Balance Reflections:

[CCUbigdiok]

Hey everyone,

After a bunch of games, I’m starting to feel like a few mechanics in Ark Nova are a bit too snowbally. I love the game, but these three points are starting to bug me :

1. First player advantage is real
Being the first player feels like a massive leg up. The current compensation for the second player with 1 appeal don't really feel like enough to bridge the gap. By the time the second player gets moving, the first player has already grabbed the best unis and set the tempo. I feel like we need better balancing for whoever isn't going first.

2. Species Diversity is way too easy
The Species Diversity project (with the 2/3/5 shields) feels kind of imba compared to the others. Because Species Diversity is such an easy project to do, It snowballs the game so fast it’s not even funny. With Asia or Africa, you can actually use some skill to navigate losing the race, but Species Diversity just feels like a direct test of luck. It should probably be 2/4/5 to keep it fair.

3. Free Universities/Partner Zoos on the track
Getting a permanent University or Partner Zoo as a reward for hitting 5/8 shields is classic snowball mechanic. It’s already great to be ahead on the conservation track; giving those players a permanent efficiency boost on top of that just makes it impossible for anyone else to catch up. It usually leads to the leader just running away with the game.

What do you guys think? Am I overthinking, or are these legit balance issues?

[Alucard648]

1. Side Entrance in opening hand. Instant economic boom and flexibility in construction.
2. Reef dominoeing can end the games 1-2 rounds earlier than usual.
3. Architectural Zoo FS card. Synergies well with standard 7 VP map fill bonus and already mentioned Side Entrance.

[Monkeyunit]

1. Winners average is 1.46 which isn't that big of an advantage I feel.
It also depends on your action order, as first player with association at 2 means you might not get first pick of uni or partner zoo.

2. It is easy, but that goes both ways. The double animal icons make it a lot easier to do this project fast tho. 2/4/5 doesnt make it more fair.
Making the lowest tier just 2 means it's even easier to do it in the first round, and the big difference is the 5 CP for the first place on it. Thats the race you are trying to win.

3. Yes, getting free uni or partner zoo is very strong, and if there rewards are there it means you should give even more priority to doing early projects. Solution would be to remove these from the pool of available rewards perhaps.


From Alucords post:

1: It used to be considered very good, but not anymore. The game has gotten a lot faster and good players make sure there is a break before you can take the build actions to really make it boost your income madly.

2: Yes, reef is strong especially when Sea Animals is also a project on the board. Have to try and take those animals away from opponent.

3: Easy 2 points, but getting 3 or 4 is actually very hard in high elo games. Build upgrade is something most top tier players tend to avoid.
Favorite Zoo and Conservation Zoo are much better End Games.

[smars9]

1. “The winners’ average is 1.46.” Is this statistic only for 2‑player games? Because if it also includes 3–4 player games (even though those are not very common), it might actually show the opposite of what you’re trying to demonstrate.

2. I think he meant that the rewards should be 2–4–5 CP respectively, but I personally think they should be 2-3-4 CP.

Overall, I think the game has enough mechanics and comeback cards that a good player can utilize.

[yazavats]

1. “The winners’ average is 1.46.” Is this statistic only for 2‑player games? Because if it also includes 3–4 player games (even though those are not very common), it might actually show the opposite of what you’re trying to demonstrate.

It is for all games but the large majority of them are 2p. All players' average is 1.55, so you can derive from that just how much 3 or 4 player games account for. I.e. the number would deviate a lot higher from 1.5 if there were many 3 or 4 player games relative to the total. That said, the winners' average deviating below 1.5 indicates that the advantage is indeed real, usually because of assoc priority. I don't know how significant it is but I share the sentiment it is not properly compensated. Instead of 1 appeal perhaps it would be better if 2nd player got 1 x token, but then again that might be op, it would require some testing to find out.

I feel however that it is moot to discuss balance options because they require approval from the publisher and they're largely inert on that part. We can be thankful we have the option of mirrored maps, even though that's not standard for the over the table version.

As for the diverse species project, I think a lot of experienced players dislike it because of how swingy it can be in regard to the luck of the draw. But so is something like getting a round one large release. And winning a race for uni or partner zoo can be pivotal for tempo, but it's not a sole decider.

Overall, the winner will be decided from the synergy of a lot factors. That's what this game has going for itself. There is no single contextual thing that will decide the game, it's always a multiple. So that's kind of a balancing mechanic in itself.

[BlueSwan]

There are a whole bunch of things that can feel OP in this game if the stars align, but the game also allows for comebacks since it is not really an engine builder game where a good start basically ends the game. I don't know how many times I myself or my opponent has gotten a superb start only for the game to somehow turn around later. Yes, there is a lot of luck in this game, but the fact that the top players are 800-900 ELO should tell you that the best player still usually wins. Skill is a much larger factor than luck.

[ArtEntre]

BGA winner's average also includes solo games, I'm pretty sure. So even though 2p are the majority of games, we really can't use that BGA metric to evaluate first player advantage.

There are statistics with a sufficiently large 2p game dataset collected which show first player advantage is somewhere around 51% winrate... I don't have time to look up the exact details. So first player advantage exists, but is not huge on average (that doesn't stop there from being an individual game every so often where first player did get a huge advantage in that game because of the cards in hand or on the display).

Ultimately, Ark is indeed a game where some cards are much better than others (or become so in certain combos) or certain situations (species 2-5, uni at 5cp) can result in polarized outcomes. Whether you consider that a problem or a feature is up to you. Ark does have have high elos among the top players compared to many other euro games, which implies there's still lots of skill expression relative to luck in most circumstances.

[yazavats]

BGA winner's average also includes solo games, I'm pretty sure. So even though 2p are the majority of games, we really can't use that BGA metric to evaluate first player advantage.

Good point, I didn't account for that.

[kindfortress]

1st-player advantage is a real issue among stronger players, but it's difficult to solve. My guess is that the advantage stems mostly from things like first-round Wrasse, Wolf/Stork/etc release, early diversity project and so forth, and that basically, there are a relatively small number of games where the 1st-player advantage is quite large, and a large number of games where it is small or even a disadvantage (perhaps bc of starting assoc strength). If 1st-player advantage is v small in most games, but v large in others, any static balance you implement will help p2 too much in most games, and still not enough at the edges.

I think the other issues are a bit different. Ark Nova is a game of smaller races nested in the larger race to 114. Players have to evaluate which races to emphasize, and that changes from game to game, based on the projects, the CP rewards, the map and map rewards, etc. I don't think that winning any one race is decisive most of the time, but it can feel like it snowballs because players who are good know which races to prioritize, and know how to leverage the rewards from those races effectively.