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Author Topic: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box  (Read 26859 times)

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trivialknot

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #50 on: June 21, 2018, 02:59:55 pm »
0

I guess I feel like, in terms of testing cards, what's the difference between 2 players and 3+ players? Well, if a card is great in multiples, then you'll want to be sure it's not crazy if you can get 6 copies of it, like you might in a 2-player game. I think the only cards in Nocturne that fit the bill are Idol and Werewolf, though you could make an argument for Vampire. Idol is admittedly way stronger than my group thought it was, though I don't think it's too strong. And we actually discovered that it was strong after Nocturne testing was over when a new player joined our games and went for a heavy-Idol strategy. So we got to see that play out despite it not being a 2-player game.
The blog has a pretty great series on strategy in 2P vs 3P+ games, and I would say that "you can get more copies of cards" is rather oversimplifying the matter.  If Dominion were mostly playtested with 3P+, the thing I'd worry about is if a card leads to degenerate engine strategy that usually isn't feasible in 3P+, and is particularly unfun in 2P.  So, something like Possession.

But I'm not especially worried, given that apparently the only recent set tested without many 2P games was Nocturne, and Nocturne is solid.  In fact, the one card that DXV seemed to agree has problems is Fool, because it plays too slowly--and arguably this is only a problem in 3P+.
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trivialknot

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #51 on: June 21, 2018, 03:04:34 pm »
0

And is heavy-Idol really that strong?  I'm so skeptical.  I really want to try it.   :D
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pacatak

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #52 on: June 21, 2018, 05:37:40 pm »
+3

i'm not sure the number people they playtest with is that important.  I mean how many expansions into this thing are we and it is pretty dang fun.
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Awaclus

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #53 on: June 21, 2018, 05:47:32 pm »
+1

i'm not sure the number people they playtest with is that important.  I mean how many expansions into this thing are we and it is pretty dang fun.

Well, the methods don't matter as long as the results are good. However, the number of people they playtest with could turn out to be important if some later set includes cards that work poorly for competitive play and nobody catches that before the set is released.
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MatthewCA

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #54 on: June 21, 2018, 05:56:15 pm »
0

i'm not sure the number people they playtest with is that important.  I mean how many expansions into this thing are we and it is pretty dang fun.

Well, the methods don't matter as long as the results are good. However, the number of people they playtest with could turn out to be important if some later set includes cards that work poorly for competitive play and nobody catches that before the set is released.

Or, worse yet, a broken interaction is missed because playtesting wasn't done at certain player counts (Masquerade pin, anyone).

However I think those days are behind us, as Donald and the playtesters as a whole have gotten better at making cards
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Marcory

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #55 on: June 21, 2018, 06:29:54 pm »
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I would imagine 3-4 player games promote more diverse use of the available cards in the Kingdom, and are thus better for playtesting.

This is to say that in 2P, each player can go for the same strategy, hoping to tweak it better than their opponent can. But in 3-4 player games, there will almost always be 2-3 diverse strategies being attempted.
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Donald X.

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #56 on: June 21, 2018, 06:51:29 pm »
+2

Or, worse yet, a broken interaction is missed because playtesting wasn't done at certain player counts (Masquerade pin, anyone).
Player counts is not how that got missed.

When that combo broke, the previous front page article was about a particular board that had King's Court and Masquerade on it. Despite writing an article about playing that board, theory somehow didn't note how you could trash 3 of your opponent's cards each turn. https://dominionstrategy.com/2011/03/15/annotated-game-5/
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Titandrake

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #57 on: June 22, 2018, 12:06:57 am »
+5

Worth noting that I assume the point of playtesting is not to find which cards are strong and which are weak, it's to figure out which cards are fun. It's okay for a card to be ridiculous (King's Court, Goons, Chapel) if they lead to interesting games and you still have some neat things to do in the actual game.

In this respect, I assume that a fun card in 3-player / 4-player is usaully going to be fun in 2-player.

Of course, if a card is too strong, it can stop being fun, and if a card is too weak, it's just taking up space, so you do have to care about power level somewhat...but I don't think it's the primary thing you're looking for and it seems like people are thinking about it from a standpoint of game balance / making card power levels flatter, rather than from the stuff that gets people to play your game in the first place.

I suspect 2-player Dominion is pretty robust in terms of balance - if a card is nutty in multiples, and both players go for it, it'll still break out even. So not too surprised sets can turn out well even without a lot of 2-player testing.
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Asper

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #58 on: June 22, 2018, 04:11:36 am »
0

Base cards in general play the second fiddle. It's not different for Duchy and Estate, and even Province often stands back behind kingdom cards. That's natural, design-wise, as it ensures the variable supply has a meaningful effect on the game.

The idea that treasures in general, or even the base treasures in general, were poisonous garbage you may not ever include in your deck, is hyperbole spread by people who want to suggest that their experience from 2P games could be applied to Dominion in general. Either because they don't bother thinking about multiplayer at all, or in Awaclus' case, because they are disdainful towards playing preferences other than their own.

My experience is that in games with many players, the Provinces run out too quickly for an engine to get started. If one player goes for the engine and the other 5 go for big money, the engine would have to be absurdly fast in order to actually win the game. Some people might not mind that, and one could argue that that's not better or worse, just different. I personally prefer for it to get around to my turn quickly, and to not have my engine be beaten by many opponents playing Smithy big money, so I like 2 player more. I understand how others may feel differently, though.

Admittedly, when I say "multi-player" I don't mean 5 or 6 players so much as 3 or 4. The original game was advertized for that player count, and I think Donald X himself said he only ever played 5P to be nice (and wasn't nice enough for 6P). I think that says a lot. Personally, I don't mind 5P, but 6 just takes too long to be fun.
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crj

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #59 on: June 22, 2018, 09:32:02 am »
0

if a card is too weak, it's just taking up space
Unless, of course, it's so much fun you don't care.

In that respect, cards less experienced players will buy and enjoy using are fine, even if an expert would pick something else for their perfect engine. Is there any reason to drop Treasure Map from the game, for example?
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Awaclus

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #60 on: June 22, 2018, 09:58:06 am »
0

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.
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dz

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #61 on: June 22, 2018, 11:33:50 am »
0

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

I can see why you say Chariot Race, but why Secret Cave?
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LaLight

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #62 on: June 22, 2018, 11:48:49 am »
+1

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

I can see why you say Chariot Race, but why Secret Cave?

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18081.0
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GendoIkari

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #63 on: June 22, 2018, 04:19:43 pm »
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Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

By Secret Cave, do you mean Magic Lamp? Secret Cave isn't to blame for whatever Magic Lamp does.

By detrimental for competitive Dominion do you mean swingy or more luck-driven? Is Chariot Race more swingy than Swindler? Or any card where the effect of playing it will be unknown until after you play it? It seems like when it's a game where you can get the bad luck of having your opening buys be cards #11 and #12; the luck of what happens when you play a Chariot Race isn't really worse in comparison.
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Awaclus

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #64 on: June 22, 2018, 04:53:54 pm »
+2

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.

By Secret Cave, do you mean Magic Lamp? Secret Cave isn't to blame for whatever Magic Lamp does.

By detrimental for competitive Dominion do you mean swingy or more luck-driven? Is Chariot Race more swingy than Swindler? Or any card where the effect of playing it will be unknown until after you play it? It seems like when it's a game where you can get the bad luck of having your opening buys be cards #11 and #12; the luck of what happens when you play a Chariot Race isn't really worse in comparison.

1) Yes.

2) The problem isn't the luck of what happens when you play a Chariot Race. The problem is when you play five of them and all of them miss because your opponent has a high cost card and then your opponent plays five of them and all of them hit because you have a Copper. Which is actually fairly common, unlike Golden Sombrero or a 1/12 chance of Swindling the important card.
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Donald X.

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #65 on: June 22, 2018, 05:15:52 pm »
+10

Chariot Race and Secret Cave are some examples of cards that are somewhat detrimental for competitive Dominion in their current state, which could have been more obvious during testing if testing had been more oriented towards competitive playing.
The goal as always wasn't to make the online game as fun as possible, but to make the physical game as fun as possible. Concessions to the online game, if any, are very minor.

In the physical game, you can tell your friends, "I don't like Chariot Race, let's not play with it," and so much for that. Whereas you can't tell your friends, "I like Sheep, let's play with it," because there is no card Sheep. If you see what I mean.

We had lots of fun with those cards, and there they are so other people can have fun with them. As a wise man once said, if there were no cards some people hated, there would be no cards some people loved.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #66 on: June 22, 2018, 05:21:19 pm »
+1

2) The problem isn't the luck of what happens when you play a Chariot Race. The problem is when you play five of them and all of them miss because your opponent has a high cost card and then your opponent plays five of them and all of them hit because you have a Copper. Which is actually fairly common, unlike Golden Sombrero or a 1/12 chance of Swindling the important card.

Makes sense. Sounds like Tournament, though. The difference between your opponent having a Province in hand or not isn't just what your 1 Tournament will do; it's what all of them do.

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.
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Asper

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #67 on: June 22, 2018, 06:03:10 pm »
+2

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.

I disagree. First of all, it would re-introduce Tribute's unpopular trait that people feel like they're being attacked whenever their good stuff is discarded. So even if it hits your King's Court and their Copper, you just discarded your King's Court and they discarded their Copper. On avarage, it doesn't matter, but it becomes less satisfying for either party.

Also, now you'll have to pointlessly go through cards during your opponent's turn. That just drags out games for barely anything. For physical Dominion, Chariot Race as is is clearly the better choice.
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #68 on: June 22, 2018, 06:35:19 pm »
+1

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.

I disagree. First of all, it would re-introduce Tribute's unpopular trait that people feel like they're being attacked whenever their good stuff is discarded. So even if it hits your King's Court and their Copper, you just discarded your King's Court and they discarded their Copper. On avarage, it doesn't matter, but it becomes less satisfying for either party.

Also, now you'll have to pointlessly go through cards during your opponent's turn. That just drags out games for barely anything. For physical Dominion, Chariot Race as is is clearly the better choice.

Tribute felt like an attack because your opponent got better stuff when you turned over better cards... often, anyway. The dual-type cards always gave a bonanza, and they got nothing if you turned over two Curses. With Chariot Race your opponent gets worse stuff when you turn over better cards, so it can still feel like "beating" them, even if you get nothing out of it.

And if your opponent's card is a Province then you're pointlessly going through bare cantrips on your own turn. To me this feels much more frustrating than being forced to cycle your own deck.
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Donald X.

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #69 on: June 22, 2018, 06:58:54 pm »
+6

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.
Tested and rejected! We also tried putting their card on the bottom of their deck. It's less attacky, but a bother.

It's totally nice to have the result be more average, as discarding their card accomplishes. Not flipping over the card was even nicer.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #70 on: June 22, 2018, 08:38:22 pm »
0

But I agree that Chariot Race sounds like it would just be more exciting in general if it discarded your opponent's card as well.
Tested and rejected! We also tried putting their card on the bottom of their deck. It's less attacky, but a bother.

It's totally nice to have the result be more average, as discarding their card accomplishes. Not flipping over the card was even nicer.

I think that just illustrates what Awa was talking about; that sometimes what's best for competitive online Dominion is not the same as what's best for casual IRL Dominion. I definitely agree that casual players would get annoyed at both their time being wasted and their cards being discarded.  But like Commodore said, to get a better experience for the opponents IRL, you do have to sacrifice the experience for the one playing several Chariot Races in a row.
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Jeebus

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #71 on: June 22, 2018, 09:21:00 pm »
0

There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.
Not that large, actually. You have the case where there's no better payload for the engine. But having that and still an engine that's better than BM is kind of rare. The second case is where you use money for TfB, in which case the only important thing about the Treasures is their price point and the fact that some cards gain them easily. Then there is Platinum, which is enough cash in a single card to usually work in an engine.

Wait. Even when there are "better payload" for the engine than treasures, you might need treasures as payload too. If there is no Action-based coin and no (or not enough) straight gaining, you need treasures to get cards. But you usually want the engine anyway, to attack, to trash, to get VP tokens, etc. In those cases you need treasure as payload (in addition to the other payload cards). Or what am I missing?

Donald X.

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #72 on: June 22, 2018, 11:40:10 pm »
+4

I think that just illustrates what Awa was talking about; that sometimes what's best for competitive online Dominion is not the same as what's best for casual IRL Dominion. I definitely agree that casual players would get annoyed at both their time being wasted and their cards being discarded.  But like Commodore said, to get a better experience for the opponents IRL, you do have to sacrifice the experience for the one playing several Chariot Races in a row.
No, not at all. Do not agree.

During playtesting, Chariot Race was a popular card. The fact that your opponent might reveal Copper or Province and lock in your Chariot Races for the turn did not in any way ruin it for us. It's not that we never played multiple Chariot Races; man, how could that be. I've played five a turn plenty of times. And I personally am a fan of the card, despite that.

I am looking through a playtesting thread for competitive players and hey here's Stef. He preferred Chariot Race leaving the card on top. He didn't like the randomness, on the receiving end, of getting your card turned over; the randomness on the other side is simply the price you pay for going for Chariot Races. And you even get to affect that sometimes.

So it's not like there's some straight divide, competitive players preferring it one way and casual players the other.
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faust

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #73 on: June 23, 2018, 03:41:01 am »
0

There is a (large) middle ground between a big money strategy and a no-Treasures strategy.
Not that large, actually. You have the case where there's no better payload for the engine. But having that and still an engine that's better than BM is kind of rare. The second case is where you use money for TfB, in which case the only important thing about the Treasures is their price point and the fact that some cards gain them easily. Then there is Platinum, which is enough cash in a single card to usually work in an engine.

Wait. Even when there are "better payload" for the engine than treasures, you might need treasures as payload too. If there is no Action-based coin and no (or not enough) straight gaining, you need treasures to get cards. But you usually want the engine anyway, to attack, to trash, to get VP tokens, etc. In those cases you need treasure as payload (in addition to the other payload cards). Or what am I missing?
Yeah well, I would include the case where you get 1-2 Silvers that you then trash in the framework of "no treasure strategy". I just took that to mean "a strategy where you want Silver/Gold(/Copper) in your final deck composition".
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ackmondual

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Re: Don't bother getting the yellow cards out of the box
« Reply #74 on: June 23, 2018, 03:02:47 pm »
+1

but online doesn't create revenue for Donald X.

Is this true (zero revenue for Donald) or just mostly true (tiny revenue compared to IRL)? Curious.
For the last year of MF, our share of the take was $0. But yes, tiny is the correct answer.

Not that I do that math to decide how to playtest. I have people that want to play, I play with that many people.

There were two-player online games from very early on, because I wrote a program for playing online and we used that. And then there was isotropic for all those years.
Always interested in hearing the inside scoop about how digital games get made, so it was neat when Stonemaier Games did a blog post about making bg into digital implementations here...
https://stonemaiergames.com/the-truth-about-digital-board-games/

Some highlights:
-costs can vary greatly, but one typical cost is $100K
-typical split from sales of the game is 80/20, with 80% going to the developer studio, and 20% to the publisher/designer

-SM Games prefers companies over individuals
-My Little Scythe on Tabletopia took weeks to implement, but a "proper" app took 2+ years to get onto Steam Beta
-digital bg have driven up sales of the boxed versions
-digital bg don't make much money, if at all

-some of the companies that specialize in making bg include, but not limited to:
Asmodee Digital
DigiDiced
Handelabra Studio
Mobo Studios
Playdek
Temple Gate Games
The Knights of Unity
Fay Games
« Last Edit: June 23, 2018, 03:04:33 pm by ackmondual »
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