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Author Topic: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review  (Read 21157 times)

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Asper

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #50 on: December 17, 2017, 10:05:01 pm »
0

Tom Vasel may have gotten some things wrong, but as I stated before, I do agree that Nocturne fails at being friendly to inexperienced players. You can't just throw Heirlooms, Boons, Hexes, Durations, playing from the trash, non-supply cards, States, exchanging and a new phase at players and expect that expansion to be "something for new players" just because it's also random. That doesn't mean I dislike Nocturne as a whole, as I like lots of the cards and also the Heirloom mechanic, but the logic just doesn't add up to me.
The expansion wasn't trying to be "something for new players," it was trying to be something for the masses of Dominion players rather than experts; and the idea that this could be accomplished via "just because it's also random" is your own crazy idea.
Whatever the idea behind making it appealing to non-expert players was, it doesn't seem to go well with using over ten mechanics not seen in the first game and about nine that weren't in either of the games laid out to be base editions. A single card like Fool makes you grab a Heirloom, State, the Boons stack and a non-supply card. Did it occur to you that this is not about me or anybody else who gives negative critizism hating your guts and trying to make you miserable? Because, as spiteful as I may be, I still try to give you feedback for why I think things are being critizised. You can be mad at me all you want, but I have no way of estimating what critizisms you heard before and how/whether you dealed with them, or what you intended with things, so I have to take guesses if I want to provide feedback. And, you know, I do that, because I love that game you made, and want to help. Some people are great at telling you what is great at your stuff, and well, that's not what I do. If I think that your expansion uses too many mechanics and components to be appealing to non-experts however, I'll tell you about it.

Either way, you'll be able to estimate this in a year or so at latest, and then you can smack me with the selling numbers if I was wrong. I don't know how Tom Vasel feels about that, but I'm fine with it.
You heavily implied that I said things that I never said. I corrected that. You don't like that I guess. Well man. It sucks when people on the internet heavily imply that I said nonsense. If I'm going to be hanging around wherever they're saying it, I correct it. It's not the broader issue of "just what mistakes did I make in Nocturne and how good is Asper at spotting them." It's entirely "stop making stuff up and saying I said it."

Complain about Nocturne all you want. Meanwhile, stop making stuff up and saying I said it!
You brought the target audience up in reply to a question on the randomness of Boons and Hexes here, so I'd say this is where the implying begins. But if you want to clear this up, you could just state what it is that you intended for to drive Nocturne towards non-expert players.
I did bring that audience up there. I said, "One thing about this expansion was, I wanted to make sure the game still had stuff to offer to the masses of Dominion players, the regular players, that don't go online to find out how bad Silver is or whatever."

Not, "something for new players." Those aren't new players at all.

Perhaps you now wish to agree that you got that wrong? It's easy to avoid in the future. Just say what you yourself think, don't say what you think I think.

I only have so much time to devote to satisfying demands of posters. I am here now, in this thread I normally wouldn't be posting in (you can find me endlessly commenting on my failings or successes elsewhere, but it's not something I like to talk about in comments for a review), only in order to not have people believe that the words you put in my mouth were my words.
I agree that I shouldn't have used the term "new players", as it isn't the one you used. It would have enabled people to decide for themselves what they think you meant.
You made a second claim about "appeal to non-experts=randomness" being my own crazy idea. I'm pretty sure this is not a life-turning point for either of us, so whatever you feel your time is better spent on than on clearing this internet thing up, go for it. Or don't. Whatever you like. I'm lying awake with nothing better to do, so unless you convince me, which I hope is a thing in the realm of realism, I'll probably still reply, even if it's just to say "Sorry, I was wrong". But yeah, we can cut this off right here if there's nothing for you to gain from it. II'll take not trying to guess what you thought as a lesson learned.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 10:06:42 pm by Asper »
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Triumph44

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #51 on: December 17, 2017, 11:32:47 pm »
+1

(pre-game shuffling is rare in Dominion besides your own deck),

Knights, Ruins

I did not say that you never pre-game shuffle a pile in Dominion other than your own deck.  I said it was 'rare'.  You've named two examples out of a game that has what, 300 cards now?  More?  Even if you play only Dark Ages you're probably only doing this in half the games you play, and how many live games of Dominion have been that?  So yeah, I think the word rare was pretty much the perfect word choice, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to distinguish between rarity and impossibility.

If you meant this to augment my point, more than two words would've helped.  If you wanted to circle back to my larger point about Boons and Hexes, ditto.
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Donald X.

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #52 on: December 17, 2017, 11:42:09 pm »
+2

You made a second claim about "appeal to non-experts=randomness" being my own crazy idea. I'm pretty sure this is not a life-turning point for either of us, so whatever you feel your time is better spent on than on clearing this internet thing up, go for it. Or don't. Whatever you like. I'm lying awake with nothing better to do, so unless you convince me, which I hope is a thing in the realm of realism, I'll probably still reply, even if it's just to say "Sorry, I was wrong". But yeah, we can cut this off right here if there's nothing for you to gain from it. II'll take not trying to guess what you thought as a lesson learned.
I have never suggested that "randomness" is how you make an expansion good for new players, and you acted like I did. And then disagreed! You gave me a stupid position, and then said how stupid it was. From my chair it's just such monumentally awful garbage. "Look what an idiot Donald X. is, he thinks 2+2 is 5. That doesn't make sense to me!"

You can't just throw Heirlooms, Boons, Hexes, Durations, playing from the trash, non-supply cards, States, exchanging and a new phase at players and expect that expansion to be "something for new players" just because it's also random. That doesn't mean I dislike Nocturne as a whole, as I like lots of the cards and also the Heirloom mechanic, but the logic just doesn't add up to me."
I mean look at that.

This is simply not the place for me to discuss the expansion. This thread should be friendly to people who want to say "I agree with Tom" or whatever without the designer stepping in. I mean it no longer is, it's ruined, but whatever, I am just here to say, cut it out. People in general have not found it hard to get my opinions on everything ever, so I do not imagine you will forever remain in the dark about what I did in Nocturne to try to appeal to the masses of Dominion players.
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weesh

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #53 on: December 18, 2017, 12:04:15 am »
0

He claims it will only be fun for the most hard core dominion players. 

lol.
i'm pretty bad at the game, and have been playing with three groups of people that are worse than me.
the two I've already played nocturne with have been having a blast.

I am more hard core than they are, but my favorite sets would be adventures and empires, while they are enjoying nocturne more.
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Kirian

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #54 on: December 18, 2017, 12:07:44 am »
+2

(pre-game shuffling is rare in Dominion besides your own deck),

Knights, Ruins

I did not say that you never pre-game shuffle a pile in Dominion other than your own deck.  I said it was 'rare'.  You've named two examples out of a game that has what, 300 cards now?  More?  Even if you play only Dark Ages you're probably only doing this in half the games you play, and how many live games of Dominion have been that?  So yeah, I think the word rare was pretty much the perfect word choice, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to distinguish between rarity and impossibility.

If you meant this to augment my point, more than two words would've helped.  If you wanted to circle back to my larger point about Boons and Hexes, ditto.

Welcome to f.DS, where finding edge cases is kind of our... thing.
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Cuzz

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #55 on: December 18, 2017, 12:17:28 am »
+3

It seems pretty obvious that there was a simple misinterpretation wherein “expansion for he masses” was interpreted as “expansion for newbies” since it’s a natural, if flawed, train of thought to imagine that most people who don’t spend time on f.ds/reddit/discord discussing dominion must be a newbie. There is of course a vast swath of people in between, presumably containing almost everyone who might be called a “dominion fan.”

I am a pretty big fan of a lot of things that likely have active online communities that I have no interest or involvement in.
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Eran of Arcadia

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #56 on: December 18, 2017, 09:06:36 am »
0

I'm a relatively experienced player - I suspect I've played more games than the average Dominion owner, and I visit multiple online forums to learn more about the game.

I'm hardly an expert. I play casually, going with what looks fun to me, rather than what is calculated to give me the best odds to win based on simulations or whatever.

Nocturne looks really cool and I can't wait to play it.
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werothegreat

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #57 on: December 18, 2017, 09:42:59 am »
+2

Let me just say that "new player" is not the same as "casual player".  Sure, a new player might be daunted by pulling out an Heirloom, a State, the Boons stack, and a non-Supply pile for one card for their first game, but someone who's familiar with the rules (just not a superfan like we are) would probably think "wow, that's a lot of stuff, cool".  And that has been my experience playing IRL with casual players.
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ObtusePunubiris

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #58 on: December 18, 2017, 10:13:47 am »
+2

My wife and I fall into that mass of non-expert Dominion players that Nocturne was aimed at and we are certainly enjoying it. It's not my favorite expansion (hi, Adventures) but it is a good one.  That's not to say that some of Tom Vasel's observations weren't accurate.  Some Nocturne cards do require a bit more work during setup (though a good shuffler app mitigates this almost entirely), some cards do add more things to do during a given turn (I refuse to use the term fiddly here because that implies bad, unnecessary things), and some of the cards do lengthen games.  Neither my wife nor I really care about any of those things though, and I think that's where Vasel was off the mark.  I realize we're only two data points, but I think we're probably more representative of your typical, casual Dominion player than Tom Vasel.
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Triumph44

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #59 on: December 18, 2017, 12:19:51 pm »
+2

(pre-game shuffling is rare in Dominion besides your own deck),

Knights, Ruins

I did not say that you never pre-game shuffle a pile in Dominion other than your own deck.  I said it was 'rare'.  You've named two examples out of a game that has what, 300 cards now?  More?  Even if you play only Dark Ages you're probably only doing this in half the games you play, and how many live games of Dominion have been that?  So yeah, I think the word rare was pretty much the perfect word choice, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to distinguish between rarity and impossibility.

If you meant this to augment my point, more than two words would've helped.  If you wanted to circle back to my larger point about Boons and Hexes, ditto.

Welcome to f.DS, where finding edge cases is kind of our... thing.

Were I to generalize this behavior, I'd suggest instead of 'finding edge cases', 'strictly enumerating the edge cases very obviously alluded to by other posters'
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ThetaSigma12

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #60 on: December 18, 2017, 02:09:19 pm »
+1

Were I to generalize this behavior, I'd suggest instead of 'finding edge cases', 'strictly enumerating the edge cases very obviously alluded to by other posters'

Hey, we just said we find edge cases here, we never actually said they were hard to locate.
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Kirian

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #61 on: December 18, 2017, 02:52:31 pm »
+1

(pre-game shuffling is rare in Dominion besides your own deck),

Knights, Ruins

I did not say that you never pre-game shuffle a pile in Dominion other than your own deck.  I said it was 'rare'.  You've named two examples out of a game that has what, 300 cards now?  More?  Even if you play only Dark Ages you're probably only doing this in half the games you play, and how many live games of Dominion have been that?  So yeah, I think the word rare was pretty much the perfect word choice, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to distinguish between rarity and impossibility.

If you meant this to augment my point, more than two words would've helped.  If you wanted to circle back to my larger point about Boons and Hexes, ditto.

Welcome to f.DS, where finding edge cases is kind of our... thing.

Were I to generalize this behavior, I'd suggest instead of 'finding edge cases', 'strictly enumerating the edge cases very obviously alluded to by other posters'

You say to-MAY-to, I say EYE-ther.
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #62 on: December 18, 2017, 04:13:05 pm »
+1

(pre-game shuffling is rare in Dominion besides your own deck),

Knights, Ruins

I did not say that you never pre-game shuffle a pile in Dominion other than your own deck.  I said it was 'rare'.  You've named two examples out of a game that has what, 300 cards now?  More?  Even if you play only Dark Ages you're probably only doing this in half the games you play, and how many live games of Dominion have been that?  So yeah, I think the word rare was pretty much the perfect word choice, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to distinguish between rarity and impossibility.

If you meant this to augment my point, more than two words would've helped.  If you wanted to circle back to my larger point about Boons and Hexes, ditto.

Honestly, I was just providing the data in some sort of Pavlovian f.ds-edge-case reaction.

I don't really care one way or the other, but if people want to get into a passionate argument about it, then I think this is the right place!
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Jeebus

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #63 on: December 18, 2017, 09:03:54 pm »
+3

I think he's got a huge passion for what he does. But he's the poster child of the 3-plays-is-a-lot mindset, and with the output of videos he pushes through, I doubt he plays more than a couple of games each (and he doesn't always get the rules straight).

I know he's got a very different mindset than I have, and I enjoy his reviews keeping that in mind. He did direct me to Sheriff of Nottingham, which is a game I love.

I mean, it's a bit of a conundrum really - we expect a professional reviewer to try a lot of games for us (good and bad), and tell us how they are, but games are not movies or books, and playing them once or twice is in many cases not sufficient to form an informed opinion. So what's a reviewer to do?

Yeah, I think this is a problem with almost all board game reviewers. A reviewer of movies or books will first watch the movie or read the book, and then write a review based on that experience, which is the same experience the consumer will have. Few people need to know how a book will be after the 5th read-through.

A reviewer of board games plays the game once or a few times before writing the review, which is nowhere near what you need to give an informed review of the game (unless it's a Legacy game or whatever those games are called that you're supposed to play once and then throw away). If you go back and check out old reviews for some of your favorite games (which you of course have played a bunch of times) when the game first came out, you'll find that they're pretty much all way off mark.

There's no way for a professional board game reviewer to do it differently, I guess. They need to get the review out when the game is new, and they need to play new games all the time.

Triumph44

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #64 on: December 18, 2017, 10:53:21 pm »
+1

(pre-game shuffling is rare in Dominion besides your own deck),

Knights, Ruins

I did not say that you never pre-game shuffle a pile in Dominion other than your own deck.  I said it was 'rare'.  You've named two examples out of a game that has what, 300 cards now?  More?  Even if you play only Dark Ages you're probably only doing this in half the games you play, and how many live games of Dominion have been that?  So yeah, I think the word rare was pretty much the perfect word choice, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to distinguish between rarity and impossibility.

If you meant this to augment my point, more than two words would've helped.  If you wanted to circle back to my larger point about Boons and Hexes, ditto.

Honestly, I was just providing the data in some sort of Pavlovian f.ds-edge-case reaction.

I don't really care one way or the other, but if people want to get into a passionate argument about it, then I think this is the right place!

Fair enough.  Some indication that you were merely fleshing out my post rather than disagreeing with it would've been appreciated.  I do lurk this place enough to know how much edge case location is prized here.
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Asper

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #65 on: December 20, 2017, 09:17:43 am »
+3

You made a second claim about "appeal to non-experts=randomness" being my own crazy idea. I'm pretty sure this is not a life-turning point for either of us, so whatever you feel your time is better spent on than on clearing this internet thing up, go for it. Or don't. Whatever you like. I'm lying awake with nothing better to do, so unless you convince me, which I hope is a thing in the realm of realism, I'll probably still reply, even if it's just to say "Sorry, I was wrong". But yeah, we can cut this off right here if there's nothing for you to gain from it. II'll take not trying to guess what you thought as a lesson learned.
I have never suggested that "randomness" is how you make an expansion good for new players, and you acted like I did. And then disagreed! You gave me a stupid position, and then said how stupid it was. From my chair it's just such monumentally awful garbage. "Look what an idiot Donald X. is, he thinks 2+2 is 5. That doesn't make sense to me!"

You can't just throw Heirlooms, Boons, Hexes, Durations, playing from the trash, non-supply cards, States, exchanging and a new phase at players and expect that expansion to be "something for new players" just because it's also random. That doesn't mean I dislike Nocturne as a whole, as I like lots of the cards and also the Heirloom mechanic, but the logic just doesn't add up to me."
I mean look at that.

This is simply not the place for me to discuss the expansion. This thread should be friendly to people who want to say "I agree with Tom" or whatever without the designer stepping in. I mean it no longer is, it's ruined, but whatever, I am just here to say, cut it out. People in general have not found it hard to get my opinions on everything ever, so I do not imagine you will forever remain in the dark about what I did in Nocturne to try to appeal to the masses of Dominion players.

I did not write this to make you look stupid. My point was that Vasel stated the expansion was only for experts, and I said that I agreed to some extend, as it is too rules-heavy (in parts) to appeal to the majority of non-experts. Whether those non-experts are casual players, new players or "the masses of players" was not my point, and I have admitted that I should have expressed that more carefully. I also probably shouldn't have assumed that you answering a question about randomness by talking (among other things) about the player base meant the two were connected, at least not as strongly as I implied. But my main point is, Nocturne has many components and rules, which I believe will repell some non-experts, and if it was designed for non-experts, that's a problem. In the process of trying to line this out I was sloppy, and misrepresented what you said. And I do apologize for that.

---

About my point of Nocturne being too complex for non-experts, I'm aware that this is only my perception, and people might very well find points that make it invalid: For example they might argue that in their experience, a majority of the non-expert players are still very familiar with all of the rules in the game, and will know what exchanging means by heart, or that you can't buy non-supply cards. Or people might say that Nocturne is very heavy on components, but not complicated because of it, or not even heavy on rules or components at all. Maybe they'd say that the rules that do appear are simple ones, or self-explanatory, such as "when you trash this" or "when you gain this" appear self-explanatory to us now.

Tom and me both didn't give Fool as an example by chance, either: I'm hardly an expert myself, but I'm very familiar with the rules of the game, and I found Fool very confusing, random and fiddly (with "random" including the hot-potato thing, as thanks to Lucky Coin, you more often will lack a way of influencing when Fool will come up in your deck compared to other people's). The more I think about it though, the more I become aware that I'd have to look for a long time to find another card in Nocturne that I feel comes close to Fool in either of those dimensions, so maybe my problem is with Fool mostly and not actually Nocturne as a whole. While Boons always come with a non-supply card and Hexes always come with states, and some of those cards are also Night cards, that's still less than Fool in either way.
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Jeebus

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #66 on: December 20, 2017, 10:16:40 am »
+10

It's tough to find yourself in an argument with Donald, because he's the reason we're all here, and also it's cool to have a good relationship with the guy who made your favorite game (or one of your favorite games) and it's uncool to have an antagonistic relationship with that guy. I think a lot of people avoid even upvoting your post even if they agree with it or normally would.

But I gotta stick my neck out and say that I totally see how Asper could interpret that post in the other thread to say that added randomness was an element to make it appeal to the average Dominion player. Because I remember interpreting it in the exact same way when I first read it. I see now that Donald didn't intend that, but that's just how it reads, because the whole post was a reply to a quote about the randomness (and the post also talks about experts maybe not liking the randomness of Boons). Maybe someone else read it and totally got that it was not about that, but at least I'm pretty convinced that many people would interpret it that way.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2017, 10:19:36 am by Jeebus »
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Donald X.

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #67 on: December 20, 2017, 05:00:29 pm »
+4

But my main point is, Nocturne has many components and rules, which I believe will repell some non-experts, and if it was designed for non-experts, that's a problem. In the process of trying to line this out I was sloppy, and misrepresented what you said. And I do apologize for that.
Thanks. The lesson I would like to put forth here is, when it looks to you like someone is saying something that obviously doesn't make sense, maybe that isn't actually what they are saying.

I agree that Nocturne is too complex, and I don't need to add "for non-experts" there. The main thing I have cited is the hexes/states, but there are a number of complex individual cards. There's this classic problem: which is better to publish, the version of a card that's best to publish, or the most fun version? You'd like that to be a tie, but it isn't always. And when it isn't, no-one will ever argue for the less fun version; what madness would that be, giving up on the most fun version? Changeling for example was just the top. And it was a nice card and super-simple. We liked it at my table, but it didn't go over well at LF's. And I thought aha I can add this ultra-confusing clause to make it more flavorful and more fun. And it totally worked; it's more flavorful and it's a lot of fun. But every decision like that ups the overall complexity of the set.
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Donald X.

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #68 on: December 20, 2017, 05:03:30 pm »
0

But I gotta stick my neck out and say that I totally see how Asper could interpret that post in the other thread to say that added randomness was an element to make it appeal to the average Dominion player.
That isn't what he said. He referred to new players, not average players. He said (heavily implied) that I thought randomness made the rest of the expansion okay for new players.
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Jeebus

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #69 on: December 20, 2017, 06:29:15 pm »
0

But I gotta stick my neck out and say that I totally see how Asper could interpret that post in the other thread to say that added randomness was an element to make it appeal to the average Dominion player.
That isn't what he said. He referred to new players, not average players. He said (heavily implied) that I thought randomness made the rest of the expansion okay for new players.

Yes, he said that. But I thought this was two separate issues: new players instead of average players; and the thing about randomness. I was just talking about the second issue. I (and also Asper) thought that you were saying that the whole thing about added randomness to appeal to non-expert players was his own "crazy idea". But maybe that was also a misunderstanding! Maybe you did intend to say that (just not "new players"). If so, I'm happy to contribute towards clearing that up.

Donald X.

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #70 on: December 20, 2017, 06:43:52 pm »
0

But I gotta stick my neck out and say that I totally see how Asper could interpret that post in the other thread to say that added randomness was an element to make it appeal to the average Dominion player.
That isn't what he said. He referred to new players, not average players. He said (heavily implied) that I thought randomness made the rest of the expansion okay for new players.

Yes, he said that. But I thought this was two separate issues: new players instead of average players; and the thing about randomness. I was just talking about the second issue. I (and also Asper) thought that you were saying that the whole thing about added randomness to appeal to non-expert players was his own "crazy idea". But maybe that was also a misunderstanding! Maybe you did intend to say that (just not "new players"). If so, I'm happy to contribute towards clearing that up.
Oh man, only so much of my life can be spent on this.
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Asper

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #71 on: December 20, 2017, 08:10:05 pm »
+4

But my main point is, Nocturne has many components and rules, which I believe will repell some non-experts, and if it was designed for non-experts, that's a problem. In the process of trying to line this out I was sloppy, and misrepresented what you said. And I do apologize for that.
Thanks. The lesson I would like to put forth here is, when it looks to you like someone is saying something that obviously doesn't make sense, maybe that isn't actually what they are saying.

I agree that Nocturne is too complex, and I don't need to add "for non-experts" there. The main thing I have cited is the hexes/states, but there are a number of complex individual cards. There's this classic problem: which is better to publish, the version of a card that's best to publish, or the most fun version? You'd like that to be a tie, but it isn't always. And when it isn't, no-one will ever argue for the less fun version; what madness would that be, giving up on the most fun version? Changeling for example was just the top. And it was a nice card and super-simple. We liked it at my table, but it didn't go over well at LF's. And I thought aha I can add this ultra-confusing clause to make it more flavorful and more fun. And it totally worked; it's more flavorful and it's a lot of fun. But every decision like that ups the overall complexity of the set.

I will memorize that.

In retrospect, I wouldn't have written my post this way if I had thought of the possibility that you as a person might read it. I mean, obviously you would, given that this is a thread about a well-known reviewer talking about your latest work. But at the time of writing, all I thought about was that people were picking apart Vasel's review with nitpicks about his rules mistakes, ignoring his actual point. So I wrote a hyperbolic reply to this, and it had some premature assumptions. I will not deny that I did not think much about the fact that new players and casual players are not the same, nor that I had misunderstood randomness as something that you pushed specifically for those players. To me it was just, that player base that I think won't dig complexity, that expansion which includes things they might like but also complexity. The purpose was not to misrepresent what you said or thought.

I admit there's still this part of me that wants you to look at my cards and is sad that you don't, but I meant it when I said that this is your thing and in honesty, I'd probably not let anyone take things out of my hands if I were in your position, either. So I do the second best thing I can think of, which is provide feedback nobody else seems to provide. This is a fan website for Dominion, so naturally everybody is pretty positive. I see nothing being gained by me chiming in to say what a fool Vasel is to misexplain some card.

I can also just try to stay out of discussions like this if that's more appreciated.
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Donald X.

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #72 on: December 20, 2017, 08:53:02 pm »
+5

In retrospect, I wouldn't have written my post this way if I had thought of the possibility that you as a person might read it. I mean, obviously you would, given that this is a thread about a well-known reviewer talking about your latest work. But at the time of writing, all I thought about was that people were picking apart Vasel's review with nitpicks about his rules mistakes, ignoring his actual point. So I wrote a hyperbolic reply to this, and it had some premature assumptions. I will not deny that I did not think much about the fact that new players and casual players are not the same, nor that I had misunderstood randomness as something that you pushed specifically for those players. To me it was just, that player base that I think won't dig complexity, that expansion which includes things they might like but also complexity. The purpose was not to misrepresent what you said or thought.
I still don't think this is clear; aside from the "casual player doesn't mean new player" thing, it's just, of course I don't think that having randomness justifies anything else in the set. I don't say "the meal is healthy because it includes a salad." There are of course people who enjoy randomness (or, certain uses of randomness); but randomness justifies itself and that's it. Bard doesn't justify Changeling; how could it possibly? So it was no fun to find this position attributed to me.

The other elements of the set, to the degree that they are bad for whatever players, that's mistakes I made there, having nothing to do with the existence of randomness on other cards in the set.

I can also just try to stay out of discussions like this if that's more appreciated.
I'm not trying to stop anyone from talking. I responded to clear my good name.
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Asper

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #73 on: December 21, 2017, 12:38:19 am »
0

In retrospect, I wouldn't have written my post this way if I had thought of the possibility that you as a person might read it. I mean, obviously you would, given that this is a thread about a well-known reviewer talking about your latest work. But at the time of writing, all I thought about was that people were picking apart Vasel's review with nitpicks about his rules mistakes, ignoring his actual point. So I wrote a hyperbolic reply to this, and it had some premature assumptions. I will not deny that I did not think much about the fact that new players and casual players are not the same, nor that I had misunderstood randomness as something that you pushed specifically for those players. To me it was just, that player base that I think won't dig complexity, that expansion which includes things they might like but also complexity. The purpose was not to misrepresent what you said or thought.
I still don't think this is clear; aside from the "casual player doesn't mean new player" thing, it's just, of course I don't think that having randomness justifies anything else in the set. I don't say "the meal is healthy because it includes a salad." There are of course people who enjoy randomness (or, certain uses of randomness); but randomness justifies itself and that's it. Bard doesn't justify Changeling; how could it possibly? So it was no fun to find this position attributed to me.

The other elements of the set, to the degree that they are bad for whatever players, that's mistakes I made there, having nothing to do with the existence of randomness on other cards in the set.

I can also just try to stay out of discussions like this if that's more appreciated.
I'm not trying to stop anyone from talking. I responded to clear my good name.

That clears up what you meant with me assigning you a stupid position. I never really considered the option that you'd use randomness to "justify" complexity, because that would indeed be a fundamentally stupid way of thinking. My idea was simply "I think Donald X tried to make this expansion nice for casuals (by including randomness), but forgot/underestimated that this specific player base will shy away from complexity". I mean, you can argue that that's not true, neither the part about casuals shying away from complexity nor you forgetting/underestimating it, but I feel it's important to clarify that my complaint was "Why didn't he see this?", and not "Why does he have such a garbage brain with no concept of logic?". I can see that my post can be read that way, but I really wouldn't have imagined that's how it'd be processed. I mean, not by anyone who has read at least some of your secret histories, or read your posts on card design. The lack of clarity is partly due to the hyperbole, I guess.
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weesh

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Re: Tom Vasel Nocturne Review
« Reply #74 on: December 27, 2017, 11:30:55 am »
+2

I agree that Nocturne is too complex...

Normally, when a new set comes out, my play group throws like 5 new cards into a kingdom...
We very quickly started limiting the kingdom to 3 new cards, because the kingdoms were brain melting.
5 new cards could bring hexes and boons and heirlooms and ghosts, etc with them, and suddenly we're looking at many new cards.  To understand when you want a Exorcist, you need to understand how badly you want three other cards.

Then we had a kingdom with only three new cards, but one of them was necromancer, and we floundered again.

One of our guys just bought Intrigue, because he wanted new cards that had a lower barrier to entry, and we didn't have that one yet.

A thing that made all of us sigh with relief was the realization that imp and conclave basically worked the same way, and we didn't need to learn a new card after figuring out the first.

I'd argue that the "less fun" version of a card could have a much better play experience in the aggregate.
your playtesters would miss the more fun version, but everyone else won't ever make that comparison.

All that said, we are enjoying the new set, especially now that we know to roll it slowly.
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