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[andwilk]

I joined Goko Dominion a few days ago and wanted to share a few observations on the community and feel of Goko Dominion and less on the functionality as that has been pretty well covered by a good number of people.

- There doesn't seem to be a large number of people using Goko yet.  I'm not sure if they are still in Beta or not or if not many people are willing to take the plunge yet.  It's a struggle to find games (even harder to find pro games it seems) and compared to Isotropic, very few game are being played at any given time.

- The community of Goko seems much more "amateur hour" than Isotropic does.  For the most part, my opponents seem to be a little newer to Dominion than the people on Isotropic.  After the completion of my last game, I was denied entry to play the same person again because he felt I was "cherry-picking noobs".  Truth is, I just wanted to play a game.

- On the above note, Goko does a poor job advertising an opponent's rating.  There a two main ratings, casual and pro, and in my opinion, the wrong one is listed in the sidebar with everyone in the lobby.  Does anyone have a good feel on how the Goko rating equates to someone's actual skill level?  So far, I've been able to shoot up to #8 on the Pro leaderboard and I've only played 10-12 games.  I feel like I haven't earned that spot after so few games and it leads me to believe that the skill rating on Goko is influenced much more by a good or bad streak of games.  This is just my gut feeling, I could be completely wrong on this one.

- Adventure mode is a money grab.  I've gotten to stage 14 or 15 of the first Base Dominion world and my opponent is starting with 2 Duchies and 3 Silvers.  Of course, I can use my zaps to even things out.  But when I run out of zaps, then I have to buy more or grind away at playing 15,000 games of Base Dominion until I get good enough shuffle luck to overcome my starting disadvantage.

- I'll end on a positive.  I do like the "prettiness" of playing the game itself.  It feels nice to play with the official Dominion cards.

[werothegreat]

Depending on the time of day, Council Room can fill up, forcing players into Counting House.  Typically when I do one of my videos, it only takes a couple seconds for someone to join.

That said, your point about it being filled with newbs is quite valid.  Just watch some of my videos.




Occasionally I lose to a newb.  Sue me.

[Kirian]

Occasionally I lose to a newb.  Sue me.

We all do!  There is, after all, some luck in the game...

[hsiale]

But when I run out of zaps, then I have to buy more or grind away at playing 15,000 games of Base Dominion until I get good enough shuffle luck to overcome my starting disadvantage.

You don't need RL money to get more zaps. You can use Dominion coins to pay for them and you get those coins for each game you play (IIRC 15 for a win against human player, 10 for a win against bot, 2 for a loss). 350 coins give you 53 zaps, this should set you for some time.

[Tables]

The number you get depends on player count but yeah, same idea. I went and spent 2,000 coins on 500 Zaps personally, have now bought every adventure part 3 and have just under 1K coins left... so getting coins isn't really much of an issue.

As for the pro leaderboard, check out my sig, and bear in mind I'm roughly a level 30-33 player on Iso. I did get there through legitimate play, but a single loss kicked me way down.

[Beyond Awesome]

I have to agree. Getting Zaps and unlocking adventures isn't that hard to accomplish. It's actually playing through them that is the challenge, and not because they are hard or anything, but because they are boring most of the time. At least, for me.

[Kuildeous]

- Adventure mode is a money grab. 

It's already been pointed out how to get through this without spending extra money.

But, in my opinion, I'm like "so what?" Adventure mode is solo play. If someone wants to spend real money to get better at solitaire, then who am I to get in the way? And if Goko wants to provide the means for that person to do so, then yay for Goko.

Now if this ever bleeds over into competitive play where someone could actually use zaps on a human opponent, then I would cry shenanigans. I definitely do not appreciate games where a person can get an advantage over other opponents by spending more money. But, Goko doesn't fall in that category (at least for Dominion; no idea on the other games). I think that might change with Settler World, since it looks like it follows one of those models. If that's the case, then I simply won't play Settler World. Dominion is still unaffected for me.

[hsiale]

On the other hand, it would be a nice feature if in a casual, unranked game one was allowed to give opponent zaps. I showed Dominion today (using paper cards) to my sister and her husband, they enjoyed the game, but to make it even and interesting I replaced two of my starting Coppers with Curses. And this worked really well, being able to do the same when playing online would make introducing beginners to the game really easier.

[Kuildeous]

On the other hand, it would be a nice feature if in a casual, unranked game one was allowed to give opponent zaps. I showed Dominion today (using paper cards) to my sister and her husband, they enjoyed the game, but to make it even and interesting I replaced two of my starting Coppers with Curses. And this worked really well, being able to do the same when playing online would make introducing beginners to the game really easier.

A handicap feature might be interesting. If the players agree, then one or more player could willingly give an advantage to a player, whether the experienced players take Curses or the newbie gets Silver. Of course, there's the danger that the newbie wouldn't properly learn how to play the game with such an advantage, but that's his problem. Some real games will teach him some valuable lessons.

But it could be handy for groups that want to play optimally while not utterly crushing the competition.

There are plenty of threads where people post that they don't like handicapping, but there are those who are okay with it, and this might be a neat feature.

[hsiale]

Of course, there's the danger that the newbie wouldn't properly learn how to play the game with such an advantage

That's why I think it's better to zap down the deck of the experienced player. Then the newbie plays the standard game just with a slower opponent. Then he can gradually earn the removal of the handicap by winning when it's applied. We played two games today. In the first I lost but just by one point, in the second the gap was significant. If we had time for a third game, I would start it only with one Curse as two would surely be too much of a handicap. And I guess some 5-10 games later I could remove the handicap altogether, winning more often than not as a result, but not so often that the games become boring.

[Donald X.]

On the other hand, it would be a nice feature if in a casual, unranked game one was allowed to give opponent zaps. I showed Dominion today (using paper cards) to my sister and her husband, they enjoyed the game, but to make it even and interesting I replaced two of my starting Coppers with Curses. And this worked really well, being able to do the same when playing online would make introducing beginners to the game really easier.

You can just pass for your first N turns.