warrior coming at me with an Axe and Shield, knowing had dangerous the burst on the axe is and the stun on the shield. I need to make the first move before he can pull off that dangerous burst. Since he isn't coming at me with a longbow, that can mean he is running glass cannon, even more the reason for me to make the first move. What if I see the Warrior using the longbow instead? Time to be passive, I'm going to dodge his key attacks and counter with my own. But the Warrior knows this, he isn't going to strike unless the time is right. So he is going to be passive too, we're both are just poking at eachother waiting for the right moment to strike when the opponent makes a minor slip and counters to early. It's all about timing the first move right rather than trying to go first. ___________________________________________________________________ This doesn't really work effectively in Chess due to the fact being passive is just allowing your opponent to get into position for victory. In Hearthstone it's the same case, you can't wait for that win card, allow too much time and your opponent will grasp victory with an overwhelming amount of monsters. Oddly enough this does work in League of Legends, by playing safe you and your opponent will still retain the same strength and neither player is punished for it.
How I balanced out a Turn-Based Board Game I made was to give plenty of benefits to the player group. This is an Asymmetric board game with 4 Heroes going around the Tile-Based Board, gathering loot and growing stronger, but had another player as the Monster. I made it so the Monster was strong out of the gate, and was something to work towards for the Heroes, and then made the Heroes not only start first, but they get two turns out of the gate. I did this in hopes that the Monster's natural advantages of being able to solo all 4 of the Heroes out of the gate was balanced by their 1st turn extra movement and the advantage that comes with 1st turn.
Misty Wind That is a good point. I was thinking about that myself. The first turn advantage with a greater value in speed may be comparable to an advantage caused by greater value in one of the other stats. In the card games who gets to go first is dependent on coin flipping. That would make things a little more fair.
+Luspear Soram Indeed. I know I'm crashing a 7-month-old comment here, but faster Pokémon get to move first at the cost of other stats, which makes them either more frail or less powerful. Teams can be built around this, and even your lead Pokémon can be based on this (e.g. a fast VoltTurn user).
***** True.. Plus, those factors each come at a cost as well, namely locking you into a move until you switch out (Choice Scarf) or low power (priority moves, or in ExtremeSpeed's case low PP and scarce distribution).
mamertvonn if you want a bigger challenge when playing pokemon, try playing pokemon lets go eevee/pikachu without your eevee/pikachu. Its actually quite difficult
Frozen Synapse has both turns happen at once and it's REALLY COOL. So does Toribash. I think more games could follow that example of making both players choose their move before they see the result happen with both sides simultaneously.
I loved this episode, it talks about putting data gathering and analyses into games, and as an analyst I love hearing about data being used to improve games.
One thing I want to say, Warhammer 40k has a huge turn 1 advantage when both players use typical lists but I've seen some people build armies to go second, for example, Grey Knights can deep strike on the players turn 1 so if they let the other person go first then they'll have to keep their army together to make it harder for the Grey Knights to deep strike and annihilate units with ease but if the none Grey Knights player does this they can't move to objectives and the Grey Knights player can enter from reserves onto the objectives. Yet with most lists, both armies are deployed from the start and whoever has first turn can destroy like 200points before the other player can go.
Except that some games carry a "reactionary" advantage, where a player going first will have the risk of indicating their strategy and the second player can change/adjust their strategy to compensate... So sometimes the first turn advantage is naturally balanced by the strategy exposure risk.
@@Gardstyle35 rock paper scissors But seriously, if a game relies enough on a rock paper scissors kind of system and you get effectively locked into strategies, it's possible for the second player to have the advantage. If player 1 throws rock, player 2 isn't throwing scossors.
@@Gardstyle35 Poker is a great example as well. The reason the dealer goes last is because its the best position. You can see how everyone reacts which can give you the best information on whether to bluff, pressure players into folding, or to fold with the least amount of risk for lost.
I love that aspects like this keep evolving and we keep gaining new concepts or mechanics from this. Looking at past games compared to nowadays was a very good example, even looking within the same game such as when Starcraft II was first in Beta compared to how it's balanced now is like night and day. It's also interesting how if some players developed the strategies they had back then, they'd have been able to completely crush in some cases but the theory-crafting behind such strategies just didn't exist then. Definitely an ever-evolving and ever-deepening aspect of game design, and not something to overlook.
In pokemon games, every turn, the pokemon with the highest speed goes first, but pokemon with a high speed have lower other stats, and moves that always go first will do less damage. If the opponent lowers your speed, they go first, but uses their turn for it. I think pokemon did this great...
That's not a bad idea as long as you give people a reason NOT to take this speed stat just so it doesn't become meaningless or overpowered in the long run.
balance speed health and attack power kinda like a pick 2 system where most good cards are great at 2 and sup par at the other. one idea had to make the made up speed stat better would to have attacks play out in time. ie if a card is twice as fast as another it goes twice before the other card goes once obviously the attack would be lower the higher the speed but if you have a card the can go twice as fast as most other cards that would likely become popular if the damage it was high enough but then lets say that your card that went twice as fast as an average card had a speed of 8 then your opponent had a card with medium speed lets say 6 (because if 8 is twice the average the average would be 4) then you go once then they would go and lets say it was a new game with bulkier cards that stayed on the board longer then most other games like heart stones you would still have a slight advantage with this 8 speed to 6 speed because every 4 turn you would get to go an extra time. So then speed would be more then just an outspeed breaker where if your fast card is not faster then your opponents you still get some advantage. where as in a game like pokemon if your opponent have a pokemon with 300 speed and yours has 285 you get nothing for that speed investment til your pokemon is some how faster then the other ie stat modifiers or you foe switches out.
I've been watching the Extra Credits since Daniel had his other channel. I'm a huge fan of the array of talent that goes into these videos. James, Daniel, the artists, and everyone else have an amazing ability to take one of my favorite hobbies and give them the strength. If I'm ever in a debate about how good/evil/etc video games are and I get stuck, I always pull up TH-cam and turn to this team. I just want you all to know that.
Well... Pokémon's binary speed system still makes competitive play extremely unbalanced and minmax-ey. You go last by a single point of Speed and you lose a pokémon (unless it's ridiculously bulky anyway).
Tom0027X Pokemon is more a number based game with all outcomes more or less being predetermined unless you get a miss/crit. Plus it's more of a 1vs1 scenario and not a scenario like in a card game where you could have two monsters attacking each other but with an entire field filled with any possible card combination that could turn the tide when activated. The Pokemon in your party who aren't battling don't effect those already in battle with Zoroark being the only exception and even then it's just a deceptive tactic, if you know it's Zoroark it still has the same weakness'.
Paul Staker If seen quite a few card games where both players move at the same time. On iOS alone, I've played the Tekken card game and WWE Supercard. As for physical card games, Inuyasha's official CCG had a similar system. In Tekken, there are only three moves a player can make in a given turn, and both must choose at the same time. If a player selects Focus, they draw a card. If they select Attack, their whole hand is discarded and the total damage from all of the attacks is dealt to the opponent. If they choose to block, the player will do nothing if their opponent focuses or blocks themselves, but if the opponent attacks, their first two attacks are negated. The attack or draw mechanic could still work in a traditional turn based CCG, but the block mechanic makes the simultaneous play important. Supercard seems to just be AI matches against human decks, Each player picks the wrestler in their deck with the best skills for the match that the game calls for, and the higher one wins. Because, at the moment, the game only boils down to "the guy with the higher number wins", it has balancing issues of its own. There isn't a first turn advantage, but it could still use some more interesting strategies. Inuyasha's draw and summon phases happen at the same time for both players,but they take turns attacking. Being able to defend the first attack thrown at you does help negate the first turn advantage little, but it is undeniably still there.
As someone who is very competitive in MTG, and play everything from draft to vintage, id have to say it's very interesting how first turn advantage plays out. There are several very unique elements, firstly power level of the format makes a massive difference, in draft nothing too absurd is going to happen normally over the first few turns and players have a chance to draw ways to interact with each other, first turn advantage is not so significant here, but as you move to older formats, decks can turn 1 to turn 3 kill you or at least provide significant advantage like having the opportunity to remove the best card from your opponents hand. Second turn advantage is also very important at some points in magic history, if both you and your opponent are playing heavy control decks being on the draw (going second) and getting a card over your opponent can make all the difference in providing enough value to win the game. this is something i don't think about often but is very interesting either way.
In yugioh (card game) some decks have advantages to start first, others prefer to start second. Basically, the first will have the huge advantage to (eventually) make his moves free from counter plays and can set his own counter play cards, while the second will have the "huge especially for certain decks" advantage of actually being able to attack first. (no attack in the first turn of the duel)
This video makes me admire the care and forethought behind Settlers of Catan even more than I already did. It's clearly a developed resource game, but they managed to pretty much eliminate first move advantage. During the building phase, the player that places their settlement and road first has the advantage of locking down the best corner on the map (and denying his/her opponents the adjacent corners). But, because the placement order snakes, the player that places last not only gets to place twice, but they get to place first in the round that gives them resources. In essence, player 1 gets the largest map influence from his first placement, but is most limited in his second placement (also limiting what cards he can start out with). On the opposite side, the last player's placement choices are constrained by the 1-3 placements of the other players, but they have a strategic edge from getting two consecutive placements, AND they have more of a say in the cards they start out with. In the development phase, the only advantage player 1 has is being able to trade first, which isn't much of an advantage anyway, since the other players have the potential to benefit from it too, and player 1 should have less bartering power since he got last pick in starting cards. How beautiful is that? Complex and dynamic mechanics when you really analyze, but relatively simple to execute so the game is easy to pick up and play for first-timers. Extra Credits could easily make a whole episode on Settlers of Catan.
Wait, this on top of the second player being allowed to attack on their first move? Seems a bit much. One or the other is already a bit tricky to balance, but that seems a bit overkill.
Cataholic As they said in the vid, people get better at exploiting advantages over time. So every so often the designers need to introduce new ways of maintaining balance.
wolfson109 But the game is already broken as fuck, they don't need to change anything. The balance doesn't come from the fact that one player goes first and another goes second, but that you can summon 1 monster and win in 2 turns. That's what's broken about the game, not the drawing.
Cataholic Can't say I know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh tbh. I thought you were asking why you would change the rules in any game that has a turn 1 advantage.
I recall in a board game that I designed (that you can find here: Circular Reasoning), instead of a first-move advantage there was actually a last-move advantage. The game works where the number of tokens on the levels of the board affect how the entryways move around the board, and being the last player to place a token meant that you didn't have to worry about what the other players would do next because the entryways would move right after your finished your turn. You could also more easily predict where these entryways would land, meaning you could block them more effectively than the other players. The solution I made for it was a bit roundabout, but I ended up implementing a rotating turns system where a different person goes first (and thus a different person goes last) at the beginning of every new round. This means that, technically, all players gain that particular last-move advantage over the course of the game and it balances out over the course of the game. I haven't seen a rotating turns system in quite a while. Any thoughts on how that particular system as advantages/disadvantages when dealing with first-move advantage?
I really like the idea of a simultaneous "we go" turn based game. Both players give their units commands in one phase, then only after both players finish, will their units execute those commands in real time in the second phase. Very few games have implemented this (frozen synapse and combat mission are the only ones I can think of) but I think it's a great idea and would like to see it more often. Maybe the player who finishes giving commands first gets granted a perk for that turn that's unique to their commander/army. Like a small increase in speed, offense, morale etc. Maybe that would throw off the balance of eliminating the first turn advantage, or maybe it would incentivize quick thinking.
+Michael Nielsen (ToneSlaveMusic) Well I'm a game design major and some of their videos have actually been required "reading" at my school. But I had already been watching their videos for years before I went to school for game design. d;
+Michael Nielsen (ToneSlaveMusic) Yeah...I will never develop a game in my life, but I think its very very interesting. And some of it helps in movies/videos productions, which is what I actually pretend to do
But it's helpful for us, as consumers, to know these things, so we can have a better look at the games we play, and see if the developers know what they're doing. Same with politics/government. It's good to know it, even if you're not a politician.
That actually helped me a lot. I have a PvP turn-based game pretty much designed in my mind (I haven't started to program it yet) but I've never consider this. I'll look to it carefully when production starts. Thank you so much again, EC folks ! ;)
As a legend hearthstone player I have a bit of a nitpick. The advantages of going second are actually vastly overestimated by newer players who don't understand the power of being 1 mana ahead of your opponent every turn. Statistics have always showed that first player has a slight edge despite the pile of 2nd player consolation prizes. There are a few decks that can make far better use of the coin than usual, using it not just to gain 1 mana but to trigger special abilities (mainly rogue), but those are the exception to the rule: for the most part going first is better.
Nearly all aggro decks are better off going first, however, like Zoo, because it gives them an extra turn AND one extra mana at all times, so they can play minions. That's huge, and I think it's why Zoo was so effective in the meta recently (although I am noticing a drop in Zoo players currently). I myself think the system is fairly balanced as it is (e.g. first move advantage is barely an issue in HS because Blizz found a good solution in my opinion)
Mario Krastanov It does not give then an extra turn and 1 extra mana at all times, it gives them ONE mana. If they can't use that 1 mana to pull off something crazy like double flame imp or undertaker + zombie chow then it is FAR inferior to going first. Overall I would prefer going first as zoo I think. The only matchup where I think otherwise is hunter where having the coin means the opponent's UTH will be effectively half a turn later which can be really important. I think aggro rogue is the only other aggro deck which likes coin.
Actually, in my experience, new players are the ones who think going first is better and that the coin is underwhelming because it's a 1 time thing and every other turn the enemy is the one who's 1 mana ahead. It's the more advanced, mid level players who learned about the value of card advantage, and an extra mulligan, and tempo, etc, who cry about how strong going 2nd is and that the coin should be nerfed. When it comes to Legend rank players, you then get a lot of conflicting opinions, some say going first is usually better, some still say going 2nd is usually better, usually people agree that it mostly depends on your deck and your curve. In the end, what it comes down to is that it's pretty well balanced and the advantage, whichever way it goes, is very slim. But I rarely see a new player talking about how op the coin is.
Card games could implement a stat system on each card (heavy card have like .5, small or agile cards 1.5, etc) and the total amount of speed in your deck corresponds to who goes first. That way it isn't just a 50/50 chance of going first, but a calcated element of play.
I like the way Pokemon (video game) deals with this, where the first move is given to whoever has the higher speed stat. In Magic: The gathering, It shouldn't be random who has the move choice, but rather it should be who has the overall most total mana cost minus the number of lands.
Pokemon doesn't quite fit under the same umbrella since the speed is an attribute inherent to each "game-piece" (The Pokemon) and both players pick their lead simultaneously. This is more a case like Chess, where its a static "White goes first every time" despite both players having the exact same pieces.
Then you need to consider how you balance the other attributes so that you don't make a pokemon that's op. Going first potentially reduces counter play. So you need to introduce counter play somewhere else. E.g. in pokemon you have abilities that can reduce the opponent's speed.
wolfson109 Well, one of the key aspects in competitive Pokemon play tends to be prediction. Outside of some absurdly powerful cases, very few Pokemon can defeat opponents at full health in one shot, and thus risk getting hit themselves. Most Pokemon tend to be 2 of the following 3: fast, bulky, hard hitting. In general, every team is going to run into problems in match ups (Offense needs to carry a Pokemon able to disrupt tactical stalkers, staller needs an offensive/bulky member to disrupt defensive balance opponents, etc.). There's less a 1st turn initiative than it is knowing how to predict your opponent's move and react.
wolfson109 There are ways that you can circumvent the speed stat in Pokemon: priority moves and abilities that increase priority. There are many moves like Protect and Extreme Speed that will most likely go first (Extreme Speed has the highest priority out of any move in the game) and abilities like Prankster and Gale Wings that increase the priority of certain moves (Gale Wings adds +2 priority to Flying type moves). On the other hand, you can take advantage of a lack of speed by using Trick Room, which allows slower Pokemon to go first for 5 turns so it allows Pokemon who are usually slow and defensive take to the offensive without much hassle (of course, priority moves/abilities do ignore Trick Room but it's still a useful tactic). Also the fact that, competitively, Pokemon is a simultaneous move game makes it, at least, a bit more balanced. The thing about it is prediction. It is still turn based at its core, though, because each round is a turn consisting on simultaneous moves (i.e. Players input actions at the same time). Furthermore, to alleviate potential OP mon issues, you get a Team Preview prior to the battle to allow you to select the Pokemon you feel that: 1. Will cause trouble for your opponent 2. Withstand even the worst of what your opponent brings 3. Possibly trick your opponent (VGC is good with this since it's "Bring 6, Play with 4") Also, some mons that are considered OP are often the most used, so eventually, smart players will be able to find way to get around those mons. Take the VGC World Championships this year. The winner in Masters used a Pachirisu and in the earlier rounds, the first thing he did was use Nuzzle on Kangaskhan, one of the most used Pokemon this generation due to its devastating Mega Evolution. Since Nuzzle ensures paralysis, Kangaskhan loses its speed with the added bonus of the chance of not attacking. This allowed him to easily take out Kangaskhan without much issue.
The 7th Sea TCS had that, the player with the highest amount of sailing skill always went first. The trick was sailing was easily the least useful skill in the game. So you might get to go first but your opponent who had higher adventuring could complete harder quests or absorb more damage with better swashbuckling skill.
I would really like to see a episode based on magic. You've mentioned it in quite a few episodes but only when referencing what they did right. You guys are great and I hope the series stays strong.
+Kyubai true it doesn't work for chess but what if you made a turn based board game with pieces that have a speed stat, players add up all of their pieces speed stats to determine who goes first, how it could be balanced is that weaker pieces have Higher speed and stronger pieces have lower speed something like that could work.
+calebmon I could imagine it working, but it sounds like a random factor, which you want to have just 1 more of than your opponent. It is kinda weird since you can't know how much your enemy has, but what about having each piece move separately, so they don't add up, but the piece with the highest speed moves first?
even in non turn based game, this can happen; TF2 recently added the asteroid/robot defense map. from the many times i've played this map, it seems whichever team scores first is almost set to win the match
the easiest fix is the one tennis and professional chess uses, you play multiple games, swapping sides each time and you have to win on the disadvantaged side to with the match
I think that if you view turns within a turn based game as being an opening statement, followed by a response, and then a response to the response and so on until the game ends, it reveals that the first turn of the first player is inherently different from every other turn on account of it being the first. Even the first turn of the second player is influenced by it. A way to balance it might be to, instead of making the first turn of the second player better than any other turn in the game, but make the first turn of the first player worse in a manner inherent to its status of being the first move. For example, at the end of every turn in a card game, you must play a "bonus" card, which gives your opponent a minor bonus of some sort. Because there was no turn before it, the first player's first turn has no advantages, but the second player's first turn isn't special in any way. If balanced properly through the effects of the bonus cards, its a system that both players can take advantage of within a game, but is still slightly weighted towards the second player. The opening statement still has its inherent power, but responses also have their own inherent power to compensate.
An interesting discussion point this week. This can be seen going either direction depending on how developers approach it. While Going first has its clear indication of how you can easily come out on top, the way some try to balance it can actually give the second player an even better advantage. I don't play Hearthstone stone that often, but I did see a video where a player was able to summon a high level monster or could even take down their opponent in one turn due with the luck of the draw. It is one thing to try and balance out the game so that both sides have a fair chance to win, but another on how the players can find ways to exploit the game so that they can easily take advantage on what order they start off on. I also have to admit that the LoL talking point is pretty spot on too considering how depending on who goes first, they could either have the advantage of banning those champs that can give their opponents the edge, or could leave them at a disadvantage for banning a champ that the other team would have banned, but by you picking that champ, you allow them to pick another champ that your side could have used, but can no longer pick.
Actually going second in Hearthstone is bad and classes see up to a 10% wo rate drop in arena due to it. 1 more mama for 9/10 turns is really great and gives access to a lot more value and tempo.
There are some interesting approaches to this problem in tabletop wargaming - the one that made the biggest impression is in Bolt Action, which introduces randomness. Each turn you put tokens for every unit on both sides into a bag and pick them out at random. So the first unit gets potentially the first shot and so forth, but a bad draw could see the entire opposing army activate and squash a recklessly aggressive move. The "best" draw might see you moving your whole army first, but the odds of it occurring get longer and longer and encourage you to play with a bit of caution - whereas your opponent now gets to move all their army in the certain knowledge that it's back to a normal random draw afterwards, so they can move in a much more coordinated and effective manner.
Amazing episode :D By the way, in one of my design class I'm using a lot of the content I learn in this channel, and I must say, is very, very helpfull. Thanks for all
Something adjustable is nice. Like the coin card in Hearthstone. Maybe 50% chance to get 1 more mana instead of 100%. The spell advantage is still there (the laws of the game prevents removing it) but at least there's rng so it's not a definitive advantage all the time.
Breton Charles Or maybe the coin heals a certain amount of health. That amount can be adjusted for better balance. Hearthstone is rng heaven anyways, so a bit more rng to shovel out a distinct advantage like this is acceptable in my opinion.
definitely not. If going first is a problem that needs to be balanced out then making the balance out mechanic a 50/50 chance would simply turn the coin flip of who goes first problem into the coin flip if the second player gets the catch up mechanic or not. the coin in hearthstone counts as a card and a spell. this can give an advantage to certain decks that use combo's that feed of either playing cards or spells. However not all decks do this so for those who don't which i haven't played in quite sometime but back then where actaully the majority of decks. There was no advantage to be had from the coin being a spell or a card. The problem in hearthstone is that it is hard to balance the catchup mechanic since the game is rng based. The coin allows you to make a big play for example summong a turn 4 guy on turn 3. this big play should in theory even out the playing field. However if you were unable to make such a play and only got a mediocre use out of the coin then the player first still got the advantage. But then on the otherhand if the play you where able to make thanks to that coin was too big then the player going second has the advantage. Nothing has changed about the catch up mechanic nor even the decks they played. But in one game it wasn't a big enough catch up while in the other it was too big. There is also no reason that the coin could not be simply considered to not be a spell or card. The only reason it is is because blizzard wants to make it a simple mechanic to understand for newer players.
In Go I've found that more so than going first, is keeping sente, in other words, the initiative. You counter the person who moves before you, or find a bigger threat they have to respond to, and your advantage will earn you a lot of territory and strength, and I think that can balance out.
I'm intrigued as to how already existing turn based games do this. For example: How does Civ do it? What about Heroes if Might and Magic (the series in which I seem to be the only person who liked number 4)? What of Total War? Some examples would be useful, I think.
It isn't a big deal in Civ just because you take so many turns before any kind of engagement becomes relevant. In Civ IV it might be enough to net you a religion, in V maybe one of the better early wonders, but first move advantage is never more important than a lucky goody hut or starting near a couple of especially strong resources.
After playing Yu-gi-oh, it REALLY depends on your deck, because your deck either does or doesn't care about what your opponent is doing, which case the advantage shifts from "You just lost the game b/c you lost the die roll" to "It doesn't really matter so you may as well let them go first so they can't OTK you."
Julian Wachholz and with that give the 2nd-turn players just the hand a field advantage they need for any deck that base on huge loop and screw anyone who has slower speed than them.
I've been doing some amount of amateur, homebrew game design. In one tactical combat game I designed, I let the player who goes first not get to make attacks (only moves) on his two first turns, while the player who goes second is only restricted from doing attacks on his first turn. Thus, one player gets to start moving one turn before the other guy, but the other guy gets to start shooting one turn before.
Me too, only to find ec claiming Go gives 7.5 point advantage to the second player (White), which is, and was at the time this video was posted, only true in China, which has very different rules for the game compared to Korea, Japan or the AGA (N. America). Plus, they don't even call the game 'Go' :P
A while ago, I was designing a collectable card game for fun. Even then I was thinking about first turn advantage before I knew it was a thing. My solution was that in the opening of the game, each player draws their hand, and then places all of the combatants they could (low level ones) on the field face down, turning them face up when both players were ready to start. The player with the least number of combatants on the field got to go first.
Shireke01 Wasn't aware final fantasy 1 used a speed stat. All my experiences with final fantasy 1 include an attack bar thingy. Never really played the games though.
In competitive Smash Bros, one of the most important parts of the match is stage choice, as different stages lend MASSIVE advantages/disadvantages to certain character (and player) matchups. In order to get maximum balance for this crucial part of the game, the strike/counter-pick system was developed by the community (possibly with outside influence; I don't know much about how the metas of other competitive games work). The way this system works is essentially a turn-based strategy game, like character banning in League: Match 1: 1) Players pick characters. This takes place simultaneously. 2) The players decide who strikes first. 3) The player who strikes first picks a stage from the starter list for the tournament that he doesn't want to go to. 4) The player who strikes second bans two other stages from the list. 5) The player who struck first bans two more stages. 6) The player who struck second chooses where to play out of the remaining starter stages. Match 2: 1) The player who won the previous match bans a number of stages from the tourney-legal list. The exact number varies from tournament to tournament, but it's usually three or four. 2) The player who lost chooses where the next match will take place out of the remaining stages. 3) Players are given an opportunity then (and only then) to go back and choose new characters. Whether both players get this option or just the winner depends on the tournament. Match 3: 1) The winner of Match 2 bans the same number of stages as the winner of Match 1 did last time. 2) The loser of Match 2 chooses one of the remaining stages to play on, but he may not return to the stage where he won in Match 1. 3) Characters are chosen one last time. Same rules as before. This was designed so that no player gets a clear advantage simply by banning first. Whether you want to be the first to strike or second becomes a calculated choice based on many variables. Do you know that does poorly on several of the starter stages against the character your opponent chose? Then you may want to strike first. But then your opponent gets to choose where you go in the end, and he will play to his advantage the best that he can. So perhaps you should strike second. But then you risk your opponent striking the few stages that you have to your advantage! The metagame of stage strikes alone, I could probably write several pages about, so I'm going to stop here before I go too crazy. :P
If they could easily answer the question, they could patent it and make millions. They actually explained, how different games handle first-turn advantage. It is pretty clear from the video, that every game needs its own approach to this problem, based on its own rules.
This video gave some examples of solving the issue. Still, it's not about giving you an answer on a silver platter, because the quality of a solution varies from game to game. A designer must think about their game and find the best possible solution for the specific case
Mario Krastanov and most importantly ther is no 1 answer to this not even in one game you would need at least one answer for each skill level (due to understanding of the game and the meta)
In economic game theory, there are many examples of second-move advantage. Many of these revolve around the first mover being required to commit to a certain line of action, which then gives the second player the ability to respond effectively. For an extreme example, imagine a game of rock-paper-scissors where player A reveals her pick first, and then player B gets to choose how to respond - B wins every time. One way you could address the problem of first-move advantage is by including elements of second-move advantage mechanics in the game. Of course, just like anything you'd have to balance it.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO How dear you tear up the greatest card in pokemon History! :P
They changed pkmn tcg from attacking first to... not. They also changed allowing playing of supporter cards around. Magi Nation had a unique take on going first, but you could always get locked in. I still wonder if a TCG can be done that does "both" players going at the same time... somehow. Yeah.. this is tough.
Deconverted Man Both players pick a card or set of cards to play, and turn it face down. Once both players have played, the cards are flipped over. Sometimes, certain cards might have higher priority. This sort of play requires you to work more on prediction than reaction.
One idea that I've had for a game that I can never seem to make work is where you deck out (run out of cards) to win, the issue is drawing is the goal, but also when you have all these cards in hand, the cards must do something and the more you have ,the better you are off... so I cant make it work.
Deconverted Man The Zatch Bell! card game works in that way, actually. Each player's deck is in a predetermined order with no shuffling whatsoever, and the game ends once one player reaches the bottom of his or her deck. From what I can gather, there is no way to end a game before a player decks out. That being said, that outcome can be either a win or a loss for the player who's decked out: If the opponent hasn't run out of cards yet and inflicts damage on you, then you lose. Otherwise, you win.
After playing a game of Risk (Actually LotR Risk) and going first I have to agree with the first move being incredibly powerful. Of course in Risk it is (somewhat) balanced by your enemies being able to see what you're focusing on, and then hit you where you aren't looking, but still. My first turn I got ~10 battalions, and all of them went to securing the Shire, and then expanding out into Rohan. I had a steady supply of troops due to holding a whole nation, and within one turn I could disrupt control of almost all other nations as long as whoever held them wasn't focusing on guarding the ports. Because I had that advantage I had more troops than anyone else on the board throughout the entire game, and even with poor planning leaving some behind my lines I always had more. I suppose the first move didn't make me win, but it helped a lot with the initial push supporting my campaign.
Should have looked at Dota 2's drafting system instead of LoL's, it actually has an impact on the game besides "which champ do you not want to play against this game?"
pipboy17 Dota's laning can be a lot... stranger than LoL tho, so the picks can be harder to read. For the sake of the episode though, both games would work just fine.
he didn't go into detail about the drafting system tho. He simply pointed out that even in a game where the gameplay itself is not turnbased but they have a drafting system first turn advantage can be an issue.
pipboy17 well yeah that was why i replied to him aswell. It didn't matter what game he picked to explain the drafting system. LoL is simply more popular so more people will be familiarize with it.
I personally would like to see more exploration on the mechanics of simultaneous turns, like the classic board-game Diplomacy. Almost all "turn-based" games are such that the players wait for their own turns, but there is nothing preventing the creation of games with simultaneous turns, where the players reveal their actions at the same time, especially now that we have computers to figure out all the interactions. Imagine a 4X game with simultaneous turns: you queue up all the things that you want to happen next turn, set armies on their paths, and then click next turn together with all the other players (instead of waiting for your turn). Then next turn your armies move forward, maybe collide with the enemy, and the city you wanted to be built is finally raised. There are disadvantages to this, of course (one you might have noticed from the example here, the fact that you can't just "do" things but have to have a "next turn" lag), but so does normal turn-based gameplay, and I'd really want to know if the disadvantages really are that bad when objectively compared to other options.
chubby chu Wish they did. Both 1st and 2nd have advantages. 1st = Easier to set up and other obvious FTAs 2nd = Get to attack on your first go, and gets an insight on your opponents deck sometimes.
It's not appropriate for all games, but simultaneous turns are an interesting solution to this problem. I used to play a lot of simultaneous turn Risk as a kid. Having each player decide on their next move in secret and then reveal their moves at the same time creates an almost realtime aspect to the game. You do have to think carefully though about your ruleset and how different scenarios are resolved.
One game that breaks this rule is Poker. In poker the last player has the advantage because they see how everyone reacts to the current stakes before they decide. Its the best position to bluff, pressure opponents, or to fold with the least amount of risk. Now the reason why this works in poker than other card games like magic is because you mostly play from the hand so the opponents won't know what you have until you reveal it. I'm sure there is a lot more nuances and details I'm missing but would love to see an detail analysis on why Poker breaks this rule compared to other games.
I always like it when the bonus you get for not going 1st is not a rule itself, but a byproduct of rules. Smallworld, a strategy board game kinda like risk, gives the 1st player their pick of factions, but when they pick one, they have to "pay" to skip ones they don't want, meaning that if players 1 and 2 pass up the 1st faction for the 2nd or 3rd, player 3 gets a point advantage simply by taking the 1st faction. Carcassone also does this well: the 1st player can get 4 points on the 1st turn if they're lucky, and any other pieces allow time for other players to counterplay. Of course, player 1 can claim a territory early on as their own, but it's easy enough early game for player 2 or 3 to, say, link a couple fields together, or outright block off player 1's ambitions. Games like Hearthstone or Magic where the bonus to player 2 is a direct rule are still good (though Magic still suffers from 1st being objectively better for all but a single competitive deck), but it just feels good when the consolation for not going 1st is a result of another rule, not its own rule.
In Master of Orion II, both players essentially make their main map moves at the same time, and the moves are executed between turns. When a battle occurs, the attacking player moves first. This makes the game very balanced.
There is a game called Buddy fight. What they do is the person who draws first may place one monster and do damage dirctly to the player. The one that goes second may place as many monsters as they want to (As long as the monster value doesn't go over 3) and then can destroy the other monster and do damage to player
The other option is to embrace first turn advantage. In the P&P RPG system I'm developing I've made the conscious decision to embrace it. You get what are essentially AP on every turn but the higher your initiative, the more turns you get every round. You only get a single action every turn though but your stamina (the AP) builds up on consecutive turns and with how the crit system works you can get free actions outside of your turn (You can crit a dodge roll against an opponent's attack to take a basic action) but the opponent won't have stamina to counter attack with any thing beyond a basic attack or movement until their turn comes up. It gives advantage to the player that gets the drop and creates a natural ebb and flow to the combat in that you'll tend to see the larger attacks happen at the end of a round.
I read something similar that extends beyond gaming. Bill Walsh (American football coach) had extensive game-plans to always get initiative (first move) in the game, rather than reacting to how the game unfolded he made the game react to his plan. Watching and playing Starcraft II, I found out that being a reactive player I lost more than the players that has the first turn (takes initiative).
my heart happily skipped a beat with every example using Go... I miss playing this game that almost nobody knows or cares about, and to me is better than chess, because I can see easily if I stay or change my strategy mid-game
I completely agree with all the presented ideas, though I feel a portion of it sort of glossed over an important aspect of the TYPE of resource present in games like Chess and Go. (Perhaps the scope is big enough to warrant its own discussion, but who knows.) I feel that in those games, the concept of TIME as a resources is much more magnified due to first turn advantage, in addition to the fact that there is a very distinct visual advantage gained. That is influence over the board, and as often said in Go, the idea of establishing territory. These two factors combine together often in the first turn to set a pace to the game, though I would argue that Black's third turn in a game of Go is akin to the first turn in a game of Chess. It's ironic that the imagery @ 4:16 pretty much sums up my thought on this topic even though it wasn't addressed directly in the episode. To wrap up, just wanted to say thank you for creating this series - absolutely love every bit of it. Well... that's if this comment is seen, anyway.
Great Video! I am currently playing that card game Force of Will where the first turn advantage is completely off balance. They are attempting to fix it by giving 1 extra card and basically the coin from hearthstone with the ruleset of the next edition. I would have loved if you went deeper on adressing possibilities than giving a bunch of examples, but probably it would be enough for another video. One point I am missing concerning developed recourses games like Magic is the stages of development in context of the first turn adavantage. Since in Magic your ressources generating mana and the spells generating play advantage both are card, which limit one another so the first turn advantage shows off in the first three turns of the game and can be considered less powerful in any gamestages beyond. Since you might have 5 lands to cast powerful spells from the start, you would like to go second to have the chance to pull off more spells with more cards in the meantime your opponent tries to establish board pressure. On the other hand, the same is true for low ressource hands to draw a third land and guarantee these first three turns to be as impactful as they can be. On the other hand a 3 land 4 spells hand on curve would always want to be played with the first move advantage. I think that its more important to look further into ressource-management during later gameplay stages in developed ressources games than into the principle of getting the ressources even out with some sort of bonus points or coin/mana.
As a weird exception from which something might be learned Battletech has a last-move advantage. This stems largely from the fact that damage is only applied at the end of the round combined with the way positional damage gives extra benefit to a player who can control the angle they attack from. As a result the last player to move controls their positioning and does if, not more damage, more disabling damage giving them an increased potential for a significant resource advantage in the next round. This may also contribute to the game's extreme length of play as a defensive player can get very catty about closing to a distance where hits are likely since they may be flanked if the roll for play order goes wrong next turn.
I was just trying to develop a turn-based tactical RPG (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance style) and this is something that really has me thinking over and over how to solve the problem. It really is an interesting problem to adress
A lot of games have the player moving second have the upper hand as they can react to p1’s initial move. I even played one game where the designers didn’t realise this and added a handicap the wrong way round, which was fun.
I've always liked the idea where the player goes first gets "half a turn". This way everyone at the end of their turn is effectively half a turn up at the end of their turn. Obviously it doesn't work with every type of turn based game, but it tends to work well with those it's compatible with
Another game that makes "first turn advantage" a little more interesting is Warhammer 40k. The game starts even before you place minis on the table. You have to roll off to see who place their army down first. The player that wins the roll off choose to go first or second, but that also means he has to start first or second as well. Placing you army on the table second is a HUGE advantage, as you can deploy based on your enemies deployment. At the same time going first tend to be important, as you can start picking off enemy units first, or even going for an early alpha strike kill. So the first turn advantage is mittigated by the fact that your opponent can out deploy you. BUT, there is a mechanic called "Stealing the Initiative" where the player going second can roll a dice, and on a roll of 6 he goes first instead. (This is by many deemed a very unfair practice as it gives that player a very big advantage, but such is the randomness of war). There are even certain units that can modify the Initiative roll, making it easier to steal. But all in all 40k has an interesting way of dealing with it. (I guess the closes analogy for none 40k players would be that both players in chess could choose how to set up their pieces, and that black then could try and counter place based on what white did... I think I just invented future chess!)
For the tabletop miniatures game Warmachine it's pretty impressive how they balanced going second. The first player puts his minis on his side of the table and of course can move up the table faster while getting out all his movements buffs and what not. However, going second lets you 'counter deploy' your opponent. Which means you can put your minis who can best deal with the minis across from them on your opponents side. Additionally, you start the game a few inches up the board and in scenario games, the points starts counter after the second players second turn. That all sounds great for the second player, without taking too much from the first turn player. Really, going either first or second doesn't make much of a difference unless the army you brought to the game, relies or works better with either going first or second.
One thing you missed is that in some games, it's possible to defeat the problem by making first move advantage a reward. In many tabletop RPG:s, as well as some video game RPG:s (most notably Pokémon) the player with the best of a certain stat goes first. There is no counter advantage of going second in place, but going first is something you have to earn (or spend points on or whatever).
Thanks for this, I am currently in the early stages of developing a turn based game and I hadn't put much thought into first turn advantage. Back to the drawing board ;)
Fascinating, I played Go throughout highschool with a few friends when we discovered a Go set in the Japanese classrooms. Somehow, while we did learn the rules from the teachers, we missed the handicap to going second and I think that probably skewed the wins a huge amount in the long run. Oh well, I guess fair is fair since nobody was allowed to go first two games in a row by our own rules anyway!
Funny rewatching this video now. Recently began playing Gwent with the release of the open beta, and in that game card advantage is the name of the game. You can only play one card a turn, and neither player has any health. You instead play for who has the highest amount of points on the board. Due to this mechanic, reactionary play is in most cases much more powerful than proactive play. You always want to be able too answer your opponent's cards. This makes it so that the player going second will be able to react first, and they get to play the last card, so in Gwent's case it's a matter of first move disadvantage.
When I first started playing Magic: The Gathering, I always wanted to go second so I could get that extra card. Nowadays, I prefer to go first, because potentially having one more land out than your opponent does can make a big difference.
This episode reminds me of Hnefatafl, an asymmetric-strategy board game of Scandinavian origin. Although most of the game's original ruleset has been lost to history, it would make for an excellent topic of discussion over how asymmetric gameplay factors into first turn advantages.
I'm surprised they didn't mention the solution of "bidding" for turn order. I know a lot of competitive turn based games have players bid up points (or other things) until someone agrees to take the disadvantaged slot for X handicap bonus.
You either flip a coin to determine first bidding (since who goes first on bidding is usually very minor) or you can do blind bidding where both people secretly bid at the same time, with ties simply repeating the bid.
A comment that was probably made already - starcraft brood war skill shown in the old days is still far more impressive than what sc2 has to show nowdays.
It's interesting you guys mentioned LoL. Dota has a similar picks and bans phase at the start of matches, and first pick is considered to be very powerful. But first pick goes to the Dire team, who have a distinct map disadvantage in the early game. So having a turn based segment of a game can be balanced by making changes to the real time segment that comes after it.
The star wars game x wing does the turn based style excellently. You can choose to have a pilot for your ship with a high or low pilot skill; one moves first, the other shoots first. So there is an advantage if you build your ships correctly to whether you go first or shoot first
When the very best players at a certain game gets mentioned (3:48) I just had to pause and put in the Pokemon theme... And now I'm thinking, Pokemon is turn-based, and the main offset to first-turn advantage is the Speed stat. And there's a counter to that in priority moves like Swift and Quick Attack. Then there's a counter to THAT in missing an attack, which completely skips a turn, which can be exploited with stat-lowering status moves, which generally have high to perfect accuracy, and can be taken further with stat-lowering attacks, generally held by slow and powerful Pokemon like Emboar as opposed to speedsters like Pikachu. Accuracy can also be played with to prevent one from getting taken down without a chance to react. Take Sheer Cold for instance. It's a one-hit KO if it lands, but if you're just chipping away and you're one hit from scoring a KO, you can't just take a Chuck Norris to the Jigglypuffs (WTF?) so it has low accuracy. But hey, hypothermia isn't exactly an instant death for us, isn't it? Maybe the designers were like "Hey, we should make a realistic attack. Cold can kill, so maybe Ice-Type? Hypothermia is what I'm thinking, and it kills sometimes, and it's because of the low temperature, so maybe we make it a low-accuracy one-hit KO and name it Sheer Cold?" But hey, that's just a theory... A- nope, not gonna do that. I think I may have reconsidered my Pokemon play style.
Maneuver-based games that take into account facing (such as Battletech) give the second player an advantage. The second player can react to the first player's move to get behind an opposing unit.
I have played this one boardgame that I think mitigates first turn advantage really well: "Samurai and Katana" which on the surface looks like Risk with Samurai, and well Katana. But it's so much more than that. It is a more than two player game, so it's different from say magic et al. But it has aa really awesome mechanic to deal with turn order: The losing player choose the order in which players go. Not only is the game tuned based as moat board games, it is also a phase based game, so you have your "Purchase and place phase" where you spend money to get troops etc, and here the player with the lowest score dictates who goes in what order. Then comes the combat phase where fighting happens, and so on. Oh and did I mention the title of the lowest scoring player is "Emperor" (and the winning player is the Shogun, who has bonuses to fighting, but also has a harder time scoring points, again it balance out). What was really amazing when playing this game a few time is that you realized that going first was a liability. You have control over where you want to attack, and you might have a huge army to conquer with, but being might also let you over extend yourself, leaving you vulnerable to attacks from players going later. So a losing player that understands this can stack the order to get him (and his allies) into a better position, but maybe ensuring that their allianse still control the throne of the Emperor.
What's funny is when a game is designed in such a way that second player has an unexpected advantage. Here's an example: I remember this old board game we used to have. I forget what it was called, but players would take turns placing pieces onto a grid, each one adjacent to their previous piece-- essentially creating an ever-growing wall or snake, if you will. And once you had nowhere to go, you lost. It was basically an extremely slow game of Light Cycle. However, my older brother soon discovered a cheap exploit: If player 2 always did the exact same thing as player 1, he would win 100% of the time. There was no way for player 1 to win. Of course, there are ways to amend such a flaw: Force 1st and 2nd player to make different first turns, players make their moves in secret and only reveal their actions after both have chosen, slightly asymmetrical field obstacles, etc. However, in that game, the way it was shipped, that bug made the game wildly broken. Any thoughts on that?
I do want to see an episode covering the few games that have the first turn disadvantage. Mainly because there are games where going first is a disadvantage.
Tic-Tac-Toe has the worst case of first move advantage.
TheCactusBlue actually, if you get 3 of the 4 corners you're almost guaranteed to win unless the other player planned for it.
Eric Lecarde heheh, neat!
Tenzenmaster The best way to win tic tac toe is through getting the box in the middle. It won't work for both players.
Mathematically speaking, Chess is technically just as bad- it’s just far beyond what any mind in the known universe is capable of exploiting
It’s so SHORT
This got me thinking about the Civilization series, at least when it comes to PVP. One thing that balances out first move advantage is the fog of war - players won't be able to see what the other player is doing until later in the game. Any advantage gained is also negligible compared to the random benefits people get based on the resources in the area, their AI neighbours, etc...
You can play the on the same turn in civ so that combat is just a clickfest
@@tarnyowl6068 Best mode.
back in my day if you ripped a charizard like that you would have been killed
I remember I was the envy of all the lads because I had a Foil Dark Charizard.
Youd’ve been put in a line and shot between the eyes.
Love the way Frozen Synapse did this. Each player planned there where there pieces will go or do for what will happen in the next few seconds. After both players are done planning they go into real time and the pieces go about what they where told to do in the planning phase, unable to do commands until those seconds happened.
One cool way of balancing for this is to decide who goes first smartly. Like, in a tabletop game where there is a first-player advantage, if the game is designed for families, it's easy to include the rule that the youngest person starts. That way, you know that more often than not, the children get the first turn, and at the very least, the adults don't get to use that advantage.
Another thing you might have mentioned is that it's not always true that the first player is at an advantage. For example, often the second player is at an advantage because they can get a general idea of their opponent's strategy before playing their first turn.
"often the second player is at an advantage"
While this is technically true, it often forces the second player into a defensive strategy. This is what happens in chess, the blacks are one step behind so they have to overcome the advantage to start attacking and have enough "tempo" to do the moves to win.
Actualy go is balanced the way: the weakest player go first.If you want to be fair when you're playing against a lower-ranked opponent, you'd even give him X turns in advance (which is a great way to track your progress - oh look, I beat you with an advantage of 5 turns, next time I'll go for 4)Shogi (japanese chess) actualy goes the other way around for handicaps: the stronger player would play with less pieces. That's like saying, you're too strong at chess, try beating me without a queen)
George Marques In a game like chess I don't think it's fair to say 2nd player goes on the defensive, since for chess it's clearly a disadvantage in the first place (And they do go defensive). OP is right that going first can cause someone to go on the defensive, in poker for example going first is a significant disadvantage, and the button is most profitable position by a notable margin. This is mitigated by rotating who goes first each hand.
Both players have their own advantages first turn is one move ahead and second turn can react to first turn
How can a turn-based game be equal when one player always goes first?
Wizard101 has done this best.As you get farther through the game, the bosses gain cheats to make up for getting the first turn.
Yugioh by Konami somewhat fixed this basis in their turn based card game by making the first player not conduct their draw phase.
This has changed the game greatly, because of many reasons. One of them being that way back when, there used to be a prominent thing called "ophion control."
The first player used to get 7 cards when their turn was over, possibly emptying their deck by two, putting them at a net 3 advantage.
Now even though it may not be a prominent thing anymore, with the first player getting 5 cards, they generally have 6 cards by their turns end, which has changed the game, simply by making the first player not conduct the draw phase.
There is one big example of how not to balance a game that I feel you guys neglected to mention:
Yu-gi-oh.
The play of yu-gi-oh has gotten faster and faster, and therefore the first-turn advantage has gone up, but the only boon the second player has gotten is being able to attack first.
It's gotten so bad that I've heard news from my friends (some of whom are pretty serious tourney players) remark that some players have gotten mad at a coin flip that decides the order of play.
I am working on a static (most of the time) turn-based game and made a simple solution. It is this: Red goes first and has one move. Blue is next, he has two moves. Red again - he plays two moves and so on. The way it works is that in the first turn red has a turn advantage. Blue makes it equal with his first move and gains the advantage on the second. Red equalises and is then one turn above blue. The idea is - Both players have the same amount of turns with a turn advantage, being equal, and being against a player with the turn advantage.
The argument against this is you get a better prediction of the opponents next move.
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I play a lot of Guild Wars 2 so I'm going to use that as an example.
I see a Warrior coming at me with an Axe and Shield, knowing had dangerous the burst on the axe is and the stun on the shield. I need to make the first move before he can pull off that dangerous burst. Since he isn't coming at me with a longbow, that can mean he is running glass cannon, even more the reason for me to make the first move.
What if I see the Warrior using the longbow instead? Time to be passive, I'm going to dodge his key attacks and counter with my own. But the Warrior knows this, he isn't going to strike unless the time is right. So he is going to be passive too, we're both are just poking at eachother waiting for the right moment to strike when the opponent makes a minor slip and counters to early.
It's all about timing the first move right rather than trying to go first.
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This doesn't really work effectively in Chess due to the fact being passive is just allowing your opponent to get into position for victory. In Hearthstone it's the same case, you can't wait for that win card, allow too much time and your opponent will grasp victory with an overwhelming amount of monsters.
Oddly enough this does work in League of Legends, by playing safe you and your opponent will still retain the same strength and neither player is punished for it.
How I balanced out a Turn-Based Board Game I made was to give plenty of benefits to the player group. This is an Asymmetric board game with 4 Heroes going around the Tile-Based Board, gathering loot and growing stronger, but had another player as the Monster. I made it so the Monster was strong out of the gate, and was something to work towards for the Heroes, and then made the Heroes not only start first, but they get two turns out of the gate. I did this in hopes that the Monster's natural advantages of being able to solo all 4 of the Heroes out of the gate was balanced by their 1st turn extra movement and the advantage that comes with 1st turn.
this is why pokemon is a good turn based game. some pokemon are faster than others, and you can build your team around that.
Misty Wind That is a good point. I was thinking about that myself. The first turn advantage with a greater value in speed may be comparable to an advantage caused by greater value in one of the other stats. In the card games who gets to go first is dependent on coin flipping. That would make things a little more fair.
+Luspear Soram
Indeed. I know I'm crashing a 7-month-old comment here, but faster Pokémon get to move first at the cost of other stats, which makes them either more frail or less powerful. Teams can be built around this, and even your lead Pokémon can be based on this (e.g. a fast VoltTurn user).
***** True.. Plus, those factors each come at a cost as well, namely locking you into a move until you switch out (Choice Scarf) or low power (priority moves, or in ExtremeSpeed's case low PP and scarce distribution).
for competive play... yuh its interesting
but for single player gameplay... I be just mashing one move in the whole run
mamertvonn if you want a bigger challenge when playing pokemon, try playing pokemon lets go eevee/pikachu without your eevee/pikachu. Its actually quite difficult
Frozen Synapse has both turns happen at once and it's REALLY COOL. So does Toribash. I think more games could follow that example of making both players choose their move before they see the result happen with both sides simultaneously.
I loved this episode, it talks about putting data gathering and analyses into games, and as an analyst I love hearing about data being used to improve games.
One thing I want to say, Warhammer 40k has a huge turn 1 advantage when both players use typical lists but I've seen some people build armies to go second, for example, Grey Knights can deep strike on the players turn 1 so if they let the other person go first then they'll have to keep their army together to make it harder for the Grey Knights to deep strike and annihilate units with ease but if the none Grey Knights player does this they can't move to objectives and the Grey Knights player can enter from reserves onto the objectives. Yet with most lists, both armies are deployed from the start and whoever has first turn can destroy like 200points before the other player can go.
I love how much you guys refer to Go. As a video game player and a Go player, I never realized much they share! Thanks!
Except that some games carry a "reactionary" advantage, where a player going first will have the risk of indicating their strategy and the second player can change/adjust their strategy to compensate...
So sometimes the first turn advantage is naturally balanced by the strategy exposure risk.
can u make an example?
@@Gardstyle35 rock paper scissors
But seriously, if a game relies enough on a rock paper scissors kind of system and you get effectively locked into strategies, it's possible for the second player to have the advantage. If player 1 throws rock, player 2 isn't throwing scossors.
@@Gardstyle35 Poker is a great example as well. The reason the dealer goes last is because its the best position. You can see how everyone reacts which can give you the best information on whether to bluff, pressure players into folding, or to fold with the least amount of risk for lost.
I love that aspects like this keep evolving and we keep gaining new concepts or mechanics from this. Looking at past games compared to nowadays was a very good example, even looking within the same game such as when Starcraft II was first in Beta compared to how it's balanced now is like night and day. It's also interesting how if some players developed the strategies they had back then, they'd have been able to completely crush in some cases but the theory-crafting behind such strategies just didn't exist then.
Definitely an ever-evolving and ever-deepening aspect of game design, and not something to overlook.
In pokemon games, every turn, the pokemon with the highest speed goes first, but pokemon with a high speed have lower other stats, and moves that always go first will do less damage. If the opponent lowers your speed, they go first, but uses their turn for it. I think pokemon did this great...
*Icy Wind has entered the chat*
Another easy to understand game design video. With you guys along with some other series, I'm going to become an amazing game designer!!
You can also give the characters a speed-stat (like Pokémon) and the character with the highest speed begins.
yeah
That's not a bad idea as long as you give people a reason NOT to take this speed stat just so it doesn't become meaningless or overpowered in the long run.
Less speed = Able to give more stats to other areas like Pokemon also I guess
balance speed health and attack power kinda like a pick 2 system where most good cards are great at 2 and sup par at the other. one idea had to make the made up speed stat better would to have attacks play out in time. ie if a card is twice as fast as another it goes twice before the other card goes once obviously the attack would be lower the higher the speed but if you have a card the can go twice as fast as most other cards that would likely become popular if the damage it was high enough but then lets say that your card that went twice as fast as an average card had a speed of 8 then your opponent had a card with medium speed lets say 6 (because if 8 is twice the average the average would be 4) then you go once then they would go and lets say it was a new game with bulkier cards that stayed on the board longer then most other games like heart stones you would still have a slight advantage with this 8 speed to 6 speed because every 4 turn you would get to go an extra time. So then speed would be more then just an outspeed breaker where if your fast card is not faster then your opponents you still get some advantage. where as in a game like pokemon if your opponent have a pokemon with 300 speed and yours has 285 you get nothing for that speed investment til your pokemon is some how faster then the other ie stat modifiers or you foe switches out.
Makoren
Speed is useless for tanks.
Speed is key for sweeping.
I've been watching the Extra Credits since Daniel had his other channel. I'm a huge fan of the array of talent that goes into these videos. James, Daniel, the artists, and everyone else have an amazing ability to take one of my favorite hobbies and give them the strength. If I'm ever in a debate about how good/evil/etc video games are and I get stuck, I always pull up TH-cam and turn to this team. I just want you all to know that.
Pokemon is turn based, but both players take their turn simultaneously. Problem solved :B
Never seen that in a card game... might be interesting.
That wouldn't work in many games though. For example, if chess had this rule, what would happen if both players sent a bishop to the same tile?
Well... Pokémon's binary speed system still makes competitive play extremely unbalanced and minmax-ey. You go last by a single point of Speed and you lose a pokémon (unless it's ridiculously bulky anyway).
Tom0027X Pokemon is more a number based game with all outcomes more or less being predetermined unless you get a miss/crit. Plus it's more of a 1vs1 scenario and not a scenario like in a card game where you could have two monsters attacking each other but with an entire field filled with any possible card combination that could turn the tide when activated. The Pokemon in your party who aren't battling don't effect those already in battle with Zoroark being the only exception and even then it's just a deceptive tactic, if you know it's Zoroark it still has the same weakness'.
Paul Staker If seen quite a few card games where both players move at the same time. On iOS alone, I've played the Tekken card game and WWE Supercard. As for physical card games, Inuyasha's official CCG had a similar system.
In Tekken, there are only three moves a player can make in a given turn, and both must choose at the same time. If a player selects Focus, they draw a card. If they select Attack, their whole hand is discarded and the total damage from all of the attacks is dealt to the opponent. If they choose to block, the player will do nothing if their opponent focuses or blocks themselves, but if the opponent attacks, their first two attacks are negated. The attack or draw mechanic could still work in a traditional turn based CCG, but the block mechanic makes the simultaneous play important.
Supercard seems to just be AI matches against human decks, Each player picks the wrestler in their deck with the best skills for the match that the game calls for, and the higher one wins. Because, at the moment, the game only boils down to "the guy with the higher number wins", it has balancing issues of its own. There isn't a first turn advantage, but it could still use some more interesting strategies.
Inuyasha's draw and summon phases happen at the same time for both players,but they take turns attacking. Being able to defend the first attack thrown at you does help negate the first turn advantage little, but it is undeniably still there.
As someone who is very competitive in MTG, and play everything from draft to vintage, id have to say it's very interesting how first turn advantage plays out. There are several very unique elements, firstly power level of the format makes a massive difference, in draft nothing too absurd is going to happen normally over the first few turns and players have a chance to draw ways to interact with each other, first turn advantage is not so significant here, but as you move to older formats, decks can turn 1 to turn 3 kill you or at least provide significant advantage like having the opportunity to remove the best card from your opponents hand. Second turn advantage is also very important at some points in magic history, if both you and your opponent are playing heavy control decks being on the draw (going second) and getting a card over your opponent can make all the difference in providing enough value to win the game. this is something i don't think about often but is very interesting either way.
The art in this episode looks really great (it always looks great tho).
I watch all the Extra Credits videos anyways, but you had my attention a great deal more than usual when I saw a Go board on the title card!
In yugioh (card game) some decks have advantages to start first, others prefer to start second.
Basically, the first will have the huge advantage to (eventually) make his moves free from counter plays and can set his own counter play cards, while the second will have the "huge especially for certain decks" advantage of actually being able to attack first. (no attack in the first turn of the duel)
This video makes me admire the care and forethought behind Settlers of Catan even more than I already did. It's clearly a developed resource game, but they managed to pretty much eliminate first move advantage. During the building phase, the player that places their settlement and road first has the advantage of locking down the best corner on the map (and denying his/her opponents the adjacent corners). But, because the placement order snakes, the player that places last not only gets to place twice, but they get to place first in the round that gives them resources. In essence, player 1 gets the largest map influence from his first placement, but is most limited in his second placement (also limiting what cards he can start out with). On the opposite side, the last player's placement choices are constrained by the 1-3 placements of the other players, but they have a strategic edge from getting two consecutive placements, AND they have more of a say in the cards they start out with. In the development phase, the only advantage player 1 has is being able to trade first, which isn't much of an advantage anyway, since the other players have the potential to benefit from it too, and player 1 should have less bartering power since he got last pick in starting cards. How beautiful is that? Complex and dynamic mechanics when you really analyze, but relatively simple to execute so the game is easy to pick up and play for first-timers. Extra Credits could easily make a whole episode on Settlers of Catan.
Yu-Gi-Oh just added a rule that the first player to go no longer draws a card. I see myself wanting to go second so much more often now.
Really? Why?
The first player already doesn't attack, so why would they punish the first player even more?
Wait, this on top of the second player being allowed to attack on their first move? Seems a bit much. One or the other is already a bit tricky to balance, but that seems a bit overkill.
Cataholic As they said in the vid, people get better at exploiting advantages over time. So every so often the designers need to introduce new ways of maintaining balance.
wolfson109 But the game is already broken as fuck, they don't need to change anything.
The balance doesn't come from the fact that one player goes first and another goes second, but that you can summon 1 monster and win in 2 turns.
That's what's broken about the game, not the drawing.
Cataholic Can't say I know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh tbh. I thought you were asking why you would change the rules in any game that has a turn 1 advantage.
I recall in a board game that I designed (that you can find here: Circular Reasoning), instead of a first-move advantage there was actually a last-move advantage. The game works where the number of tokens on the levels of the board affect how the entryways move around the board, and being the last player to place a token meant that you didn't have to worry about what the other players would do next because the entryways would move right after your finished your turn. You could also more easily predict where these entryways would land, meaning you could block them more effectively than the other players.
The solution I made for it was a bit roundabout, but I ended up implementing a rotating turns system where a different person goes first (and thus a different person goes last) at the beginning of every new round. This means that, technically, all players gain that particular last-move advantage over the course of the game and it balances out over the course of the game.
I haven't seen a rotating turns system in quite a while. Any thoughts on how that particular system as advantages/disadvantages when dealing with first-move advantage?
So uh? Don't you usually link to the guest artists work? I was interested in seeing what other things that they had done...
Whoops! Thanks for catching that. The link's been added now, and is also here: bit.ly/1opbSUZ
Sorry I just really loved their art. I wanted to see more, and clicking that link has given me what I want. They are really talented.
Stefanie Anttila You're the one who made all of the cool shark people that were 130% awesome.
Sharks are the coolest things ever. They are an apex predator so they are badass.
lokun489 you forgot about orcas
I really like the idea of a simultaneous "we go" turn based game. Both players give their units commands in one phase, then only after both players finish, will their units execute those commands in real time in the second phase. Very few games have implemented this (frozen synapse and combat mission are the only ones I can think of) but I think it's a great idea and would like to see it more often. Maybe the player who finishes giving commands first gets granted a perk for that turn that's unique to their commander/army. Like a small increase in speed, offense, morale etc. Maybe that would throw off the balance of eliminating the first turn advantage, or maybe it would incentivize quick thinking.
It is funny how they always act like their audience is game developers. I am pretty sure 90% of us is not ;)
+Michael Nielsen (ToneSlaveMusic)
But we can be ASPIRING GDs... (or players who seek the knowledge to be better able to exploit them ;) )
+Michael Nielsen (ToneSlaveMusic) Well I'm a game design major and some of their videos have actually been required "reading" at my school. But I had already been watching their videos for years before I went to school for game design. d;
To be fair, I'm pretty sure this. Channel is aimed towards aspiring game designers.
+Michael Nielsen (ToneSlaveMusic) Yeah...I will never develop a game in my life, but I think its very very interesting. And some of it helps in movies/videos productions, which is what I actually pretend to do
But it's helpful for us, as consumers, to know these things, so we can have a better look at the games we play, and see if the developers know what they're doing. Same with politics/government. It's good to know it, even if you're not a politician.
That actually helped me a lot. I have a PvP turn-based game pretty much designed in my mind (I haven't started to program it yet) but I've never consider this.
I'll look to it carefully when production starts.
Thank you so much again, EC folks ! ;)
As a legend hearthstone player I have a bit of a nitpick. The advantages of going second are actually vastly overestimated by newer players who don't understand the power of being 1 mana ahead of your opponent every turn. Statistics have always showed that first player has a slight edge despite the pile of 2nd player consolation prizes. There are a few decks that can make far better use of the coin than usual, using it not just to gain 1 mana but to trigger special abilities (mainly rogue), but those are the exception to the rule: for the most part going first is better.
I should also mention that the first turn imbalance is very small - maybe 1-2%. In most matchups it's not too noticeable.
Nearly all aggro decks are better off going first, however, like Zoo, because it gives them an extra turn AND one extra mana at all times, so they can play minions. That's huge, and I think it's why Zoo was so effective in the meta recently (although I am noticing a drop in Zoo players currently). I myself think the system is fairly balanced as it is (e.g. first move advantage is barely an issue in HS because Blizz found a good solution in my opinion)
Mario Krastanov It does not give then an extra turn and 1 extra mana at all times, it gives them ONE mana. If they can't use that 1 mana to pull off something crazy like double flame imp or undertaker + zombie chow then it is FAR inferior to going first. Overall I would prefer going first as zoo I think. The only matchup where I think otherwise is hunter where having the coin means the opponent's UTH will be effectively half a turn later which can be really important. I think aggro rogue is the only other aggro deck which likes coin.
You forgot that player 2 gets an extra mulligan, which can pretty much salvage otherwise shitty hands.
Actually, in my experience, new players are the ones who think going first is better and that the coin is underwhelming because it's a 1 time thing and every other turn the enemy is the one who's 1 mana ahead. It's the more advanced, mid level players who learned about the value of card advantage, and an extra mulligan, and tempo, etc, who cry about how strong going 2nd is and that the coin should be nerfed.
When it comes to Legend rank players, you then get a lot of conflicting opinions, some say going first is usually better, some still say going 2nd is usually better, usually people agree that it mostly depends on your deck and your curve. In the end, what it comes down to is that it's pretty well balanced and the advantage, whichever way it goes, is very slim.
But I rarely see a new player talking about how op the coin is.
Card games could implement a stat system on each card (heavy card have like .5, small or agile cards 1.5, etc) and the total amount of speed in your deck corresponds to who goes first. That way it isn't just a 50/50 chance of going first, but a calcated element of play.
"The coin is technically a spell."
That's right Miracle Rogue.
I like the way Pokemon (video game) deals with this, where the first move is given to whoever has the higher speed stat. In Magic: The gathering, It shouldn't be random who has the move choice, but rather it should be who has the overall most total mana cost minus the number of lands.
But if in your turn game you have a atribute that says who goes first? Like Speed in pokemon
Pokemon doesn't quite fit under the same umbrella since the speed is an attribute inherent to each "game-piece" (The Pokemon) and both players pick their lead simultaneously.
This is more a case like Chess, where its a static "White goes first every time" despite both players having the exact same pieces.
Then you need to consider how you balance the other attributes so that you don't make a pokemon that's op. Going first potentially reduces counter play. So you need to introduce counter play somewhere else. E.g. in pokemon you have abilities that can reduce the opponent's speed.
wolfson109 Well, one of the key aspects in competitive Pokemon play tends to be prediction. Outside of some absurdly powerful cases, very few Pokemon can defeat opponents at full health in one shot, and thus risk getting hit themselves. Most Pokemon tend to be 2 of the following 3: fast, bulky, hard hitting.
In general, every team is going to run into problems in match ups (Offense needs to carry a Pokemon able to disrupt tactical stalkers, staller needs an offensive/bulky member to disrupt defensive balance opponents, etc.).
There's less a 1st turn initiative than it is knowing how to predict your opponent's move and react.
wolfson109 There are ways that you can circumvent the speed stat in Pokemon: priority moves and abilities that increase priority. There are many moves like Protect and Extreme Speed that will most likely go first (Extreme Speed has the highest priority out of any move in the game) and abilities like Prankster and Gale Wings that increase the priority of certain moves (Gale Wings adds +2 priority to Flying type moves). On the other hand, you can take advantage of a lack of speed by using Trick Room, which allows slower Pokemon to go first for 5 turns so it allows Pokemon who are usually slow and defensive take to the offensive without much hassle (of course, priority moves/abilities do ignore Trick Room but it's still a useful tactic).
Also the fact that, competitively, Pokemon is a simultaneous move game makes it, at least, a bit more balanced. The thing about it is prediction. It is still turn based at its core, though, because each round is a turn consisting on simultaneous moves (i.e. Players input actions at the same time). Furthermore, to alleviate potential OP mon issues, you get a Team Preview prior to the battle to allow you to select the Pokemon you feel that:
1. Will cause trouble for your opponent
2. Withstand even the worst of what your opponent brings
3. Possibly trick your opponent (VGC is good with this since it's "Bring 6, Play with 4")
Also, some mons that are considered OP are often the most used, so eventually, smart players will be able to find way to get around those mons. Take the VGC World Championships this year. The winner in Masters used a Pachirisu and in the earlier rounds, the first thing he did was use Nuzzle on Kangaskhan, one of the most used Pokemon this generation due to its devastating Mega Evolution. Since Nuzzle ensures paralysis, Kangaskhan loses its speed with the added bonus of the chance of not attacking. This allowed him to easily take out Kangaskhan without much issue.
The 7th Sea TCS had that, the player with the highest amount of sailing skill always went first. The trick was sailing was easily the least useful skill in the game. So you might get to go first but your opponent who had higher adventuring could complete harder quests or absorb more damage with better swashbuckling skill.
I would really like to see a episode based on magic. You've mentioned it in quite a few episodes but only when referencing what they did right. You guys are great and I hope the series stays strong.
or make the likelihood of going first a stat like Pokémon.
+Millad Bahrami it's a good system, but it doesn't work for something like chess
+Kyubai true it doesn't work for chess but what if you made a turn based board game with pieces that have a speed stat, players add up all of their pieces speed stats to determine who goes first, how it could be balanced is that weaker pieces have Higher speed and stronger pieces have lower speed something like that could work.
+calebmon I could imagine it working, but it sounds like a random factor, which you want to have just 1 more of than your opponent. It is kinda weird since you can't know how much your enemy has,
but what about having each piece move separately, so they don't add up, but the piece with the highest speed moves first?
+Kyubai I suppose that would work too but what about speed ties?
if it's on the first round.
You could go by the "add all speed stats up" method, otherwise let the one move, who didn't move last.
even in non turn based game, this can happen; TF2 recently added the asteroid/robot defense map. from the many times i've played this map, it seems whichever team scores first is almost set to win the match
the easiest fix is the one tennis and professional chess uses, you play multiple games, swapping sides each time and you have to win on the disadvantaged side to with the match
+Z-Statistic yes that's exactly what you do, you keep playing, that's why you get the super long tennis matches
I think that if you view turns within a turn based game as being an opening statement, followed by a response, and then a response to the response and so on until the game ends, it reveals that the first turn of the first player is inherently different from every other turn on account of it being the first. Even the first turn of the second player is influenced by it. A way to balance it might be to, instead of making the first turn of the second player better than any other turn in the game, but make the first turn of the first player worse in a manner inherent to its status of being the first move.
For example, at the end of every turn in a card game, you must play a "bonus" card, which gives your opponent a minor bonus of some sort. Because there was no turn before it, the first player's first turn has no advantages, but the second player's first turn isn't special in any way. If balanced properly through the effects of the bonus cards, its a system that both players can take advantage of within a game, but is still slightly weighted towards the second player. The opening statement still has its inherent power, but responses also have their own inherent power to compensate.
If a opponent moves first then they are hungry for victory.
If a opponent moves last then they are starving for victory.
- Ancient Chinese Person
Fake
yugioh philosofy
An interesting discussion point this week. This can be seen going either direction depending on how developers approach it. While Going first has its clear indication of how you can easily come out on top, the way some try to balance it can actually give the second player an even better advantage.
I don't play Hearthstone stone that often, but I did see a video where a player was able to summon a high level monster or could even take down their opponent in one turn due with the luck of the draw. It is one thing to try and balance out the game so that both sides have a fair chance to win, but another on how the players can find ways to exploit the game so that they can easily take advantage on what order they start off on.
I also have to admit that the LoL talking point is pretty spot on too considering how depending on who goes first, they could either have the advantage of banning those champs that can give their opponents the edge, or could leave them at a disadvantage for banning a champ that the other team would have banned, but by you picking that champ, you allow them to pick another champ that your side could have used, but can no longer pick.
Actually going second in Hearthstone is bad and classes see up to a 10% wo rate drop in arena due to it. 1 more mama for 9/10 turns is really great and gives access to a lot more value and tempo.
wo -> winrate*
xSGKx Bu11et in Yu-Gi-Oh the first turn does *NOT* have a draw Phase or battle phase or main phase 2 while the second turn does.
Yes, well that was way less true over 2 years ago in Hearthstone. Things have changed.
Roy Mustang Going second is terrible in arena, and depends upon deck in ladder
There are some interesting approaches to this problem in tabletop wargaming - the one that made the biggest impression is in Bolt Action, which introduces randomness. Each turn you put tokens for every unit on both sides into a bag and pick them out at random. So the first unit gets potentially the first shot and so forth, but a bad draw could see the entire opposing army activate and squash a recklessly aggressive move.
The "best" draw might see you moving your whole army first, but the odds of it occurring get longer and longer and encourage you to play with a bit of caution - whereas your opponent now gets to move all their army in the certain knowledge that it's back to a normal random draw afterwards, so they can move in a much more coordinated and effective manner.
hearthstone... mage mana worm coin mirror image spell... good starting combo.
Amazing episode :D
By the way, in one of my design class I'm using a lot of the content I learn in this channel, and I must say, is very, very helpfull. Thanks for all
Something adjustable is nice.
Like the coin card in Hearthstone.
Maybe 50% chance to get 1 more mana instead of 100%.
The spell advantage is still there (the laws of the game prevents removing it) but at least there's rng so it's not a definitive advantage all the time.
That would be more rng. and the more rng you put in a game it gets worse and worse competitive vise.
Breton Charles Or maybe the coin heals a certain amount of health. That amount can be adjusted for better balance.
Hearthstone is rng heaven anyways, so a bit more rng to shovel out a distinct advantage like this is acceptable in my opinion.
Paul Staker "Hearthstone is rng heaven anyways" Get the hell out you.
Breton Charles Is it not?
definitely not.
If going first is a problem that needs to be balanced out then making the balance out mechanic a 50/50 chance would simply turn the coin flip of who goes first problem into the coin flip if the second player gets the catch up mechanic or not.
the coin in hearthstone counts as a card and a spell. this can give an advantage to certain decks that use combo's that feed of either playing cards or spells. However not all decks do this so for those who don't which i haven't played in quite sometime but back then where actaully the majority of decks. There was no advantage to be had from the coin being a spell or a card.
The problem in hearthstone is that it is hard to balance the catchup mechanic since the game is rng based.
The coin allows you to make a big play for example summong a turn 4 guy on turn 3. this big play should in theory even out the playing field.
However if you were unable to make such a play and only got a mediocre use out of the coin then the player first still got the advantage. But then on the otherhand if the play you where able to make thanks to that coin was too big then the player going second has the advantage.
Nothing has changed about the catch up mechanic nor even the decks they played. But in one game it wasn't a big enough catch up while in the other it was too big.
There is also no reason that the coin could not be simply considered to not be a spell or card.
The only reason it is is because blizzard wants to make it a simple mechanic to understand for newer players.
In Go I've found that more so than going first, is keeping sente, in other words, the initiative. You counter the person who moves before you, or find a bigger threat they have to respond to, and your advantage will earn you a lot of territory and strength, and I think that can balance out.
I'm intrigued as to how already existing turn based games do this.
For example: How does Civ do it? What about Heroes if Might and Magic (the series in which I seem to be the only person who liked number 4)? What of Total War? Some examples would be useful, I think.
Yu-Gi-Oh! does it interestingly: The first player has to skip the Draw and Battle Phase (can't attack). That is all, it's not much but does the trick.
In civ, there hundreds of turns, so one turn really isn't that much of an advantage
It isn't a big deal in Civ just because you take so many turns before any kind of engagement becomes relevant. In Civ IV it might be enough to net you a religion, in V maybe one of the better early wonders, but first move advantage is never more important than a lucky goody hut or starting near a couple of especially strong resources.
After playing Yu-gi-oh, it REALLY depends on your deck, because your deck either does or doesn't care about what your opponent is doing, which case the advantage shifts from "You just lost the game b/c you lost the die roll" to "It doesn't really matter so you may as well let them go first so they can't OTK you."
Julian Wachholz and with that give the 2nd-turn players just the hand a field advantage they need for any deck that base on huge loop and screw anyone who has slower speed than them.
I've been doing some amount of amateur, homebrew game design. In one tactical combat game I designed, I let the player who goes first not get to make attacks (only moves) on his two first turns, while the player who goes second is only restricted from doing attacks on his first turn. Thus, one player gets to start moving one turn before the other guy, but the other guy gets to start shooting one turn before.
I came here because of the Go board.
+Gregious Same lol
+Gregious Have you read the manga heroku no go it's my favorite you should check it out
I know how you feel.
Me too, only to find ec claiming Go gives 7.5 point advantage to the second player (White), which is, and was at the time this video was posted, only true in China, which has very different rules for the game compared to Korea, Japan or the AGA (N. America). Plus, they don't even call the game 'Go' :P
heroku? or hikaru?
A while ago, I was designing a collectable card game for fun. Even then I was thinking about first turn advantage before I knew it was a thing. My solution was that in the opening of the game, each player draws their hand, and then places all of the combatants they could (low level ones) on the field face down, turning them face up when both players were ready to start. The player with the least number of combatants on the field got to go first.
Pokemon... Fixes the first turn issue!
+Spark Yeah, so do any RPG with speed as a stat, geez
Shireke01 Most games that incorporated a speed stat were post pokemon.
Spark Like Final Fantasy I for example?
Shireke01 Wasn't aware final fantasy 1 used a speed stat. All my experiences with final fantasy 1 include an attack bar thingy. Never really played the games though.
Spark That one is FF7 pretty sure. almost all previews games use the speed stat.
In competitive Smash Bros, one of the most important parts of the match is stage choice, as different stages lend MASSIVE advantages/disadvantages to certain character (and player) matchups. In order to get maximum balance for this crucial part of the game, the strike/counter-pick system was developed by the community (possibly with outside influence; I don't know much about how the metas of other competitive games work). The way this system works is essentially a turn-based strategy game, like character banning in League:
Match 1:
1) Players pick characters. This takes place simultaneously.
2) The players decide who strikes first.
3) The player who strikes first picks a stage from the starter list for the tournament that he doesn't want to go to.
4) The player who strikes second bans two other stages from the list.
5) The player who struck first bans two more stages.
6) The player who struck second chooses where to play out of the remaining starter stages.
Match 2:
1) The player who won the previous match bans a number of stages from the tourney-legal list. The exact number varies from tournament to tournament, but it's usually three or four.
2) The player who lost chooses where the next match will take place out of the remaining stages.
3) Players are given an opportunity then (and only then) to go back and choose new characters. Whether both players get this option or just the winner depends on the tournament.
Match 3:
1) The winner of Match 2 bans the same number of stages as the winner of Match 1 did last time.
2) The loser of Match 2 chooses one of the remaining stages to play on, but he may not return to the stage where he won in Match 1.
3) Characters are chosen one last time. Same rules as before.
This was designed so that no player gets a clear advantage simply by banning first. Whether you want to be the first to strike or second becomes a calculated choice based on many variables. Do you know that does poorly on several of the starter stages against the character your opponent chose? Then you may want to strike first. But then your opponent gets to choose where you go in the end, and he will play to his advantage the best that he can. So perhaps you should strike second. But then you risk your opponent striking the few stages that you have to your advantage!
The metagame of stage strikes alone, I could probably write several pages about, so I'm going to stop here before I go too crazy. :P
So, the questions still stands: How do you balance it!?
All this video did was say that it exists, and provided examples of where it applies.
The solution is to apply a handicap to the first player.
mint301 draws the best pokemans.
If they could easily answer the question, they could patent it and make millions. They actually explained, how different games handle first-turn advantage. It is pretty clear from the video, that every game needs its own approach to this problem, based on its own rules.
This video gave some examples of solving the issue. Still, it's not about giving you an answer on a silver platter, because the quality of a solution varies from game to game. A designer must think about their game and find the best possible solution for the specific case
Mario Krastanov
and most importantly ther is no 1 answer to this not even in one game you would need at least one answer for each skill level (due to understanding of the game and the meta)
In economic game theory, there are many examples of second-move advantage. Many of these revolve around the first mover being required to commit to a certain line of action, which then gives the second player the ability to respond effectively. For an extreme example, imagine a game of rock-paper-scissors where player A reveals her pick first, and then player B gets to choose how to respond - B wins every time. One way you could address the problem of first-move advantage is by including elements of second-move advantage mechanics in the game. Of course, just like anything you'd have to balance it.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
How dear you tear up the greatest card in pokemon History! :P
They changed pkmn tcg from attacking first to... not. They also changed allowing playing of supporter cards around.
Magi Nation had a unique take on going first, but you could always get locked in.
I still wonder if a TCG can be done that does "both" players going at the same time... somehow.
Yeah.. this is tough.
Deconverted Man Both players pick a card or set of cards to play, and turn it face down. Once both players have played, the cards are flipped over. Sometimes, certain cards might have higher priority.
This sort of play requires you to work more on prediction than reaction.
One idea that I've had for a game that I can never seem to make work is where you deck out (run out of cards) to win, the issue is drawing is the goal, but also when you have all these cards in hand, the cards must do something and the more you have ,the better you are off... so I cant make it work.
Deconverted Man
The Zatch Bell! card game works in that way, actually. Each player's deck is in a predetermined order with no shuffling whatsoever, and the game ends once one player reaches the bottom of his or her deck. From what I can gather, there is no way to end a game before a player decks out.
That being said, that outcome can be either a win or a loss for the player who's decked out: If the opponent hasn't run out of cards yet and inflicts damage on you, then you lose. Otherwise, you win.
Deconverted Man Infinity Wars does simultaneous turns perfectly.
After playing a game of Risk (Actually LotR Risk) and going first I have to agree with the first move being incredibly powerful. Of course in Risk it is (somewhat) balanced by your enemies being able to see what you're focusing on, and then hit you where you aren't looking, but still. My first turn I got ~10 battalions, and all of them went to securing the Shire, and then expanding out into Rohan. I had a steady supply of troops due to holding a whole nation, and within one turn I could disrupt control of almost all other nations as long as whoever held them wasn't focusing on guarding the ports.
Because I had that advantage I had more troops than anyone else on the board throughout the entire game, and even with poor planning leaving some behind my lines I always had more. I suppose the first move didn't make me win, but it helped a lot with the initial push supporting my campaign.
Should have looked at Dota 2's drafting system instead of LoL's, it actually has an impact on the game besides "which champ do you not want to play against this game?"
so does LoL's though
pipboy17 Dota's laning can be a lot... stranger than LoL tho, so the picks can be harder to read.
For the sake of the episode though, both games would work just fine.
he didn't go into detail about the drafting system tho.
He simply pointed out that even in a game where the gameplay itself is not turnbased but they have a drafting system first turn advantage can be an issue.
luckygozer i thought that was the point of the video though, i was just telling the OP that LoL was a fine example
pipboy17 well yeah that was why i replied to him aswell.
It didn't matter what game he picked to explain the drafting system.
LoL is simply more popular so more people will be familiarize with it.
I personally would like to see more exploration on the mechanics of simultaneous turns, like the classic board-game Diplomacy. Almost all "turn-based" games are such that the players wait for their own turns, but there is nothing preventing the creation of games with simultaneous turns, where the players reveal their actions at the same time, especially now that we have computers to figure out all the interactions. Imagine a 4X game with simultaneous turns: you queue up all the things that you want to happen next turn, set armies on their paths, and then click next turn together with all the other players (instead of waiting for your turn). Then next turn your armies move forward, maybe collide with the enemy, and the city you wanted to be built is finally raised. There are disadvantages to this, of course (one you might have noticed from the example here, the fact that you can't just "do" things but have to have a "next turn" lag), but so does normal turn-based gameplay, and I'd really want to know if the disadvantages really are that bad when objectively compared to other options.
still waiting for you to reference yu-gi-oh......
chubby chu Wish they did. Both 1st and 2nd have advantages.
1st = Easier to set up and other obvious FTAs
2nd = Get to attack on your first go, and gets an insight on your opponents deck sometimes.
and you can draw a card as Second. but the First can use Trap cars in your first trun
It's not appropriate for all games, but simultaneous turns are an interesting solution to this problem. I used to play a lot of simultaneous turn Risk as a kid. Having each player decide on their next move in secret and then reveal their moves at the same time creates an almost realtime aspect to the game. You do have to think carefully though about your ruleset and how different scenarios are resolved.
One game that breaks this rule is Poker. In poker the last player has the advantage because they see how everyone reacts to the current stakes before they decide. Its the best position to bluff, pressure opponents, or to fold with the least amount of risk. Now the reason why this works in poker than other card games like magic is because you mostly play from the hand so the opponents won't know what you have until you reveal it. I'm sure there is a lot more nuances and details I'm missing but would love to see an detail analysis on why Poker breaks this rule compared to other games.
archage is a good example of a action real time game where first move basically decides the winner between players of roughly equal gear and skill
I always like it when the bonus you get for not going 1st is not a rule itself, but a byproduct of rules. Smallworld, a strategy board game kinda like risk, gives the 1st player their pick of factions, but when they pick one, they have to "pay" to skip ones they don't want, meaning that if players 1 and 2 pass up the 1st faction for the 2nd or 3rd, player 3 gets a point advantage simply by taking the 1st faction. Carcassone also does this well: the 1st player can get 4 points on the 1st turn if they're lucky, and any other pieces allow time for other players to counterplay. Of course, player 1 can claim a territory early on as their own, but it's easy enough early game for player 2 or 3 to, say, link a couple fields together, or outright block off player 1's ambitions. Games like Hearthstone or Magic where the bonus to player 2 is a direct rule are still good (though Magic still suffers from 1st being objectively better for all but a single competitive deck), but it just feels good when the consolation for not going 1st is a result of another rule, not its own rule.
In Master of Orion II, both players essentially make their main map moves at the same time, and the moves are executed between turns. When a battle occurs, the attacking player moves first. This makes the game very balanced.
There is a game called Buddy fight. What they do is the person who draws first may place one monster and do damage dirctly to the player. The one that goes second may place as many monsters as they want to (As long as the monster value doesn't go over 3) and then can destroy the other monster and do damage to player
The other option is to embrace first turn advantage. In the P&P RPG system I'm developing I've made the conscious decision to embrace it. You get what are essentially AP on every turn but the higher your initiative, the more turns you get every round. You only get a single action every turn though but your stamina (the AP) builds up on consecutive turns and with how the crit system works you can get free actions outside of your turn (You can crit a dodge roll against an opponent's attack to take a basic action) but the opponent won't have stamina to counter attack with any thing beyond a basic attack or movement until their turn comes up. It gives advantage to the player that gets the drop and creates a natural ebb and flow to the combat in that you'll tend to see the larger attacks happen at the end of a round.
I read something similar that extends beyond gaming. Bill Walsh (American football coach) had extensive game-plans to always get initiative (first move) in the game, rather than reacting to how the game unfolded he made the game react to his plan.
Watching and playing Starcraft II, I found out that being a reactive player I lost more than the players that has the first turn (takes initiative).
my heart happily skipped a beat with every example using Go...
I miss playing this game that almost nobody knows or cares about, and to me is better than chess, because I can see easily if I stay or change my strategy mid-game
I completely agree with all the presented ideas, though I feel a portion of it sort of glossed over an important aspect of the TYPE of resource present in games like Chess and Go. (Perhaps the scope is big enough to warrant its own discussion, but who knows.) I feel that in those games, the concept of TIME as a resources is much more magnified due to first turn advantage, in addition to the fact that there is a very distinct visual advantage gained. That is influence over the board, and as often said in Go, the idea of establishing territory. These two factors combine together often in the first turn to set a pace to the game, though I would argue that Black's third turn in a game of Go is akin to the first turn in a game of Chess. It's ironic that the imagery @ 4:16 pretty much sums up my thought on this topic even though it wasn't addressed directly in the episode.
To wrap up, just wanted to say thank you for creating this series - absolutely love every bit of it. Well... that's if this comment is seen, anyway.
Great Video!
I am currently playing that card game Force of Will where the first turn advantage is completely off balance. They are attempting to fix it by giving 1 extra card and basically the coin from hearthstone with the ruleset of the next edition.
I would have loved if you went deeper on adressing possibilities than giving a bunch of examples, but probably it would be enough for another video. One point I am missing concerning developed recourses games like Magic is the stages of development in context of the first turn adavantage. Since in Magic your ressources generating mana and the spells generating play advantage both are card, which limit one another so the first turn advantage shows off in the first three turns of the game and can be considered less powerful in any gamestages beyond. Since you might have 5 lands to cast powerful spells from the start, you would like to go second to have the chance to pull off more spells with more cards in the meantime your opponent tries to establish board pressure. On the other hand, the same is true for low ressource hands to draw a third land and guarantee these first three turns to be as impactful as they can be. On the other hand a 3 land 4 spells hand on curve would always want to be played with the first move advantage.
I think that its more important to look further into ressource-management during later gameplay stages in developed ressources games than into the principle of getting the ressources even out with some sort of bonus points or coin/mana.
As a weird exception from which something might be learned Battletech has a last-move advantage. This stems largely from the fact that damage is only applied at the end of the round combined with the way positional damage gives extra benefit to a player who can control the angle they attack from. As a result the last player to move controls their positioning and does if, not more damage, more disabling damage giving them an increased potential for a significant resource advantage in the next round. This may also contribute to the game's extreme length of play as a defensive player can get very catty about closing to a distance where hits are likely since they may be flanked if the roll for play order goes wrong next turn.
I was just trying to develop a turn-based tactical RPG (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance style) and this is something that really has me thinking over and over how to solve the problem. It really is an interesting problem to adress
A lot of games have the player moving second have the upper hand as they can react to p1’s initial move. I even played one game where the designers didn’t realise this and added a handicap the wrong way round, which was fun.
Lol. I'm impressed you knew about Go, but it's a shame your artist wasn't aware of how the stones are actually held. Great video!
I've always liked the idea where the player goes first gets "half a turn". This way everyone at the end of their turn is effectively half a turn up at the end of their turn. Obviously it doesn't work with every type of turn based game, but it tends to work well with those it's compatible with
Another game that makes "first turn advantage" a little more interesting is Warhammer 40k.
The game starts even before you place minis on the table. You have to roll off to see who place their army down first. The player that wins the roll off choose to go first or second, but that also means he has to start first or second as well.
Placing you army on the table second is a HUGE advantage, as you can deploy based on your enemies deployment. At the same time going first tend to be important, as you can start picking off enemy units first, or even going for an early alpha strike kill. So the first turn advantage is mittigated by the fact that your opponent can out deploy you.
BUT, there is a mechanic called "Stealing the Initiative" where the player going second can roll a dice, and on a roll of 6 he goes first instead. (This is by many deemed a very unfair practice as it gives that player a very big advantage, but such is the randomness of war).
There are even certain units that can modify the Initiative roll, making it easier to steal.
But all in all 40k has an interesting way of dealing with it.
(I guess the closes analogy for none 40k players would be that both players in chess could choose how to set up their pieces, and that black then could try and counter place based on what white did... I think I just invented future chess!)
For the tabletop miniatures game Warmachine it's pretty impressive how they balanced going second. The first player puts his minis on his side of the table and of course can move up the table faster while getting out all his movements buffs and what not. However, going second lets you 'counter deploy' your opponent. Which means you can put your minis who can best deal with the minis across from them on your opponents side. Additionally, you start the game a few inches up the board and in scenario games, the points starts counter after the second players second turn. That all sounds great for the second player, without taking too much from the first turn player. Really, going either first or second doesn't make much of a difference unless the army you brought to the game, relies or works better with either going first or second.
One thing you missed is that in some games, it's possible to defeat the problem by making first move advantage a reward. In many tabletop RPG:s, as well as some video game RPG:s (most notably Pokémon) the player with the best of a certain stat goes first. There is no counter advantage of going second in place, but going first is something you have to earn (or spend points on or whatever).
Thanks for this, I am currently in the early stages of developing a turn based game and I hadn't put much thought into first turn advantage. Back to the drawing board ;)
I aboslutely love the fact your ar representing go, Please continue to use go in your videos and spread the great game through much of the world ^_^
Every video I watch makes me want more and more from you guys.
Fascinating, I played Go throughout highschool with a few friends when we discovered a Go set in the Japanese classrooms. Somehow, while we did learn the rules from the teachers, we missed the handicap to going second and I think that probably skewed the wins a huge amount in the long run. Oh well, I guess fair is fair since nobody was allowed to go first two games in a row by our own rules anyway!
Funny rewatching this video now. Recently began playing Gwent with the release of the open beta, and in that game card advantage is the name of the game. You can only play one card a turn, and neither player has any health. You instead play for who has the highest amount of points on the board. Due to this mechanic, reactionary play is in most cases much more powerful than proactive play. You always want to be able too answer your opponent's cards.
This makes it so that the player going second will be able to react first, and they get to play the last card, so in Gwent's case it's a matter of first move disadvantage.
When I first started playing Magic: The Gathering, I always wanted to go second so I could get that extra card. Nowadays, I prefer to go first, because potentially having one more land out than your opponent does can make a big difference.
I prefer to go second, because my decks always lack additional card takes. :)
This episode reminds me of Hnefatafl, an asymmetric-strategy board game of Scandinavian origin. Although most of the game's original ruleset has been lost to history, it would make for an excellent topic of discussion over how asymmetric gameplay factors into first turn advantages.
I'm surprised they didn't mention the solution of "bidding" for turn order. I know a lot of competitive turn based games have players bid up points (or other things) until someone agrees to take the disadvantaged slot for X handicap bonus.
So, who bids first?
You either flip a coin to determine first bidding (since who goes first on bidding is usually very minor) or you can do blind bidding where both people secretly bid at the same time, with ties simply repeating the bid.
A comment that was probably made already - starcraft brood war skill shown in the old days is still far more impressive than what sc2 has to show nowdays.
It's interesting you guys mentioned LoL. Dota has a similar picks and bans phase at the start of matches, and first pick is considered to be very powerful. But first pick goes to the Dire team, who have a distinct map disadvantage in the early game. So having a turn based segment of a game can be balanced by making changes to the real time segment that comes after it.
The star wars game x wing does the turn based style excellently. You can choose to have a pilot for your ship with a high or low pilot skill; one moves first, the other shoots first. So there is an advantage if you build your ships correctly to whether you go first or shoot first
Loved the art. Awesome content, as always.
When the very best players at a certain game gets mentioned (3:48) I just had to pause and put in the Pokemon theme... And now I'm thinking, Pokemon is turn-based, and the main offset to first-turn advantage is the Speed stat. And there's a counter to that in priority moves like Swift and Quick Attack. Then there's a counter to THAT in missing an attack, which completely skips a turn, which can be exploited with stat-lowering status moves, which generally have high to perfect accuracy, and can be taken further with stat-lowering attacks, generally held by slow and powerful Pokemon like Emboar as opposed to speedsters like Pikachu. Accuracy can also be played with to prevent one from getting taken down without a chance to react. Take Sheer Cold for instance. It's a one-hit KO if it lands, but if you're just chipping away and you're one hit from scoring a KO, you can't just take a Chuck Norris to the Jigglypuffs (WTF?) so it has low accuracy. But hey, hypothermia isn't exactly an instant death for us, isn't it? Maybe the designers were like "Hey, we should make a realistic attack. Cold can kill, so maybe Ice-Type? Hypothermia is what I'm thinking, and it kills sometimes, and it's because of the low temperature, so maybe we make it a low-accuracy one-hit KO and name it Sheer Cold?"
But hey, that's just a theory... A- nope, not gonna do that.
I think I may have reconsidered my Pokemon play style.
Digged the art style this week.
Maneuver-based games that take into account facing (such as Battletech) give the second player an advantage. The second player can react to the first player's move to get behind an opposing unit.
If you play reacting your opponent, that means that the first player has got the Initiative, so it isn't a real advantage for the second player
I have played this one boardgame that I think mitigates first turn advantage really well:
"Samurai and Katana"
which on the surface looks like Risk with Samurai, and well Katana. But it's so much more than that. It is a more than two player game, so it's different from say magic et al. But it has aa really awesome mechanic to deal with turn order:
The losing player choose the order in which players go. Not only is the game tuned based as moat board games, it is also a phase based game, so you have your "Purchase and place phase" where you spend money to get troops etc, and here the player with the lowest score dictates who goes in what order. Then comes the combat phase where fighting happens, and so on. Oh and did I mention the title of the lowest scoring player is "Emperor" (and the winning player is the Shogun, who has bonuses to fighting, but also has a harder time scoring points, again it balance out).
What was really amazing when playing this game a few time is that you realized that going first was a liability. You have control over where you want to attack, and you might have a huge army to conquer with, but being might also let you over extend yourself, leaving you vulnerable to attacks from players going later. So a losing player that understands this can stack the order to get him (and his allies) into a better position, but maybe ensuring that their allianse still control the throne of the Emperor.
What's funny is when a game is designed in such a way that second player has an unexpected advantage.
Here's an example:
I remember this old board game we used to have. I forget what it was called, but players would take turns placing pieces onto a grid, each one adjacent to their previous piece-- essentially creating an ever-growing wall or snake, if you will. And once you had nowhere to go, you lost. It was basically an extremely slow game of Light Cycle.
However, my older brother soon discovered a cheap exploit: If player 2 always did the exact same thing as player 1, he would win 100% of the time. There was no way for player 1 to win.
Of course, there are ways to amend such a flaw: Force 1st and 2nd player to make different first turns, players make their moves in secret and only reveal their actions after both have chosen, slightly asymmetrical field obstacles, etc.
However, in that game, the way it was shipped, that bug made the game wildly broken.
Any thoughts on that?
I love the artstyle!! :D I'm up for more episodes!
I do want to see an episode covering the few games that have the first turn disadvantage. Mainly because there are games where going first is a disadvantage.
Funny enough, this just came up last night when playtesting a card game I'm designing and I just started contemplating ways to help balance that.