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Author Topic: Which is the card you hate the most?  (Read 53806 times)

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Donald X.

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #50 on: June 19, 2011, 06:53:43 pm »
+4

Once in a while someone will mention to me, "you know, I don't like Dominion," and man I am fine with that. I am not too insecure on that front. It didn't win Austrian game of the year, that's how I put it. Anyway here you all are probably relatively fond of it, but feel free to hate whatever cards. I don't mind. There are certainly some love/hate cards.

Here then is what I think of these hated Dominion cards.

Possession: Possession has two possible problems in my book. First it has that gigantic FAQ. The FAQ might have killed it if there had been more time to work on the set. It's crazy long, even if mostly it just says, "yes really, they take a turn but you make the decisions." Second it's a love/hate card in a small set. You could argue that love/hate cards should be in large sets, where the hate matters less, because, you know, it's a smaller percentage of your cards. Whereas I don't think that diminishes love so much. Somehow. Anyway it was the first small set and I did not think about such things. Other than those things I like the card. I find it to be on the weak side; it kind of has a "fun tax" - cards that give you extra turns have to be weak in general so that players don't bore you too much with them. Not that Possession is boring. Anyway it was gonna be a love/hate card, no question, but there are people who love it and they couldn't play it if it didn't exist, and man it's easy enough to fight against. Don't build a deck that buys two Provinces a turn vs. Possession; that's a good place to start.

Saboteur: This has four strikes against it. First it's a way to trash people's precious cards. It is totally worth making some of those cards, for the people that adore them, but they need to be especially fun for those people, which Saboteur is not. Second it's an attack with no resource production. You know, it just attacks. That sounded fine to me, but it turns out some people don't like that. This isn't a love/hate thing though; no-one loves it. It's not important to the game to have such cards and I already did a couple, so I wouldn't be expecting too many more. Third it's weak. In fact it's the weakest card in the game, relative to its cost. Something had to be and well that something is Saboteur. Fourth it has lots of tiny text. That's something I like to reserve for really adored cards. Overall Saboteur is the Dominion card least justified in existing.

Smugglers: I like Smugglers a lot. Flavorwise it should probably be "non-vp card" rather than "card costing up to $6," but of course functionally it's significant that it isn't necessarily dead late in the game. I think Smugglers went over well in general and it looks out of place on this list to me. Sure your opponent might Throne Smugglers after you buy Gold or Duchy. Man, they're your opponent, they've gotta do something to bother you.

Treasure Map: In playtesting the struggle was making sure this was good enough to sometimes go for. Once it made 3 Golds and they didn't go on top. Some people do single this out as a high-variance card they don't like. I think the hate is similar to Pirate Ship's; in some groups everybody buys it, thus whoever bought it and got luckiest wins, and then the card looks broken when really it requires good card interactions to be exciting. King's Court has higher variance and gets fewer complaints, though some people do hate it (especially, players who are really focused on skill winning out); I think there it's just, playing something three times is something a lot of people can appreciate, and the card isn't as blatant about its variance. And then Platinum, I bet a lot of people don't even think of Platinum as high-variance. Certainly no-one complains about it. So anyway yeah, Treasure Map, not the swingiest card, but very in your face about its swinginess.

Familiar: Some people just don't like the Potion concept. I knew this, thought the set was still worth doing, but put it last. Then it jumped up to 3rd after they decided they wanted small sets. The cards in Alchemy have to be good enough when they're the only Alchemy card out, and if they are then you may draw your Potion without quite enough money. The general solution is not to do this kind of thing in Dominion expansions, but in spin-offs instead, where you can ensure that there's always plenty of whatever, and then balance the cards for that situation.

Swindler: I like Swindler a lot, now you know. It's everything I want out of a trashing attack. Let's compare it to Saboteur. Swindler trashes people's precious cards. It can't usually get rid of a Province though (yes it can on the last turn, and there's Peddler sometimes, or combos). And sometimes other cards are safe from it, e.g. Gold with no other $6. It does produce resources, a generous +$2. It's not weak. And it doesn't have lots of tiny text! It's a fine length. Also it adds a decision that's sometimes interesting, and puts cards in your deck that you didn't want but which might be useful anyway. It does add luck, and especially hurts when they hit your $5 early, say while hitting someone else's Estate, but it also adds skill. You see people blow it on that decision so often; the funniest case is where they hit Silver and cannot bear to give you a Swindler for it.

Black Market: For the prototype I don't have separate different-backed randomizer cards - I use one card from each pile for the randomizer, add it to the pile to play, then return one to the randomizer pile afterwards. You can do this with real cards too, and if you do, then you don't actually ever need to build a Black Market deck. Those of you who just don't like the setup, there you go. I have played with Black Market a lot, but have never actually endured the setup it proposes. Those of you who don't like that only one person ends up with a particular card, well that was the premise, some people like that a lot, and hey it's a promo.

Tournament: Aside from being so complex that it has a 2x2 payoff grid and then requires you to read five other cards to know the whole story, I think of Tournament as a slam dunk, the kind of card every set is desperate to have. I did not expect any complaints about the rich-get-richer aspect of it; there is so much rich-get-richer in Dominion.

Goons: I am pleased with this card. It was a late addition with several restrictions - it had to be an attack that was suitable for Prosperity and didn't give out Curses; it had to give out VP tokens; it had to be justifiable with that art (leftover from Pawn). The attack part feels tacked on, but the other part is cool. It's nice that while the VP tokens part is cumulative, the attack part isn't. It's a good $6 but not an automatic purchase. Some people never get tired of raking in the VP tokens, and there are cute combos like Watchtower.

Ambassador: The attacks in Dominion fall into four categories, and it's easy for the attack part of an attack to feel like nothing new, leaving the resource part to try to make the card unique. So I am very pleased with Ambassador, which feels very different from other attacks in its family. It's cool that people sometimes buy Curses to give them away with it, and it's fun when you end up giving someone a random action you don't want anymore. I can see experienced players getting sick of it, since it's powerful, but I think at first glance it doesn't look scary; there's some play value in gradually learning what kind of monster you're dealing with.

For me, the worst cards to see in a set of 10 are Spy variants. The reason is, they mess up testing. I'm testing a new card, Sheep. I buy it. You hit it with Spy and make me discard it. Next pass through my deck, same thing. Well I am not learning anything about Sheep this game.

I like seeing high variance cards on the table - it takes the pressure off. I can just relax and play. It wasn't my fault I lost, officer, the King's Court did it. I like fighting against attacks. Some of the most hated cards, like Possession and Saboteur, I usually don't even buy, because I'm trying to win. I don't mind Chapel in games where there's no good alternative; we all buy Chapel, it's a fast game, and there are still other decisions. I don't have trouble counting for Philosopher's Stone, although if I had it to do again I would put it (back) into Prosperity (with Bank, formerly from Alchemy, in Alchemy), to reduce the overall sense of the set being slow.

Well it's no surprise that I like the cards, I mean anything I hated did not have much of a chance of making it into a set.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2011, 06:55:38 pm by Donald X. »
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Randal FTW

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #51 on: June 19, 2011, 10:16:03 pm »
0

Nice post, Donald. Pretty cool that youre so involved with the community.
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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #52 on: June 19, 2011, 11:07:54 pm »
+1

Thanks for this write up! I'm surprised by a couple things:

Possession is weak, really? *checks Councilroom* Well, who knows what this really means, but this graph seems to say it's better than all the 7s except KC, though it does cost 'more'. I don't really put too much stock in that kind of Councilroom data, but it has always felt strong to me, though insanely swingy. My personal win rate with it is just barely above 1, and I pretty much usually go for it when it's there, so it can't be *that* bad...

But anyway, my real issue with the card is the degree to which it promotes long, unfun games. It becomes correct to just fill your deck with green cards, attacks they don't want to play, and Possessions, while trying to do most of your buying with their deck... but of course they're doing the same thing, so the game just drags on with neither player doing much BUT STILL twice as long as usual between turns. And it doesn't make up for this by adding a lot fascinating strategy or skill-testing play. Sure, there are some neat tricks (ambassador/masquerade, forcing reshuffles at awful times) and some things it's fun to wrap your head around the first few times you play with it, but for me it's really not worth it, and is thus the only Dominion card I ever actively avoid playing with.

The other big surprise for me is your unreserved love for Tournament. I've written at least two long essays about why I think it is the least healthy (NOTE: This does not mean least fun) card printed to date. By 'unhealthy' I mean a few things:

1. Insanely high variance
2. Insanely powerful
3. Insanely snowbally 

1: While I actually enjoy the opening 4-7 turns of a tournament game quite a bit, if both players find the right strategy for getting a province ASAP, it's pretty much totally random who makes theirs go first.

2: I think it is the single card that I will buy in the greatest % of spreads it shows up it. There are other cards like Chapel or Minion that are *usually* must-buys, but the great thing about Dominion is that even such well-known powerhouses are often not the right way to go due to the other cards in the spread. Maybe I'm wrong and a bad player, but I'm pretty sure these situations are *far* rarer with Tournament.

3: Once you make one go, you basically win. When I first played with it, I thought that Followers was so egregiously powerful that this was a literally true statement in all but the silliest edge cases. I no longer believe this; I've lost a few games where I got Followers and won a few where they did, and you do have to be a little careful about those estates. But still. My Win Rate With Followers is 1.52. Trusty Steed is next at 1.49. Those are stupid numbers. Those numbers should not happen. Even Diadem, Princess, and Bag of Gold give me hugely better numbers than Mountebank.

The subtle thing about Tournament that makes it even worse is the two extra ways that it snowballs: first, the Province-revealing mechanic, which looks like it's there to help slow down the guy who bought a lot of Tournaments and is getting ahead, actually has the opposite effect of increasing the snowball. When you make Tournament go off, it's easier to get more provinces, which means it's easier to make Tournament go off, and also easier to shut down the other guy's Tournaments, which makes it even harder for them to get Provinces, which makes it even harder for them to make theirs go off and catch up...

Second, the Duchies. My god. You're already in this unbeatable position because of followers, now they can't even catch up by buying Duchies while you flounder around with your estate-filled deck, because you already took them all, for free.

Bleah, that was a lot of words. Like I said, playing with tournament is that unfun, at least not at the beginning of the game, but I've never felt more hopeless in a game of Dominion than after my opponent hit two Tournaments before I hit one, and the game doesn't necessarily end soon... so, I'm curious to know why you think this card is such a hit, or whether you've never had my experiences with it, or if you think I'm wrong about it's power level, or what.

Oh, and lastly -- how is Torturer not on this list? The card is fine if there are no +2 actions around, but as soon as there are I think it's the most degenerate, stifling, and unfun card around.
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guided

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #53 on: June 20, 2011, 12:10:54 am »
0

I absolutely love Goons and Ambassador, and Tournament might be my favorite card in the game :D I love the novel gameplay dynamics introduced by Tournament. Even if I thought it was a true must-buy (and I don't), I wouldn't mind because it still makes for terribly interesting and delightful games.
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chwhite

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #54 on: June 20, 2011, 10:26:19 am »
0

Thanks for this write up! I'm surprised by a couple things:

Possession is weak, really? *checks Councilroom* Well, who knows what this really means, but this graph seems to say it's better than all the 7s except KC, though it does cost 'more'. I don't really put too much stock in that kind of Councilroom data, but it has always felt strong to me, though insanely swingy. My personal win rate with it is just barely above 1, and I pretty much usually go for it when it's there, so it can't be *that* bad...

...

2: I think it is the single card that I will buy in the greatest % of spreads it shows up it. There are other cards like Chapel or Minion that are *usually* must-buys, but the great thing about Dominion is that even such well-known powerhouses are often not the right way to go due to the other cards in the spread. Maybe I'm wrong and a bad player, but I'm pretty sure these situations are *far* rarer with Tournament.

...

Oh, and lastly -- how is Torturer not on this list? The card is fine if there are no +2 actions around, but as soon as there are I think it's the most degenerate, stifling, and unfun card around.

I, for one, actually agree with Donald that Possession is kind of a weak card.  I have a 0.92 win rate with Possession (third lowest among all cards), and a 1.61 win rate without (third-highest among all cards).  So for me at least, it's a lot easier to defend against it than to go for it myself.  Granted this is really atypical.

...

I used to believe that Tournament was pretty much always a must-buy, like you.  Then (as I've mentioned on BGG), I played this game: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110427-123048-fe305c80.html

In which I get all five Prizes, and am still absolutely *obliterated* by a Goons engine.  Now I know better.  Goons is IMO a much better example of an overpowered card that is really super-dominant in most setups (it's even worth buying one or two when there aren't +Actions around).  I think it's easily the third-strongest card in the game behind Chapel and KC.  But I actually still like Goons, because there's a lot of subtlety in how to set up the engine, and the attack is frankly not nearly as devastating as the VPs, meaning the first person to hit doesn't necessarily snowball to victory.

...

Unlike Torturer.  Agree 100% about how that's the most unfun card there is.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2011, 12:34:53 pm by chwhite »
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Donald X.

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #55 on: June 20, 2011, 02:43:04 pm »
0

Possession is weak, really?
...
The other big surprise for me is your unreserved love for Tournament.
Well there are arguments as to why Possession might not be so incredible given its cost, but I'm not really here to discuss strategy. I'm not scared of Possession, and I haven't been in any messed-up games with it, except for ones involving other cards that no longer exist.
.
I thought Tournament would be such a hit because it was such a hit! That was my line of reasoning there. There was no-one saying, what is this nonsense. There were arguments about the specifics and the prizes and well that's all covered in the Secret History.
.
I checked the last 10 logged playtest games with Tournament. There were two where no-one bought it, and four where everyone bought it. In the four games with a mix, two games had someone with Tournament and a prize win; one had someone with Tournament but no prizes win; and one had someone without Tournament win (over someone with a prize and someone without one, and this was not a Colony game). The cards get way more testing by the public than by the playtesters, and the playtesters aren't necessarily the best players ever, but still, you can obv. have a group of decent players that do not have a problem with Tournament.

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CMiner

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #56 on: June 20, 2011, 04:54:23 pm »
0

I hate Possession the most, for 2 reasons:
  • It stacks: KC + Possession = 4 turns in a row.  Or just + actions and multiple Possessions.  And that just feels cheap, like it circumvents the basic structure of Dominion.
  • God help you if you have an island or masquerade floating around.  These I feel should obey the same rule as trashing opponent's cards while possessing them.

Now granted, these are edge cases.  I rarely, rarely have games where these things happen.  But in my opinion, Possession being able to stack is just too powerful, even if it rarely comes up.


As far as tournament goes, I don't think its all that bad.  For one, the dynamics shift completely in 3+ player games.  In 2 player games, you usually only lose to the "whoever reveals first" thing if you've been investing in too many tournaments.  Your own fault if you lose that investment, because its a gamble.  Invest in money/provinces/other kingdom cards as the priority, and then later pick up a tournament.  I've found myself in very few games where tournament prizes were the only viable strategy.

The most annoying card, for me, is Minion.  I don't think its unbalanced, I just hate it because from my perspective whenever I get hit with it I'm always going from a good 5 card hand to a terrible 4 card hand, never the reverse.  But likely just my perception.
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RepGenie

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #57 on: June 20, 2011, 07:31:48 pm »
0

I vote for Loan. Only because every time I play it, the exact opposite thing that I want to draw comes up.
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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #58 on: June 21, 2011, 02:30:03 am »
0

Thanks for your reply Donald. As I said in my post, I don't find Tournament unfun -- the Province race minigame is sometimes a really refreshingly new way to look at a spread. It also sounds like many of the problems I see with it are lessened a lot in 3p, which I've never played with it.

I'm still surprised that the feeling of hopelessness that winning that minigame can inspire in the opponent wasn't an issue during playtesting. Maybe I'm really doing it wrong, and I should be spending less time feeling hopeless and more time thinking about how to beat Tournament :)
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KMueller

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #59 on: June 21, 2011, 07:07:52 am »
0



The card I hate above all else is Torturer.  It's a powerful card that leads to really unfun games if your opponent gets his/her chain off first, and I'm actually very bad at constructing Torturer chains, so that happens a lot.

I was surprised to not see Torturer on the list. The card is so well named, when my opponents get it going, it is absolutely painful to sit and watch.
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DsnowMan

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #60 on: June 21, 2011, 10:34:49 am »
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I don't like Minion. I feel compelled to build a Minion deck every time it's on the table. I know ways to win without it, but somehow I can't resist.
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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #61 on: June 21, 2011, 11:21:58 am »
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I think my least favorite card is Hamlet. To me it's a worker's village + 10 seconds of AP, and since it's priced at 2, those 10 seconds really tend to add up. Online, even if you know exactly what you want to do, it still takes 5 or 6 seconds to make the requisite clicks.

I hated Minion back when I was playing a lot of BSW, because it's slow on that site and because it combos best with itself, which requires little thinking on the part of strategy-building. But Horse Traders has made Minion much better to defend against. Those are the only cards that I always groan when I see.

I would like Ambassador much better if it cost 4. Ambassador/Ambassador openings are boring but too strong to ignore.

Places where I disagree with others:
I love Tournament, even when it's destroying me (which it does more often than not). I also think that "I need to win a tournament quickly" is not the same thing as "I need to open Tournament," and figuring out how to answer question 1 is really crucial.

Somehow in thousands of games, only one or two of mine have been destroyed by the Torturer chains that everyone seems to hate. I think there is a general problem whereby people don't take curses enough, which then compounds the attack value of the Torturer chain as it takes longer for the curses to run out.
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guided

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #62 on: June 21, 2011, 12:02:44 pm »
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FWIW, costing Ambassador at $4 doesn't change that much, since Ambassador/Silver/Ambassador is already a stronger opening.
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Rjax36

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #63 on: June 21, 2011, 12:10:32 pm »
0

1. Familiar.  This card can be reworded to read: After Turn 2, roll 1d6.  If you roll 2 or lower, you lose, unless your opponent also rolled 2 or lower.

Lol this is exactly what I was going to say.  I never accept a set with familiar unless there's ambassador (my favorite card in the game) to teach it a lesson ;)

I once played a 4-player game (irl) in which mountebank, torturer, ghost ship, and fishing village were all in the set.  That was the most painful guessing-game ever:

"Torturer? Ok i'll discard these curses. Oh, you mountebank me, dang.  Torturer again, huh? Well I'll take a curse this time, I knew better now. Oh ghost ship, if i put good cards on top ill get tortured and if i get rid of my curses ill get mountebanked..." And you had to live through 3 turns of this before you got to go again...

2 of the people involved never wanted to play again.  The funny thing is...they blamed the fishing villages! It's funny how often new players see village effect as the culprits...
« Last Edit: June 21, 2011, 12:16:59 pm by Rjax36 »
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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #64 on: June 21, 2011, 01:53:55 pm »
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Well actually, there weren't totally wrong. Ghost Ship and Torturer are not really annoying (a little, but they're attacks) when there's no +2 Actions card. And Fishing VIllage is the craziest of those, so it allows to set up Torturer/Ghost Ship chains very easily. At least when the only +2 Actions card on the table is Festival or Nobles, you have to work for it.


I do love me some Fishing Village, but let's face it, it's because it's very, very powerful (much more than Torturer and Ghost Ship relatively to it's cost.
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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #65 on: June 21, 2011, 02:06:16 pm »
0

Quote
Lol this is exactly what I was going to say.  I never accept a set with familiar unless there's ambassador (my favorite card in the game) to teach it a lesson

Start rewriting those text books. I've found that if you start silver/potion, then buy familiar and ambassador second time through, you are very competitive. http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201106/12/game-20110612-064914-7854a06c.html
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guided

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #66 on: June 21, 2011, 02:12:49 pm »
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If there are this many votes for Saboteur, can we repost the Saboteur article on a weekly basis until people start realizing that it's not strong and stop buying it so much that it ruins their groups' games? :P

My group I think had one or two games where several people bought it and failed to come anywhere close to winning, and after that maybe the guy who delighted more in screwing with other players than actually winning would buy it from time to time. I don't think we're incomparable Dominion geniuses or anything but we simply never had this (apparently common?) problem where every single player loaded up on Saboteurs and scorched the earth with them while not actually accomplishing anything.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2011, 02:16:02 pm by guided »
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Amaranth

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #67 on: June 21, 2011, 02:32:23 pm »
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If there are this many votes for Saboteur, can we repost the Saboteur article on a weekly basis until people start realizing that it's not strong and stop buying it so much that it ruins their groups' games? :P
Well, the OP asks which card you find most annoying when it works for your opponent. Since I expect Saboteur not to be of much value except in a highly tuned deck that draws itself every turn, when someone opened with Saboteur and absolutely wrecked me, killing all of my good cards before I drew them, that kind of annoyed me.
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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #68 on: June 21, 2011, 08:25:16 pm »
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1) King's Court. I really hate the variance of this card. Often times both players will buy this early with their first 7 before their deck is tuned, and the result of drawing the KC with your best action on the next reshuffle can be the difference between winning and losing right there.

2) Familiar. Cements first player advantage and the correct "answer" to an opponent going familiar on most boards is to try and beat him to it, which turns the game into a coinflip. You really can't win when the curses split 7-3 which happens way more than it should with a familiar race.

3) Tournament. Turns the game into a one-dimensional race for provinces, and puts way too much emphasis on mid-game shuffle luck.


I'm really surprised at how much people are hating on Possession. I think it is a lot more narrow than people are crediting it, not very good in most decks. I only buy it in about 10% of my games, and the games where I buy it or have it played against me are some of the most interesting games I can remember. In a province game, I'm never going potion just for possession unless there is ambassador on the board or masquerade in my opponent's deck. The game is too fast and every possession you buy is a province you are forgoing if the potion had been a silver instead, not to mention all of the times you draw your potion without $6 and have a dead card. The presence of the card in somebody's deck adds a lot of interesting complexity, and the most common complaint raised with Posession thus far should actually be directed at King's Court.
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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #69 on: June 21, 2011, 09:47:35 pm »
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Smugglers - no doubt, I hate this card the most.  I hate buying it because I'm a glass half empty guy - "my opponent will always buy something lousy when I have this card in my hand."  Then I'm a glass half empty guy x 2, because "I don't want to buy this card because my opponent will smuggle it"

Last game this card came up - Grand Market was in play and my opponent smuggled 3 of them in one game!

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guided

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #70 on: June 21, 2011, 11:25:03 pm »
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"One-dimensional" is the exact opposite of the way I'd describe Tournament games!
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J.Co.

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #71 on: June 21, 2011, 11:48:11 pm »
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The thing about Possession, as with every card, is everyone has the chance to buy them. So yes, while a card like Saboteur can make one person trash a province and another a silver (the randomness factor), there's equal opportunity for everyone to do the same. That's why I don't particularly like the Black Market card. It adds cards that aren't available to anyone else, since there's only one of each.

All that aside, I just dislike the Pirate Ship.
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play2draw

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #72 on: June 23, 2011, 04:38:09 pm »
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Black Market: ... Those of you who don't like that only one person ends up with a particular card, well that was the premise, some people like that a lot, and hey it's a promo.

Indeed. Though I said I don't like this card too much, I'm using a weak/relative definition. I'm not the sort of person to ban cards from play, and I don't really hate any of the cards... and probably I'm letting my Isotropic competitive attitude get in the way of fun in this case. I don't own this card yet, but when I get in in "real life" I'll probably enjoy it more.
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Superdad

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #73 on: June 23, 2011, 05:16:50 pm »
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I actually really dislike sea-hag. On non-trashing boards, it's basically a race to see who can mess over their opponents deck the fastest. Then, while doing so, you are actually getting messed up yourself. And once the curses are gone, you both have insanely weak decks since your sea-hags are a blank now as well.

It's then up to the shuffle to see who can dig themselves out of the hole the fastest. You opponent just happened to draw $3 several turns in a row while you sat at $2 forever? Good game.


I tend to dislike cards which force a certain play-style (i.e. buy me or lose), AND when that specific playstyle leads to games heavily dominated by randomness. Sea Hag is such a card, and I hate it for that reason and that reason alone (this doesn't mean I don't buy it though! I just don't like being forced to buy it).
« Last Edit: June 23, 2011, 05:19:48 pm by Superdad »
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Superdad

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Re: Which is the card you hate the most?
« Reply #74 on: June 23, 2011, 05:26:54 pm »
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I'll make a new post, since this is a separate thought...

On the contrary, I'm actually not opposed to high-variance cards. I actually think that randomness is CRITICAL in a strategy game, because it leads to a larger player-base. If player A can beat Player B, even though player B is much stronger, then player A will not give up on the game.

Look at Chess for an example. No variance (aside from who is white/black) and perfect information. Amazing strategy game? Yes. Popular? Kinda, but not really... especially for the casual player.

I had a MUCH easier time getting my wife to play Dominion versus other less-variance games. In Dominion, she can just beat me because of stronger draws. There's powerful $5's and I'm constantly stuck on $4 while she isn't? She grabs 7 labs and rolls me. She then wants to play again (while she does her victory dance). This is good for the game.

Cards like Treasure Map are perfect for her. They may not work often, but when they connect, they have a POWERFUL effect that is remembered. She may have only a 25% win record when she buys it, but she REMEMBERS those games, and she has a ton of fun in that victory. Competitive players may hate high-variance cards, but they are actually very very good for growing a large casual player-base.

Now... if a treasure-map based card was balanced so poorly that it was a must-buy high variance card... THEN I'd have a problem with it.
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