How long does a new product hold your attention?

[Thunderchief]

We are in a period where, as players, we have quite a few offerings each year from a wide range of publishers.
Yet, we can each only play a number of scenarios a year, and for some, the latest is the greatest and anything old can be forgotten.

At the moment I am playing through a number of products with opponents, only one of which was released in the last 5 years (Manila).

It appears (to me) that a lot of older products don't get much "love" anymore. I still buy a lot of what comes out but I am happy to play older products.

When I get a new product it will be scanned and filed with the rest and I will get to it "one day", sooner if an opponent wants to play something from it.

So to answer my own question - new products don't hold much sway for me, they're added to the list of options but there's no urgency to get them on the table.

Do you like to play only the latest, do you still enjoy the older products, or some other variation? How quickly do you move on?

 

[Houtje]

Sorry, what was the question again?

 

[ibncalb]

I like to play something from a new shiny, but then I have no problem leaving it on the shelf for 5 years until I finish it.

 

[Michael R]

I try to open and read a new product within a month of purchasing it. When I look at the scenarios, I select several to add to my ”play list”. I get to them when I get to them.

 

[hongkongwargamer]

All the old stuff are new to me.

 

[PresterJohn]

Some products age better than others and call out to be revisited again every half dozen years.

Some products get better with age simply because you don't have time to absorb the rules and tactics immediately upon release to enjoy it fully. But after a bit of relaxed study and background reading the appeal increases until you are immersed enough to really enjoy the topic because you are playing it correctly and understand that time and place in history.

 

[fenyan]

New scenarios are always seen on our next game day shortly after the pack's release date.

For me, anything DASL gets played pretty quickly. Then all the shorter to mid-sized scenarios with AFVs on both sides get printouts placed in my to play folder that goes to game days, to eventually get played. My number of plays falls behind the annual output of scenarios so I've always got a backlog. And of course, deferring to what my opponents want to play, which could be older scenarios.

 

[bprobst]

I frequently suffer from paralysis of choice, so I use a randomiser to select new scenarios to play. I enter all the scenarios I possess into a spreadsheet, the randomiser uses the sheet to spit out a possibility, my opponent and I look at it and decide whether to proceed playing it, or pick something else.

However, I'm at a bit of a backlog currently in terms of entering new scenarios into the spreadsheet. About two years worth at this time! So the "latest and greatest" simply can't appear as an option, at least not until I withdraw my thumb from my posterior and get the spreadsheet updated.

 

[John Garlic]

I have so many unplayed, new or old. I just play whatever opponents wanna play. I haven't met a scenario I don't like. My playlist is basically whatever I haven't played. I repeat play a scenario if opponents wish.

 

[rdw5150]

I guess it depends on how much interest my ASL buddy and I have for the subject. We played a lot the the DASL pack when it came out. We also played 70% of Blood And Jungle/Crucible of Steel/Poland in Flames.

Some releases barely get past the: "open it up, look at the scenarios, shrug, put in into storage" phase. Which, in a way, is a good problem to have I guess.

After a time of ambivalence (two huge work projects helped) with ASL, I pulled out Journal 15 and 16 and really started looking at those.

Roger

 

[von Marwitz]

So much unplayed stuff and so many new releases...

Since I don't play that many scenarios in a given year, my "choices" are usually like this:

• Test the scenarios to become part of (or to be deleted from) next year's GRENADIER selection and create VASL files for these to allow the participants to prepare when the scenario list is released.
• Select a few scenarios that I have not played but which has seen a lot of playings reported, in the hope that ROAR / Scenario Archive balance rating and excitement rating have become meaningful. Sort of raisin-picking...

von Marwitz

 

[Vic Provost]

Depends on how good the scenarios and/or campaign(s) look. A module with great scenarios that are mainly balanced is something I will play out as many as I have time for. A new ASL product can hold my attention for months if good enough.

 

[Thunderchief]

So much unplayed stuff and so many new releases...

Since I don't play that many scenarios in a given year, my "choices" are usually like this:

• Test the scenarios to become part of (or to be deleted from) next year's GRENADIER selection and create VASL files for these to allow the participants to prepare when the scenario list is released.
• Select a few scenarios that I have not played but which has seen a lot of playings reported, in the hope that ROAR / Scenario Archive balance rating and excitement rating have become meaningful. Sort of raisin-picking...

von Marwitz

This second point is (I think) where the problem (you don't have to call it a problem if you don't want to) raises it's head. Scenarios take longer to accumulate a "good" (what is "good"?) amount of playings so that people can use ROAR (or the Scenario Archive) to form an opinion. If people are continually moving on, how long does a scenario need to be around to reach a number of playings that is of value to someone?

 

[von Marwitz]

This second point is (I think) where the problem (you don't have to call it a problem if you don't want to) raises it's head. Scenarios take longer to accumulate a "good" (what is "good"?) amount of playings so that people can use ROAR (or the Scenario Archive) to form an opinion. If people are continually moving on, how long does a scenario need to be around to reach a number of playings that is of value to someone?

I understand your point.

To have some meaning, I would say a scenario should have some 30 or 40 ratings. Unless what you see is something like 1 British / 11 German wins.

But if you have only so much time to spend on ASL, you want to spend it with maximum enjoyment.
At the price of missing out on fine, but rarely played scenarios, you reduce the risk of selecting an unbalanced scenario or one that the hive-mind has judged not to have a high excitement-rating.

I acknowledge, that sometimes it require some years until the hive-mind has finally "grokked" how to tackle a certain scenario, so what might have begun "very uneven" might straighten out eventually.

All this said, my approach of selecting scenarios based on ROAR ratings is "playing the chances".
After all, ASL is a game of "playing the chances" - if you do this consequently, you get the most out of it.

von Marwitz

 

[Hutch]

I’ve found that scanning the comments on games that have been recorded on the Scenario Archive as an additional indicator besides ROAR as to the value of the Scenario.

 

[von Marwitz]

I’ve found that scanning the comments on games that have been recorded on the Scenario Archive as an additional indicator besides ROAR as to the value of the Scenario.

Agreed.

von Marwitz

 

[Thunderchief]

I had a look at some of the ROAR played reports for 2014 - 2025 inclusive and came up with the following. I don't guarantee 100% accuracy but I think it's close to 99%

In 2014 - 4369 playings were reported and 1434 unique scenarios/CGs were reported giving an average playing of 2.94.

For the following years.....(I didn't do any rounding, just kept the first two decimal places).
2015 - 2.96
2016 - 3.12
2017 - 2.97
2018 - 2.84
2019 - 2.60
2020 - 2.64
2021 - 2.63
2022 - 2.60
2023 - 2.48
2024 - 2.39 4009/1673
2025 - 2.34 3641/1555

I think these last two numbers represent the reduction in the use of ROAR with the continued improvement and increased functionality offered by The Scenario Archive.

However, since it is up to individuals to port their playings over from ROAR to TSA and then comb through it all and remove any duplicates, it would seem that ROAR use is slowly dying off while TSA use is slowly picking up, but from a new "zero" (almost).

Another interesting stat is the number of scenarios in a year with more than 20 playings, that seems to be dropping off as well.

I have attached the spreadsheet for people to have a look at if interested.