Proposed balance change for first player advantage

[Propaganda Panda]

Just curious - where do I find these statistics you speak of? I recall I saw someone build a model that showed about 55% first player advantage, but I wouldn't call that 'significant' by any metric. So just wondering if there is other data.

Just curious, if 10% of inflated win rate is not significant, what is ?

55% win rate for the first player is considered almost perfect ratio. It compares to chess.

But White does have a significant advantage in chess, no? In tournaments, players always have the same (or same-ish) number of white/black games because it would be considered too unfair otherwise. The first player advantage in Ark Nova is surely less severe than in many other games, but it is still very impactful.

[talkative]

55% win rate for the first player is considered almost perfect ratio. It compares to chess.

Chess, famously, has a huge first player advantage. Why do you consider that almost perfect?

Go has a 50.5% 1st player win rate under Japanese and Korean rules and 49.5% under Chinese rules. New Zealand rules look close to 50%. How about using that as a reference instead of a game that's famous for having a big first player advantage?

[SpajderDzerusalem]

Just curious - where do I find these statistics you speak of? I recall I saw someone build a model that showed about 55% first player advantage, but I wouldn't call that 'significant' by any metric. So just wondering if there is other data.

Just curious, if 10% of inflated win rate is not significant, what is ?

55% win rate for the first player is considered almost perfect ratio. It compares to chess.

Yeah and chess has some tournament rules to negate first player advantage (like Armageddon or black getting more time).

[daddyotter]

Chess has around 54% advantage for white in classical time format, 53% for rapid and around 52% for blitz.

The alleviating factor for chess is that it requires a winning advantage. This means that with perfect play chess is still a draw due to insufficient material to force victory.

However many other games are played for points, and a single point can decide a winner. Therefore those types of games need to pay even more attention to ensuring balance for player order.

Not being an expert in Ark Nova I would defer to others, but something flexible like an extra X token sounds reasonable.

[MartoTom]

I do not wish this to turn into a discussion of what a 'significant advantage' in a game looks like. Or what it means to have 55% chance of winning as opposed to 45%.

I am also not arguing that 1st player in Ark Nova doesn't have an advantage. All I asked is the source of the OP's claims that there are statistics showing that advantage. I merely want to see the statistics and the source as I like to analyze Ark Nova data like this.