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Author Topic: The game's largest structural flaw, imho  (Read 18403 times)

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popsofctown

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The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« on: May 02, 2012, 08:31:25 pm »
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I've thought about this for some time, but it was sparked a bit when my mother bought her first 5$ silver.

I think the biggest problem with the rules of Dominion is, "You must spend an action to play an action".  We don't play Lighthouse for free, we play it at the expense of an action, and then we get an action rebate. 
The problem is that this rebate make actions and treasures respond to dead draw (Smithies) cards differently in a way they don't need to.  Silver is very similar to "+2$, +1 action", and the only thing that makes it any different from that is Throne room effects (well, not that you can Throne Room a silver, but if you could, you'd get 4$ and no actions) and dead draw. 

A better structure for the rules would have been,  "You get one widget point per turn.  Some cards cost 0 widget points, some cost 1 widget point.  You need to pay a widget point to play a card that costs a widget point."
Cards would only need a subtle redesign, cantrips get set to 0 cost, terminals have a cost of 1, Village costs 0, but gives you 1 widget point, and so on.  Perhaps all the dead draw cards, as we know them now, would need a higher cost, or fewer draws. 

But that makes a lot of boards that are best answered by BM/dead draw card a lot more interesting.  You are allowed to put a Market in your BM/dead draw deck.  You can even put a Village in and not worry about dead drawing it, and run a flexible engine deck.  It doesn't make Silver obsolete any more than a board with no dead draw does, Silver is the only nonterminal way to produce 2$.

I know that the action system is easy to understand.  And I do understand the value in evaluating boards and deciding whether the engine strategy can beat BM/dead draw, or it can't.  And there's some value in having to evaluate what cards are so good that you should buy them even though it risks a dead draw.  I kinda think it's a shame that you can look at all the fives, remember that none of them can be played off a dead draw (unless you get a kingdom treasure, and if it's a Silver+ it's the same problem), and buy a silver for your dead draw deck.  I could be making more interesting decisions.


Thoughts?
« Last Edit: May 04, 2012, 02:45:14 pm by popsofctown »
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Obi Wan Bonogi

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2012, 08:34:41 pm »
+7

I think you are in a small minority that would consider this mechanic a flaw.
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Fabian

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2012, 09:54:02 pm »
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Yeah, well, I mean, that works, I guess, but, like, you know, why? Like Obi Wan says, it's not a flaw, the game is balanced in a way that you can't just buy Envoys and Embassies and stack your deck with sick non-terminal actions and go nuts. If you can play Smithy and still keep playing action-giving actions (Villages, Markets, Bazaar, etc), you just made Smithy into a Lab* which draws an extra card and costs $1 less. Nice card!

*Yeah, I know you can't play another Smithy later on without a Village. I'm still going with "nice card!"
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Papa Luigi

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2012, 10:16:35 pm »
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I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying it would be somehow easier to understand if the nomenclature of the game was changed? Or do your ideas actually change the way the game is played? Either way, I don't really get your post.
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O

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2012, 10:19:35 pm »
+1

...but then what would happen to the 20-something versions of "hidden village" we currently have out on fan cards?!?!  :'(
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yudantaiteki

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2012, 10:22:59 pm »
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To me this sounds like yet another attempt to "fix" the Big Money problem with a rules change rather than strategy improvement.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #6 on: May 02, 2012, 10:27:00 pm »
+1

The problem is that this rebate make actions and treasures respond to dead draw (Smithies) cards differently in a way they don't need to.
You argue that they don't need to behave differently, but I don't see why they should behave the same. Having this difference makes the game more interesting, imo.
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theory

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #7 on: May 02, 2012, 10:33:23 pm »
+5

I think the status quo works well in Dominion, but your suggestion is a nice mechanic to explore for another deckbuilding game.
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Davio

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #8 on: May 03, 2012, 08:21:30 am »
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I like how it is now.

However, I do wonder how much the game will change when you start every turn with 2 actions instead of 1....
How much turns will it shave off the average?

I guess first player advantage will skyrocket without an opening terminal collision. Just open Sea Hag/Ambassador or something...
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popsofctown

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #9 on: May 03, 2012, 12:33:23 pm »
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Thanks theory.

As I mentioned, cards were balanced for Dominion based on dead draw being dead.  A widget Smithy would be about 5$ or 6$, which might be less fun just because of that I guess.  Lab chains into itself, Smithies would not, so you would have to combine it with things that don't cost an action, like Silver, or Market.  A better change would probably be for it to draw 2. 

@Davio - are you talking about a different change, or the one I mentioned?  The one I mentioned doesn't let you play both Sea Hag and Ambassador, Ambassador would cost your widget for the turn, you wouldn't have enough widgets left to play Sea Hag.
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Papa Luigi

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #10 on: May 03, 2012, 01:30:52 pm »
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Thanks theory.

As I mentioned, cards were balanced for Dominion based on dead draw being dead.  A widget Smithy would be about 5$ or 6$, which might be less fun just because of that I guess.  Lab chains into itself, Smithies would not, so you would have to combine it with things that don't cost an action, like Silver, or Market.  A better change would probably be for it to draw 2. 

@Davio - are you talking about a different change, or the one I mentioned?  The one I mentioned doesn't let you play both Sea Hag and Ambassador, Ambassador would cost your widget for the turn, you wouldn't have enough widgets left to play Sea Hag.

Okay, so the question remains, what is the difference here? Other than renaming "actions" to "widgets"? When you say "a widget Smithy would be about 5$ or $6," is that the equivalent of a card that gives +3 cards and +1 action? In other words, a Governor without the downside, or an upgraded Lab.

Again, it seems like all you're doing is changing the game's nomenclature but not the game itself. The only consequence I see is if there's no distinction between treasure cards and +1 action cards (which are both considered "free actions" in your setup), it would allow you to play treasures and actions in any order you want, which would make Tactician, Library, and some other cards much more powerful. But otherwise the game would play exactly the same.
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Tables

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #11 on: May 03, 2012, 01:34:10 pm »
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The difference is, you could play any card that (currently) gives +1 action AFTER playing a terminal action. So for example, with Smithy, you can play one, and hope you draw a village to continue your chain. And if you draw a market from your Smithy, it's no longer dead. In fact, Market is never a dead card.
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...spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons.
But not strictly better, because the spinoff can have a different cost than the expansion.

Papa Luigi

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #12 on: May 03, 2012, 01:43:52 pm »
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The difference is, you could play any card that (currently) gives +1 action AFTER playing a terminal action. So for example, with Smithy, you can play one, and hope you draw a village to continue your chain. And if you draw a market from your Smithy, it's no longer dead. In fact, Market is never a dead card.
Okay I think I get it now.

So basically it's saying that cantrips are always free to be played anytime, whereas in the current rules you can only play them when you have at least 1 action remaining. And I'm assuming village cards would be free to play as well?

That would quite change things. For instance, if you have two Nobles in your hand, you could actually play the first one as a +3 cards, and if you happen to draw a cantrip you can still play it. Or if you draw a terminal you can play the other Nobles as a +2 actions and still play that terminal.

I imagine it would make the turns take a lot longer. And it would have to be further clarified by making no-cost cards a different card type or something. Like Theory said, it could be the basis for a different deckbuilding game, but obviously it would bend the established rules and strategy of Dominion a lot.
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blueblimp

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #13 on: May 03, 2012, 01:51:51 pm »
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When I first played Dominion, in some way this is how I thought of the game (although I understood that actions can be drawn dead). So for Village, I really thought of it as "give me one extra action and one card", and a cantrip as "give one more card with no change in actions". For that reason, it was a bit confusing to figure out the effect of playing Throne Room on a non-terminal. The fact that TR+cantrip can be used as a village is, to me, very unintuitive.
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shMerker

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #14 on: May 03, 2012, 04:43:06 pm »
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Quote
I could be making more interesting decisions in between all my shuffling.

I feel you about not wanting to shuffle so much. Even if you do it quickly sometimes you have to do it in the middle of your turn or someone finishes their turn right before being attacked and it becomes a bottleneck as everyone waits for someone to get done randomizing their deck before play can continue.

It's not a dealbreaker for anyone I've played with, but it's still a pretty big drag on the game. Changing the way actions work isn't a good solution to that problem. In fact doing it that way would exacerbate the problem by making it much easier to make a fast-cycling deck which means triggering a reshuffle more often.
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popsofctown

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #15 on: May 03, 2012, 05:05:42 pm »
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@shmerker, no, the the rule I'm talking about doesn't affect how often you shuffle.  Shuffling in IRL Dominion was just a catalyst for posting.

@everyone - Nowhere in my post do I suggest that Dominion should be errata'ed to work differently.  And this post isn't in the variant forum.  The game as it is definitely can't be changed to work this way, the costs don't outweigh the benefits.
It was just something I wanted to talk about.  It's not totally irrelevant; people can and do make Dominion clones, and the ones I've played mimic this structure which I view as a mistake.

Tables' post explains my OP clearly, refer to it if you're confused.
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shMerker

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #16 on: May 03, 2012, 05:21:45 pm »
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If I'm understanding this correctly then the main upshot of this change is that any card that currently says "+1 Action" becomes playable even if you have already used up all our actions for the turn, so if you were to play a smithy and draw a laboratory, you could play it immediately rather than just cursing your bad luck.

There are a lot of situations where that leads to more shuffling, because any +cards cards in your deck are going to get drawn dead less. This applies to terminal draws too since villages can now be played for "free" so if you, say, have a hand with two smithies you can play both if there's a village in your hand or any of the top three cards in your deck. Essentially you get to activate your +cards cards more which means you get to draw more cards which means more shuffling.

But since you're talking about an alternate game with potentially radically different cards I may be completely off here. Maybe in free-cantrip-dominion Laboratory doesn't exist or is so expensive that it just isn't that easy to build unstoppable cycling engines. Which, now that I think about it, would lead to people just buying money a a lot wouldn't it?

Anyway if you think you can make a better game I say go ahead. I am always in the market for better games.
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Insomniac

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #17 on: May 03, 2012, 06:21:23 pm »
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I find that the action mechanic is a big part of the strategy. It means that on a board that is viable for engines you have to build your engine in the best possible way to factor out luck.

If you open Village+Silver for a Village Smithy engine that's probably suboptimal.

A better example is probably we both start 5/2 on a base game set. We see festival+Library and decide to go for it over BM.
You might decide Festival/Nothing. I would argue that while valid Library/Nothing is probably stronger as it will get you to 5 and you have no risk of collision before the purchase regardless and it'll trigger reshuffle faster after that next 5 purchase.

Yes this makes BM easier to play in some ways than an engine, but hey building the engine in the right order is a super fun and strategic part of the game.

Note: I could be wrong about my evaluation because perhaps the +Buy is stronger but my suspicion is that Library is the better open.

Edit: With your system it is far less relevant as if I buy Library Library festival I need only to draw a festival to allow the playment of my second library instead of as currently you need to control the luck as best you can.
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rod-

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #18 on: May 03, 2012, 10:20:12 pm »
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Edit: With your system it is far less relevant as if I buy Library Library festival I need only to draw a festival to allow the playment of my second library instead of as currently you need to control the luck as best you can.
How do you control luck, again?
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ftl

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #19 on: May 03, 2012, 10:29:23 pm »
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By trying to make sure that you have a deck which works even if you don't get perfect draws. Maybe get a few extra villages to make sure you don't draw your whole deck dead; or, in a BM+X game, get the right number of terminals, balancing the power of the terminal with the probability of collision.

I'm not sure I get your question. 'controlling luck' is a major part of the game. Planning for best-case, worst-case, or average draws.
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CaptainNevada

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #20 on: May 03, 2012, 11:39:39 pm »
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A better structure for the rules would have been,  "You get one widget point per turn.  Some cards cost 0 widget points, some cost 1 widget point.  You need to pay a widget point to play a card that costs a widget point."
Cards would only need a subtle redesign, cantrips get set to 0 cost, terminals have a cost of 1, Village costs 0, but gives you 1 widget point, and so on.  Perhaps all the dead draw cards, as we know them now, would need a higher cost, or fewer draws. 

Thoughts?

It would make for a different game.  To work it into Dominion you'd need an expansion that worked on rule-breaking cards, which I don't know is feasible...

$6 Bribe (Treasure: $2 or Trash this card.  Gain an Action)
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qmech

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #21 on: May 04, 2012, 05:18:51 am »
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There are TCGs with similar mechanics.  In the Pokemon TCG, Trainers can always be played for free, but there is a sub-type called Supporters of which you can only play one a turn.  There's no analogue of Village though.  (This information could be many years out of date.)
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Toskk

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #22 on: May 04, 2012, 03:25:36 pm »
+2

Slightly related to the OP's idea of the game's largest 'structural flaw', in my opinion there are three 'big' (yes, this term is relative) flaws with the game:

1). Level of variance, particularly with terminal actions (essentially the OP's argument) but also with specific cards. For example, opening Sea Hag + Masquerade.. both good cards, and with good shuffle luck *very* good.. but quite poor if you, for example, draw the Sea Hag with the Masquerade. I don't know if anyone here has played a lot of fantasy RPG games (anything based off of Dungeons & Dragons), but over the decades of digital versions of these games, the concept of a 'critical hit' has been the classic example of the problems of high variance events. For those not familiar with the concept, typically every attack has a small (often 5%) chance of dealing double damage. This variance, both in frequency and power, has the effect of trivializing encounters when the player gets 'lucky', and causing balance issues when they don't.. the problem being predictability. The more rarely critical hits happen, the greater the impact they have in those rare fights where they actually happen. The solution? Well, D&D 4th edition chose one of the two routes: weaken the effect of critical hits. Critical hits in 4e only deal maximum rolled damage, instead of double rolled damage. The other option, chosen in games like World of Warcraft, is to increase the probability of the critical hit event. If, for example, critical hits happen roughly 40-50% of the time, they can be relied upon to happen numerous times each fight, and thus can be correctly balanced for. For a game like Dominion, however, realistically adjusting variance of action collision (as well as dead actions) would totally remake the game.. plus simply weakening the impact of action collision by making actions overall weaker sounds like a bad plan.

2). Single cards and 2-card combos that are optimal in exclusion of anything else. I'm talking here about 'combos' like Minion + more Minions.. or Hunting Party + $2 action + more Hunting Parties.. or Fool's Gold + more Fool's Golds.. or Bridges + Native Villages.. or Chancellors + 4x Stashes.. or any number of specific 1-2 card 'combos' that really can't be improved upon by adding any other (action) card to the deck.. or sometimes any other card at all. Cards like these really defeat the function of a 10-card Kingdom.

3). First-turn advantage. For a high-quality competitive game, a first-turn advantage of the scale that exists in Dominion seems to defeat the function of the game from a purely competitive standpoint. What I'm getting at here is that all games fall somewhere along an axis of luck vs. skill.. 'casual' games typically fall closer to the 'luck' end, while 'competitive' games typically fall closer to the 'skill' end. In my opinion, for the depth and complexity of discussions and the playerbase of Dominion, the game is surprisingly higher on the 'luck' side than most other purely 'competitive' games.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2012, 05:08:28 pm by Toskk »
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popsofctown

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #23 on: May 04, 2012, 04:58:23 pm »
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A better example is probably we both start 5/2 on a base game set. We see festival+Library and decide to go for it over BM.
You might decide Festival/Nothing. I would argue that while valid Library/Nothing is probably stronger as it will get you to 5 and you have no risk of collision before the purchase regardless and it'll trigger reshuffle faster after that next 5 purchase.

I tested BM/Library and Festival/Library in Solitaire.  BM/Library bought 4 provinces more quickly, as I expected.  (2 samples of BM/Library, 4 samples of Festival/Library with varying ways of playing the engine.  All 5/2 opening Library).

Your example is actually my example then.  You can't tune the Festival/Library engine at all - you should be playing Library/BM. 
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shMerker

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Re: The game's largest structural flaw, imho
« Reply #24 on: May 04, 2012, 05:09:30 pm »
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The problem is there's zero value in chaining two libraries (this applies to watchtower as well) unless your handsize goes down in between. So in order to get the benefit of two libraries in one turn you would have to play at least two festivals or some other non-terminal that reduces your handsize like hamlet or lighthouse.

First turn advantage isn't really a luck thing. Pretty much every symmetrical game has it and people who are serious about competition find some way to control for it, either by giving a small handicap in favor of the player who goes second (as with komi points in go) or by making sure that in a tournament settings players get equal time in all positions or by limiting the moves available to whoever goes first (as in checkers).
« Last Edit: May 04, 2012, 05:14:20 pm by shMerker »
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