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Author Topic: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)  (Read 38078 times)

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Awaclus

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+6

EDIT: note that this thread is from 2018, the post is otherwise unedited

So I haven't played any ladder in almost three months and I just finished my matches for this season in the League and decided not to return for the next season. Here are some reasons why, in order from most to least important:

1) Prismata doesn't have any of the following problems and it's just a really good game in general so I'd rather spend my time playing Prismata.
2) My opponent can take a really long time to think while I have nothing to do. Slowrolling on purpose is a rare problem, but people who just take a long time to think are pretty common and just as frustrating to play against.
3) There's no deck tracker. This means I have to choose between spending a long time digging the log for information all the time and making uninformed decisions all the time.
4) Shuffle iT's implementation is sometimes very slow, which is probably at least partially because it's a browser client, not a standalone.
5) There are many reasons why the game can be a serious uphill battle for one player for reasons nobody had any control over. The most notable reason is first player advantage, but games where that happens because of shuffle luck are also common enough that they actually happen. While alternating the starting player can make it a fair match in a tournament or the League, that doesn't make it any more enjoyable to play the games where a player can only really lose if they make an enormous mistake.
6) If I play ladder actively, I mostly have to get matched against people who are significantly worse than me. This might not be true at the moment, but it was when I stopped playing ladder three months ago, hoping that the other problems wouldn't bother me so much in the more competitive and more evenly matched League setting (but as it turns out, they still did).
7) Donald X. has been talking about each new expansion being diminishing returns because you only get to see the new cards so often when there are 300 other cards in the pool, and with the release of Nocturne, I think we finally passed some kind of a threshold for me where I feel like it actually didn't really contribute very much towards making the overall game more interesting. I still have a lot of Nocturne cards that I suck at playing, and I think that's mostly just because a lot of kingdoms just have the same old cards that I can already wrap my head around and the Nocturne stuff doesn't show up all that much. This is not really even a problem per say, but some kind of a standardized format (that you could automatch for) that leaves out some of the older expansions certainly wouldn't hurt.

Honestly if Stef gets his ShiT together and does something about points 2, 3, and 4, that will probably be enough for me to get back into playing Dominion actively, but aside from that, I'll probably only play in the big tournaments and whenever there's a new expansion just to check it out.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2022, 11:38:42 am by Awaclus »
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GendoIkari

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2018, 10:07:17 am »
+5

For #3, the solution is not to add a deck tracker; but to prevent people from accessing the full log during the game. Deck tracking is supposed to be a mental exercise in Dominion.
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Awaclus

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2018, 10:13:25 am »
+8

For #3, the solution is not to add a deck tracker; but to prevent people from accessing the full log during the game. Deck tracking is supposed to be a mental exercise in Dominion.

Then that's even worse.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2018, 10:15:24 am »
+3

For #3, the solution is not to add a deck tracker; but to prevent people from accessing the full log during the game. Deck tracking is supposed to be a mental exercise in Dominion.

Then that's even worse.

That’s the game of Dominion as it was designed. You may prefer to play a variant where deck tracking is allowed, but that is a variant.
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markusin

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2018, 10:38:44 am »
+2

Ultimately, your leisure time is valuable, and you should spend it in a way you find enjoyable. Sometimes it's necessary to set one activity aside towards making the most of your time.

I myself typically only play 2 or 3 games at a time. I think I only played one game of Dominion over the last couple of months, and that was literally to not disappear from the Scavenger boards. I have also been less active on Discord as well. I do check the forums and Discord almost daily though.

The nice thing about board games like Dominion is that you can quit and still be proficient if you return months or even years later. The same can't be said for action multiplayer games that require constant play to maintain dexterity.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #5 on: July 06, 2018, 10:52:27 am »
+2

Seconding what Markusin said, it's good that you're evaluating how much you're enjoying your hobbies and which ones to pursue.
These complaints are all valid, and if you're not having fun it's absolutely time to take a break.

That said, I think I speak for many when I say I hope you come back to Dominion at some point. We need outspoken community members who are passionate about the game!
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Seprix

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2018, 11:09:38 am »
+3

I hope you come back.
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werothegreat

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #7 on: July 06, 2018, 11:43:52 am »
+3

okay bye
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2018, 11:46:18 am »
+17

I think that, perhaps, a lot of these issues stem from the fact that Dominion was not designed to be played at the level that top players are playing it. Which is not to say that top players are doing anything wrong. It's just a reality.

I do not generally have an issue with people playing too slowly, except when it's obvious they're not paying attention, which does happen sometimes. Probably I also play too slowly for Awaclus's taste, though.

I'm 100% with GendoIkari; the full log shouldn't be visible. If you think it's necessary to know the full contents of your deck and discard pile at all times, you're taking this game too seriously.

I enjoy getting mostly matched against worse players. I like winning most of my games. And then sometimes I get matched against a better player and have a more challenging game. That's fun too.

I would like a way to have auto-matched games and see more new cards. Honestly that's probably the thing that would most increase my personal enjoyment of games: more granular Kingdom randomization options. Although I think as a matter of general priority, I'd still prefer the game to have more useful animations and interfaces. It's pretty sad that you still have to use the log to perform actions, 18 months out from release.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #9 on: July 06, 2018, 12:53:05 pm »
+1

First of all, enjoy your hiatus. I hope you rediscover what you enjoyed about Dominion. You will be missed. In the meantime, maybe someone else will carry Pooka's torch for you.


7) Donald X. has been talking about each new expansion being diminishing returns because you only get to see the new cards so often when there are 300 other cards in the pool, and with the release of Nocturne, I think we finally passed some kind of a threshold for me where I feel like it actually didn't really contribute very much towards making the overall game more interesting. I still have a lot of Nocturne cards that I suck at playing, and I think that's mostly just because a lot of kingdoms just have the same old cards that I can already wrap my head around and the Nocturne stuff doesn't show up all that much. This is not really even a problem per say, but some kind of a standardized format (that you could automatch for) that leaves out some of the older expansions certainly wouldn't hurt.

I think that, perhaps, a lot of these issues stem from the fact that Dominion was not designed to be played at the level that top players are playing it. Which is not to say that top players are doing anything wrong. It's just a reality.

If Dominion was geared toward competitive play, you could have a "rolling release" schedule with cards moving and out of the pool to change the meta. Of course, you could do something like that in the Dominion League, for example, without Donald X.'s involvement, but it wouldn't be the same as having designed choices.
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Awaclus

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #10 on: July 06, 2018, 01:19:09 pm »
+2

That’s the game of Dominion as it was designed. You may prefer to play a variant where deck tracking is allowed, but that is a variant.

Well, if I'm complaining about the game having an undesirable quality, I don't think it's a very good counterargument to say that it's supposed to have that undesirable quality. As far as I'm concerned, the memory game element isn't necessarily difficult, it just requires multitasking which makes the game needlessly more stressful. For quite a while now, my focus in regards to trying to improve at Dominion (as well as the focus of a couple of articles that I wrote) hasn't been on trying to figure out how to make better decisions, it has been on trying to figure out how to make it easier and less taxing for my brain to make pretty decent decisions. Trying to improve like that has been fun, but the practical reality of still having a headache every time I play a 6-game match in one go hasn't been quite as fun.

I hope you come back.

okay bye

Oh, no, I didn't say I'm quitting f.ds (or the Discord for that matter). I haven't really been playing the game for the past three months anyway, didn't stop me from posting.
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Holunder9

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #11 on: July 06, 2018, 01:30:12 pm »
+1

Well, if I'm complaining about the game having an undesirable quality, I don't think it's a very good counterargument to say that it's supposed to have that undesirable quality.
If Dominion had been a computer game that later got implemented as card game (and, to pick out LFN's point, if in addition to that the game had not been designed as family game but as game for hardcore gamers) this would be valid criticism.
But as it is the other way around and as no card game that I know allows you to track decks with tools this is a dubious argument.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #12 on: July 06, 2018, 01:33:46 pm »
+1

no card game that I know allows you to track decks with tools
A digression, but techniques for tracking decks in Pandemic have always been tacitly allowed, and then were explicitly encouraged in Pandemic Legacy Season Two.
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markusin

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #13 on: July 06, 2018, 01:39:35 pm »
+3

That’s the game of Dominion as it was designed. You may prefer to play a variant where deck tracking is allowed, but that is a variant.

Well, if I'm complaining about the game having an undesirable quality, I don't think it's a very good counterargument to say that it's supposed to have that undesirable quality. As far as I'm concerned, the memory game element isn't necessarily difficult, it just requires multitasking which makes the game needlessly more stressful. For quite a while now, my focus in regards to trying to improve at Dominion (as well as the focus of a couple of articles that I wrote) hasn't been on trying to figure out how to make better decisions, it has been on trying to figure out how to make it easier and less taxing for my brain to make pretty decent decisions. Trying to improve like that has been fun, but the practical reality of still having a headache every time I play a 6-game match in one go hasn't been quite as fun.

I hope you come back.

okay bye

Oh, no, I didn't say I'm quitting f.ds (or the Discord for that matter). I haven't really been playing the game for the past three months anyway, didn't stop me from posting.

Oh man, 6-game matches are absolutely exhausting. Expect at least 2 hours of play and each game having long turns due to thinking because of the stakes. And then you have to find time for that once a week. League is a big stress in my eyes.

The bigger concern for me with the client quality is the relatively stagnant progress it has been making towards improvement. It maybe can't be helped give the current state of ShuffleIT. One thing I have to give credit for to Prismata, they seem to have put a lot of effort into getting their timer system right.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #14 on: July 06, 2018, 01:48:59 pm »
+1

Good for you.  Prismata is a great game too.

Since I only play casually and offline, obviously most of these problems don't really affect me (although offline play can be slow for its own reasons).  I can see them being a big bother though.
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werothegreat

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #15 on: July 06, 2018, 04:10:47 pm »
+2

That’s the game of Dominion as it was designed. You may prefer to play a variant where deck tracking is allowed, but that is a variant.

Well, if I'm complaining about the game having an undesirable quality, I don't think it's a very good counterargument to say that it's supposed to have that undesirable quality. As far as I'm concerned, the memory game element isn't necessarily difficult, it just requires multitasking which makes the game needlessly more stressful.

I mean, maybe undesirable to you. I like that you have to remember what you put in your deck. It means you have to pay attention. Part of the fun of IRL is going "wait do I have enough points to win? Fuck it I'll buy the province anyway" and you lose that online even with just the VP tracker. If you had perfect info the game would just be mindlessly clicking buttons.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #16 on: July 06, 2018, 04:41:56 pm »
+7

If you had perfect info the game would just be mindlessly clicking buttons.

Do you really believe this?

Surely the quality of Dominion as a game does not depend on those playing it having fallible memory.
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Skumpy

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #17 on: July 06, 2018, 04:44:06 pm »
+4

That’s the game of Dominion as it was designed. You may prefer to play a variant where deck tracking is allowed, but that is a variant.

Well, if I'm complaining about the game having an undesirable quality, I don't think it's a very good counterargument to say that it's supposed to have that undesirable quality. As far as I'm concerned, the memory game element isn't necessarily difficult, it just requires multitasking which makes the game needlessly more stressful.

I mean, maybe undesirable to you. I like that you have to remember what you put in your deck. It means you have to pay attention. Part of the fun of IRL is going "wait do I have enough points to win? Fuck it I'll buy the province anyway" and you lose that online even with just the VP tracker. If you had perfect info the game would just be mindlessly clicking buttons.

I personally don’t have fun guessing on what’s supposed to be a 100% decision; I have fun planning strategy, spotting tactics, and ocassionally, getting a thrill from the uncertainity of randomness. Also, how would perfect info = mindless clicking? Perfect info doesn’t eliminate any of the planning of Dominion; if anything, it expands it.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #18 on: July 06, 2018, 05:13:19 pm »
+1

Whether Dominion would be better or worse if it had perfect tracking is not the point. That’s a completely opinion-based personal preference. But as an implementation of a game that doesn’t have perfect tracking; the online implementation is worse at implementing that game for having it.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #19 on: July 06, 2018, 05:17:48 pm »
+2

If you had perfect info the game would just be mindlessly clicking buttons.

Chess and Go (and, well, Prismata) feel sad.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #20 on: July 06, 2018, 05:31:50 pm »
+15

I've been considering taking up online Dominion. So, this could all work out perfectly.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #21 on: July 06, 2018, 05:48:01 pm »
0

If you had perfect info the game would just be mindlessly clicking buttons.

Chess and Go (and, well, Prismata) feel sad.

Dominion is not a positional war simulator.  It's a deckbuilder.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #22 on: July 06, 2018, 06:27:28 pm »
+8

7) Donald X. has been talking about each new expansion being diminishing returns because you only get to see the new cards so often when there are 300 other cards in the pool,
He hasn't! That is not a thing he says or has said.

You get diminishing returns because the new expansions add variety, and you already have tons of variety.

It's easy to play with five new cards in each game, or whatever, if that's what you want.
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #23 on: July 06, 2018, 09:41:04 pm »
0

7) Donald X. has been talking about each new expansion being diminishing returns because you only get to see the new cards so often when there are 300 other cards in the pool,
He hasn't! That is not a thing he says or has said.

You get diminishing returns because the new expansions add variety, and you already have tons of variety.

It's easy to play with five new cards in each game, or whatever, if that's what you want.

IRL it’s easy, you mean? Or are there features for Dominion Online that I’m unaware of?
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Re: Why I'm quitting Dominion for the foreseeable future (not satire)
« Reply #24 on: July 06, 2018, 10:10:34 pm »
+2

IRL it’s easy, you mean? Or are there features for Dominion Online that I’m unaware of?
I meant IRL - so far I have merely considered playing online - but online you can checkbox two expansions at a time if you want, the new one and whatever, and rotate the non-new one. Which is what I did when testing online Nocturne. Or of course you can use an app to generate a list and then manually enter it. More options would be nice but these games can be played.
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