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Author Topic: Fix the worst cards  (Read 47935 times)

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Cave-o-sapien

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Fix the worst cards
« on: March 08, 2018, 11:30:40 am »
+6

Based on the recent card rankings, below are the cards in the bottom 10% of their cost categories (I'm just guessing on the $3s, since those numbers weren't provided).

Your job is to suggest a fix for the card that:

A) Doesn't change its fundamental behavior
B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%
C) is as small a change as possible




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weesh

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2018, 12:00:34 pm »
+3

Harvest
make it non-terminal. It can be better and cheaper than gold if in a well designed deck, and will suddenly be appealing in combination with draw-to-x.
"variety matters" is my fav theme in the game.  those cards need to be good.
where's my sharpie?

Masterpiece
Make it worth 2$. You could make the overpay mandatory if you were sad about punking silver
« Last Edit: March 08, 2018, 12:06:48 pm by weesh »
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Simon Jester

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2018, 12:04:33 pm »
+4

Meh. I don't think they need any fixes really. Most of them are low in the rankings because they are niched and/or favor big money, which is not popular here but when they are good there is nothing to fix about them. I mean, Masterpiece is included, when that card is important it's insanely good - it's just not that often a silver flood will be that good to be worth it.

Harvest has it's limit and could be improved I guess (I would suggest add +1$ to make it possible to spike 5 in total)  Harem could cost $5, but really - something needs to be at the bottom and with the outtakes I don't really see any duds anymore. I have won with harvest as a key part and I have lost by ignoring Transmute. B-crat is poor, but I have defended it before with it's a decent, or at least fun, card to play with in the beginning. It does it's job well, it's just not a very good job and that's the tl;dr for all these cards. You start ignoring them when you know how to play Dominion, when you don't there is nothing wrong with them and it's pretty amusing to learn the game by using them too much and then get the "a-ha" experience when someone ignores them and crush you (thinking especially of Pirate Ship here...) 
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Oyvind

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2018, 12:08:29 pm »
0

For all of these cards that tell you to «gain a silver», change the text to «gain a card costing up to [3]». For Beggar that would be «gain 2 cards costing up to [3]». For Mine, reduce the cost to 4. It’s a more specialized Remodel, and even though it gives a bigger boost, you won’t use it as often. Besides, Remodel isn’t exactly a power card, either.

The recurring theme here is that treasure cards used to be more important than they are now. Change the cards subtly according to this knowledge, and they will become better. The problem is that there will always be cards that are worse than the others. I like the current card pool, so I don’t see a big need.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2018, 12:18:38 pm by Oyvind »
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2018, 12:14:07 pm »
0

Harvest has it's limit and could be improved I guess (I would suggest add +1$ to make it possible to spike 5 in total) 

This is my fix for Harvest, as well, and actually the one that made me think to make this thread today.
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weesh

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2018, 12:17:22 pm »
+2

Meh. I don't think they need any fixes really...

Still a fun challenge. 
Personally, I'm a big fan of harem, well out of proportion to it's power, because it has a lot of nice synergies that few other cards grant. It can lead to an interesting game in a designed kingdom...but i'm still anticipating the tweaks others have for it.

Quote
For all of these cards that tell you to «gain a silver»...
For bureaucrat, what if it set the silver aside, then put it into your next hand?
« Last Edit: March 08, 2018, 03:21:57 pm by weesh »
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Simon Jester

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2018, 12:19:54 pm »
0

Harvest
make it non-terminal. It can be better and cheaper than gold if in a well designed deck, and will suddenly be appealing in combination with draw-to-x.
"variety matters" is my fav theme in the game.  those cards need to be good.
where's my sharpie?

With Rebuild in mind, I'm very skeptical of making dud-5's non-terminal. It just makes them spammable and unfun. Wouldn't like this version much.
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Simon Jester

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2018, 12:26:16 pm »
0

Quote
Still a fun challenge.


Yes, sure. Sorry if I rained on your parade cave-o-sapiens, I just like many of these cards a lot :)
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #8 on: March 08, 2018, 12:29:47 pm »
+3

Quote
Still a fun challenge.


Yes, sure. Sorry if I rained on your parade cave-o-sapiens, I just like many of these cards a lot :)

I’m not suggesting they NEED to be fixed; something has to be the worst card, after all — but it’s a topic I’ve seen discussed a lot for many of these cards individually, and it seemed like a fun exercise.
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weesh

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2018, 12:30:38 pm »
+1

Harvest
make it non-terminal. It can be better and cheaper than gold if in a well designed deck, and will suddenly be appealing in combination with draw-to-x.
"variety matters" is my fav theme in the game.  those cards need to be good.
where's my sharpie?

With Rebuild in mind, I'm very skeptical of making dud-5's non-terminal. It just makes them spammable and unfun. Wouldn't like this version much.

Fair...but it is a variety matters card...is that enough to encourage diversity and not spamming the harvests?

You could give it the conclave/imp "You may play an Action card from your hand that you don't have a copy of in play" clause.  That allows it to be effectively non-terminal, encourage even more diversity, and spamming them becomes a challenge.
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Screwyioux

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2018, 12:32:45 pm »
+1

There are only a couple of these I would agree need a "fix."

For a card to need a fix, I think it needs to be worse than alternatives in the vast majority if not in all situations it can be applied to.
A card can be very narrow in its applicability, or effective in a small range of situations, but that makes the game better, not worse.

Better questions than "how can we fix these cards" is "when are these cards the best way to achieve your objective" and "how do we play to unlock their potential?"

Beggar is a great example (and not just with Gardens gain spam). There are times in the game, and decks, where it's basically a 2-cost gold.

Mandarin affords consistency to otherwise inconsistent money-focused decks by seeding next turn's hand. It has Shenanigans with Native Village too. Pirate Ship and Noble Brigand punish opponents who thinned too much without establishing payload.

I could go on about most of these, but you get the idea. It's a good thing that these cards are niche in their utility, it keeps playing on autopilot from being viable (also Fool and Mine are reasonably powerful in most situations).

In short, context matters. All of it, in every game.

The ones I would agree need a "fix," as in the mind reels trying to come up with any situation in which they are an effective route to victory are Harvest, Navigator and Philosopher's Stone. Those ones, yes I agree are pretty much never relevant.

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Chappy7

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2018, 12:38:50 pm »
+2

If we bump them all out of the bottom 10% then we'll just have a new bottom 10%....Either way, it's fun to try to think of fixes.

First of all, I don't think fool is all that bad, and neither is royal seal.  They are useful often enough that I'd be fine with them just chillin.

Mandarin's top-decking should be optional.  Also, the on-buy should let you either top-deck or discard treasures.

Fortune Teller should hand out a curse if the other player has no curses or victories.  At $3, it doesn't need to have too much of a buff.

Beggar's reaction should allow you to trash up to two coppers from your hand or discard pile.  That would be fun.  It would be good in attack heavy boards. Maybe it would have to trash just one.  IDK.

What if Masterpiece had +1 card? I know that's weird and awkward for a treasure, but if you have a silver flood, it would most likely be helpful.

Duchess....IDK.  I hate this card. It could say "When you gain a Duchy, you may gain a Duchess.  If you do, +1 vp."  I might do that occasionally.

Transmute  Throw it in the fire.  Fixed. 

Cache is tough.  Could it just cost $4? If that's too good, it could make you top-deck one of the coppers.

Harem I agree with the general $5 cost idea.

Beurocrat Should let you gain the silver or take $2

Phil Stone Worth $1 per 5 cards in your deck and discord, or worth $1 per 5 cards in play.

Navigator Either discard all 5 cards, or discard 1 card.

Noble Brigand Give out the copper anytime no cards are trashed.

Harvest Reveal 5 cards.  More likely to get $4.  Possible $5.  Still awkward reshuffles, but whatevs.

Mine If it says "up to $4 more" would that be good enough? Cooper to Potion, Talisman, Quarry.  Silver to Counterfeit, Royal Seal, Horn of Plenty, etc...

Pirate Ship If you trash at least one opponent's Copper, you may trash a card from your hand. Idk.  This one is tough to fix without big change.  It's too good with most of the fixes I can think of. 

Transmute for reals this time Rather than gain transmutes, just gain a card up to $4.  I'd buy that a lot I think.  Pretty similar to Devil's Workshop I guess. 




 

« Last Edit: March 08, 2018, 04:59:26 pm by Chappy7 »
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humcalc216

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2018, 12:47:56 pm »
+1

A lot of these cards would become more interesting with +1 Buy.  Some (such as Bureaucrat) would have that feel very out of place.  Some (such as Transmute) still feel out of place, though it would make powerful engines on boards lacking other buys think hard about getting one.  Others (such as Mandarin) would get much stronger.  And of course, this would make a couple of them "strictly better" than Woodcutter (quotation marks indicate I'm ignoring edge cases and don't want this thread to turn into that other thread).
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Gazbag

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2018, 12:55:30 pm »
+1

Well I'm kinda bedridden right now so I have time to waste...

Duchess: Doesn't really need the Spying thing, I actually think Duchess is fine. Can be interesting deciding whether it's better than nothing on a 5/2.

Beggar: This is fine, has it's uses in decks that don't mind Copper and as fodder for Mercenary or whatever. where is Embargo?

Masterpiece: This card isn't even bad.

Fortune Teller: -1 card token is the fixed version of this attack.

Fool: No saving this, I don't think this card should exist at all.

Pirate Ship: I guess you can give this non-Copper wording. Pirate Ship does have it's moments anyway so it's fine really.

Bureaucrat: Oh man, this is so weak. It doesn't even have it's moments because Silver is better in those moments.

Navigator: Totally fine card, it's kinda like a non-terrible Harvest. I guess it could Cartographer the top of the deck but it's really underrated.

Noble Brigand: This is fine.

Harvest: Needs +buy, then it can join the ranks of Wine Merchant and Sacred Grove. Harvest's problem is that all it does is make $ and it's terminal so Silver/Gold with a terminal that actually does something will just be better. Making it non-terminal just makes it better than Gold, increasing the $ it makes doesn't solve the problem because it's terminal so Gold will still be better at making $.

Cache: Banquet is "fixed" Cache.

Mine: This could do with +$1. Mine isn't bad like Harvest, it's power level is just a little below most of the other $5s. Making it a terminal Silver instead of Copper would help that.

Mandarin: The on-gain really wants to be optional, it still wouldn't be great but it would be much more buyable.

Royal Seal: This isn't too bad, maybe you could staple this effect onto Venture or something because Venture could do with a buff.

Harem: Harem is fine, in a game where you'd buy Gold it's almost always good to buy Harem at some point.

Transmute: If this could gain good actions instead of more transmutes it would be useful.

P.Stone: This just doesn't work as a Potion card. It could probably work at a different cost. As a treasure that just makes $ it's still pretty boring though.
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O

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2018, 12:56:15 pm »
+1

I picked up a fortune teller in a recent Page game hoping to make their traveller miss... forgot Necromancer (and therefore Zombie Mason) was in the game. Oops.

On a more relevant note, I think Harvest, Harem, Navigator, Philosopher's Stone, Transmute and maybe Duchess need sprucing up the most. Transmute/Philo Stone are nigh-unplayable and the rest are just incredibly bland "upgrades" from a silver.

Philosopher's Stone: think if Philo Stone counted hand + deck + discard it might be playable? Even if you are able to get a huge hand it's not like you couldn't have just gotten golds or other payload anyways most of the time, so I definitely don't think it would be game breaking

Transmute: "Gain a Transmute" -> "Gain an action costing up to X" (not sure if 4 or 5). Has the problem then of being somewhat similar to university. Nominally "gain a card up to 3P" might be cool but sucks when you aren't playing with relevant Alchemy cards

Harvest: I think it'd be better as a +cards card personally. Usually if you're manipulating the top of your deck you still want to draw those cards, not discard. And discarding the top 4-5 is just very swingy if you have a few key cards.

Can't think of a good wording but

"Look at the top 4 cards of your deck, discard any duplicates in those four and draw the rest"

 would be an interesting 4$.


Duchess: It's actual on play effect could relate back to Duchy. This is probably horridly imbalanced one way or the other but: keep the on-gain and make the primary effect "+1$. +1$ coin for each [Duchy token] you own" Setup: Place 8 [Duchy tokens]on the Duchy pile. When you gain a duchy, take a [Duchy Token]



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JThorne

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #15 on: March 08, 2018, 01:05:34 pm »
+5

I don't know that most of these need "fixing." In fact, many of them already have re-designs in newer sets that used a similar mechanic but to greater effect. Cartographer is arguably a better Navigator, Bandit is a better Noble Brigand (that's how bad Thief was. It needed TWO redesigns.)

And more than half the list is terminal money, which really should remain nerfed. If made too powerful, then really boring money strategies would start to outperform more interesting and nuanced engine strategies. I mean, if Mine was $4 and you could reliably open with it, it would speed up BM significantly. Especially if you opened Mine/Silver and could trash four Coppers in your opening shuffle and start copying the Silver (sorry, couldn't resist.)

Just because a card is frequently ignorable doesn't mean it's bad. Who hasn't used Beggar/Gardens or Beggar/Triumph? Mandarin/Capital? Cache/Counterfeit/Banquet/Tower points for emptying the Copper pile in a 4-player game? (Ok, maybe that's a stretch, but it happened.)

Maybe some of the cards could be made slightly more attractive without breaking the game when they appeared. Harvest might honestly be broken if it had +Action. it would almost always be better than Gold and would almost certainly make a BM "Province rush" better than most engines. And Masterpiece gaining any <=3-cost card instead of Silver would be bonkers broken. Pay $7, gain four Encampments? That's a big nope!

The only cards on this list I would be tempted to improve are the ones that would make the game more interesting, not less so. Here are some possibilities:

Royal Seal : $4? Topdeckers are really interesting. Scheme, Traveling Fair, Courtyard, Tracker... these all potentially create very interesting situations for setting up combos. And hey, they're all cheap. I don't think a Royal Seal you could open with would break anything. But it's just too expensive to be worth it when competing with other $5-costs.

Philosopher's stone: Count ALL cards? It's useless in an engine. Single-card economy exploders like Bank and Fortune make engines especially attractive; adding one more treasure to this category couldn't hurt.

Transmute: Add a "may" to the gaining? Breaks the flavor, though.

But honestly, Donald X spent a lot of time and energy designing these cards and playtesting them, and it's likely that many of these ideas or ideas similar to them were tried and rejected.

In fact, second-guessing D.X actually belongs in a whole separate section:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=11.0

This whole thread should probably be moved to "Variants and Fan Cards"

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benedettosoxfan

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #16 on: March 08, 2018, 01:22:55 pm »
+1

I think pirate ship already has been "fixed" in a way, but it's been done so through 2 cards: miser and noble brigand. Miser keeps the concept of building up to get a formidable terminal payload card, and noble brigand fixes the idea of "I want to trash my opponents treasures without doing them a huge favor." I don't see how noble brigand can be "fixed" any further. I just think that concept of trashing your opponent's good treasures can't really be improved any further without making the game super un-fun.

As for other cards that could maybe use a buff, I think royal seal could be fine as copper instead of a silver and maybe having it cost $3 or $4. Tracker has shown me how useful the topdecking effect can be, but for $5 I would rather just have whatever card I would have been topdecking in the first place.

I like the idea of making bureaucrat a terminal silver. Combined with its attack, that would make a pretty decent counterpart to militia. Time hasn't been good to the old bureaucrat. I don't want to say he's obsolete, but the game has changed too much since the base set days for his effect to really ever be worthwhile.

Adding a simple +$1 to harvest is probably fine as other have said. It's just not a good or exciting card as it is. Something needs to make it tantalizing enough at $5.

As for transmute and p-stone, I've literally never bought either of them so I wouldn't even know lol.

The other cards all have their niche. They might not be great as other cards, but something has to be in last. Just buy 'em when they are useful, and don't buy 'em when they're not useful.

I'll throw in another name that could use a fix more than some of these other bottom tier cards: Rogue. I mentioned this in the rankings thread, but the lack of a choice is so frustrating to me that I almost always avoid the card altogether. It's a really tough fix though. Taking away the choice just makes it a strictly better Dame Sylvia, and anything else I can think of makes it either too powerful, too un-fun, or too similar to either knights or graverobber.
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crj

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #17 on: March 08, 2018, 01:52:07 pm »
+3

Masterpiece
Make it worth 2$. You could make the overpay mandatory if you were sad about punking silver
Knowing what we know now, a simpler tweak would be to make it an overpay Event. Cost $2+, gain one Silver per overpay.

Edit: So... um... Delve is already a fixed Masterpiece?
« Last Edit: March 08, 2018, 02:23:23 pm by crj »
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ThetaSigma12

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #18 on: March 08, 2018, 01:53:41 pm »
+8

Cough *Variants and Fan Cards* Cough
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Gazbag

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #19 on: March 08, 2018, 01:53:54 pm »
0

I'll throw in another name that could use a fix more than some of these other bottom tier cards: Rogue. I mentioned this in the rankings thread, but the lack of a choice is so frustrating to me that I almost always avoid the card altogether. It's a really tough fix though. Taking away the choice just makes it a strictly better Dame Sylvia, and anything else I can think of makes it either too powerful, too un-fun, or too similar to either knights or graverobber.

Rogue is good. You should think of it as a gainer 1st and an attack 2nd, because it's a very good gainer and a weak attack. You need a way to get things into the trash for it to gain of course so it's quite nice with trash for benefit.
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Screwyioux

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #20 on: March 08, 2018, 02:14:41 pm »
0

This whole discussion really illustrates the problem with "ranking" Dominion cards in the first place. It's too normalizing for Dominion, which is simply more nuanced and variable than what would allow for that kind of evaluation.

All of the context matters all of the time. If you reject the notion of evaluating cards in a vacuum, ever, I promise you'll become a better player for it.

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crj

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #21 on: March 08, 2018, 02:16:49 pm »
+1

Duchess: People hardly ever buy it anyway, so maybe increase the price to $4. That opens up interesting trash-for-benefit tricks.

Fortune Teller: Um... until they reveal two Victory or Curse cards? And reduce the cost to $4. Then it's a Militia which affects their next turn instead of this one. Ish.

Fool: Yes, well! It sounds like this one got tweaked and tweaked already in an effort to make it work. Perhaps it should just be dropped?

Pirate Ship: Every player, including you, reveals the top two cards of their deck and you may choose a treasure that they must trash. That way you can buff Pirate Ship by trashing your own Copper and/or elect to leave opponents' Copper alone.

Navigator: Why not just "Look at your deck and put it back in any order"? Would that be overpowered and/or too slow?

Royal Seal: Would $4 be too cheap?

Transmute: Gain a card costing up to $3 more that does not share a type with it
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crj

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #22 on: March 08, 2018, 02:21:53 pm »
+4

You say "worst", but this is about fixing the weakest cards. It might be more interesting to fix the cards people enjoy least and/or find most broken.
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Gazbag

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #23 on: March 08, 2018, 02:40:43 pm »
+2

This whole discussion really illustrates the problem with "ranking" Dominion cards in the first place. It's too normalizing for Dominion, which is simply more nuanced and variable than what would allow for that kind of evaluation.

All of the context matters all of the time. If you reject the notion of evaluating cards in a vacuum, ever, I promise you'll become a better player for it.

These lists can be useful to new players. A lot of new players don't immediately see the value of Chapel for example and ignore it, but if they then read these card lists and see Chapel at the top of the $2's they'll hopefully learn something and become better. On the other hand seeing Masterpeice at the bottom of the $3s and deciding to never buy Masterpiece ever because it sucks will make them worse at the game. So I guess you have to be smart about it?
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #24 on: March 08, 2018, 02:43:40 pm »
+1

You say "worst", but this is about fixing the weakest cards. It might be more interesting to fix the cards people enjoy least and/or find most broken.

Regarding this, I'm interested in ideas for fixing Rebuild. The idea is somewhat intriguing; improve your Estates instead of trashing them, but the implementation... yeah. Would making it terminal be too weak? Maybe make it terminal, but let you choose between upgrading or gaining an Estate?
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #25 on: March 08, 2018, 02:53:04 pm »
0

I don't know that most of these need "fixing." In fact, many of them already have re-designs in newer sets that used a similar mechanic but to greater effect. Cartographer is arguably a better Navigator, Bandit is a better Noble Brigand (that's how bad Thief was. It needed TWO redesigns.)

I think pirate ship already has been "fixed" in a way, but it's been done so through 2 cards: miser and noble brigand. Miser keeps the concept of building up to get a formidable terminal payload card, and noble brigand fixes the idea of "I want to trash my opponents treasures without doing them a huge favor."

This is a great point you both make. I'm a little slow and just had the "Miser is Pirate Ship!" epiphany a few days ago.

Many of the cards that have been reincarnated were eventually removed from the game (such as Thief, Chancellor).
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #26 on: March 08, 2018, 02:55:34 pm »
0

Regarding this, I'm interested in ideas for fixing Rebuild. The idea is somewhat intriguing; improve your Estates instead of trashing them, but the implementation... yeah. Would making it terminal be too weak? Maybe make it terminal, but let you choose between upgrading or gaining an Estate?

Any card that lets you almost entirely bypass building up your deck is going to be bad for the game. Either it's too weak to consider, or it's strong enough and makes games boring. And that's pretty much Rebuild's entire concept: play it a lot and gain Provinces.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #27 on: March 08, 2018, 02:57:58 pm »
0

Cough *Variants and Fan Cards* Cough

It won't hurt my feelings if a mod wants to move this. I don't always have a great feel for what goes where, but that board seems heavily skewed toward the "fan cards" segment.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #28 on: March 08, 2018, 03:06:09 pm »
0

Any card that lets you almost entirely bypass building up your deck is going to be bad for the game. Either it's too weak to consider, or it's strong enough and makes games boring. And that's pretty much Rebuild's entire concept: play it a lot and gain Provinces.
On the other hand, Expand is fine, and not even considered that great a card. Despite working on things other than Victories.

Ways in which Expand is weaker:
  • Costs more
  • Terminal
  • Works from deck, not from hand
Is there really no way Rebuild could be saved by playing around with one or more of those?
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #29 on: March 08, 2018, 03:41:27 pm »
+4

Any card that lets you almost entirely bypass building up your deck is going to be bad for the game. Either it's too weak to consider, or it's strong enough and makes games boring. And that's pretty much Rebuild's entire concept: play it a lot and gain Provinces.
On the other hand, Expand is fine, and not even considered that great a card. Despite working on things other than Victories.

Ways in which Expand is weaker:
  • Costs more
  • Terminal
  • Works from deck, not from hand
Is there really no way Rebuild could be saved by playing around with one or more of those?

Rebuild $5 Action.
Trash a card from your hand. If it is a Curse, Ruins, Shelter, or Victory card, gain a card costing up to $3 more than it. Otherwise, gain a card costing up to $2 more than it.

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #30 on: March 08, 2018, 04:00:16 pm »
0

Any card that lets you almost entirely bypass building up your deck is going to be bad for the game. Either it's too weak to consider, or it's strong enough and makes games boring. And that's pretty much Rebuild's entire concept: play it a lot and gain Provinces.
On the other hand, Expand is fine, and not even considered that great a card. Despite working on things other than Victories.

Ways in which Expand is weaker:
  • Costs more
  • Terminal
  • Works from deck, not from hand
Is there really no way Rebuild could be saved by playing around with one or more of those?

You have to build just to get to Expand.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #31 on: March 08, 2018, 04:05:08 pm »
+5

Duchess - Give it Scout's ability instead of Spy's, so it actually synergizes with Duchy.
Beggar - It's fine.
Masterpiece - It's fine.
Fortune Teller - Give it Chancellor's ability, since it's already Chancellor for your opponent.
Fool - The problem isn't that it's weak, but that it's slow.  When you're not lost in the woods, gain only one boon, plus a vanilla bonus.  +1 card +1 Action would be cool.
Pirate Ship - Take a coin token even if no treasures are trashed.
Bureaucrat - Let it gain any card costing up to $3.
Navigator - It's fine.
Noble Brigand - Let it steal any non-copper treasure.
Cache - It's fine.
Mine - It's fine.
Mandarin - Give it +buy.
Harem/Royal Seal - Combine them at $5.
Harvest - Give it +buy.

As you can see, I'm amused by the idea of combining two terrible cards to make something better.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #32 on: March 08, 2018, 04:56:36 pm »
0

As you can see, I'm amused by the idea of combining two terrible cards to make something better.
Giving harvest the navigator option to leave them or put them back is another possible combo-fix.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #33 on: March 08, 2018, 04:57:23 pm »
0

B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%

But then we would have a different bottom 10%. Wouldn't we have to fix that next?
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #34 on: March 08, 2018, 05:40:21 pm »
+6

B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%

But then we would have a different bottom 10%. Wouldn't we have to fix that next?

Well yeah. Gotta keep this place busy somehow.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #35 on: March 08, 2018, 05:56:05 pm »
0

B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%

But then we would have a different bottom 10%. Wouldn't we have to fix that next?

If we keep doing it long enough, we eventually get to a place where all cards are exactly equally strong. Which then largely turns the game into almost pure luck; because it doesn't matter which strategy or cards you go for.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #36 on: March 08, 2018, 06:04:53 pm »
0

B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%

But then we would have a different bottom 10%. Wouldn't we have to fix that next?

If we keep doing it long enough, we eventually get to a place where all cards are exactly equally strong. Which then largely turns the game into almost pure luck; because it doesn't matter which strategy or cards you go for.

Since a flat power curve is impossible, striving for that isn't valuable.
What could be reasonable is figuring out a minimum power level, and buffing the cards below that so that they are more interesting to play with. 
That might be the bottom 5% (about 15 cards) or it might be the bottom 10% or whatever.  Whatever you define it at, there would be a place to stop without committing to an endless process.

---

The mobile game, clash royale, has one of the best power curves I've ever seen.  almost every single card in the game has a place where it is viable.  even the 8 starter cards are strong enough to be useful after you've played thousands of matches.
yeah, there are some stinkers, but mostly those are cards that would be unfun, or too luck based, if they were tier 1 cards. For instance, one card, the pump, was nerfed so that it would fall out of competitive play where it was messing things up, but casual players still get tons of value and fun out of it. 

They got to this point by knocking down the high spots, and filling in the low spots every few months over 2 years.  It might be an continuous process, but the game is better today than it has ever been, and they certainly do not commit to buffing the bottom 10% every patch.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2018, 06:13:27 pm by weesh »
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #37 on: March 08, 2018, 06:16:53 pm »
0

Fool - The problem isn't that it's weak, but that it's slow.  When you're not lost in the woods, gain only one boon, plus a vanilla bonus.  +1 card +1 Action would be cool.
You're in danger of making Fool too similar to Pixie, Tracker and/or Bard, though.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #38 on: March 08, 2018, 06:22:49 pm »
0

If we keep doing it long enough, we eventually get to a place where all cards are exactly equally strong. Which then largely turns the game into almost pure luck; because it doesn't matter which strategy or cards you go for.

That could happen, but more likely is that all the cards keep getting stronger and stronger, with a different bottom 10% every iteration.
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O

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #39 on: March 08, 2018, 06:27:56 pm »
+7

If we keep doing it long enough, we eventually get to a place where all cards are exactly equally strong. Which then largely turns the game into almost pure luck; because it doesn't matter which strategy or cards you go for.

This isn't what would happen at all. Maybe Mine and Torturer become roughly equal strength in a power ranking list but with Fishing Village in the kingdom Torturer is still clearly the better strategy to go for. Card synergies still exist even among a roughly similarly powered card set.

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #40 on: March 08, 2018, 06:49:34 pm »
+25

- Duchess: Change the spying to only spy on yourself. It should stay bottom 10%; you get it free with a Duchy.
- Beggar: Probably leave as-is. The defense is sexier in the context of Dark Ages. The top is great.
- Masterpiece: Leave as-is.
- Fortune Teller: Move to Adventures, change attack to -1 Card token, consider for Warrior slot.
- Fool: The problem is slowness not power level. I might try more one-shot versions, or just drop it.
- Pirate Ship: Arguably Miser is the fixed version.
- Bureaucrat: Eh. Recognize that it's weak but leave as-is. Consider again on the next pass.
- Navigator: Various cards have done this better, most recently Night Watchman.
- Noble Brigand: This is the fixed Thief! But Bandit is more fixed. I wouldn't try to preserve when-gain-attack.
- Harvest: I'd try LF's fix.
- Cache: Move the +1 Buy from Margrave to here (also fixes Margrave). Yes or be happy with Banquet.
- Mine: Recognize that it's weak but leave as-is.
- Mandarin: Do some other card. The top is fine for showcasing a when-gain, so, maybe just some unrelated when-gain.
- Royal Seal: I'd try to find a version that could cost less than $5; that really ups the value of the ability.
- Harem: I'd try the $5 version. Also could be an Event, "+2 VP, gain a Silver." However Intrigue likes having it as a 2-type card.
- Transmute: Arguably Exorcist is the fixed version. The premise is a Remodel that gives you specific cards. For a card called Transmute in an expansion called Alchemy, Dismantle would do the trick.
- Philosopher's Stone: I'd just drop it. Some people cannot count fast enough.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #41 on: March 08, 2018, 06:53:49 pm »
+6

B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%

But then we would have a different bottom 10%. Wouldn't we have to fix that next?

If we keep doing it long enough, we eventually get to a place where all cards are exactly equally strong. Which then largely turns the game into almost pure luck; because it doesn't matter which strategy or cards you go for.
You mean, if you keep both improving the bottom 10% and also weakening the top 10%.

The it's-all-luck situation doesn't happen though, because the cards vary in power level depending on which ones are out. It's not like perfect balance implies no decisions either.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #42 on: March 08, 2018, 07:32:12 pm »
0

- Harvest: I'd try LF's fix.

Am I blind?  I can't see where lastFootnote addresses harvest.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #43 on: March 08, 2018, 07:38:41 pm »
0

- Cache: Move the +1 Buy from Margrave to here (also fixes Margrave).

Huh, interesting, I didn't know Margrave was in need of fixing. I figured that, since Margrave's attack is relatively weak—and unlike Torturer or Rabble, gets weaker the more you play it—the +Buy was there to make it a more attractive engine component. No?

Quote
- Harem: I'd try the $5 version. Also could be an Event, "+2 VP, gain a Silver."

Doesn't Conquest already do this Event better?
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #44 on: March 08, 2018, 07:41:02 pm »
+3

- Harvest: I'd try LF's fix.

Am I blind?  I can't see where lastFootnote addresses harvest.

From another recent thread:

That being said, I updated my physical Harvest cards so that they put one of the four cards back on top of your deck. It's still not a power card, but it's decent pretty often.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #45 on: March 08, 2018, 09:00:54 pm »
+7

Cough *Variants and Fan Cards* Cough
It won't hurt my feelings if a mod wants to move this. I don't always have a great feel for what goes where, but that board seems heavily skewed toward the "fan cards" segment.

I mean, just because it's more fan cards than variants doesn't mean it's still not variants. Anyways, so I'm not just always complaining here's a nice list of variants and fan card threads that touch on this subject:
Many of them have faded with 2nd Editions or weren't that good in the first place, and they're more than often redundant, but they are all linked for completeness.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2018, 11:44:58 am by ThetaSigma12 »
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #46 on: March 09, 2018, 04:31:51 am »
+3

Huh, interesting, I didn't know Margrave was in need of fixing. I figured that, since Margrave's attack is relatively weak—and unlike Torturer or Rabble, gets weaker the more you play it—the +Buy was there to make it a more attractive engine component. No?
Margrave got +1 Buy because something in the set needed +1 Buy and that looked like a reasonable spot at the time.

In general getting two engine pieces from one card is a problem; those are significant cards. Some cards will have to do that but I want to be careful with them. I definitely don't want two engine pieces and also it attacks.

Doesn't Conquest already do this Event better?
Yes there's also Conquest.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #47 on: March 09, 2018, 04:54:11 am »
+20

- Duchess: Change the spying to only spy on yourself. It should stay bottom 10%; you get it free with a Duchy.
- Beggar: Probably leave as-is. The defense is sexier in the context of Dark Ages. The top is great.
- Masterpiece: Leave as-is.
- Fortune Teller: Move to Adventures, change attack to -1 Card token, consider for Warrior slot.
- Fool: The problem is slowness not power level. I might try more one-shot versions, or just drop it.
- Pirate Ship: Arguably Miser is the fixed version.
- Bureaucrat: Eh. Recognize that it's weak but leave as-is. Consider again on the next pass.
- Navigator: Various cards have done this better, most recently Night Watchman.
- Noble Brigand: This is the fixed Thief! But Bandit is more fixed. I wouldn't try to preserve when-gain-attack.
- Harvest: I'd try LF's fix.
- Cache: Move the +1 Buy from Margrave to here (also fixes Margrave). Yes or be happy with Banquet.
- Mine: Recognize that it's weak but leave as-is.
- Mandarin: Do some other card. The top is fine for showcasing a when-gain, so, maybe just some unrelated when-gain.
- Royal Seal: I'd try to find a version that could cost less than $5; that really ups the value of the ability.
- Harem: I'd try the $5 version. Also could be an Event, "+2 VP, gain a Silver." However Intrigue likes having it as a 2-type card.
- Transmute: Arguably Exorcist is the fixed version. The premise is a Remodel that gives you specific cards. For a card called Transmute in an expansion called Alchemy, Dismantle would do the trick.
- Philosopher's Stone: I'd just drop it. Some people cannot count fast enough.

Many nice ideas, man. You should make some fan cards, or even a whole set.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #48 on: March 09, 2018, 07:42:47 am »
0

Part of the problem with Margrave is not just that it's two engine pieces on an attack, but that it's two engine pieces on an attack that creates one decision per victim every time it's played. Scrying Pool has a similar annoying issue.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #49 on: March 09, 2018, 08:19:44 am »
+1

Part of the problem with Margrave is not just that it's two engine pieces on an attack, but that it's two engine pieces on an attack that creates one decision per victim every time it's played. Scrying Pool has a similar annoying issue.

That's more of a problem with multiplayer, really.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #50 on: March 09, 2018, 09:29:38 am »
0

- Duchess: Change the spying to only spy on yourself. It should stay bottom 10%; you get it free with a Duchy.
- Beggar: Probably leave as-is. The defense is sexier in the context of Dark Ages. The top is great.
- Masterpiece: Leave as-is.
- Fortune Teller: Move to Adventures, change attack to -1 Card token, consider for Warrior slot.
- Fool: The problem is slowness not power level. I might try more one-shot versions, or just drop it.
- Pirate Ship: Arguably Miser is the fixed version.
- Bureaucrat: Eh. Recognize that it's weak but leave as-is. Consider again on the next pass.
- Navigator: Various cards have done this better, most recently Night Watchman.
- Noble Brigand: This is the fixed Thief! But Bandit is more fixed. I wouldn't try to preserve when-gain-attack.
- Harvest: I'd try LF's fix.
- Cache: Move the +1 Buy from Margrave to here (also fixes Margrave). Yes or be happy with Banquet.
- Mine: Recognize that it's weak but leave as-is.
- Mandarin: Do some other card. The top is fine for showcasing a when-gain, so, maybe just some unrelated when-gain.
- Royal Seal: I'd try to find a version that could cost less than $5; that really ups the value of the ability.
- Harem: I'd try the $5 version. Also could be an Event, "+2 VP, gain a Silver." However Intrigue likes having it as a 2-type card.
- Transmute: Arguably Exorcist is the fixed version. The premise is a Remodel that gives you specific cards. For a card called Transmute in an expansion called Alchemy, Dismantle would do the trick.
- Philosopher's Stone: I'd just drop it. Some people cannot count fast enough.

Many nice ideas, man. You should make some fan cards, or even a whole set.

If Donald made them, wouldn't it just be a new Dominion set?
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #51 on: March 09, 2018, 09:55:16 am »
+4

I’ve been working on a lot of these for a personal project, so here’s where I think they all could go.

Duchess: No player interaction, just the +$2.
Beggar: Fine as-is. It’s a narrow card, it can stay narrow, it has uses where it’s amazing.
Masterpiece: I’ve considered making it a $2 cost.
Fortune Teller: The effect is kind of slow, just use the -1 Card token (I also do this for Bureaucrat)
Fool: Fine.
Pirate Ship: Shit dude, I don’t know if this is fixable. I’d consider it always both attacking and paying?
Bureaucrat: -1 Card token instead of weird Victory card thing, top decking the Silver is optional.
Navigator: Fine as is, it’s just narrow.
Noble Brigand: Make it trash treasure that isn’t Copper, rather than only Silver or Gold.
Harvest: LF had a fix I can’t really remember, but really like a lot of bad cards just give it +Buy.
Cache: Give it +Buy and it’s perfectly fine.
Mine: It’s a decent card at $4 cost, and there’s no reason to prevent Mine openings.
Mandarin: It’s always gonna be narrow. Maybe just get rid of the top-deck thing on the top.
Royal Seal: $4 cost as is.
Harem: $5 cost, rename it “Manor”, remove the generally objectifting art. I think this is LF’s idea.
Transmute: I’ve tried a lot for Transmute. +1 Buy, and replace “gain a Transmute” with “gain an Action” makes it really fun. I’ve tried cost-restricting the Action but I honestly think it’s more fun to not do that.
Philosopher’s Stone: $1 per 3 Action cards you have in play. Easier to count, actually sort of does something with Alchemy, and rewarding for certain kinds of decks.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #52 on: March 09, 2018, 11:43:08 am »
+2

I'd be fine with a Royal Seal that was worth a Copper for $3 or something. This avoids the issue where it is better than Silver for $4.

I also like Cache getting +buy instead of Mandarin as Donald suggested.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #53 on: March 09, 2018, 11:43:49 am »
0

I'd be fine with a Royal Seal that was worth a Copper for $3 or something. This avoids the issue where it is better than Silver for $4.

At that point, it might be a bit redundant with Tracker.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #54 on: March 09, 2018, 11:49:42 am »
+1

I'd be fine with a Royal Seal that was worth a Copper for $3 or something. This avoids the issue where it is better than Silver for $4.

At that point, it might be a bit redundant with Tracker.

It's more like Tracker demonstrates that the concept could have worked much better if Royal Seal was cheaper than most of the things you wanted to topdeck. Also, being non-terminal every time is a big deal.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #55 on: March 09, 2018, 11:57:05 am »
0

Pirate Ship: Shit dude, I don’t know if this is fixable. I’d consider it always both attacking and paying?

I like the idea of fixing this without intruding on miser.  But maybe give the choice AFTER getting information...

Code: [Select]
Fixed Pirate Ship
Action - 4$
Each other player with at least (5) cards in hand REVEALS THEIR HAND.
Choose one:
* Trash up to one treasure of your choice from each player's revealed cards, and (then if any treasure was trashed) add a Coin token to your Pirate Ship mat.
* +$1 per Coin token on your Pirate Ship mat
-
(When you gain this, put a coin token on your Pirate Ship mat.)

Stuff in parenthesis is flexible.

Now it's also a handsize attack that reduced their economy for the next turn, and can't even make them discard shitty cards to get to their other cards faster. Is that good enough to get it out of the bottom 10%?  Or did I overdo it? 
« Last Edit: March 09, 2018, 12:05:55 pm by weesh »
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LastFootnote

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #56 on: March 09, 2018, 12:04:17 pm »
+3

Pirate Ship: Shit dude, I don’t know if this is fixable. I’d consider it always both attacking and paying?

I like the idea of fixing this without intruding on miser.  But maybe give the choice AFTER getting information...

Code: [Select]
Fixed Pirate Ship
Action - 4$
Each other player with at least (5) cards in hand REVEALS THEIR HAND.
Choose one:
* Trash up to one treasure of your choice from each player's revealed cards, and (then if any treasure was trashed) add a Coin token to your Pirate Ship mat.
* +$1 per Coin token on your Pirate Ship mat
-
(When you gain this, put a coin token on your Pirate Ship mat.)

Stuff in parenthesis is flexible.

Now it's also a handsize attack that reduced their economy for the next turn, and can't even make them discard shitty cards to get to their other cards faster. Is that good enough to get it out of the bottom 10%?  Or did I overdo it?

I think the first time somebody has to trash a Gold—or maybe even a Silver—from their hand, that's it. Rage quit.
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #57 on: March 09, 2018, 12:05:11 pm »
0

Pirate Ship: Shit dude, I don’t know if this is fixable. I’d consider it always both attacking and paying?

I like the idea of fixing this without intruding on miser.  But maybe give the choice AFTER getting information...

Code: [Select]
Fixed Pirate Ship
Action - 4$
Each other player with at least (5) cards in hand REVEALS THEIR HAND.
Choose one:
* Trash up to one treasure of your choice from each player's revealed cards, and (then if any treasure was trashed) add a Coin token to your Pirate Ship mat.
* +$1 per Coin token on your Pirate Ship mat
-
(When you gain this, put a coin token on your Pirate Ship mat.)

Stuff in parenthesis is flexible.

Now it's also a handsize attack that reduced their economy for the next turn, and can't even make them discard shitty cards to get to their other cards faster. Is that good enough to get it out of the bottom 10%?  Or did I overdo it?

Choosing a treasure to trash from their hand seems quite strong.
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weesh

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #58 on: March 09, 2018, 12:07:33 pm »
0

I think the first time somebody has to trash a Gold—or maybe even a Silver—from their hand, that's it. Rage quit.
Do you guy gold when this is on the field?  I feel like you might not...

Kept as a handsize attack, but now discards instead of trashing...

Code: [Select]
Fixed Pirate Ship
Action - 4$
Each other player with at least (5) cards in hand reveals their hand.
Choose one:
* DISCARD up to one treasure of your choice from each player's revealed cards, then add a Coin token to your Pirate Ship mat.
* +$1 per Coin token on your Pirate Ship mat

Does this get it out of the bottom 10%?
lol, you just have to be better than stuff like silk road, death cart and nomad camp to be in the top 90%
« Last Edit: March 09, 2018, 12:13:03 pm by weesh »
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #59 on: March 09, 2018, 12:11:59 pm »
0

I’ve been working on a lot of these for a personal project, so here’s where I think they all could go.

Duchess: No player interaction, just the +$2.
Beggar: Fine as-is. It’s a narrow card, it can stay narrow, it has uses where it’s amazing.
Masterpiece: I’ve considered making it a $2 cost.
Fortune Teller: The effect is kind of slow, just use the -1 Card token (I also do this for Bureaucrat)
Fool: Fine.
Pirate Ship: Shit dude, I don’t know if this is fixable. I’d consider it always both attacking and paying?
Bureaucrat: -1 Card token instead of weird Victory card thing, top decking the Silver is optional.
Navigator: Fine as is, it’s just narrow.
Noble Brigand: Make it trash treasure that isn’t Copper, rather than only Silver or Gold.
Harvest: LF had a fix I can’t really remember, but really like a lot of bad cards just give it +Buy.
Cache: Give it +Buy and it’s perfectly fine.
Mine: It’s a decent card at $4 cost, and there’s no reason to prevent Mine openings.
Mandarin: It’s always gonna be narrow. Maybe just get rid of the top-deck thing on the top.
Royal Seal: $4 cost as is.
Harem: $5 cost, rename it “Manor”, remove the generally objectifting art. I think this is LF’s idea.
Transmute: I’ve tried a lot for Transmute. +1 Buy, and replace “gain a Transmute” with “gain an Action” makes it really fun. I’ve tried cost-restricting the Action but I honestly think it’s more fun to not do that.
Philosopher’s Stone: $1 per 3 Action cards you have in play. Easier to count, actually sort of does something with Alchemy, and rewarding for certain kinds of decks.

FYI, when I put the list together, most of the cards that people are saying are "narrow, but fine" also seemed that way to me, but I wanted to have a consistent threshold (10%). As a result, I also left off a few cards that I'd love to see fixes for, such as Contraband.

Anyway, I like this Mine fix, and your P-Stone idea is really compelling, but I don't know if the function is quite right. Maybe worth 1 coin base plus $1 for every 3? For what it costs, I feel like it should be easier to get it to Silver.
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Sharajat

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #60 on: March 09, 2018, 01:36:47 pm »
0

Most of these don't need to be fixed.  That being said:

Duchess: $2 for each duchy in hand
Masterpiece: Costs $2
Bureaucrat: Puts a card from their hand on top of their deck if they have 5 or more cards in hand
Mandarin: You may put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
Transmute: Treasure, gain an action costing up to $4. 

Easy fix:

Cache: Make it cost $4
Mine: Make it cost $4
Royal Seal: Make it cost $4

They're all $5s that are fine at $4. 
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humcalc216

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #61 on: March 09, 2018, 01:38:39 pm »
+1

I’ve been working on a lot of these for a personal project, so here’s where I think they all could go.

Duchess: No player interaction, just the +$2.
Beggar: Fine as-is. It’s a narrow card, it can stay narrow, it has uses where it’s amazing.
Masterpiece: I’ve considered making it a $2 cost.
Fortune Teller: The effect is kind of slow, just use the -1 Card token (I also do this for Bureaucrat)
Fool: Fine.
Pirate Ship: Shit dude, I don’t know if this is fixable. I’d consider it always both attacking and paying?
Bureaucrat: -1 Card token instead of weird Victory card thing, top decking the Silver is optional.
Navigator: Fine as is, it’s just narrow.
Noble Brigand: Make it trash treasure that isn’t Copper, rather than only Silver or Gold.
Harvest: LF had a fix I can’t really remember, but really like a lot of bad cards just give it +Buy.
Cache: Give it +Buy and it’s perfectly fine.
Mine: It’s a decent card at $4 cost, and there’s no reason to prevent Mine openings.
Mandarin: It’s always gonna be narrow. Maybe just get rid of the top-deck thing on the top.
Royal Seal: $4 cost as is.
Harem: $5 cost, rename it “Manor”, remove the generally objectifting art. I think this is LF’s idea.
Transmute: I’ve tried a lot for Transmute. +1 Buy, and replace “gain a Transmute” with “gain an Action” makes it really fun. I’ve tried cost-restricting the Action but I honestly think it’s more fun to not do that.
Philosopher’s Stone: $1 per 3 Action cards you have in play. Easier to count, actually sort of does something with Alchemy, and rewarding for certain kinds of decks.

FYI, when I put the list together, most of the cards that people are saying are "narrow, but fine" also seemed that way to me, but I wanted to have a consistent threshold (10%). As a result, I also left off a few cards that I'd love to see fixes for, such as Contraband.

Anyway, I like this Mine fix, and your P-Stone idea is really compelling, but I don't know if the function is quite right. Maybe worth 1 coin base plus $1 for every 3? For what it costs, I feel like it should be easier to get it to Silver.
Contraband is one of those cards that I always think about trying to include in my deck when it's on the board (because I think it's a great concept and I can't resist), and I often try it.  I don't always actually end up using it, but when I do, I often find it's better than I was expecting it to be.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #62 on: March 09, 2018, 01:46:52 pm »
+7

- Duchess: Change the spying to only spy on yourself. It should stay bottom 10%; you get it free with a Duchy.
- Beggar: Probably leave as-is. The defense is sexier in the context of Dark Ages. The top is great.
- Masterpiece: Leave as-is.
- Fortune Teller: Move to Adventures, change attack to -1 Card token, consider for Warrior slot.
- Fool: The problem is slowness not power level. I might try more one-shot versions, or just drop it.
- Pirate Ship: Arguably Miser is the fixed version.
- Bureaucrat: Eh. Recognize that it's weak but leave as-is. Consider again on the next pass.
- Navigator: Various cards have done this better, most recently Night Watchman.
- Noble Brigand: This is the fixed Thief! But Bandit is more fixed. I wouldn't try to preserve when-gain-attack.
- Harvest: I'd try LF's fix.
- Cache: Move the +1 Buy from Margrave to here (also fixes Margrave). Yes or be happy with Banquet.
- Mine: Recognize that it's weak but leave as-is.
- Mandarin: Do some other card. The top is fine for showcasing a when-gain, so, maybe just some unrelated when-gain.
- Royal Seal: I'd try to find a version that could cost less than $5; that really ups the value of the ability.
- Harem: I'd try the $5 version. Also could be an Event, "+2 VP, gain a Silver." However Intrigue likes having it as a 2-type card.
- Transmute: Arguably Exorcist is the fixed version. The premise is a Remodel that gives you specific cards. For a card called Transmute in an expansion called Alchemy, Dismantle would do the trick.
- Philosopher's Stone: I'd just drop it. Some people cannot count fast enough.

Many nice ideas, man. You should make some fan cards, or even a whole set.

If Donald made them, wouldn't it just be a new Dominion set?

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crj

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #63 on: March 09, 2018, 01:49:59 pm »
+2

Contraband fits well in the Prosperity expansion.

It's quite amusing to play Contraband and watch your neighbour try to second-guess whether they should be prohibiting Colony, Platinum or King's Court. (-8<

I also remember a game where my opponent played Contraband and I named Stonemason. They looked strangely at me and then went "ooooooooh!". With hindsight, I should never have mentioned it.

(This is possibly an anecdote for the AI thread as well. Good luck teaching a computer to keep its stupid mouth shut about something like that!)
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Accatitippi

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #64 on: March 09, 2018, 06:09:34 pm »
0

A cool thing to do with Mine, which alone is probably not enough to make it good, but can make it shine occasionally (and be real fun), is to let it upgrade to up to more.

Transmute could gain a decent action instead of more Transmutes. Or it could cost 4, or both.

Fool could have + or even + instead of the three boons thing. Lost in the Woods is the cool thing about Fool, right?

Merchant Ship is another card that would really benefit from a Buy transplantation. The donor being Wharf, of course.

I've tried Harvest with the topdeck thing and it's still pretty weak, but at least that way it has a role beyond being an emergency have-no-other-choice coin source.

Since "every opponent with at least X cards in hand does this and that" has become common and acceptable, Bureaucrat could get a nonstackable attack with a more exciting benefit. Or a choice. The attack as printed could at least be content with gaining the Silver to hand.

Masterpiece for 2$ would scale better at the low costs, and be just as crazy on the high areas.

Philosopher's stone could be priced at , but I'm not sure it would change much its appeal. At least it's less of a crapshot to get. is definitely my least favourite price point in all of Dominion.

I think Navigator, Harem, Fortune teller, Mandarin, and a few others are ready for retirement. Their fixes already exist.
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grrgrrgrr

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #65 on: March 09, 2018, 07:02:50 pm »
+1

I have been thinking this as well:
Harem: Make sure it synergizes with Gold gainers Add the phrase: "In games using this, when you gain a Gold, you may exchange it for a Harem"
Cache: Make it produce $4 as opposed to $3. I doubt if that would be too good.
Masterpiece: Reduce its price to $2.
Mine: Add "Gain a Coin token" to its current effect. Now it really is a terminal Silver with long term benefits.


« Last Edit: March 09, 2018, 07:07:44 pm by grrgrrgrr »
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JThorne

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #66 on: March 09, 2018, 07:35:31 pm »
+2

Quote
Cache: Make it produce $4 as opposed to $3. I doubt if that would be too good.

It would be too good. Suddenly a hand of Cache/C/C/C/C buys a Province. Optimized Cache/BM would beat a LOT of more interesting strategies.

Don't make money better! Make players work a little harder for their wins. All these $2 Masterpiece suggestions are right up there, as well. Opening Masterpiece/Silver now puts three Silvers in your deck, so your second shuffle hands are going to be around $6 which is now enough for Masterpiece and four Silvers. You can pretty much start greening after the third shuffle. Not to mention if there's a draw card around. Delve/BM is already a thing. $2 Masterpiece would be even more powerful.
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crj

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #67 on: March 09, 2018, 09:28:41 pm »
0

A cool thing to do with Mine, which alone is probably not enough to make it good, but can make it shine occasionally (and be real fun), is to let it upgrade to up to more.
$4 more seems an interesting prospect. Copper to Potion; Silver to Bank. But, say, Copper to Venture, plus Copper to Platinum in two hops rather than three feels dangerously overpowered.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #68 on: March 09, 2018, 11:11:22 pm »
0

Quote
Cache: Make it produce $4 as opposed to $3. I doubt if that would be too good.

It would be too good. Suddenly a hand of Cache/C/C/C/C buys a Province. Optimized Cache/BM would beat a LOT of more interesting strategies.

Don't make money better! Make players work a little harder for their wins. All these $2 Masterpiece suggestions are right up there, as well. Opening Masterpiece/Silver now puts three Silvers in your deck, so your second shuffle hands are going to be around $6 which is now enough for Masterpiece and four Silvers. You can pretty much start greening after the third shuffle. Not to mention if there's a draw card around. Delve/BM is already a thing. $2 Masterpiece would be even more powerful.

I'm not so sure. A Cache that makes $4 sounds pretty interesting to me. You're using this example of a hand of Cache and four Coppers like it's guaranteed to happen. I really don't think it's a big deal.

And I like it when Treasure-heavy strategies are occasionally competitive.
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crj

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #69 on: March 09, 2018, 11:29:34 pm »
0

You're using this example of a hand of Cache and four Coppers like it's guaranteed to happen.
Then again, the on-gain does make it a whole bunch more likely?

Quote
And I like it when Treasure-heavy strategies are occasionally competitive.
Hear, hear.

When people denounce Gold gainers on the grounds that Gold is a bad card to have in your deck, I find myself hoping they're wrong or, if they're right, that Donald does something to fix that. Money ought to stay relevant!
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Donald X.

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #70 on: March 10, 2018, 03:07:13 am »
+13

Many nice ideas, man. You should make some fan cards, or even a whole set.
Dude, I did; they were winter holiday themed, and made the front page. https://dominionstrategy.com/2017/12/25/2017-holiday-kingdom/
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Donald X.

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #71 on: March 10, 2018, 03:11:31 am »
+8

Part of the problem with Margrave is not just that it's two engine pieces on an attack, but that it's two engine pieces on an attack that creates one decision per victim every time it's played. Scrying Pool has a similar annoying issue.
For me another thing that stands out is, that in multiplayer, you always line up your village and Margrave. I mean you draw your hand, and you don't have village Margrave, damn. And the next player plays village Margrave village Margrave, and you get to dig through some cards. And the next player does it too, and so does the next, so when it's your turn, you at last have your village Margrave draw, so you get to do it too. So we all always do it.
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Chappy7

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #72 on: March 10, 2018, 12:41:50 pm »
0

A cool thing to do with Mine, which alone is probably not enough to make it good, but can make it shine occasionally (and be real fun), is to let it upgrade to up to more.
$4 more seems an interesting prospect. Copper to Potion; Silver to Bank. But, say, Copper to Venture, plus Copper to Platinum in two hops rather than three feels dangerously overpowered.

This was my fix from earlier in the thread.  I think I'd buy it sometimes if it upgraded by 4.
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #73 on: March 10, 2018, 01:39:13 pm »
+1

Another "worst in a different way" card: Familiar.

The most common suggestion is to lower the price to 2P. For me, though, this doesn't fix the main problem with the card, which is that it's never fun even if I hit 3P on the first shuffle. You pretty much always have to go for it even though it's such a hassle to get, and then it becomes a bare cantrip when the Curses run out. I know junkers in general have a tendency to be must-buy, but this one in particular rubs me the wrong way because the strategy with it is so boring. You don't have to consider the terminal capacity of your deck, just turn off your brain and buy it.

Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way about this card. But I think the best fix is not to make it cheaper, but more expensive. Maybe it only costs P but you have to trash the Potion when you buy it. The concept of a cantrip Curser is good, but there should be some mechanism that makes it hard to get more than one and make you really think about whether it's worth getting.
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Simon Jester

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #74 on: March 10, 2018, 05:26:49 pm »
+1

Another "worst in a different way" card: Familiar.

The most common suggestion is to lower the price to 2P. For me, though, this doesn't fix the main problem with the card, which is that it's never fun even if I hit 3P on the first shuffle. You pretty much always have to go for it even though it's such a hassle to get, and then it becomes a bare cantrip when the Curses run out. I know junkers in general have a tendency to be must-buy, but this one in particular rubs me the wrong way because the strategy with it is so boring. You don't have to consider the terminal capacity of your deck, just turn off your brain and buy it.

Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way about this card. But I think the best fix is not to make it cheaper, but more expensive. Maybe it only costs P but you have to trash the Potion when you buy it. The concept of a cantrip Curser is good, but there should be some mechanism that makes it hard to get more than one and make you really think about whether it's worth getting.

This is simply not true anymore. Cursers has become much less relevant and even though Familiar is strong, it's also slow to get in a way that makes it's not an instant auto-buy. I very seldom feel I can "turn off my brain" and go Familiar, at least I need to check if there's something else that would make me lose tempo if I would go for it alone and more so now than before I feel like there is quite many of those options. The potion cost is already the mechanism you are asking for and (granted there is no other potion-cost card) having a confusion card in your deck after the cursers are gone plus a couple of useless cantrips is a bit of a handicap.

Of course the games where Familiar is completely skippable are rather few, but I feel more confident skipping it than I would with say Mountebank or Cultist.
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JThorne

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #75 on: March 10, 2018, 05:53:57 pm »
0

Quote
I like it when Treasure-heavy strategies are occasionally competitive.
...
When people denounce Gold gainers on the grounds that Gold is a bad card to have in your deck, I find myself hoping they're wrong or, if they're right, that Donald does something to fix that. Money ought to stay relevant!

Of course Money is always relevant, particularly Gold: It's always in the kingdom!

Let's not forget that a significant issue with learning Dominion is that just buying generic money is better than an unfocused actions-based strategy, and it's possible for beginners to conclude that the game is stupid because all you have to do to win is ignore all the other cards and just buy money.

If gaining Gold was always extremely good, then a single gold-gainer in the kingdom would too frequently outpace the engine and would allow you to ignore all other cards.

I love the fact that if a player overloads on Gold gaining, they generally lose to an engine player who uses Gold-gaining very sparsely in order to build economy but not at the expense of deck-drawing power; a player who knows that stop cards are bad, even if they generate $3.

Money is like direct damage in Magic. It's powerful, and always relevant, but needs to be reigned in so it doesn't dominate the game and make all other cards irrelevant, because it's especially boring.

That said, there are many awesome treasures that I do love, even if Gold is bad.

Quarry and Talisman occasionally make +buy a piledriving powerhouse, and combo with all kinds of cards.

Crown sometimes gets to not be a treasure. Or it can double big deal treasures like Bank. Gold, schmold.

Speaking of doubling, Fortune deserves mention for being the most expensive card in Dominion, and it's a treasure, and it's totally worth it.

Coin of the Realm: An engine-enabling treasure is one of the best things ever.

Of course, there is one treasure that stands head and shoulders above every other treasure in the entire Dominion universe.

All hail the mighty Goat!
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smuggler

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #76 on: March 11, 2018, 04:31:58 am »
0

what about if pirate ship either discards or trash the treasure?
this way, the pirate ship player can decide, if he wants to destroy the other players treasure pay load or keep him the coppers
that would address one of pirate ships biggest problems

and thinking of that, i dont know which card may deserve it best, but what about handing out copper as an attack?
or maybe, mine - the treasure you are trashing is gained to the enemy on the left (so even silver ..)
« Last Edit: March 11, 2018, 04:34:19 am by smuggler »
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greybirdofprey

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #77 on: March 11, 2018, 04:44:48 am »
0

-Duchess: I think the entire point of this card is to make a duchy rush much more viable. Empty one pile to reliably get $5, empty duchies, win. I don't think anyone would want a terminal $2 if they're buying Duchy as consolation prize, and the strategy "Empty three piles including Duchy and Duchess" gets harder and harder as Duchesses are more likely to collide as you get more of them. Some possible solutions that come to mind:
-Remove the interaction effect like Donald said (for all solutions).
-Replace the +$2 with +1 card, +1 action. It's worse at helping you hit $5, heck it's now a slightly better pearl diver, but Duchesses can no longer collide.
-Make it like Cultist. As in "You may play a Duchess from your hand". No collision.
-Make it like Shepherd. As in "You may discard [a/any number of] [Duchesses/Duchies/both] for [+$1/+$1 per discarded card].
-Make it cost more so it's interesting for tfb (like said earlier).
-An on-buy effect would make it more interesting, and also gives you a reason to buy it.

But to be honest I think I would go for it much more often if it was a cantrip instead of a terminal Silver, even if that makes it worse as a standalone card.
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Accatitippi

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #78 on: March 11, 2018, 05:59:47 am »
0

Quote
I like it when Treasure-heavy strategies are occasionally competitive.
...
When people denounce Gold gainers on the grounds that Gold is a bad card to have in your deck, I find myself hoping they're wrong or, if they're right, that Donald does something to fix that. Money ought to stay relevant!

Of course Money is always relevant, particularly Gold: It's always in the kingdom!

Curses are also always in the Kingdom, but in most games they are totally irrelevant.
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Oyvind

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #79 on: March 15, 2018, 09:38:57 pm »
0

Many nice ideas, man. You should make some fan cards, or even a whole set.
Dude, I did; they were winter holiday themed, and made the front page. https://dominionstrategy.com/2017/12/25/2017-holiday-kingdom/

OMG! Entering Carcassonne - Catapult territory...  :o
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luser

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #80 on: March 17, 2018, 05:36:28 am »
+7

Cough *Variants and Fan Cards* Cough
It won't hurt my feelings if a mod wants to move this. I don't always have a great feel for what goes where, but that board seems heavily skewed toward the "fan cards" segment.

I mean, just because it's more fan cards than variants doesn't mean it's still not variants. Anyways, so I'm not just always complaining here's a nice list of variants and fan card threads that touch on this subject:
Many of them have faded with 2nd Editions or weren't that good in the first place, and they're more than often redundant, but they are all linked for completeness.

Man, this thread has nothing about fixing worst cards, there are a lot of worse cards than these:

Sea hag,
I hate this card, it is definitely the worst card in dominion. It drags game soo much as everybody must open with sea hag and buy another hag, then slog with a deck full of curses. Playing this doesn't give you anything leading to poor turns, it should give 2 coins at least.
Definitely, I would drop curse part, for topdecking one could simulate that by picking curse or some other shit from deck/discard. Then it would be an ok card.

Witch
This card drives me mad, when it is in play it takes ages until one could get enough golds to buy out provinces. Curse part must go out. Also, I would add some clause to protect versus other nastiness like the thief stealing your gold.

Ghost ship
Another card that causes games to drag. topdecking isn't fun so remove it. Another problems are that oponent could topdeck good cards and 2 cards are not much. So I would give option to look at these cards and allow discarding them.

Chapel
this is most useless card in game, trash cards and gain nothing in return. As fixed I would give some money and vp tokens to compensate trashing estate. As noob trap I would add clause that opponents could also trash card.

Ill-gotten-gains
Another card that drags games down. If there are no gardens it leads to boring games. With gardens, this is hardly viable as curse helps opponent making his deck bigger. I would avoid cursing and make this gold instead of silver. It could give two coppers on gain, or three on play,  what do you think is better?

Apothecary
When I play with it I get too much green cards on top of my deck. If only there was card that could gain greens into my hand.
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popsofctown

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #81 on: March 17, 2018, 09:46:43 pm »
+1

Harvest could be a treasure.  Terminal draw decks are usually short on variety so it should be safe.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #82 on: March 18, 2018, 07:34:40 am »
+3

Quote
Chapel
this is most useless card in game, trash cards and gain nothing in return. As fixed I would give some money and vp tokens to compensate trashing estate. As noob trap I would add clause that opponents could also trash card.

This joke is getting really old and wasn't funny to begin with..
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heron

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #83 on: March 18, 2018, 08:46:35 am »
+1

Harvest could be a treasure.  Terminal draw decks are usually short on variety so it should be safe.

I think this might actually make it weaker though since you might not have any cards left in your deck in the beginning of the buy phase.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #84 on: March 18, 2018, 09:39:23 am »
0

Quote
Chapel
this is most useless card in game, trash cards and gain nothing in return. As fixed I would give some money and vp tokens to compensate trashing estate. As noob trap I would add clause that opponents could also trash card.

This joke is getting really old and wasn't funny to begin with..

It's not that joke, it's a new one.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #85 on: April 08, 2018, 06:00:35 pm »
0

It's not that joke, it's a new one.
Did the old one Bomb? ;)
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #86 on: April 08, 2018, 06:11:38 pm »
+2

Quote from: Wikipedia
Alchemy is a philosophical and protoscientific tradition practiced throughout Europe, Africa and Asia. It aimed to purify, mature, and perfect certain objects.[1][2][n 1] Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold);

Chrysopoeia (fixed Transmute)
Action
Cost: ?
For the remainder of this turn, when you play a treasure, you get +$3 instead of following its instructions.

It's a throned Coppersmith that works for Silver but b0rks your potion. To make it more flexible, make it a treasure; that way it doesn't have to nerf your fancy kingdom treasures. If you do, maybe name it "Philosopher's Stone".

Quote from: Wikipedia
The philosopher's stone, or stone of the philosophers (Latin: lapis philosophorum) is a legendary alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (chrysopoeia, from the Greek χρυσός khrusos, "gold", and ποιεῖν poiēin, "to make") or silver.

... oh wait, the rule was that we shouldn't fundamentally alter what the cards do. But, like, man, the set is called Alchemy and there's nothing which turns your base metals treasures into Gold? :o
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Jack Rudd

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #87 on: April 08, 2018, 06:37:00 pm »
+2

Chrysopoeia (fixed Transmute)
Action
Cost: ?
For the remainder of this turn, when you play a treasure, you get +$3 instead of following its instructions.
Works well with Talisman and Quarry, if I'm reading this correctly. (Because their fun abilities are while-in-play rather than on-play.)
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jonaskoelker

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #88 on: April 09, 2018, 08:29:56 am »
0

Works well with Talisman and Quarry, if I'm reading this correctly. (Because their fun abilities are while-in-play rather than on-play.)
Indeed, good catch. I think that doesn't make the card overly b0rken—occasional strong synergies help make Dominion more fun and varied.
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Marcory

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #89 on: April 09, 2018, 11:03:17 am »
+8

Copper: It provides so little income that it's almost worthless. Make it give .
Silver: The problem with this is that it clogs up your engine. Give it the following reaction: "When you play an action, you may discard this from your hand, for + and +1 Card."
Gold: It's just too expensive. Make it cost $4 and people will buy it more often.
Platinum: It's tough to decide whether to buy this or Province. Get rid of that choice; add: "When you gain this, +5"

Estate: it only gives 1 VP and is pretty much useless. Allow this to represent another card in the Supply costing up to .
Duchy: Duchy dancing is more fun at a Ball. So when you gain a Duchy, you should be able to gain 2 cards costing up to in exchange for taking your - token.
Province: Provinces clog up your deck. So add: "When you gain this, put it on your Island mat."
Colony: Colonies need someone to manage them. So add: "When you gain this, gain a Governor."

Curse: Too boring. Instead of Curses, use a card that gives +1 Action, lets you look at the top 4 cards of your deck, add the Victory cards to your hand, and return the rest to your deck in any order.
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ackmondual

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #90 on: June 09, 2018, 09:20:34 pm »
0

Anything excluded, I'm fine with as they are.  For some like Mine, I've wanted to add additional comments


Pirate Ship: For 1 Treasure revealed, +1 pirate token.  For 2 or more Treasures revealed (must be by different players), then +2 Pirate token
Noble Brigand: I'd make it go after all non-Copper Treasures, which you must steal it if it hits
Harvest: also add that you may top deck one of the revealed cards
Cache: It's fine.  Quite akin to Banquet
Mine: fine as is.  It's better with alt-Treasures and/or Platinum
Royal Seal: $4 cost as is.  <agree with prev. suggestions>

Transmute: Also have +1 Action.
If trashing a Curse, you get any of the 3 (+1 Duchy, +1 Gold, or +1 Transmute)

Philosopher’s Stone: I haven't found it to be "crippling slow".  If nothing else, great for digital implementations


Pirate Ship: Shit dude, I don’t know if this is fixable. I’d consider it always both attacking and paying?

I like the idea of fixing this without intruding on miser.  But maybe give the choice AFTER getting information...

Code: [Select]
Fixed Pirate Ship
Action - 4$
Each other player with at least (5) cards in hand REVEALS THEIR HAND.
Choose one:
* Trash up to one treasure of your choice from each player's revealed cards, and (then if any treasure was trashed) add a Coin token to your Pirate Ship mat.
* +$1 per Coin token on your Pirate Ship mat
-
(When you gain this, put a coin token on your Pirate Ship mat.)

Stuff in parenthesis is flexible.

Now it's also a handsize attack that reduced their economy for the next turn, and can't even make them discard shitty cards to get to their other cards faster. Is that good enough to get it out of the bottom 10%?  Or did I overdo it?

I think the first time somebody has to trash a Gold—or maybe even a Silver—from their hand, that's it. Rage quit.
4p base game with many Thieves, the guy who complained about some of his Gold and Silver getting swiped also ended up winning!
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jomini

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #91 on: June 11, 2018, 11:37:08 am »
0

A few quick fixes:
Mute: pull the Nbrig trick and let it be played on the turn you buy it. T3 gain/trash is much better than T5. This also allows you tactically gain it replacing one dead card (estate) with another mostly dead card (Mute). It still has the weaknesses of Mute in your actual deck - terminal, cannot trash coppers quickly for benefit. But would allow us to play more with its bonuses without the full three shuffle delay. Still have to sacrifice a half a $5 so it the pot/Mute opening is something you have to weigh, but gets rid of the terribly slow on ramp. This would also make it much more viable for engines as again, you do not have to delay a full turn.

Royal seal: keep its current ability, allow it to also set aside your first buy and return it at the start of your next turn (six card starting hand). It gains the benefit of a Caravan, but does not stack and requires you to buy the card. Makes it a much better fit for engines, makes it much more powerful for money.

Mandarin: top deck treasures in play or place your deck in your discard; top deck a card or discard a card that is not a victory card. He retains most of the same fun interactions, gains a boost on opening, and stays a gimped gold (though less gimped on most junking boards). You would buy him for shuffle control much more often.

B-crat: if your opponent reveals no VP, +$1/+1 buy. This takes a lot of the swing out of early B-crat play - whiffing is now a chance to buy a $5 in most opening hands and in an engine he can be an interesting source of +buy. Reliable +buy in the midgame, and maybe needing stacking in the late game; which will eventually tank your engine. Could lead to hilarious green top decking to frustrate opponent +buys.

Philosopher's stone: I would make it an action/treasure. Action: +1$, gain a potion to your hand; treasure: +3$ per potion in play. You can still opt for spam decks, but you can also use it with engines either for value gain or as payload (gold equivalent cash density at $12/4, higher for higher price points). Also it now plays much nicer with other potion cards. Much faster play and also enables a potential fight over the potion pile =)
« Last Edit: June 11, 2018, 11:39:00 am by jomini »
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PortlandSkye

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #92 on: June 11, 2018, 09:01:22 pm »
0

A general thought on Alchemy and cards that require a Potion to purchase. There are a number of really good cards here, but I think they get dissed because they require a Potion to purchase so we don't use them a lot since you generally need a few Potion Kingdom cards to make it worthwhile to buy a Potion. They are the 'red-headed stepchild' of Dominion.

What if...it was made optional to require a Potion card to purchase? I'm thinking if you don't have or use a Potion then the card would cost 3-4$ more. If you had a Potion, regular cost; if you don't have a Potion, more expensive.
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Jack Rudd

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #93 on: June 12, 2018, 07:21:12 am »
+6

A general thought on Alchemy and cards that require a Potion to purchase. There are a number of really good cards here, but I think they get dissed because they require a Potion to purchase so we don't use them a lot since you generally need a few Potion Kingdom cards to make it worthwhile to buy a Potion.
That's a common misconception. Most of the Potion-cost cards avoid that issue by being strong in multiples; getting one Potion so you can get five Alchemists is a pretty strong move.
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Aleimon Thimble

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #94 on: June 12, 2018, 10:30:43 am »
0

A general thought on Alchemy and cards that require a Potion to purchase. There are a number of really good cards here, but I think they get dissed because they require a Potion to purchase so we don't use them a lot since you generally need a few Potion Kingdom cards to make it worthwhile to buy a Potion.
That's a common misconception. Most of the Potion-cost cards avoid that issue by being strong in multiples; getting one Potion so you can get five Alchemists is a pretty strong move.

I agree, the idea that you need multiple Potion cards on the board before they are any good is just wrong. Apothecary, University, Alchemist, Scrying Pool, Familiar, Vineyard and to a lesser extent Golem and Possession are often worth it even if they are the only Potion card available. Only Transmute and Philosopher's Stone are useless on their own, but they are generally useless even if there are other Potion cards.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2018, 10:32:59 am by Aleimon Thimble »
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jomini

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #95 on: June 12, 2018, 11:47:12 am »
0

A general thought on Alchemy and cards that require a Potion to purchase. There are a number of really good cards here, but I think they get dissed because they require a Potion to purchase so we don't use them a lot since you generally need a few Potion Kingdom cards to make it worthwhile to buy a Potion.
That's a common misconception. Most of the Potion-cost cards avoid that issue by being strong in multiples; getting one Potion so you can get five Alchemists is a pretty strong move.

I agree, the idea that you need multiple Potion cards on the board before they are any good is just wrong. Apothecary, University, Alchemist, Scrying Pool, Familiar, Vineyard and to a lesser extent Golem and Possession are often worth it even if they are the only Potion card available. Only Transmute and Philosopher's Stone are useless on their own, but they are generally useless even if there are other Potion cards.

Mute is often worth it on a $1P hand on most potion boards. For Alchemist and Familiar it is often the best $2P buy. Yeah, it is dicey on Golem boards, but even there it can be the only way to gain extra VP in a turn (very powerful) and a very nice bootstrap to bigger economy if you can trash it out later. He is, of course, very nice on Pool boards giving both VP and higher action density. On a Familiar board it provides a much needed money density increase and after all, can kill curses. University can struggle to get cash quickly and again may not be able to net more than 6 VP a turn. Possession likes Mute because it can allow you to cripple your cash flow while depleting the duchies.

I have won a good number of games on potion boards where people will buy some marginal $2 or skip altogether rather than add in a Mute.

The real problem for Mute on these boards is the same as always - opportunity cost. Most of the time whatever other spammable card you want is going to preclude buying Mute. Nobody is giving up any of the other Pot cards for Mute in the early game. For the Golem and Possession openers, it is universally better to delay the pot until you can reliably hit Golem/Possession.

So Mute becomes a fallback buy on pot boards with busted hands and sometimes a tactical use of a spare +buy/pot. When is competing against things that cost $3 and both will be there on the same turn, it can come out ahead a reasonable amount of the time.

Try playing sometime where Mute cost 4 - it is better than Dismantle in the early game and may even be better in the mid-late game. Gaining it without having to give up two full buys or a power Pot buy is actually not that painful.

Again, Mute is still not in the top half of the cheap cards ... but it is not so far out of whack without the opportunity cost.
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Holunder9

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #96 on: June 12, 2018, 12:27:58 pm »
0

The real problem for Mute on these boards is the same as always - opportunity cost.
I'd say that the real problem of Transmute is that it converts but doesn't thin. It wouldn't be bought that more often if it costed $0.
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allanfieldhouse

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #97 on: June 12, 2018, 12:46:19 pm »
0

Lazy man's card fixes:

Terminal Actions: Add +1 Action.
Non-terminal Actions: Add +1 Card
Treasures: Add +$1
If any of those don't work for some reason, add +Buy or decrease the card's cost by $1.
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faust

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #98 on: June 12, 2018, 12:58:11 pm »
+5

Fixed Transmute - $PP

You may trash a card from your hand. If it's an...

... Action card, gain a Victory card
...Treasure card, gain an Action card
...Victory card, gain a Treasure card.
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jomini

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #99 on: June 12, 2018, 02:50:19 pm »
0

The real problem for Mute on these boards is the same as always - opportunity cost.
I'd say that the real problem of Transmute is that it converts but doesn't thin. It wouldn't be bought that more often if it costed $0.

Nonsense. The effect of replacing an estate with a Gold is massive going from a raw $.7/card to a $1 per card. In comparison, this is exactly what you manage with Dismantle but you have one fewer copper. Dismantle breaks even on the second play if it trashes a copper, falls behind further on another estate, and only really comes out ahead once the estates are gone.

Now Dismantle is much more versatile as the game progresses, but Mute would own the early game. Exactly when this flips depends heavily on board, but I would guess around T6-7.

In the late game, Mute can get the advantage by being able to trash out cheap actions for duchies. This is not something to sneeze at. Other cards that accelerate your average cash are not particularly good at gaining green. Dismantle does, but Jack cannot, Dev is reasonably lousy (needing to kill a $4 and top deck a duchy, and whatever $3 is left). For a strong engine, you can hit Duchy every turn with mute for the price of 3 draw (Pot/Mute x2), 1 action, and a spare +buy. In comparison Count needs 2 draw (or trashing) and an action; cash needs 2 draw and a spare +buy; but both of those need to spend a turn (or two) of high value card gains when you might want to buy a Gov or some other power $5 (e.g. Den) instead. A zero cost Mute would be very nearly as good (2 draw, 1 action, 1 buy) late game at duchies as Count and almost as good as raw cash.

Mutes problem is that it plays like a bootstrap card to build deck value ... but is so slow that the game is well past the bootstrap stage when you start getting to play your gold. Not being able to trash coppers (well) is not that big of an issue - Jack is superb, and Trade is a beast even if you never burn a copper.

You can completely trounce people by using Mute on the odd board where you can gain it without burning a "real" turn, and it is the only way to gain more than 6 VP a turn.

Mute would be a perfectly fine (though not top tier) game accelerator with end game potential if it were not for the horrid opportunity cost of gaining it.
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Holunder9

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #100 on: June 12, 2018, 03:54:52 pm »
0

The real problem for Mute on these boards is the same as always - opportunity cost.
I'd say that the real problem of Transmute is that it converts but doesn't thin. It wouldn't be bought that more often if it costed $0.

Nonsense. The effect of replacing an estate with a Gold is massive going from a raw $.7/card to a $1 per card.
You are aware that you cannot gain Transmute in the opening, right? That Gold arrives in your hand after you have shuffled thrice (even in my hypothetical scenario in which you could open with Transmute the Gold would only arrive after you have shuffled twice, i.e. in a situation in which the average Coin yield certainly isn't 0.7 anymore). I'd rather buy Skulk, at least it does something useful when you play it and jumpstarts your economy kind of when you need it, like immediately.

You spend two Buys for a card that transforms a maximum of 3 Estates into 3 Golds and doesn't get rid of your Coppers, something that Dismantle can do. Dismantle can also do something useful for an engine, namely gain a $5 if you are willing to forsake 3 Coins on a turn.

Quote
Mute would be a perfectly fine (though not top tier) game accelerator with end game potential if it were not for the horrid opportunity cost of gaining it.
No idea about what fan card you are talking. But the offical card Transmute is nearly always worse than the weakeast trashers in the game. Give me Sacrifice, give me Moneylender, give me Dismantle. Even Mine. They all help you to get rid of these cards called Coppers.
Perhaps Transmute is OK in some funky Duke games with some other Alchemy cards around, who knows. Even Copper can be a good card in Garden games. But then again Copper is nearly always better than Transmute anyway as it does at least a little bit of something constructive and above all it doesn't reproduce like crazy.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #101 on: June 12, 2018, 04:52:57 pm »
0

As long as we're on the subject of Transmute, a change that might be fun would be to let the card trash other Transmutes for a strong benefit - maybe a card of any type costing up to $6? Maybe even $7? As it currently stands, turning Coppers into Transmutes hurts more than it helps, and this would at least let you do something with the card once you've turned your Estates into Golds. Besides, by the time you're trashing a Transmute with another Transmute, you're probably on your 4th or 5th shuffle anyway, so giving it a massive payload doesn't seem particularly broken.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #102 on: June 12, 2018, 06:54:15 pm »
0

Quote
You are aware that you cannot gain Transmute in the opening, right? That Gold arrives in your hand after you have shuffled thrice (even in my hypothetical scenario in which you could open with Transmute the Gold would only arrive after you have shuffled twice, i.e. in a situation in which the average Coin yield certainly isn't 0.7 anymore). I'd rather buy Skulk, at least it does something useful when you play it and jumpstarts your economy kind of when you need it, like immediately.

Yes, I posted quite a bit about how the opportunity cost of Transmute - 3 full buys and shuffle before you see the gold - is what kills it. This is why it is not actively bad to pick up often on busted pot hands for things like Familiar, University, Alchemist, etc. Mute is much better (still weak) when your potion is already a sunk cost. It sucks precisely because on T3/4 Dismantle is getting a gold when you are buying the Mute. On T5-7 it finally gets a gold, by which time Dismantle has been played twice and is better on space efficiency.

Quote
No idea about what fan card you are talking. But the offical card Transmute is nearly always worse than the weakeast trashers in the game. Give me Sacrifice, give me Moneylender, give me Dismantle. Even Mine. They all help you to get rid of these cards called Coppers.
Perhaps Transmute is OK in some funky Duke games with some other Alchemy cards around, who knows. Even Copper can be a good card in Garden games. But then again Copper is nearly always better than Transmute anyway as it does at least a little bit of something constructive and above all it doesn't reproduce like crazy.

You discussed "if it costed [sic] $0". A $0 Mute would be bought on T1, played on T3, and would be better for your deck on T5-T6. T6-T7 it would fall around equal to Dismantle for bootstrapping at that point. Late game which one is better will depend on how flexible the board is and how easy/important Duchies are to get.

Not killing coppers directly is pretty irrelevant, being able to convert estates into Golds is extremely powerful; so much so that you will gladly grab a copper for the privilege. What is relevant is that the gold so ungodly slow that just about anything else is faster.

Which again is why you can win the odd game with Mute in a Potion friendly deck. $2P hand in an Alchemist match - Mute vs nothing can be Mute. Mute vs other weak $2s like Moat, Duchess, Embargo can even still be Mute sometimes. If there is no other way to get more than 6 VP turn ... yeah I will gamble on cannibalizing out a duchy late game if my deck can support the draw and take maybe a gold for my troubles. If it is Familiar and no other trashing? One trash offsets Mutes space-price, and I do not need too much luck to get enough VP from killing curses or Duchies from Familiars to make that work. And after all if I am hitting $2P I likely will hit the estate/curse next shuffle or am losing the curse split regardless - may as well go high variance.

The number one problem with Mute is that it is bootstrapping card which is unbearably slow. Just buying silvers is better than Mute for cash density with the stock card (at T5 XCCCE, Mute gives you $12/13, silvers give you $13/13 - this is the BEST possible case for Mute with otherwise equivalent shuffles). Making Mute faster would make it much better.

This is why I suggest on-buy play. You get a cash benefit better than Skulk one turn later, you actually beat silvers for cash density, and most importantly you can buy it late game or with spare buys to spike Duchies. Not a rock star card, not even something to build a deck around. Definitely something that would get bought a lot more than the bog standard Mute.
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Holunder9

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #103 on: June 12, 2018, 07:27:01 pm »
0

Not killing coppers directly is pretty irrelevant, being able to convert estates into Golds is extremely powerful; so much so that you will gladly grab a copper for the privilege. What is relevant is that the gold so ungodly slow that just about anything else is faster.
Aha, so Gold is extremly powerful yet also ungodly slow. Bit too schizophrenic for my taste.
Let's say it like this: Copper trashing is never irrelevant. If you cannot get rid of the Estates you still buy that Moneylender or that Baron and ignore Transmute. If you buy Potion for the sake of something else you still don't buy Transmute when you dud unless there is no trasher/sifter around and you really need a Curse trasher. Familiar games, there we have a niche for Transmute. Except for such rare circumstances it is simple bad, even if you could have it for free.

I mean, what more can you say. It is obvious that you somehow for some strange reasons love the card but objectively it is among the worst of the game. You can see that by the very simple fact that transmuting Coppers into Transmute is often bad which implies that the card is worse than Copper (or to be more precise, the net benefit of every Transmute beyond the first one is usually negative).
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #104 on: June 12, 2018, 08:04:34 pm »
+3

jomini vs tristan is like my dream f.ds thread.
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phonological loop

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #105 on: June 12, 2018, 08:10:22 pm »
+11

Is it really that hard to type "Transmute" instead of omitting the first 5 letters? It's not even a good abbreviation; it's an entirely different word.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #106 on: June 12, 2018, 08:15:49 pm »
0

B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%

But then we would have a different bottom 10%. Wouldn't we have to fix that next?

I feel like there's a bacon analogy here somewhere.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #107 on: June 12, 2018, 09:04:55 pm »
0

B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%

But then we would have a different bottom 10%. Wouldn't we have to fix that next?

I feel like there's a bacon analogy here somewhere.

I had ten strips of bacon yesterday...
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Kirian

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #108 on: June 13, 2018, 12:19:55 am »
0

B) Would bump it out of the bottom 10%

But then we would have a different bottom 10%. Wouldn't we have to fix that next?

I feel like there's a bacon analogy here somewhere.

I had ten strips of bacon yesterday...

Would you say that one of them was the worst of the ten?  And was it still tasty?
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #109 on: June 13, 2018, 12:33:30 am »
+1

Quote
Badly Cooked Bacon
$4 - Action
Reveal your hand. Trash the weakest card and strongest card from your hand. Gain two silvers to your hand.

Kirian

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #110 on: June 13, 2018, 01:04:27 am »
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And so that newer people who are scratching their heads about the bacon thing don't think we're all just crazy:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11886.msg427883#msg427883
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jomini

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #111 on: June 13, 2018, 09:00:18 am »
+1

Not killing coppers directly is pretty irrelevant, being able to convert estates into Golds is extremely powerful; so much so that you will gladly grab a copper for the privilege. What is relevant is that the gold so ungodly slow that just about anything else is faster.
Aha, so Gold is extremly powerful yet also ungodly slow. Bit too schizophrenic for my taste.
Let's say it like this: Copper trashing is never irrelevant. If you cannot get rid of the Estates you still buy that Moneylender or that Baron and ignore Transmute. If you buy Potion for the sake of something else you still don't buy Transmute when you dud unless there is no trasher/sifter around and you really need a Curse trasher. Familiar games, there we have a niche for Transmute. Except for such rare circumstances it is simple bad, even if you could have it for free.

I mean, what more can you say. It is obvious that you somehow for some strange reasons love the card but objectively it is among the worst of the game. You can see that by the very simple fact that transmuting Coppers into Transmute is often bad which implies that the card is worse than Copper (or to be more precise, the net benefit of every Transmute beyond the first one is usually negative).

Mute is objectively the worst card in the game. It is too slow for what it does.

An inability to trash copper is not sufficient to doom a card. Rebuild does quite nicely without it. Jack does quite well without it. As long as estate trashing is coupled to something powerful enough, it is worthwhile as a to get that card.

Mute does not suddenly become good on boards with easy copper trashing. Say you open Counterfeit. All your coppers are trashable, when do you buy Mute? My answer is typically never. Spice merchant likewise has never tempted me to go Mute.

Heck, how often do you buy Mute with Donate? Copper trashing is trivial on Donate boards, but I have never seen an opponent go for Mute after they have a copper less deck.

Ultimately the real reason we know that copper trashing for something like Dismantle or Dev is less important than gaining off the estates is that you will virtually never trash a copper over bootstrapping your estates into better cards. It is far more effective on a hand of DCCCE to gain something even if you plan on buying a nice $2 (e.g. Squire). Nobody says, well I am trying to build a lean deck here so I will trash a copper rather than flip an estate to a gold and gain a copper. Killing coppers with Dev or Dismantle is a consolation prize when you cannot get the real value out of the card. After all, everyone buys these two on Donate boards unless there is something much more powerful around.

I mean seriously, suppose we "fixed" Mute by letting it flat trash a copper. Would you buy it then? You still gain Golds from green and duchies from actions, coppers just function like curses and go straight into the trash. All you have to do is burn your opening $4 on a pot, a first shuffle buy on a Mute and then you have a terminal trasher which gains gold and kills copper. And then once you play it, twice, on coppers - you are break even on card count. The third time you play it, on an estate, you then are starting to make headway with a deck better on cash density than you started with.

Even being able to trash copper would not fix Mute. It is so ungodly slow that you can just buy village/draw and come out ahead. Unless I am forgetting one obscure one, I would buy every single other trasher before I would buy a Mute that trashes coppers - it is that slow.

Sure trashing coppers would make Mute suck less, but that would not change how often people bought it. Game is over on most boards before a copper-trashing-Mute beats Trade route.

And this is what I like about Mute. It is a good object lesson for the price of SPEED.

Mute is slow, it sucks.

When Mute is faster, you can actually do something with it. Very few things give you duchy efficiency VP for a single terminal trash. I have won at least a half dozen games by snagging Mute when it doesn't suck because the stars align and I can get it for low opportunity cost.

Alchemist stack with a +buy? No buying power loss the turn I grab it. Every-other-turn after that I manage copper -> Duchy. That beats most non-attack terminal silvers.
Pool? Any $1P will be a Mute. Increased action density. Fodder for late game duchies. Golds instead of estates. This is all good unless I have some truly stiff competition for terminal actions.
Possession? Yes please, let me trash out all the treasures so you cannot buy provinces.
Vineyards? Spare +buy for an action worth 8/3 or even 4/3 VP after the Vineyards are piled? Yes. And trashing a copper becomes a no-brainer.
Lurker? Burn my Lurkers for late game duchies? Absolutely. I have won by Lurking a Mute on the final turn to take a 3 VP lead at least twice.
Forge? Forge EE -> Pot, buy Mute, Forge Pot -> Mill, Mute Mill -> Gold/Duchy; next turn Forge for Colony.

When Mute has actually worked (i.e. <2% of Mute games) it has not been when I could couple it with a copper only trasher but when I could get it without having to burn two full buys. It amazes me that highly ranked players won't Lurk for Mute when it is literally the only way to score more than 6 VP per turn on the board. This tells me that people don't understand why Mute sucks, just that it does.

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GendoIkari

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #112 on: June 13, 2018, 09:44:37 am »
+4

This post makes me want to update my extension to automatically replace "Mute" with "Transmute".
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #113 on: June 13, 2018, 09:46:31 am »
+4

This post makes me want to update my extension to automatically replace "Mute" with "Transmute".

Seriously. And c’mon, “pot”? “Potion” is six measly letters.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #114 on: June 13, 2018, 10:32:38 am »
0

This post makes me want to update my extension to automatically replace "Mute" with "Transmute".

Seriously. And c’mon, “pot”? “Potion” is six measly letters.

And it comes in a bottle.
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crj

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #115 on: June 13, 2018, 11:28:52 am »
0

As long as we're on the subject of Transmute, a change that might be fun would be to let the card trash other Transmutes for a strong benefit
If - if - the card was fixed enough in other respects for something like that to be worthwhile, I feel it would be more interesting to make it a benefit for trashing any potion-cost card.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #116 on: June 13, 2018, 12:28:01 pm »
+2

This post makes me want to update my extension to automatically replace "Mute" with "Transmute".

Seriously. And c’mon, “pot”? “Potion” is six measly letters.
Kind of ironic coming from someone who writes "c'mon" instead of come on.

Maybe that was intended. In whcih case, good for me to have explained the joke!
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allanfieldhouse

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #117 on: June 13, 2018, 12:30:22 pm »
+1

Seriously. Mute is not an acceptable abbreviation for the word Transmute.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #118 on: June 13, 2018, 12:53:21 pm »
0

This post makes me want to update my extension to automatically replace "Mute" with "Transmute".

Seriously. And c’mon, “pot”? “Potion” is six measly letters.
Kind of ironic coming from someone who writes "c'mon" instead of come on.

Maybe that was intended. In whcih case, good for me to have explained the joke!

“C’mon” has entered the English lexicon. “Pot” is MMO chat-speak.
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SuperHans

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #119 on: June 13, 2018, 02:37:06 pm »
0

Seriously. Mute is not an acceptable abbreviation for the word Transmute.
Trans is acceptable though.
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jomini

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #120 on: June 13, 2018, 07:37:55 pm »
+2

My wife and I played Dominion over Gchat when Dominion first came out and I was overseas; I will always think of these cards as we talk about them the fact that this is our private shorthand should not be that topic derailing. I type this up between doing other things so it is not like I am going to bother proof-reading a simple post that much nor try to be sure that things which are clear in context meat some arbitrary definition of reasonable abbreviations. Sorry, but f.DS is not that important to my life.

And yes Potions are Pots, just like how Settlers of Cataan somehow developed Sheep over Wool or how Puerto Rico magically had Chuts and 3Sug.

It is frankly sad how pretty much every thread on this board eventually has people come in who would rather mock than engage. Likewise how deviation from the groupthink is discouraged. Perhaps the boards would rather posters just stayed mute.
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Kirian

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #121 on: June 13, 2018, 07:53:42 pm »
0

how Puerto Rico magically had Chuts and 3Sug.

What are those?  I've never seen those in relation to Puerto Rico.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #122 on: June 13, 2018, 08:29:28 pm »
+1

My wife and I played Dominion over Gchat when Dominion first came out and I was overseas; I will always think of these cards as we talk about them the fact that this is our private shorthand should not be that topic derailing. I type this up between doing other things so it is not like I am going to bother proof-reading a simple post that much nor try to be sure that things which are clear in context meat some arbitrary definition of reasonable abbreviations. Sorry, but f.DS is not that important to my life.

And yes Potions are Pots, just like how Settlers of Cataan somehow developed Sheep over Wool or how Puerto Rico magically had Chuts and 3Sug.

It is frankly sad how pretty much every thread on this board eventually has people come in who would rather mock than engage. Likewise how deviation from the groupthink is discouraged.

Since I’m the one who first mentioned it, I should let you know that I didn’t mean for my response to be mocking. It was meant as a light jest. Sorry if it came off rude.

Quote
Perhaps the boards would rather posters just stayed mute.

I can’t tell if this was on purpose or not.
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ipofanes

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #123 on: June 14, 2018, 03:33:30 am »
+9

so it is not like I am going to bother proof-reading a simple post that much

Why should any second person bother to read it, if you don't care to read it a second time?
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #124 on: June 14, 2018, 08:42:02 am »
0

so it is not like I am going to bother proof-reading a simple post that much

Why should any second person bother to read it, if you don't care to read it a second time?

A little louder for the people in the back, please!
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #125 on: June 14, 2018, 08:45:51 am »
+1



It is frankly sad how pretty much every thread on this board eventually has people come in who would rather mock than engage. Likewise how deviation from the groupthink is discouraged. Perhaps the boards would rather posters just stayed mute.

Also this, though.
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phonological loop

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #126 on: June 14, 2018, 12:32:39 pm »
+3

Sorry to continue further this meta-discussion, but I want to say that I did not intend to mock anybody with my post. I just wanted to point out that using that strange shorthand makes posts hard to read and confusing for newer players, so perhaps it is best avoided. (For instance, I just picked up this game and jumped in at the end of the thread, and it was not clear to me what card "mute" referred to until someone quoted that post and called it "Transmute.")

Here's a more on-topic question. Given my group won't want to house-rule cards, what bad cards are so bad that the average quality of the game goes up when you exclude them from being chosen for the kingdom? (Define "quality" however you please.) Assume an otherwise all-random kingdom chosen via some app, with all expansions included.

I was thinking at least Harvest and Navigator, perhaps.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2018, 12:35:33 pm by phonological loop »
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chipperMDW

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #127 on: June 14, 2018, 01:29:08 pm »
+6

I was thinking at least Harvest and Navigator, perhaps.

You mean Vest and Gator?
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crj

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #128 on: June 14, 2018, 01:31:04 pm »
0

I  (largely deliberately) don't have Alchemy.

From the other sets, the cards I leave out as making the game less fun in one way or another are Saboteur, Fool's Gold, Rebuild and Fool.

The occasional sucky card is fine - people don't have to buy them!
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Chris is me

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #129 on: June 14, 2018, 01:51:45 pm »
0

The main thing I want to add to the Transmute discussion is that I think the card as a trasher is inherently doomed by the Potion cost - it takes two shuffles to get one, you have a Potion you bought just to get Transmute that you probably don’t need anymore, and all that. Trying to rework Transmute to justify its Potion cost requires, at the bare minimum, some way to deal with the Potion other than “get another Transmute”.

You can’t easily just make it $4 cost or whatever - we have Dismantle and Exorcist and the like. One possibility to consider is to give it on buy +Buy like Forum has. This lets you maybe do something with the wasted money on turn 3 or 4, so maybe that helps with the slowness a little. You also should have the option to topdeck it on gain which at least makes it closer to a second shuffle trasher / gainer.

So I think Transmute would best look like this:

+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand. If it’s a...
Treasure: gain an Action costing up to $5
Action: gain a Duchy
Victory: gain a Gold
—-
When you buy this, +1 Buy., and you may gain this to your deck (instead of your discard pile).
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LastFootnote

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #130 on: June 14, 2018, 03:02:58 pm »
+2

Sorry to continue further this meta-discussion, but I want to say that I did not intend to mock anybody with my post. I just wanted to point out that using that strange shorthand makes posts hard to read and confusing for newer players, so perhaps it is best avoided. (For instance, I just picked up this game and jumped in at the end of the thread, and it was not clear to me what card "mute" referred to until someone quoted that post and called it "Transmute.")

I was likewise not mocking anybody. But I do think that using too many abbreviations makes things hard to understand. It took me a while to figure out what "pot" meant in that context. And then it was just, do I really want to read the rest of this post where the author has offset a lot of parsing work onto me in order to save themselves a few keystrokes? No, no I don't.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2018, 03:04:40 pm by LastFootnote »
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guidobass

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #131 on: June 14, 2018, 03:45:50 pm »
0

I'm coming in late with an opinion but, I think if you want to change these cards, then why not just make new cards? Looking over the list, I can see cards that are quite useful in what this game is supposed to be, i.e., a challenge. If every game only had cards that were higher powered, so that every game is a race to an engine, it would be quite boring.

Events and Landmarks are available to add improvements to these cards.

Some of these cards can be very good either at the beginning (mandarin) or end (transmute) of a game.

The game got rid of/replaced some "bad" cards. You are always going to have a lowest group of cards.

As a side thought, I'm going to try some games using only these cards. I don't mind a challenging slog.

Fix Lurker. I hate cards that you are forced to buy because the other player did.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #132 on: June 15, 2018, 02:47:50 am »
0

So I think Transmute would best look like this:

+1 Buy
Fair enough, a +buy never hurts and is welcome in a kingdom where Ruined Markets are cherished.
Quote
Trash a card from your hand. If it’s a...
Treasure: gain an Action costing up to $5
Action: gain a Duchy
Victory: gain a Gold
Sounds like Altar to me, at least in a kingdom without cursers. A Potion would be too cheap as a cost, we are talking 2P to 3P then.
Quote
—-
When you buy this, +1 Buy., and you may gain this to your deck (instead of your discard pile).
That would partially solve the problem of time to make it work for you.

To me, a simple solution would be to make it an Action/Victory card counting 1VP. That way, it could trash another copy of itself for a Duchy and a Gold.
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Holunder9

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #133 on: June 15, 2018, 02:59:21 am »
0

So I think Transmute would best look like this:

+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand. If it’s a...
Treasure: gain an Action costing up to $5
Action: gain a Duchy
Victory: gain a Gold
—-
When you buy this, +1 Buy., and you may gain this to your deck (instead of your discard pile).
Looks like a step into the right direction but as it is nearly as good as Altar it might be too strong.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #134 on: June 15, 2018, 09:10:27 am »
0

Sorry to continue further this meta-discussion, but I want to say that I did not intend to mock anybody with my post. I just wanted to point out that using that strange shorthand makes posts hard to read and confusing for newer players, so perhaps it is best avoided. (For instance, I just picked up this game and jumped in at the end of the thread, and it was not clear to me what card "mute" referred to until someone quoted that post and called it "Transmute.")

Here's a more on-topic question. Given my group won't want to house-rule cards, what bad cards are so bad that the average quality of the game goes up when you exclude them from being chosen for the kingdom? (Define "quality" however you please.) Assume an otherwise all-random kingdom chosen via some app, with all expansions included.

I was thinking at least Harvest and Navigator, perhaps.

That's a good question. It's hard to point to a card that makes games worse for being too weak, because there are always 9 other options in the Kingdom, so there's got to be SOMETHING there, right? Much easier to point to cards decreasing the quality of the game by being too strong or swingy, like Sauna/Avanto and Tournament.

It can be pretty rewarding too to discover a use for these "bad" cards, like I recently got DESTROYED in a big money game because I didn't catch the synergy between Navigator and Tunnel right away.

But that's not really a helpful answer for what you asked. Cards to consider excluding for weakness (with the caveat that you'll miss out on those rare shining moments they have):

-Harvest-- top of the list for sure
-Transmute
-Counting House
-Navigator
-Fortune Teller
-Beggar
-Pirate Ship
-And obviously any of the cards cut out of base and Intrigue for being too weak
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #135 on: June 15, 2018, 10:07:31 am »
0

So I think Transmute would best look like this:

+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand. If it’s a...
Treasure: gain an Action costing up to $5
Action: gain a Duchy
Victory: gain a Gold
—-
When you buy this, +1 Buy., and you may gain this to your deck (instead of your discard pile).
Looks like a step into the right direction but as it is nearly as good as Altar it might be too strong.

If it’s too much, you can remove the on buy Buy and maybe add $2 to the cost. The use of Potion in the cost makes it hard to mass a lot of them, and it still takes a long time to get it going much like Altar. Adding $2 to the cost doesn’t change much early once the on-buy Buy is gone, but it does make it harder to tack it on to an existing buy later.

I would probably test it as is first and then adjust it down. I need to resume my dominion tweak project now that I have a printer again.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #136 on: June 15, 2018, 12:54:49 pm »
0

So I think Transmute would best look like this:

+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand. If it’s a...
Treasure: gain an Action costing up to $5
Action: gain a Duchy
Victory: gain a Gold
—-
When you buy this, +1 Buy., and you may gain this to your deck (instead of your discard pile).
Looks like a step into the right direction but as it is nearly as good as Altar it might be too strong.

If it’s too much, you can remove the on buy Buy and maybe add $2 to the cost. The use of Potion in the cost makes it hard to mass a lot of them, and it still takes a long time to get it going much like Altar. Adding $2 to the cost doesn’t change much early once the on-buy Buy is gone, but it does make it harder to tack it on to an existing buy later.

I would probably test it as is first and then adjust it down. I need to resume my dominion tweak project now that I have a printer again.

The 'gain an Action costing up to $5' part also doesn't really fit into the theme of Alchemy -- the only available such cards are Herbalist and Apprentice. Apprentice would be the only one you'd realistically get which could then be used to .. trash the Transmute .. and the Potion.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #137 on: June 15, 2018, 02:36:04 pm »
+3

So I think Transmute would best look like this:

+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand. If it’s a...
Treasure: gain an Action costing up to $5
Action: gain a Duchy
Victory: gain a Gold
—-
When you buy this, +1 Buy., and you may gain this to your deck (instead of your discard pile).
Looks like a step into the right direction but as it is nearly as good as Altar it might be too strong.

If it’s too much, you can remove the on buy Buy and maybe add $2 to the cost. The use of Potion in the cost makes it hard to mass a lot of them, and it still takes a long time to get it going much like Altar. Adding $2 to the cost doesn’t change much early once the on-buy Buy is gone, but it does make it harder to tack it on to an existing buy later.

I would probably test it as is first and then adjust it down. I need to resume my dominion tweak project now that I have a printer again.

The 'gain an Action costing up to $5' part also doesn't really fit into the theme of Alchemy -- the only available such cards are Herbalist and Apprentice. Apprentice would be the only one you'd realistically get which could then be used to .. trash the Transmute .. and the Potion.

Alchemy has a "gain an Action costing up to $5" card.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #138 on: June 16, 2018, 12:07:25 am »
0

But that's not really a helpful answer for what you asked. Cards to consider excluding for weakness (with the caveat that you'll miss out on those rare shining moments they have):

-Harvest-- top of the list for sure
-Transmute
-Counting House
-Navigator
-Fortune Teller
-Beggar
-Pirate Ship
-And obviously any of the cards cut out of base and Intrigue for being too weak

What about Mandarin? Without Capital on the board, it never seems attractive.

Maybe Dutchess? Possibly Fool just because it's so awkward?
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #139 on: June 16, 2018, 10:41:23 am »
0

But that's not really a helpful answer for what you asked. Cards to consider excluding for weakness (with the caveat that you'll miss out on those rare shining moments they have):

-Harvest-- top of the list for sure
-Transmute
-Counting House
-Navigator
-Fortune Teller
-Beggar
-Pirate Ship
-And obviously any of the cards cut out of base and Intrigue for being too weak

What about Mandarin? Without Capital on the board, it never seems attractive.

Maybe Dutchess? Possibly Fool just because it's so awkward?

Not saying these are good, but both have niche uses.

Mandarin is good tactical buy on some Colony or Dominate boards. Top decking Plats this way can well be worth it as the VP differential is pretty high between a Duchy now and a likely Colony next turn. Less commonly, it can be clutch for something like Vineyards with a +buy to make sure you grab something next turn. The best case scenario for this is something like Hop - GGSHop or similar can use Mandarin to top deck a Prov hand each turn. I will, very rarely, consider burning a $5 for something clutch like replaying two Idols  to give out the last curse. I have not tried enough, but he might actually combo with Goat enough to merit buying him more to more reliably feed the Goat. With deck tracking, he can be an absolutely clutch buy to hit an early Lamp/Wishes.

Mandarin is also useful for times when topdecking has very high value like Tournement, Moat/attacks, Pool/City quarter. It is just a highly gimped Count in this case, but that still is worth it if it is clutch to either have something in your hands between your turns or if whiffing is enough of a VP differential that overbuilding is worth it. He pairs well with Mystic, but competes at price point. With multiple plays, he is very good with Wwell, Herald, and a few other such things.

What hurts Mandarin is that if you are not using his on gain or top decking as something valuable for your deck, his space efficiency is worse than Silver - as a terminal action. That is harsh. He can let you smooth your cash points a bit ... but for $5 he is very weak if your deck has not real use for top decking or treasure recycling as such.

Duchess is most useful in games where gainers are absent. Duchess can let you gain fodder for a some big Tfb like Altar so you can keep use the trasher after your starting dross is gone. If you are still engine building you have to sacrifice a $5 gain now for two $5 gains later - not often a good bet with the three turn lag ... but actually useful once you want duchies. She is more nichely useful when actions are useful as such - Pool/discard for benefit, Sacrifice-as-only-village, and Gravedigger. More often she is useful to do a three pile (e.g. Duke/Duchy/Duchess, Igg/Duchy/Duchess). The terminal spy power is mostly useless, but a cheap terminal silver can be useful in all the places you would expect - Lib, Wt, Menage, Diplomat, etc.

Fool is an abysmal card. First boons swing wildly to start with, second Fool order often means that one player gets 5/6 boons to the other player's 3 in a shuffle. He would have been far better off with a mechanic where you are "found" from the woods if you discard the Fool without playing him.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #140 on: June 16, 2018, 10:51:22 am »
+3

Sorry to continue further this meta-discussion, but I want to say that I did not intend to mock anybody with my post. I just wanted to point out that using that strange shorthand makes posts hard to read and confusing for newer players, so perhaps it is best avoided. (For instance, I just picked up this game and jumped in at the end of the thread, and it was not clear to me what card "mute" referred to until someone quoted that post and called it "Transmute.")

What newer players? This board chases the vast majority of them away.

Basically every single thread ends up with a bunch of people posting mockery/off topic/in-jokes/etiquette nitpicking. Rather than being a place where people come to discuss Dominion, this board has a highly unfortunate tendency to become a place about how you should discuss Dominion while fishing for up votes with snark. Most new players are not that invested and will never become posters here because they already have places in their life for making in-jokes and . The people who actually become "regulars" have a clear survivor bias and frankly stopped being "new players" long before they became regular posters.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #141 on: June 16, 2018, 12:56:57 pm »
0

What newer players? This board chases the vast majority of them away.

This board doesn't chase new players away, it causes them to improve at the game to the point where they can no longer be considered new players.
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phonological loop

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #142 on: June 16, 2018, 02:47:22 pm »
0

Sorry to continue further this meta-discussion, but I want to say that I did not intend to mock anybody with my post. I just wanted to point out that using that strange shorthand makes posts hard to read and confusing for newer players, so perhaps it is best avoided. (For instance, I just picked up this game and jumped in at the end of the thread, and it was not clear to me what card "mute" referred to until someone quoted that post and called it "Transmute.")

What newer players? This board chases the vast majority of them away.

Basically every single thread ends up with a bunch of people posting mockery/off topic/in-jokes/etiquette nitpicking. Rather than being a place where people come to discuss Dominion, this board has a highly unfortunate tendency to become a place about how you should discuss Dominion while fishing for up votes with snark. Most new players are not that invested and will never become posters here because they already have places in their life for making in-jokes and . The people who actually become "regulars" have a clear survivor bias and frankly stopped being "new players" long before they became regular posters.

Thanks for your comments about the cards I listed. You've made a good case that there are sometimes uses for Duchess and Mandarin. However, these are extremely niche, as you admit, and I'm not really sure these uses are common or interesting enough to justify them having a place in the Kingdom compared to another randomly selected card.

Maybe a good solution would just be to replace Mandarin with Count in any Kingdom where it's selected by the app. I'm not sure what to do about Duchess. Potentially it could be replaced by Duke in a similar fashion, if you wish to keep the emphasis on Duchies, though that analogy is much less precise. And Fool could just be replaced with a random card (I'm not sure what a good analogue is).

Regarding your comments about newer players, I can only speak for myself, but I've found the forum and related Discord quite friendly and welcoming. I can get extremely quick feedback on my plays and answers to my questions on the chat at any time of day, and the thread I started about a kingdom here got several very helpful replies within 24 hours. The in-jokes seem infrequent and are easily recognizable as such (imo). For me, a much greater barrier to participation is deciphering shorthand like "Hop" and "GSSHop." I think I was able to decode the rest of your post, but I honestly still have no clue about those. (And I fear the situation would be much worse if I were not already somewhat familiar with all the expansions.)


« Last Edit: June 16, 2018, 02:57:27 pm by phonological loop »
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #143 on: June 16, 2018, 03:18:26 pm »
0

HoP = Horn of Plenty.

GSSHoP = a hand containing Gold, Silver, Silver, Horn of Plenty.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #144 on: June 16, 2018, 07:47:40 pm »
+2

HoP = Horn of Plenty.

GSSHoP = a hand containing Gold, Silver, Silver, Horn of Plenty.
IHoP = International House of Pancakes
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #145 on: June 16, 2018, 08:00:46 pm »
+1

IHoPb = International House of PancakesBurgers

FTFY.  Well, fixed in the most terrible sense at least.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #146 on: June 17, 2018, 06:38:35 am »
+4

Sorry to continue further this meta-discussion, but I want to say that I did not intend to mock anybody with my post. I just wanted to point out that using that strange shorthand makes posts hard to read and confusing for newer players, so perhaps it is best avoided. (For instance, I just picked up this game and jumped in at the end of the thread, and it was not clear to me what card "mute" referred to until someone quoted that post and called it "Transmute.")

What newer players? This board chases the vast majority of them away.

Basically every single thread ends up with a bunch of people posting mockery/off topic/in-jokes/etiquette nitpicking. Rather than being a place where people come to discuss Dominion, this board has a highly unfortunate tendency to become a place about how you should discuss Dominion while fishing for up votes with snark. Most new players are not that invested and will never become posters here because they already have places in their life for making in-jokes and . The people who actually become "regulars" have a clear survivor bias and frankly stopped being "new players" long before they became regular posters.
I find it more painful that every single thread ends up with someone complaining about the awfulness of this forum.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #147 on: June 17, 2018, 09:07:15 am »
+1

This board doesn't chase new players away, it causes them to improve at the game to the point where they can no longer be considered new players.
I liked it more back when theory et al. were posting enthusiastic commentary on interesting combos I was excited to try.

Nowadays, it's just you explaining over and over again that being good at Dominion is the opposite of having fun.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #148 on: June 17, 2018, 10:21:37 am »
0

I liked it more back when theory et al. were posting enthusiastic commentary on interesting combos I was excited to try.

So you liked it more back when you didn't have to play 500 games of Dominion before you had a realistic chance of actually seeing that combination of cards in the kingdom once.

Nowadays, it's just you explaining over and over again that being good at Dominion is the opposite of having fun.

First of all, that's not even close to being true. 90-93%* of posts on f.ds these days are not written by me, and out of the hundreds of posts I wrote, only 12 were on that topic, all 12 of which were posted over the course of 5 days in March, which was over two months ago.

Second of all, getting good at anything takes a lot of hard work and it's not always fun to put in a lot of hard work. You can always word that differently in an attempt to make me look stupid if you find that fact uncomfortable, but just because you find it uncomfortable doesn't mean it's not a fact. In other words, even if that were true:

It's always possible to make a statement in the "X is just Y" format about any X; that doesn't mean X is simple or boring or bad or anything like that, it just means that Y in and of itself is quite complex and more nuanced than the people making that argument realize. You know, electronic music is just some guy sitting on a computer clicking on buttons. Evolution is just a theory.


*actual stats if you define "these days" to be the last n days such that the number is accurate — the number used to be lower at around the start of the year but in the past few weeks it's been higher
« Last Edit: June 17, 2018, 10:25:21 am by Awaclus »
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #149 on: June 18, 2018, 08:45:23 pm »
0

What newer players? This board chases the vast majority of them away.

This board doesn't chase new players away, it causes them to improve at the game to the point where they can no longer be considered new players.

Right, the board has seen a continuous upsweep in popularity and use. The average join date of posting members continues to decline. Why you can hardly post here with all the new players asking for rules clarifications we've all heard before or suggesting silly card combos that come up once in 1K games.

But seriously, I have no doubt that some players are just so enthralled with Dominion that they put up with the nitpicking, the endless meta-discussion, and the board's unhealthy obsession with becoming a "good player". That is much more a testament to how good Dominion is than how welcoming the board is to people who do not conform.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #150 on: June 19, 2018, 02:00:05 am »
+1

But seriously, I have no doubt that some players are just so enthralled with Dominion that they put up with the nitpicking, the endless meta-discussion, and the board's unhealthy obsession with becoming a "good player". That is much more a testament to how good Dominion is than how welcoming the board is to people who do not conform.

If you don't want to become a good player, there are plenty of discussion boards online where you can discuss Dominion without getting better at it, such as reddit and BGG.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #151 on: June 19, 2018, 02:18:25 am »
0

Fun thread exercise! 

For those worried that fixing the bottom ranked cards will now create a new bottom ranked cards ... it doesn't have to be a perpetual cycle.  We're just worried "adding points" to the bottom rank to improve them.   It's OK to have a new bottom ranked cards  since they were previously NOT in the bottom ranked cards hence, were decent to begin with.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #152 on: June 19, 2018, 02:31:45 am »
+6

But seriously, I have no doubt that some players are just so enthralled with Dominion that they put up with the nitpicking, the endless meta-discussion, and the board's unhealthy obsession with becoming a "good player". That is much more a testament to how good Dominion is than how welcoming the board is to people who do not conform.

If you don't want to become a good player, there are plenty of discussion boards online where you can discuss Dominion without getting better at it, such as reddit and BGG.

Man, I'm disappointed that you didn't include f.ds in that list. Like, there was the thread about Dominion memes. There was a thread about Card Alchemy where people were just doing wacky wordplay. These were all in Dominion General, which, you know, sounds like the place to talk about general things. (This is in Dominion general too FWIW.)

To be blunt, this is the point where I be that guy, and say that f.ds is not just what you think it should be, it is the amalgam of what everyone who posts there think it should be. Consider this as a signal of "your point is noted but I disagree that f.ds should only be for people who are trying to get better at Dominion."

Sure, the Dominion subreddit has a lot of Dominion storage posts, but looking at the front page right now, it has a thread about what to do on boards with no trashing, a thread asking how long it takes to get good at the game, the weekly Kingdom of the Week, and if you scroll down a bit there's a thread asking about whether Goons is as ridiculous as it feels like it is.

The way I see it, you go to f.ds for the memes and to read articles comparing engines to phase diagrams. You go to Reddit to read about the Nth storage solution and people asking what expansion to buy. You go to Discord to play Pokedominion and to make fun of Seprix. As for actual Dominion strategy advice, you do that wherever you want to - there are enough good players overlapping all of them that you're sure to get somebody to tell you something reasonable. (Well, except for BGG - last I checked, it was too inactive for people to bother visiting there much.)

I feel the primary thing is that Dominion was super big before and is less big now because several people have moved on. Sure, people still watch for new expansions, but unless told otherwise, I would assume that the number of players has been holding steady or slightly dropping over time. (Where # of players is including people who only play IRL, but we need sales figures for that, and I assume they can't be publicized.) There's just less to talk about for the enfranchised people. That's why there's always a big burst of activity when new expansions drop - suddenly there's a big pile of stuff that everybody wants to talk about.

An expansion is coming out at some point, and I got to play with the cards a few times, and oh man, they're pretty neat and Dominion is still a pretty cool game. I feel like that's the most important thing.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #153 on: June 19, 2018, 06:50:59 am »
+1

But seriously, I have no doubt that some players are just so enthralled with Dominion that they put up with the nitpicking, the endless meta-discussion, and the board's unhealthy obsession with becoming a "good player". That is much more a testament to how good Dominion is than how welcoming the board is to people who do not conform.
No idea about what is helpful to newbies. But non proof-read posts about HoPs, Provs, Plats, Pools and Pots certainly aren't.
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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #154 on: June 19, 2018, 10:17:34 am »
+2

Consider this as a signal of "your point is noted but I disagree that f.ds should only be for people who are trying to get better at Dominion."
Even amongst people who do want to get better at Dominion, for most of us the game is a light-hearted hobby.

I started logging plays a couple of years back, and disregard online plays. I've played 247 different games. On the one hand, Dominion is my most-played game; on the other, that's still less than 5% of all my game playing.

Yes, I'd like to get better at Dominion. No, I don't want to devote a huge amount of time to that, let alone devote any non-fun time. No, I don't care about rankings, or winning tournaments, or any of that guff.

I suspect that in this respect I'm a more normal person than Awaclus.
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Awaclus

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #155 on: June 19, 2018, 11:40:14 am »
0

I suspect that in this respect I'm a more normal person than Awaclus.

Well, definitely. That's how it works; if you want to do cool things that normal people don't get to do, you have to be willing to do uncool things that normal people aren't willing to do. As far as Dominion is concerned, the rewards are not super impressive (yay I got to represent my country in an unofficial world cup), but neither is the amount of effort that it takes — just play like 20 games every day and you'll become a top player within a year. You can probably get away with even less work if you dedicate all of it specifically to learning, as opposed to just reinforcing the skills you already have.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2018, 11:41:58 am by Awaclus »
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LostPhoenix

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #156 on: June 19, 2018, 11:58:24 am »
0

Fun thread exercise! 

For those worried that fixing the bottom ranked cards will now create a new bottom ranked cards ... it doesn't have to be a perpetual cycle.  We're just worried "adding points" to the bottom rank to improve them.   It's OK to have a new bottom ranked cards  since they were previously NOT in the bottom ranked cards hence, were decent to begin with.

Agreed. It's narrowing the gap between the top and bottom. Sure, this card may have some cool niche uses, but it's still bad in 90-93% of games.
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crj

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #157 on: June 19, 2018, 01:27:00 pm »
+2

the rewards are not super impressive [...] but neither is the amount of effort that it takes — just play like 20 games every day and you'll become a top player within a year.
Uh... at 10 minutes a game, that's 200 minutes a day, three hours, 20% of your waking life, half your leisure time.

So no.
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Awaclus

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #158 on: June 19, 2018, 01:41:28 pm »
0

the rewards are not super impressive [...] but neither is the amount of effort that it takes — just play like 20 games every day and you'll become a top player within a year.
Uh... at 10 minutes a game, that's 200 minutes a day, three hours, 20% of your waking life, half your leisure time.

So no.

Dude, what? Three hours a day for a year is nothing. For most hobbies, if you do it for three hours a day for a year, you'll still suck at it compared to the average person doing it (who ever gets anywhere).
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LostPhoenix

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #159 on: June 19, 2018, 02:29:24 pm »
0

the rewards are not super impressive [...] but neither is the amount of effort that it takes — just play like 20 games every day and you'll become a top player within a year.
Uh... at 10 minutes a game, that's 200 minutes a day, three hours, 20% of your waking life, half your leisure time.

So no.

Dude, what? Three hours a day for a year is nothing. For most hobbies, if you do it for three hours a day for a year, you'll still suck at it compared to the average person doing it (who ever gets anywhere).

I'd be very surprised if the average player finishes more than 20 Dominion games a week.
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Dingan

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #160 on: June 19, 2018, 02:32:38 pm »
+2

the rewards are not super impressive [...] but neither is the amount of effort that it takes — just play like 20 games every day and you'll become a top player within a year.
Uh... at 10 minutes a game, that's 200 minutes a day, three hours, 20% of your waking life, half your leisure time.

So no.

Dude, what? Three hours a day for a year is nothing. For most hobbies, if you do it for three hours a day for a year, you'll still suck at it compared to the average person doing it (who ever gets anywhere).

I'd be very surprised if the average player finishes more than 20 Dominion games a week.

Hence why they're not a top player .. they're likely average
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markusin

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #161 on: June 19, 2018, 03:02:59 pm »
0

the rewards are not super impressive [...] but neither is the amount of effort that it takes — just play like 20 games every day and you'll become a top player within a year.
Uh... at 10 minutes a game, that's 200 minutes a day, three hours, 20% of your waking life, half your leisure time.

So no.

Dude, what? Three hours a day for a year is nothing. For most hobbies, if you do it for three hours a day for a year, you'll still suck at it compared to the average person doing it (who ever gets anywhere).

I'd be very surprised if the average player finishes more than 20 Dominion games a week.

Hence why they're not a top player .. they're likely average

Well, playing more doesn't necessarily mean you are a top player or are improving.
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #162 on: June 19, 2018, 03:43:16 pm »
+5

the rewards are not super impressive [...] but neither is the amount of effort that it takes — just play like 20 games every day and you'll become a top player within a year.
Uh... at 10 minutes a game, that's 200 minutes a day, three hours, 20% of your waking life, half your leisure time.

So no.

Dude, what? Three hours a day for a year is nothing. For most hobbies, if you do it for three hours a day for a year, you'll still suck at it compared to the average person doing it (who ever gets anywhere).

I'd be very surprised if the average player finishes more than 20 Dominion games a week.

Hence why they're not a top player .. they're likely average

Well, playing more doesn't necessarily mean you are a top player or are improving.

Exhibit A: Lord Rattington.
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Awaclus

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #163 on: June 19, 2018, 04:39:19 pm »
0

Well, playing more doesn't necessarily mean you are a top player or are improving.

I do think that it at least necessarily means the latter, but definitely the more you do the things you're already comfortable with, the less you improve.
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markusin

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Re: Fix the worst cards
« Reply #164 on: June 25, 2018, 03:01:55 pm »
0

Well, playing more doesn't necessarily mean you are a top player or are improving.

I do think that it at least necessarily means the latter, but definitely the more you do the things you're already comfortable with, the less you improve.

I guess you can be more precise and say that simply playing more has varying impact on how fast one improves.
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