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Author Topic: House rule for reducing luck factors?  (Read 22243 times)

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timchen

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #25 on: November 25, 2012, 03:54:08 pm »
0

Regarding to rod-'s solution, if I understand it correctly, will become pretty weird in some cases-- for example, suppose that silver is the 11th card in the second shuffle, and if I discard it with a warehouse, do I immediately reinsert it into the deck? Another situation is that when one can occasionally draw their deck. In this case, they can expect always to start with those cards that were drawn fewer times first. This actually sounds good for the engine.

Really, my original intention is pretty simple. In dominion, it is horrible (not only for you, but for the strategy depth of the game) for a key card to miss a reshuffle. It is not only late, but can only be played one less time. It is almost game determining between similarly skilled opponents if it happens in the first reshuffle. Think about the turn 5 chapel. Or turn 5 witch when both players start 5-2. A game determined by this kind of swing are unsatisfactory for both players, assuming that the luckier player has enough skill to realize what happens. Indeed I think those who blindly suggested to play more games are the ones who need to play more.

Why is stash buffed with this suggestion? I don't quite see it.
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dondon151

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #26 on: November 25, 2012, 04:02:04 pm »
0

But when the community surrounding a game starts to embrace that kind of rule, it can easily become a slippery slope, and I don't use that expression lightly. If you want proof, look at the competitive online Pokemon community. Pokemon (the video game, not the TCG) is the game I played competitively before Dominion. It could be a great game, with deep strategy and lots of potential variety, two of the things I also love about Dominion. The problem with Pokemon is that it's built to be unbalanced. Little kids just love their legendary Pogeymons! So in order to make the game interesting, certain things had to be banned. Among those things were some moves that the community felt "promoted luck over strategy".

I won't get too far into the details, but suffice it to say that this sort of rule pretty much just breeds discontent and frustration in the community once you have a bunch of player-created rules for minimizing luck.

Evasion and OHKO clause were part of the competitive scene probably long before you started playing, and the existence of those clauses did not detract a single bit from the game. The policy review process has become a bureaucracy since I was last active on Smogon, but you simply cannot argue that the enforced bans have not been healthy for the metagame. Just because a game was "built" to be unbalanced (which, by the way, is not entirely true according to an interview with the developers) does not mean that players who would like to play it in a competitive fashion have to look elsewhere.

Indeed I think those who blindly suggested to play more games are the ones who need to play more.

Or maybe you need a better sense of humor?
« Last Edit: November 25, 2012, 04:03:29 pm by dondon151 »
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TWoos

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #27 on: November 25, 2012, 04:02:37 pm »
+1

Why is stash buffed with this suggestion? I don't quite see it.

As I understood the suggestion, Stash is buffed because when you trigger that reshuffle to draw during your turn, you can put Stash on top and draw it.  Then you allow another reshuffle, putting it on top again.  This is more obviously powerful with multiple Stash.
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rod-

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #28 on: November 25, 2012, 04:04:57 pm »
0

even something as modest (and complicated) as rod_ suggests in reply#12, you actually get some issues - what happens is that the cards that miss the shuffle all get clumped at the start not only of the shuffle immediately after they miss, but also in the next shuffle.

Technically, nothing would ever miss a shuffle in my suggestion, as there would be no such thing as a shuffle.  Supposing that you opened silver/silver, and both were randomly selected to be drawn 11th/12th, they woudn't be drawn 13th-15th (you still can't draw the same card more than once per turn), but they could be drawn anywhere thereafter.  Essentially, you reshuffle your deck every turn, but nothing would get "stuck" at the top / bottom and played disproportionately as a result.

Re: Warehouse, yes, you could expect to draw a card that you just discarded, assuming it was among the cards previously drawn the fewest times.

Re: Drawing your deck, starting with cards that were drawn fewer times is not a priori better for an engine.  It's often worse, as your engine is less likely to "go off" if you drew all of your coppers and estates first.  I'd imagine that, when it comes to something like hunting party stacks that "draw" a lot of bad cards over and over again, there would have to be some sort of qualification (no card can have a counter more than 1 greater than the lowest?) to prevent over-priming your draw.

Edit:  Maybe a better way to implement the OT suggestion (and which may potentially be physically possible) would be to simply mark / note one card left out of the current shuffle, then randomly insert it in the deck during the following cleanup.  You can still have cards missing shuffles, but you can't just throw your action chains together every turn without proper trashing.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2012, 04:16:09 pm by rod- »
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timchen

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #29 on: November 25, 2012, 04:08:58 pm »
+1

Or maybe you need a better sense of humor?

I really do.
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aaron0013

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #30 on: November 25, 2012, 04:17:52 pm »
+2

This is terribly changing the subject, and I am sorry, but does this not look like a smiley face eating something?

= 0 before counter = 1

BTW, Wandering Winder, how long have you been back?  Just wanted to put in a plug that your videos caused me to become a fan of Dominion. :)
« Last Edit: November 25, 2012, 04:27:39 pm by aaron0013 »
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Donald X.

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #31 on: November 25, 2012, 04:52:48 pm »
+9

In dominion, it is horrible (not only for you, but for the strategy depth of the game) for a key card to miss a reshuffle.
You could mean, that luck reduces strategy. If so that's just wrong, they are different axes. Or you could mean, you personally don't like the combination of strategy and luck. That's fine but not so typical. If you have a certain amount of strategy in a game then some people will not like it if you have a certain amount of luck; you don't want to feel like the thinking you're doing is pointless. I think obv. Dominion does not have that issue for most people.

When I showed the game to RGG, a card at the bottom didn't just miss out on a shuffle - you weren't guaranteed to ever draw it. If you had to draw n cards and there weren't n left, you shuffled before drawing (just once since there might still not be n left). That turn one Witch that ended up on the bottom was not guaranteed to show up turn 5+ either.

Valerie wanted the more conventional "draw then shuffle" (just to be more conventional, not for any other reason). And that sounded fine, except, would it reduce luck too much? As it turned out, it didn't.
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timchen

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #32 on: November 25, 2012, 06:10:07 pm »
0

In dominion, it is horrible (not only for you, but for the strategy depth of the game) for a key card to miss a reshuffle.
You could mean, that luck reduces strategy. If so that's just wrong, they are different axes. Or you could mean, you personally don't like the combination of strategy and luck. That's fine but not so typical. If you have a certain amount of strategy in a game then some people will not like it if you have a certain amount of luck; you don't want to feel like the thinking you're doing is pointless. I think obv. Dominion does not have that issue for most people.

Sure, I do not imply in general luck reduces strategy. I only mean that in specific cases they do. And for some of those cases we can actually eliminate those "bad" luck.

Say for example why do we limit ourselves to identical openings in a tournament? It is just because on certain boards it may be hard to compete if you get an unfavorable opening split. For a typical example, on a large number of boards there is no good play with a 4-3 opening after your opponent opened witch/mountebank.

Here the situation is similar to some extent. When a key card misses a reshuffle early it can be hard to recover. And in those situations there is not that much strategy to worry about after that happens. You pretty much just wait and see if opponent blunders or if miracle happens.

One analogy you made that I like is the modified chess with coin flip game. In a sense the game is of identical strategy depth with the original chess, but in reality it is not. Say if I were to play 1,000 games of this modified chess in my life time, since in those 1,000 games in average less than 1 game will end up longer than 10 moves, it only takes me the skill to not lose in 10 moves, to be as good as a chess master, in those 1000 games I'll ever play. However, it only takes a single game of the original chess for the master to teach me a lesson! In other words, in this modified game of chess the coin flip part is really introducing luck factors which reduces the strategy depth of the game and the game can benefit by reducing this luck factor. (At least, for those who want to compete at the game.)
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SirPeebles

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #33 on: November 25, 2012, 06:28:18 pm »
+2

... after your opponent opened witch/mountebank.

Ouch.  Damn you, zaps.
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Donald X.

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #34 on: November 25, 2012, 08:13:23 pm »
+2

Sure, I do not imply in general luck reduces strategy. I only mean that in specific cases they do.
The zero cases?

Perhaps by "strategy" you mean "the tendency of strategy to determine the winner." In that case the word you are looking for is actually "luck."

One analogy you made that I like is the modified chess with coin flip game. In a sense the game is of identical strategy depth with the original chess, but in reality it is not. Say if I were to play 1,000 games of this modified chess in my life time, since in those 1,000 games in average less than 1 game will end up longer than 10 moves, it only takes me the skill to not lose in 10 moves, to be as good as a chess master, in those 1000 games I'll ever play. However, it only takes a single game of the original chess for the master to teach me a lesson! In other words, in this modified game of chess the coin flip part is really introducing luck factors which reduces the strategy depth of the game and the game can benefit by reducing this luck factor. (At least, for those who want to compete at the game.)
Chess-with-dice (or in this case a coin flip) does not have less strategy than chess. It just has more luck.

They are not the same axis. That is in fact the whole point of the chess-with-dice example.
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SirPeebles

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #35 on: November 25, 2012, 08:50:47 pm »
0

I'm not familiar with this "chess with coin flip" example, but from context I gather that you play a game of chess and at the start of each of your turns you flip a coin:  If heads you win, if tails you continue playing.  Your opponent has no such coin flip.

In this case, your strategy really ought to be to just stay alive.  Playing offensive would be foolish.  I would argue that while this variant offers as many choices as chess, it lacks the strategic depth.
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timchen

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #36 on: November 25, 2012, 09:19:03 pm »
0

@SirPeebles: almost that, except your opponent has the coin flip as well. Still I would say practically a noob's strategy should still be trying to stay alive as long as possible, and he really does not need to think past that.

But I guess the point is starting to be missed here; okay we can say luck and strategy are two axes. The point is just that (in your terms) when the luck is independent of the strategy, in a competitive setting one should reduce that kind of luck as much as possible.
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Donald X.

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #37 on: November 25, 2012, 09:30:55 pm »
+1

But I guess the point is starting to be missed here; okay we can say luck and strategy are two axes. The point is just that (in your terms) when the luck is independent of the strategy, in a competitive setting one should reduce that kind of luck as much as possible.
I'm not sure how you're going to define "independent" there, but chess with dice (at the start of your turn, roll two dice, on boxcars you win) is not a game people in general would like as much as chess, even though in general people prefer luck to the lack of it.
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Titandrake

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #38 on: November 25, 2012, 09:34:11 pm »
+2

The reason I'm not a big fan of rules about limiting reshuffle luck is that I feel that the strategy in managing reshuffles is more than worth it.

In a lot of games, "strategy" usually includes setting up safety margins so that luck doesn't horribly destroy you. Dominion is no different. Really, a lot of Dominion strategy is about adding in redundancies and accounting for as many factors of luck as possible.

Consider the situation you describe about a Witch that misses the reshuffle. Yes, in this instance, it sucks. But what about a game where you have an engine, you've played most of your action cards, and you're just before a reshuffle. Do you keep going, or no? In the Dominion we play now, this is an interesting choice because you have to balance a better reward now + worse hands later with decent reward now + consistent hands later. And it's not at all clear which is better, and that rewards skill with the game. However, if you know that you can simply reshuffle, you can just keep going, and shuffle all your engine pieces in. This removes the risk in "risk and reward."

Still, in a tournament setting there do need to be some limits on luck. Identical hands is useful on some boards (but arguably detracts strategy space on others). But overall, the tendency for reshuffle-skipping is to create interesting decisions, and trying to stop reshuffle luck removes some of those decisions that help separate skill levels.
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rod-

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #39 on: November 25, 2012, 09:36:47 pm »
+1

A talk (about which games are chosen to be featured on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop) at BGG.con last week would tend to agree that strategy and luck are independent axes where games are concerned.  Everyone in the audience bought that supposition.

The producer's rationale for choosing the games he chose was that high strategy + high luck games give nubs the feeling that they could've won if only X+Y, while still giving experienced players the feeling that their actions weren't meaningless.  (These games are also better "television").  Coin flip chess goes too far along the luck axis for any experienced player.  Regular chess goes too far down on the luck axis for any nub.

I believe the argument of some (many? - certainly the OP of this thread) here is that in Dominion games between two experienced players, the luck rating is still unacceptably high (if only, perhaps, by a slight amount).
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Donald X.

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #40 on: November 25, 2012, 09:40:28 pm »
+1

One analogy you made that I like is the modified chess with coin flip game. In a sense the game is of identical strategy depth with the original chess, but in reality it is not.
Here is one you may find clearer.

Play a game of chess. At the end flip a coin. If you get heads and your opponent doesn't, you win regardless of who won the game of chess. Otherwise the winner of the game of chess wins.

It should be clear that this game has *exactly* the strategic depth of chess; all decisions are made exactly as in chess (well, not the one about whether or not to play it). Yet it has far more luck than chess. Adding luck here did not reduce strategy.
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SirPeebles

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #41 on: November 25, 2012, 09:58:23 pm »
+2

I still see a distinction between luck and randomness.  Randomness does tend to open the door to luck, but it can also expand strategy, as has been mentioned with shuffle luck.  Another example I've seen mentioned elsewhere has to do with making the most of variance. 

Suppose a card give you the following option.  Choose one:  Gain 2 Silvers; Gain 1 Copper and 1 Gold.

Either option has the same impact on money density and therefore on the average hand.  But in response to your environment, one may be better than another.  The Copper and Gold gives more variance.  You'll get more trashy hands, but you're more likely to hit spikes of $8 even with a money density below $8/5cards.  This variance may also be leveraged if you are using sifters like Warehouse or Embassy, or if you are the target of handsize decreasers like Militia or Margrave.

On the other hand, gaining the Silver made be more valuable if you're looking to consistently hit $4, perhaps in a Gardens or Silk Road rush.

Without variance, we would not have these strategic decisions.  So randomness is not independent of strategy.  However, randomness does not necessarily equate to luck either.
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ftl

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #42 on: November 25, 2012, 10:18:42 pm »
+1

Oh hey, I like that coin-flip-at-the-end-of-chess analogy. I think I get the two-axis thing now.

Thing is, I think Dominion games are typically short enough that you can reduce the effect of luck by just playing more of them. One dominion game between may well come down to shuffle luck, best-of-three will give the better player a chance to catch up despite some bad luck, and if you move it up to, say, best-of-seven, then it's pretty unlikely that shuffle luck will decide the match.

Even a best-of-nine Dominion game is going to take less time than a serious chess match (or a 'serious' competitive match of lots of different games and sports.) and is basically guaranteed to come down to player skill.
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Saucery

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #43 on: November 25, 2012, 10:24:04 pm »
+1

Randomness can shape the landscape of the game, but it shouldn't bury one player (and not others) in the process.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2012, 10:25:39 pm by Saucery »
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rod-

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #44 on: November 25, 2012, 10:37:07 pm »
+1

Thing is, I think Dominion games are typically short enough that you can reduce the effect of luck by just playing more of them. One dominion game between may well come down to shuffle luck, best-of-three will give the better player a chance to catch up despite some bad luck, and if you move it up to, say, best-of-seven, then it's pretty unlikely that shuffle luck will decide the match.

As long as the margin of difference between "better" and "worse" players is 10 levels, i agree.   As soon as it gets down to +/- 5, variance kicks in and you can't expect to get the same result.  When you go back to the council room data (i know, i know...how dare i remember any of these stats) you have to remember that "only" 5 levels translates to a pretty slim marginal edge.  It's (relatively) easy to judge a weighted coin in 7 flips if it's a 90%/10% flip, but more or less impossible when it's a 55/45, and no point trying when it's 52/48.

I don't know of any data showing how many games are dictated by 'shuffle luck', but given that a bot mirror match "should" end in a P1 victory barring any significant shuffle luck effects, it might be as high as 40%, although 20% may be more palatable to most in the crowd.
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blueblimp

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #45 on: November 25, 2012, 11:02:57 pm »
+1

I like one idea that was posted here about increasing the number of kingdom cards. Instead of 10, have 12 or more. That increases the number of viable strategies, leading to fewer mirrors, and it also increases the number of card interactions, which favours skill.

I would argue the opposite; the more card in the kingdom, the more likely that some combination of two or three is the clear best strategy. At least, it's not as clear cut as "more options means more viable strategies".
I agree that in principle it's possible for adding more kingdom cards to reduce strategy, but taken to an extreme, if this were always true then 9 kingdom cards would have more strategy than 10. I feel that for inexperienced players, 10 feels like a lot of kingdom cards, but for experienced players it really doesn't, since some of them are immediately dismissed as irrelevant. (Sometimes, 9 are dismissed and the best strategy becomes BM+X!)
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Donald X.

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #46 on: November 25, 2012, 11:09:15 pm »
+1

I still see a distinction between luck and randomness.
In fact the Richard Garfield essay that chess-with-dice comes from also argues that chess itself, straight chess, has luck.

Consider the case where I make my moves randomly. It is really unlikely I'll win - but the chance isn't 0%. Chess is very low on luck, but does not have zero luck. It doesn't have any randomness though - or, you could put it as, the randomness is confined to the players.
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Donald X.

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #47 on: November 25, 2012, 11:11:06 pm »
+1

Oh hey, I like that coin-flip-at-the-end-of-chess analogy. I think I get the two-axis thing now.

Thing is, I think Dominion games are typically short enough that you can reduce the effect of luck by just playing more of them.
I am pleased it worked for someone, and yes, just play best 4 out of 7 or whatever if you want skill to shine through.
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Kirian

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #48 on: November 26, 2012, 12:29:49 am »
+1

Even a best-of-nine Dominion game is going to take less time than a serious chess match (or a 'serious' competitive match of lots of different games and sports.) and is basically guaranteed to come down to player skill.

This is only true online, of course.  In person, depending on the board, a single game takes at least five minutes to set up (most of which is spent finding the kingdom cards) and ten minutes to play (for two players).  That's a minimum--with crazier cards that force lots of shuffling (Hunting Party, I'm looking at you), or with lots of attacks, that time can go up to as much as half an hour.  A best-of-nine set of 2P Dominion at a table could take as long as 4 hours or so, as long as many of the longest regulation chess matches, and much longer than most sport matches (cricket excepted, but then cricket's wacky in so many ways).
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GigaKnight

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Re: House rule for reducing luck factors?
« Reply #49 on: November 26, 2012, 01:57:38 am »
+1

This is really interesting, Donald.  Can I pick your brain a bit on the role of luck?

Valerie wanted the more conventional "draw then shuffle" (just to be more conventional, not for any other reason). And that sounded fine, except, would it reduce luck too much? As it turned out, it didn't.

From this, it sounds like you're content with the amount of luck in Dominion.  If all other things were equal, would you prefer a different amount of luck in Dominion?  More or less?

Related, for the shuffling mechanic, do you prefer the original (pre-Valerie) or the current (more conventional) approach?  Would you prefer a game where a card could potentially never be drawn (trapped on the bottom)?  Or is it a wash to you?
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