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NASCAR Driver (Pro V)
 
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Post 08 Nov 2018, 7:06 am

You can post directly here or I can post your email comments.
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Post 08 Nov 2018, 7:07 am

Comments regards grid positioning...

Bruce R. wrote:Well, I am glad to see that all the different Balance options were chosen by at least one player. I had thought that everyone would try the +3 Balance option, so deliberately tried to go against that type with -3. Since others had the same analysis (curses to Tatum & Long), I think the car to watch will be Rando’s design. I expect to see lots of dice rolling from his team and am excited to see how the race plays out.
My initial thought on car design was that not being able to bid skill for pole position has reduced the value of a high start speed. At WBC a few years ago, we ran this track and I played a car with 120 start speed to good effect. Because these test rules dictate we have to bid pole with wear only, it may be too great a sacrifice to have a high start speed if wear is needed for running the corners. I see that nobody built 120 start or even 100 start in this race. Perhaps we should bring back the Speed Circuit rule that pole is won by highest start speed to complement the Balance rules, or some combination of start speed and wear bid?
I will save my other thoughts until after the race end, once the race has played out and we see how this demo shakes out.
Good luck to all!
- BJR


Chris L. wrote:Going back to the old AH style of start speed dictating pole position is a really interesting idea.  I like the idea that it could be a combination of both.  Like every wear you bid would add +20mph to your start speed?  That way, you'd still have the flexibility of the option to bid for pole, but start speed would still be very meaningful for positioning, AND you wouldn't have the problem of random chance of all the 0 bids being determined by dice rolls.


Will K. wrote:I don't know. That to me seems like a rich get richer kind of thing. I mean, that sort of determination means that 100 starts get an even larger gap to start on the backfield. Added to Chris, your suggestion would not be cost effective, at least under current Build Speed rules. Perhaps 2/20 could work, but even in that case I would do it without the SS dictating.

A thought came to my mind also though. Perhaps a replacement for skill with "Car Stress" basically a driver could bid engine/break mods as halfs with wear, like skill before. Yes this would make it so a -3er would likely bid high cause they are never rolling, but it would give an alternate way to risk.
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Post 08 Nov 2018, 8:01 am

To put this another way, you're adding your start speed (1 per each 20 mph) to your wear bid.

The idea has merit in that better pole bids still cost more resources. Let's say, for example, you think you'll be bidding 7 points on the start. Here are your choices and your costs:

#1: 3 (60 SS) + 4 (wear) = 0 + 1.33 = 1.33 build points.
#2: 5 (100 SS) + 2 (wear) = 1 + 0.66 = 1.66 build points
#3: 6 (120 SS) + 1 (wear) = 2 + 0.33 = 2.33 build points

That's a pretty small marginal cost (1/3 of a build point) to improve your SS by 40 while maintaining grid position. Maybe it makes SS too powerful? Then again, I'm comparing to CFR rules, not Speed Circuit rules. Maybe a move back towards SS being more valuable is desirable. I did not include 20 SS since I wouldn't expect a bid of 7 from such a car.
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Post 08 Nov 2018, 8:42 am

I like the idea of making the start speed a component of grid position. The analysis of start speed plus bid is interesting. I DO understand the reasoning behind using lower of start or accel when restarting after a spin, so it doesn't make start speed too overpowered. Anyway... good discussion. I'm all for keeping things simpler. I don't want CFR to become like ASL where we would spend a quarter of our time making moves and three quarters of our time reading rules! :D
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Post 08 Nov 2018, 9:35 am

Ahh, ASL rulebooks. Good memories.
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Post 27 Jan 2019, 1:33 pm

As we approach the end of Mike Polcen's Istanbul "Balance Experiment" race, I don't think Balance has made ANY improvement, caused some decrease in play-ability, and caused yet more categories to be tracked. Overall, a very bad idea.

One thing that it does address, maybe, is differing build selections for skill/balance. In most of the races I've been in lately nearly all the cars have opted for -1 build points on skill. But should there be many options to affect "luck?" Why not just make it a standard... everyone gets two -1 DRM per number of laps in the race. Why does the skill modifier,, which encourages the most random element of the game, deserve any special attention.

Then there's the factor of changing the rules. I don't think any of the changes proposed change the overall flavor or play-ability of CFR at all. Why not just keep it the same. The advantages of this are that it's easier to teach, the rules continue to be consistent, driver skill (aka Luck) is not as important as the other build factors, we all invested in chips, time, money, and laminating in the current rules. Why cause players extra effort for something that doesn't make a difference?

PLEASE NOTE - when I refer to Driver Skill, I am talking about the build factor, not the ability of a player to actually competitively play CFR, Speed Circuit, or any other racing game.

Thanks!
Chris
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Post 27 Jan 2019, 2:04 pm

Chris sums up my position as well. I wouldn't even consider attempting to roll dice except for the time when it probably wouldn't matter a lot if I failed (almost the last plot). Part of that was because it was difficult to figure out just what my odds were. And the management of the brakes seemed like a lot of work for little gain.

It does make the game considerably harder to understand, and I don't know that I could teach this easily to new players. And I really don't want to try. I'm positive that no matter what Doug decides, our Detroit CFR group will go with the current rules.
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Post 27 Jan 2019, 2:46 pm

Trial Rule Discussion;

I don't like it. I like the goal of restrictiing unlimited die rolling, but I don't like the execution. It would be eaiser to just make the current skill chips more powerful and make the chance tables more harsh. So then if you ran out of skill chips would have to stop rolling dice or risk a high chance of failure. Part of the current problem is that the tables are not harsh enough so you just keep hitting them even without skill chips.
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Post 27 Jan 2019, 3:15 pm

I agree with Don. The tables are far too lenient. Braking, Accel, and Top speed rolls are routinely attempted, even with no skill chips, and too easy to succeed. I don't want to change the rules, but harsher tables and more valuable DRM chips are interesting. We could even do it without changing the rules. Just say that all rolls are at -1, for example, and any use of DRMs are "one better". If you spend a -1, you get -2. If you spend -2, you get -3. If you spend the precious -3, you get -4. Okay, I admit that's a rules change, but pretty easy to manage. There are many ideas that will be thrown around. I think most of them will be easier to implement and possibly more playable than Balance.


dtatum wrote:Trial Rule Discussion;

I don't like it. I like the goal of restrictiing unlimited die rolling, but I don't like the execution. It would be eaiser to just make the current skill chips more powerful and make the chance tables more harsh. So then if you ran out of skill chips would have to stop rolling dice or risk a high chance of failure. Part of the current problem is that the tables are not harsh enough so you just keep hitting them even without skill chips.
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Post 27 Jan 2019, 3:42 pm

Since I "exited" early, I really don't have as much experience as the rest of the field. However, I have been following the race and I have to throw my hat in with the dislikes. The new rule makes the chance table virtually unusable without a + balance. (And I don't say that just because I failed mine) And a +3 balance, while perhaps a bit expensive to build, seems a bit too much of an advantage.

I'm also not in favor of the braking rule. Seems like a bit of bookkeeping for little gain. (Says the CFO)

Overall, I do kind of like the ideas of balance and even brake wear, I just think a little tweaking might be in order. I don't feel either are workable in the present form.
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Post 27 Jan 2019, 5:38 pm

From the marshal's perspective:

Bad news first:

1.The administrative side is a bit of a hassle. We already have the occasional issue with mis-tracking resources so adding more categories leads to more chances for error. I had to retroactively cool brakes a few times (and will have to again). Normally resource issues don't arise in FTF racing but I think they could if this system were in use.

2. The minus 3 balance makes dice rolling almost prohibitively risky. The current system (-1 on the skill build) still leaves many opportunities for dice rolling. Unlike some of the commenters above, I think the dice-rolling aspect of the game is just fine and it should be an equal opportunity activity.

3. There's not enough granularity in the grid auction with just wear. The luck of the tie-breaker determined the 4th through 8th positions. Unlucky and you fall back two rows at the start and still burn wear (3 in this race).

Good news:

1. I really like the increased risk associated with more dice rolls. If the concept could be incorporated into the current rules set-up, it would alleviate some of the concern about lenient dice tables.

2. The rules did not disrupt the essential underlying game. The racing was primarily driven by the track, car attributes, and driver strategy. I believe we would have seen a similar race outcome with the old system.
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Post 27 Jan 2019, 5:41 pm

While the +3 has lead to some interesting strategy for me this race. I don't know if it really was enough to eat the stats...though I also probably used the wrong strategy...not having skill for use in qualifying also made such a mess as well...but yeah, I don't know how much I can really build an opinion more than the opening though.

I will say the extra complications of it and probably what that would require in pen and paper aren't worth verses adjustments to the current system as Don and Chris have suggested. As Jack shows at Montreal as well, there are times and places for the high skill build, so they have value, it's just situational.
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Post 27 Jan 2019, 9:26 pm

I had a further simplifying thought. Do not change the tables or chip values. However, if you roll without any DRM modifiers, your roll is +1. That does the same thing in one easy statement.
I hate rules tinkerers like me, but I DO think the dice charts are too easy. :D
Chris
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Post 28 Jan 2019, 8:34 pm

I like the idea, kinda. But this current format doesn't work for me, at all.

Two main problems for me are:

- if you don't choose to go high on balance then you basically never roll, this removes a lot of the fun from the previous iteration.

- if you do go for high balance then you pretty much have to roll, and roll a lot to make up for the huge deficiency in car (I'm excluding the two central positions of -1 and +1 as I think they are close to pointless).

I think you need to be careful with this balance idea because if you create a dynamic where some players are gambling and some are not, then assuming you make the balance about right you will inevitably get a bunch of people gambling and a bunch of people not. Once everyone figures it out then you'll most likely see the winners nearly always coming from the set of gamblers as one of them will just get more lucky than everyone else each race...

Getting the balance tables right is IMHO going to be close to impossible.
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Post 01 Feb 2019, 8:41 am

Congrats to Dave for a fine win. Thanks to Mike for running.

As mentioned before, I'm not a fan of these rule changes. I pretty much had the dice taken from my hands - I made one engine-related roll that I had around a 50/50 shot at, and not until it probably wouldn't have mattered. Otherwise it was way too risky. On the other hand, I think the positive Balance guys needed to roll early and roll often. As has been pointed out by better mathematicians than me, taking anything but an extreme for Balance is not optimal.

So if the goal is to reduce die rolling, then this might not do it. If the goal is to make the game easier to play, these rules certainly won't do it. The brake rule does make things a bit more realistic, as does the progressively greater chance of damaging the car the more you push it. But I just think the rewards are not great enough for the added complexity. These things probably need to be left to computer racing, where the complexity is taken care of by the computer. For a board game, I think they're just too much.