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[Davio]

Hey guys, I've decided to take a break from online Dominion.

You might say: How is this so interesting that it needs a topic?
Well, there may be other people having the same issues that I do, so at least it lets them know they're not alone.

There are a couple of reasons why I'm abstaining from playing online.

The first is: Playing has become less and less fun for me. I'm very happy that I got all the way up to lvl 41 and #29 in the world, but that's about it for me. I accepted pretty much any match-up against ranked players, so when I lost one against a lower rated opponent, I didn't always handle it with class. I was only enjoying winning, not just playing. I actually thought to myself: "Why can't I just say gg at the end of a game, but always have to complain about luck?" Playing became compulsory, I always had to end on a win. So if I lost 5 games in a row, I had to play a 6th and before you know it, an hour had passed.

That brings me to my next reason: Time. A single 2p Iso match takes about 5-10 minutes, but the occasional slogfest can increase it to 30 mins easily. I just don't have the time to play competitively anymore and yet I still wanted to do it, it doesn't work.

The third is: There has been a lot going on in my life lately, we had a (very lovely) kid, we're moving to a nice new home, crunchtime at work. A lot of excitement, but also a lot of stress. I want to stop now before it really starts eating at my responsibilities, like when the baby needs his bottle and I'm like "I gotta finish this game first!" That's not good. I don't want that to happen. Because of this, I have been rude to a lot of opponents and for that I apologize. That's not who I am, I'm actually a very enjoyable person to be around, but the anonymity of the internet, my little sleep and stress may have caused me to act way too arrogant over what still is a simple game. So if you're among the players I've been out of line against, I'm sorry, it wasn't personal.

So I'm taking a break from it all. I don't know if I'll ever come back, since I've pretty much decided Goko isn't for me, but that may change. I'll still stay an active member of this community although that may dwindle as well.

Don't read this as some sort of suicide note, it really isn't that negative, I'm just going to focus on other parts of my life for the time being.

I still love the game of Dominion and playing it in real life with 3 players is still the best way, but online Dominion, we've had fun, but unfortunately I have to let you go. 

[ftl]

We'll miss you!

[Davio]

We'll miss you!

[Titandrake]

I'm in a bit of the same boat. A while back, I was averaging around level 38, and with the potential release of Goko felt some pressure to push for getting level 40. So I started playing very cutthroat. There's nothing bad with that, it's just that I felt I was taking things too seriously. With the exception of a few games which had silly combos that I just had to try, I was playing every game in the same general way: Get an early advantage, get control of game pace, maintain advantage while slowly pushing towards the end of the game, end game. Somewhere along the line, it got repetitive. Here's an engine board, here's a big money board, here's a board where the first KC hit is probably the winner...It didn't feel like I was actually learning much, which is what drew me into Dominion in the first place. I was just honing endgame skills, or fine tuning general knowledge like the importance of a good early game. Not too many silly engines, not too many insights on interesting card interactions, just a pure, minor mechanical improvement that somehow gave me a couple levels.

I never did get to 40. I got to 39, then dropped back to 38. A losing streak and not enough free time to keep sharp meant that I dropped to around where I am now, level 33 or so.

I haven't played Dominion in about a week or so. At some point, I'll probably come back. Hopefully before Goko comes out. Maybe I'll take it seriously. Maybe not. Maybe I need to take a leaf from Marin's book and try building engines even if they seem horribly implausible. It'll make things more interesting, at the very least.

What do the numbers mean?
    In the grand scheme of things, not much. Play for fun.

[Morgrim7]

What do the numbers mean?
    In the grand scheme of things, not much. Play for fun.

No. The numbers really do mean something. I play extremely rarely on isotropic, so my level hovers around the single digits. But when I do play, all the 20s and 30s all decline auto matches with me and look for someone else with a higher level.

[Titandrake]

What do the numbers mean?
    In the grand scheme of things, not much. Play for fun.

No. The numbers really do mean something. I play extremely rarely on isotropic, so my level hovers around the single digits. But when I do play, all the 20s and 30s all decline auto matches with me and look for someone else with a higher level.

This might depend on your definition for "grand scheme" 

(in b4 Grand Market + Scheme fan card hybrid)

But seriously, it does matter. For those who care about a good game, it's more likely with either a similar level player (even match) or a higher level player (more likely to learn something). For those who care about ranking, playing a low level carries a risk of a level drop if bad luck happens.

A while back, I lost to a level 9 who opened Embassy-Embargo and Embargoed Embassy turn 3. I played a bunch of games to try to compensate and ended up gaining 3 levels that day. I think the level drop is more from a big change in uncertainity than in a skill drop, but I don't know the specifics.

Well, then you get issues with people who are actually good, but don't have the time to play enough games for Iso to believe it. There's that account named something like "If I play only twice every day, what level can I get to?" that's around the 40s last I checked, but that's a bit of an exception because it's almost certainly an alt.

...I forgot why I typed this out in the first place. Darn.

[Qvist]

Oh, Davio.

Sad to hear, but I wish you all the best and I hope we still hear from you in the forums, maybe again about some great tournament write-ups.

[ipofanes]

so when I lost one against a lower rated opponent, I didn't always handle it with class.

I have been on the receiving end of this, but I have taken it light-hearted even though I noticed that your reaction was a bit more than friendly banter. I attributed this to your offspring giving you a hard time, and kudos that you've been able to reflect on that. If you cease to be the person you want to be while playing, it's the playing, not you. May you use the new giant untapped time-source that is the abstention from isotropic, and hope to read from you in the less-Dominion-related forums.

[GendoIkari]

My advice would be to try to play some while not logged in. That's what I did a couple days ago, now that I hit 40, and I found it to be a lot less stressful. I didn't care nearly as much about losing.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

You will definitely be missed.  I applaud your capacity for self examination, and as your rating attests, you're clearly skilled at making the correct decisions a vast majority of the time.

I do hope you continue to post.  And I thank you for the one game we played (and you kicked my behind).  Your post-game comments were generous and helpful, and I won the next two games I played with apprentice in the kingdom.

[Davio]

My advice would be to try to play some while not logged in. That's what I did a couple days ago, now that I hit 40, and I found it to be a lot less stressful. I didn't care nearly as much about losing.

I did play with an alt for a time (~500 games) and got him to the high 30's, which was higher than my main's rating at the time, so I just switched back to my main and leveled him more.

It was a fun experience, starting from scratch, not worrying about rating at all, since, hey, it wasn't my main account anyway! But you don't want to get stuck in an endless cycle of: level to max, new account, level to max, etc...

For me it's easier not to play at all than to start over or try to limit my plays. You know how it is when you lose that first game, you just want to keep at it until you win.

I doubt whether I'll miss it much, since there's enough going on to fill the void.

And in any case, I won't be gone from this site just yet, just doing other things.
Who knows, I might have time for mafia again!

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

-Snip-
Who knows, I might have time for mafia again!

That would be awesome.

[enquerencia]

At the risk of sounding like a turd, and I guess by that I mean "I'm gonna sound like a turd when I say this," but do you guys actually care that much about your rank on Iso, or on any gaming website?  I'm really not at all trying to sound preachy or anything, but for me online games are fun, and I play them for fun, and I almost always go for the silly combo.  I have waaaay more fun playing out a crazy chain of cards and losing than I do playing big money+x for the win.  Sometimes I see a board and realize that big money+x is the correct strategy to win and I kinda want to quit.  But instead I try to find something creative to work with and I don't care if I lose.  I even check in on F.DS on a regular basis, write posts, make ridiculous memes, etc., but at the end of the day, this is a game for me.  Not like baseball is a game for Buster Posey, but like Dominion is a game for Buster Posey.

I'm glad Davio that you have realized that there are more important things in life than online games.  That is a sign of maturity and levelheadedness and that is exactly what a little young person needs in a dad. 

Again, big turd over here, but really???

[Dubdubdubdub]

Good call, Davio. And good luck with the kid!

[Davio]

At the risk of sounding like a turd, and I guess by that I mean "I'm gonna sound like a turd when I say this," but do you guys actually care that much about your rank on Iso, or on any gaming website? 

I guess it kind of evolves. I mean, everybody starts out the same way with Dominion.
Everyone remembers the first time they played two action cards in a row or Chapeled their entire deck.
This is what spurred most of us to keep playing. Hey, what a great game, infinite number of possibilities.

But gradually you become better at spotting combos and putting engines together, so your rating inevitably goes up. Now if you're in the mid-20's, that's a good place to be. There are as much players above you as there are beneath you. That means that you'll win some, and you'll lose some.

But as you grind your way up to the 40's, you start to get more aware of your rating. You start thinking "hey, I'm pretty good at this, let's see how high I can get" and you might start taking less risks and having less fun. You stop challenging yourself, you start just trying to beat your opponent every which way you can and often it involves resorting to default moves. Because you're sticking to what you know - god forbid you'll try something new that happens to be pretty stupid and lose - you stop learning. So you end up hovering at whatever rating you ended up at, because you're still using the same strategy that got you there, you've stopped evolving as a player. At this point your rating has become an end instead of the means that it used to be: to find equally skilled players. I don't know about any of the players who are in the top tier, like Rabid, Marin and -Stef-, but I guess once you get skilled at something, you just want to see how far you can go. The competitiveness is fueled by the results.

Now I'm not saying that I got so focused on my rating that I never dared to try anything new, but it was part of the reason why I quit. It's just a pitfall that you have to watch out for. I think there are a lot of players who might fall for the same trap, so that's also why I posted this.

Another reason is that I've just played so many games, ~5000 between accounts and this means that you see some exciting new combo less often. It really does become a grind: Recognize the power card, get the power card asap, destroy opponent. You can get pretty good results with this as Dominion is such a runaway game. An early Gold or $5 can swing the odds heavily in your favor as early as turn 1.

And you might think: "Well, maybe you just have no self control, this will never happen to me, I'm a healthy mature human being with good reasoning." Okay, well, good for you, but I'm no crack addict who needed his fix everyday. There has been many a weekend when I didn't play and didn't even think twice about it.

So, this break is more harmless than a self-intervention. I just find it easier to not play than to play occasionally.
I'm just "worn out" by having played too many online games. There's no point to keep on playing if you sigh everytime you hit $2P on turn 5 in a Familiar game or if you think to yourself: "Here we go again with this slogfest" when Ambassador is on the board. I mean, what are you doing? You are wasting a good 30 minutes of both players' time. I guess I feel I've seen it all for now.

I'm satisfied by my accomplishments, I don't need to keep on proving anything to anyone.
I'll never be worn out by Dominion as I said and you can basically wake me up anytime to play it in real life, because I love the interaction of board games in general and Dominion will always have a special place in my heart. I mean, I won the Dutch Championships! And I will most likely try to defend my title in 2013.

It's also about the kind of person I am: I can get really excited about something, go overboard with it and when I'm done, just walk away and move on. Part of the reason is because I love being part of a community, I've done this with Diablo II for instance and with the Lord of the Rings: Online. That's why I'll probably remain an active member on these forums, until I've found the next best thing and indulge myself with that.


Your kind comments are much appreciated by me and I hope this will serve as a reminder for everyone else out there:
JUST HAVE FUN, IT'S A GAME!
Once you're done with it, you can stop playing if you want, you don't have to keep at it just to achieve a meaningless rating that will be erased in a couple of weeks/months anyway.

[greatexpectations]

-turds-

of course people care about their ranking, to think otherwise is a little naive. but there is nothing wrong with that. people also care about equally silly things like facebook likes, twitter followers, reddit karma, levels on xbox games, or a host of other equally meaningless metrics. if its something you really enjoy you like seeing a metric which shows progress or improvement. leveling up and getting better is an inherent part of almost all gaming.

the problem is, as Davio points out, when it becomes more about the level than the game and the fun of playing. some can manage that balance well enough on their own and some choose to just step away from the game for a while, to each their own.

[enquerencia]

I meant no offense.  I do understand how the metric can be a nice personal challenge for yourself in a game you enjoy playing, a drive to excel.  I dunno, I guess I was just trying to say that it is a really good idea to step back and look at the larger picture of what it actually means to you in your life, and Davio has eloquently expressed his experience with that.  I was more or less trying to echo that and it was probably unnecessary.  The reality is I've never approached the upper echelon of rank, so for me it's never been that kind of problem, and I've always viewed online dominion as a realm to try out crazy things, since you get to play a lot of games quickly (at least while iso is still up), and as a kind of practice for irl games.

And I guess I also feel that all this resentment toward goko (for which I am also responsible in multiple posts) and the sort of pre-separation anxiety we all have about the impending loss of isotropic (I've stopped playing on there simply because I'd rather decide to than wake up one day and not be able to log on), has sort of made us bitter and angry and sad.  And the fact is, it's a game.  An amazing expansive game with insane possibilities and has given us endless analysis and strategy to ponder, but it's a game.  It might be helpful for all of us to remember that, and because I think that's pretty much all Davio was trying to say, I apologize for pooping on this thread.

[pingpongsam]

My rating remains depressingly low because I actually play the game for fun, trying long-shot strategies and experimenting.

I get terribly bored when the only workable strategy is the same for both players and it is simply a card draw luck race. Haha, I got a free win from a ragequitter because I vetoed Alchemist yesterday simply because it was the obvious goto card for the set.

[verikt]

+1 Davio. Gotta say I have some of the same issues.

[Qvist]

+1 Davio. Gotta say I have some of the same issues.

... says the man with nearly 12000 games played, about three times as much as Davio.

[Fabian]

The one sure way to know someone is not quitting something is when they feel the need to make a long thread about how they're quitting. So see you around

[Davio]

The one sure way to know someone is not quitting something is when they feel the need to make a long thread about how they're quitting. So see you around

Well, the thread is called "taking a break", not "bye forever", because I didn't want to look silly after saying "I quit" and coming back.

Luckily, there's still a lot to enjoy on this site even if you're not playing Dominion online.
There's mafia, Diplomacy (c'mon guys, register!), never ending RSP discussions, puzzles and challenges, etc.

Really, I believe this is one of the more enjoyable communities I've been a part of.

[() | (_) ^/]

.

[Jedit]

Luckily, there's still a lot to enjoy on this site even if you're not playing Dominion online.
There's mafia, Diplomacy (c'mon guys, register!)

I thought you liked people here?

[dondon151]

I haven't played a ranked game for almost 2 months. It feels nice, because when I was ranked, I was trying to reach L40 before school started.

The problem that I have with playing unranked games is that you end up being pitted against players who have no idea what they're doing.