My 2 cents. Pro mode is pretty much fine as is, except that goko (or making fun, I guess?) really needs to implement automatch and a proper lobby system. There shouldn't be any kind of ban list or anything. In my mind "pro" means all-cards, full-random, no knowledge of the kingdom before hand. Obviously people having different set ownerships messes with this somewhat, but I don't really see any practical way to fix that. I don't think it's fair to exclude people who don't have all the cards from hosting pro (especially, what if they have all the sets, but not all the promos. Would that be enough?). Anyway, I don't see a practical solution to that issue. I do think that it makes sense that "pro" mode should be aimed at the interests of the competitive players though.
I think the real problem, as mentioned in the OP is that playing casual "it'd be hard to find an opponent because all the better players seem to just play pro." I think if casual were fixed up a little bit then perhaps people would be more willing to play it too. I probably would still only host pro-mode matches, but I'd be willing to join casual games if it were possible to see what criteria someone used when picking the game (including what sets were drawn from). This would require goko implementing a server-side functioning kingdom generator. LF points out that someone could just keep generating kingdoms until they got, say KC/Goons/Masq, which I guess is an issue, but I think if you were only allowed to put in your parameters and then you didn't see the kingdom until you hit "create game," then generating kingdoms until you got the one you want would be a sufficiently large hassle that it wouldn't be that much of a problem. Some dick would probably still do it, but, oh well, this is casual mode and I don't think it would happen very often.
To clarify, I meant that you would see the set of ten and the parameters they used to pick it (including the possibility to pick all 10. This is a useful feature and I don't think it should go away). Maybe it pops up that this set contains tournament and you don't join the game. If it comes up with a huge wall of text on all the requirements they used, you don't have to read it all. You can just decide that you'd rather not play that game (or play it anyway).
I was never really on Isotropic but a Veto mode sounds good
I was never really on Isotropic but a Veto mode sounds good
Where would you have it, though? In Unrated and Casual modes, the set of 10 is created before people join your game, and I for sure don't see that changing. So it would have to be an option for Pro mode only.
Again, I have no horse in the Pro-mode race, but I am against iso-style veto mode in general. It just serves to create a pre-game metagame where you try to maximize your advantage by tailoring the board. Ugh.
How can Making Fun better implement set selection on Dominion Online? What does the casual/pro mode need?
To clarify, I meant that you would see the set of ten and the parameters they used to pick it (including the possibility to pick all 10. This is a useful feature and I don't think it should go away). Maybe it pops up that this set contains tournament and you don't join the game. If it comes up with a huge wall of text on all the requirements they used, you don't have to read it all. You can just decide that you'd rather not play that game (or play it anyway).If they pick the cards sufficiently randomly - e.g. 5 Seaside 5 Prosperity - then why show the ten cards?
One suggestion is:Yes, somehow I missed this. Yes an important part of the idea behind this is, do not just avoid buying Cornucopia to avoid seeing Tournament in games; you can buy a product and choose not to play with the card you don't like.
The host of a pro game chooses whether the Kingdom will be generated according to "black list mode" (and this is a visible characteristic of the game). If so, each player's list of (up to) three cards won't be included in the Kingdom (when the game starts it lists which cards each player vetoed).
If a pro game is not generated in "black list mode", then only cards that are on every player's "black list" list will be vetoed. A tournament's rules might require not using black list mode, for example.
Additionally, no cards from the base set can be black listed. For the other cards, there is a worry that people will not purchase, say, Cornucopia if they will be forced to play Tournament in "pro" games. With the base set that concern doesn't apply.
I play mostly Unrated games using sets I create with my own randomizer.I am curious why you play unrated games. I don't know what other differences there are besides not being rated.
If Making Fun wants to create a better set generator with parameters, I think they should consider using a text-based input field like the extension uses. It's arguably less user-friendly than Dominion Online's current Kingdom creator, but way, way more convenient. Right now the native Kingdom creator (the "My Cards" section) is a bit of a mess. The cards are divided up into not just expansions, but sub-expansions. Some of these are sorted alphabetically and some by card cost. It takes forever to, say, recreate one of Hinterlands's suggested sets of 10 using that interface. Whereas with the extension, I can just type in a comma-separated list of ten cards and bam, it's made. Or if I want to practice with a specific card, I can just type "Develop, All" and go. So it would be nice if the text-based input were at least an option. At minimum, they should revamp the "My Cards" section to be more user friendly and give various sort and search options (e.g. All Cards, By Expansion, By Sub-Expansion, By Cost, etc.).I think the "recommended sets" should just be there as an option; a lot of people like to play them IRL and I bet that carries over.
My much greater concern is with the eventual native automatch implementation. Over half the games on Dominion Online seem to be Pro games. About half of the Casual games are Base-only. I almost never see an Unrated game that I'm not hosting. Right now this isn't a problem for me. I have no trouble finding players for my games because even if they'd prefer to play a Pro or Casual games, many are willing to play an Unrated game rather than sit around in the lobby. I have no idea how the native automatch will work once it's finally implemented, but if it works like the extension, players cannot say, "Well, I'd like to play this type of game, but I'm willing to play these others." You just choose a type of game and get matched. I will bet cash money that over 99% of automatched games are Pro games. So I'm concerned that native automatch will be the death knell of unrated and perhaps even casual games.Well do we have any data from other games? I feel like, if I'm a newcomer and I see that there are "pro" and "casual" options, I will choose "casual" to start with so I'm not annoying anyone. "Pro" sounds like the players are better, even though that isn't actually part of it.
I am curious why you play unrated games. I don't know what other differences there are besides not being rated.
If Making Fun wants to create a better set generator with parameters, I think they should consider using a text-based input field like the extension uses. It's arguably less user-friendly than Dominion Online's current Kingdom creator, but way, way more convenient. Right now the native Kingdom creator (the "My Cards" section) is a bit of a mess. The cards are divided up into not just expansions, but sub-expansions. Some of these are sorted alphabetically and some by card cost. It takes forever to, say, recreate one of Hinterlands's suggested sets of 10 using that interface. Whereas with the extension, I can just type in a comma-separated list of ten cards and bam, it's made. Or if I want to practice with a specific card, I can just type "Develop, All" and go. So it would be nice if the text-based input were at least an option. At minimum, they should revamp the "My Cards" section to be more user friendly and give various sort and search options (e.g. All Cards, By Expansion, By Sub-Expansion, By Cost, etc.).I think the "recommended sets" should just be there as an option; a lot of people like to play them IRL and I bet that carries over.
I am sympathetic to wanting something text-based. I (someone who has barely looked at this system) would like to be able to type a few letters and have it find the card. Maybe there are ten slots and for each one you can leave it random, or pick a set, or type your few letters (or endlessly look through a list). Or pick a special category (village, attack).
I think what Wei-Hwa had going on was way too complex.
I don't know if there are advantages to "bias towards Seaside" vs. "include 3 cards from Seaside."
My much greater concern is with the eventual native automatch implementation. Over half the games on Dominion Online seem to be Pro games. About half of the Casual games are Base-only. I almost never see an Unrated game that I'm not hosting. Right now this isn't a problem for me. I have no trouble finding players for my games because even if they'd prefer to play a Pro or Casual games, many are willing to play an Unrated game rather than sit around in the lobby. I have no idea how the native automatch will work once it's finally implemented, but if it works like the extension, players cannot say, "Well, I'd like to play this type of game, but I'm willing to play these others." You just choose a type of game and get matched. I will bet cash money that over 99% of automatched games are Pro games. So I'm concerned that native automatch will be the death knell of unrated and perhaps even casual games.Well do we have any data from other games? I feel like, if I'm a newcomer and I see that there are "pro" and "casual" options, I will choose "casual" to start with so I'm not annoying anyone. "Pro" sounds like the players are better, even though that isn't actually part of it.
Since I play primarily for fun, I also just prefer not having my games ranked. I tend to get upset when I lose a ranked game (even a casual one), but not when I lose an unranked game. So overall my enjoyment is increased by playing unranked games. But I could get over that. It's mostly the "could be pulled away at any moment" thing.I think obv. it should be possible to have a leaving player replaced with a bot, so you can have whatever fun was left to have. But the leaving player would have to be punished for that ranking-wise because maybe you are just quitting a game you've lost and so yes, unrated, I see.
To be fair, the "My Cards" board builder does already have a "type a few letters to narrow your search" function, but it's still way slower and requires switching between mouse and keyboard 10 times (11 with Young Witch).In that case it should let you switch slots with a keypress - "space" to keep your choice and go to the next one.
If I had my druthers, there would be a randomizer option for "pick up to 2 sets (with larger sets being more likely), then get half the cards from each set", sprinkling in promos proportionally. In fact I have my own little HTML page that does exactly this, spitting out a nice string of Kingdom cards that I can copy and paste into the extension's Kingdom Generator. So far I've had good luck with generating fun boards using this technique, which is hardly surprising since I believe it's how most of the IRL testing was done.Yes, mostly I played two expansions with 5 cards from each, although I also played the large expansions by themselves, especially Dark Ages. The cards aren't trying to be better for that format, but you do see set themes reinforced that way. Some cards do end up better, due to being combos with the set themes.
Sure. I would like to not be playing exclusively against noobs, though. I enjoy playing against a variety of skill levels. I don't feel the need to test my mettle against the best of the best, but I do like a challenge now and then.It's hard to evaluate a timeout option just yet; you have to know, how popular is the game, how specific can you be with the matchmaking (thus generating a profile no-one will match). Obv. you can always be your own timeout option.
Ideally (for me), any automatch system will have the option to say, "Gee I'd like to play a Pro game, but if I can't find one within X seconds, I'll take what I can get." But I have no clue how automatch would work with Casual and Unrated games where (presumably) the host has created the board beforehand. I don't even know how it's going to work in terms of matching up the haves and the have-nots in terms of set ownership. So I am unable to give any specific suggestions because I have no knowledge of the framework.
I usually don't join games created by other players in the lobby because I'd prefer to be certain it's going to include all the cards (which I have purchased/earned). Sometimes hosts of pro games don't indicate at all how many cards they own in the game title, and I'd rather create my own table instead of joining theres.I think obv. any information like that that you'd want to know should be visible without anyone having to stick it in their title. You see it right on the screen or hover over something to see it. They have 6 expansions, 2% quit rate, 4600 rating.
If the kingdom was generated from all of the cards owned by all players involved rather than just the host, I would have no problem joining almost any 2p pro game. I guess this would be more troublesome for casual/unrated if the kingdom is supposed to be generated before the game starts.I find it hard to believe they will ever want to be more generous than the already friendly "play with all the cards the host bought."
I would be happy with any solution where: A) I could avoid a certain couple cards I don't like, and B) I can find someone to play with.Well, for the jerk issue, does highlighting picked cards do the trick? Obv. you can randomly generate lists repeatedly until you see what you like, but that doesn't seem so scary, how much preying on people is happening that way.
I don't care if this solution is implemented in casual or pro or unrated, but currently not many people with multiple sets seem to want to play casual games without exploiting their favorite combo, much less unrated ones. So I guess what I want is for casual and/or unrated games to be fixed so more people will want to play them, which woud mostly likely involve some way to be pretty sure that some jerk didn't craft the kingdom to exploit their favorite combo or whatever.
FWIW, I share LF's opinion about ratings: When playing a rated game, it's easier to get mad & frustrated if I lose. For this reason, unrated games can be more fun. Without ratings, Dominion is a game (unlike some others) where it can be just as fun to lose as it is to win, but ratings messes up that aspect.
(I did make a comment about 'too bad it wasn't a rated game' that time I played against Lastfootnote, but I was just joking about beating someone with a much higher rating than me...)
Not that I'm particularly active in the competitive dominion community anymore but my thoughts anyway:
Pro games should absolutely not allow for people to have an individual veto list, no matter how short, because the purpose of a Pro ranking system is NOT to maximize each players individual enjoyment, it is to foster an environment conducive to the highest levels of competitive play. I'm sorry if you don't like e.g. possession, but it is a part of the game. Even if I hated the Dutch Defense, it would be silly to disallow it in a high level chess tournament. If there are cards you really can't stand you either A) suck it up for the relatively small percentage of games that card appears in, B) forfeit said game, or C) play casual.
Now if there were cards which hindered high level competitive play for whatever reasons (which I don't think there are), then those cards could be disallowed based on decision from some sort of committee in charge of such things. But I don't think there could be a consensus on such cards even if such a committee existed in the dominion community.
On a separate topic, I think that casual should not have a rating system.
If the kingdom was generated from all of the cards owned by all players involved rather than just the host, I would have no problem joining almost any 2p pro game. I guess this would be more troublesome for casual/unrated if the kingdom is supposed to be generated before the game starts.I find it hard to believe they will ever want to be more generous than the already friendly "play with all the cards the host bought."
I take that back. I would also like to see a change where if you lost the previous game and the person you play next won the previous game, you get to go first like iso did.
Pro games should absolutely not allow for people to have an individual veto list, no matter how short, because the purpose of a Pro ranking system is NOT to maximize each players individual enjoyment, it is to foster an environment conducive to the highest levels of competitive play. I'm sorry if you don't like e.g. possession, but it is a part of the game. Even if I hated the Dutch Defense, it would be silly to disallow it in a high level chess tournament. If there are cards you really can't stand you either A) suck it up for the relatively small percentage of games that card appears in, B) forfeit said game, or C) play casual.D) host games and don't buy Alchemy. Alchemy is a separate product, it's only part of the game if you buy it. There's nothing analogous in chess.
This whole idea actually came out of thinking a leaderboard for the recommended sets might be interesting; your game mode is "recommended sets", you don't know which one it will be (or what set(s) it's from) till you get in the game. Might be a more bearable version for a noob who doesn't know many cards, but still wants to be competitive and play with the pro kids.They might like a "recommended sets" leaderboard, because it's a mild encouragement to buy all the sets.
*actually this also means that players who bought Intrigue should have the option of doubling up their Treasure piles. And if the base card art is ever released online (that would make me so happy), you should be able to buy multiple copies of it to keep making your Treasure pile bigger and bigger (source (http://boardgamegeek.com/article/13782589#13782589))
I would increase treasures for 5-6 and otherwise not, as a flat rule; while technically it's an option I don't think it's interesting enough to give it space on whatever screen.
Pro games should absolutely not allow for people to have an individual veto list, no matter how short, because the purpose of a Pro ranking system is NOT to maximize each players individual enjoyment, it is to foster an environment conducive to the highest levels of competitive play. I'm sorry if you don't like e.g. possession, but it is a part of the game. Even if I hated the Dutch Defense, it would be silly to disallow it in a high level chess tournament. If there are cards you really can't stand you either A) suck it up for the relatively small percentage of games that card appears in, B) forfeit said game, or C) play casual.D) host games and don't buy Alchemy. Alchemy is a separate product, it's only part of the game if you buy it. There's nothing analogous in chess.
I don't see how it would take more screen space in the game; the number on the Treasure pile is just bigger. Cap it at 99 if that extra digit doesn't fit I guess.I meant, that on some options screen you are clicking "more treasures please." You bought Intrigue, you could add more Silvers but don't have to, we don't know if you want to or not, so there's this option somewhere. I don't think that option is earning its place on that screen.
Not that I think it's super-interesting, in fact I think it is a more interesting game when Silver/Gold is one of the 3 piles. I just don't quite see what you mean.
It would work for me, but I'm more concerned with whether it would work for other people so that other people would play casual games and I wouldn't have to play pro in order to find someone to play with.I would be happy with any solution where: A) I could avoid a certain couple cards I don't like, and B) I can find someone to play with.Well, for the jerk issue, does highlighting picked cards do the trick? Obv. you can randomly generate lists repeatedly until you see what you like, but that doesn't seem so scary, how much preying on people is happening that way.
I don't care if this solution is implemented in casual or pro or unrated, but currently not many people with multiple sets seem to want to play casual games without exploiting their favorite combo, much less unrated ones. So I guess what I want is for casual and/or unrated games to be fixed so more people will want to play them, which woud mostly likely involve some way to be pretty sure that some jerk didn't craft the kingdom to exploit their favorite combo or whatever.
FWIW, I share LF's opinion about ratings: When playing a rated game, it's easier to get mad & frustrated if I lose. For this reason, unrated games can be more fun. Without ratings, Dominion is a game (unlike some others) where it can be just as fun to lose as it is to win, but ratings messes up that aspect.
What about if casual is just unrated? What are the merits of separate casual / unrated? "Casual" sounds to me like the kind of thing where I'm not worried about rating. Obv. people looking to get a high casual rating with KC/Masq would lose out but we are okay with that. People who aren't ready for pro humans but want a rating can play pro games against bots or rack up ratings of different kinds in adventures.On one hand, I don't really care about rating. On the other hand, I would like to be matched with someone whose skill level isn't too far from mine, and I don't know how you'd do that without having a rating. So I think it's good to have separate casual and unrated types.
Well, I guess we have to separate the ideal from reality. Ideally, you could only host pro games if you owned all the cards. And that might actually fly if the dominion community was as large as say, the chess community (and getting all the promos was easier). However, that restriction is likely overly prohibitive so we probably need to work around it.I wonder exactly how much it would bother people if you had to own all the sets to host pro games (but didn't need the promos). If casual is rated then it's all just a tag, the fact that those games are labelled pro games. Without all the sets, you can host all the rated games you want, you can play in pro games you didn't host, but can't host the games (thus, no pro games vs. bots either).
One option is, just let people do that. That's not a great solution, but I think it's the best of a bad lot. Giving people an individual ban list, in fact, does not prevent people from abusing the problems introduced in option 1. It just adds another way to cheapen the competitive environment. There are some other things people have proposed (like multiple set based leaderboards - ick), but no one's really convinced me.You could go as far as a leaderboard per card. Really at that point it's not so much a leaderboard as it is a way to view the data.
I would love to see a tourney room not unlike Magic Online or Poker Stars; a 8 16 or 32 man queue that fires off when all the seats are filled, for example. Perhaps with tourney leader board or pro leader board points as payoff for doing well.In the murky past the idea was to have one of the ways you got the shields (for buying promos) be from winning tournaments like that. That still sounds good.
Well, I guess we have to separate the ideal from reality. Ideally, you could only host pro games if you owned all the cards. And that might actually fly if the dominion community was as large as say, the chess community (and getting all the promos was easier). However, that restriction is likely overly prohibitive so we probably need to work around it.I wonder exactly how much it would bother people if you had to own all the sets to host pro games (but didn't need the promos). If casual is rated then it's all just a tag, the fact that those games are labelled pro games. Without all the sets, you can host all the rated games you want, you can play in pro games you didn't host, but can't host the games (thus, no pro games vs. bots either).
It's the kind of thing I could see Making Fun consider because it encourages buying everything. The question would be, does it piss people off. I don't think the promos could be part of it.
It's not clear what the group is that would hate it. People with no expansions are already trying to join games with people who bought cards. And as it happens, most people who buy more than one set buy them all. So we are down to, people with one expansion who want to host pro games. Perhaps especially, to build up a rating vs. bots.
I wonder exactly how much it would bother people if you had to own all the sets to host pro games (but didn't need the promos). If casual is rated then it's all just a tag, the fact that those games are labelled pro games. Without all the sets, you can host all the rated games you want, you can play in pro games you didn't host, but can't host the games (thus, no pro games vs. bots either).
It's the kind of thing I could see Making Fun consider because it encourages buying everything. The question would be, does it piss people off. I don't think the promos could be part of it.
Thank you for the reply. I would be willing to purchase tournament entry chits at say 2/$1, and I own all the sets. That may mean further financial gain for the host that otherwise they would never see no matter how many thousands of games I should ever play.This point will not be lost on them.
As someone who at times hosts pro games and owns multiple (but not all) expansions, this would be extremely annoying. There's a much thinner market for casual 2p games than for pro 2p games. Part of the reason for this is that people have are suspicious that every kingdom in casual is designed or is something you practiced multiple previous times. Pro games are a solution to that whether you own all the cards or not.Okay so this is a separate issue: casual needs to get rid of that problem. Like, normally you don't see the set of 10 in casual, only cards they picked out, so if you can see all 10 you know they hand-picked the set, and if you can only see Develop then you know it's Develop and 9 random cards. You have a banned cards list that means you aren't worried the cards you can't see will be the ones you hate.
It's not clear what the group is that would hate it. People with no expansions are already trying to join games with people who bought cards. And as it happens, most people who buy more than one set buy them all. So we are down to, people with one expansion who want to host pro games. Perhaps especially, to build up a rating vs. bots.I have two, and I host pro games when nobody who has all of the sets is around.
The whole process for being able to specify kingdoms needs to be streamlined. Iso did it pretty well because you can just c+p parts of randomly generated kingdoms and allow the randomizer to do the rest. Unless I'm missing something, you can't do that in Goko.I don't understand what "c+p" means.
Copy & paste.The whole process for being able to specify kingdoms needs to be streamlined. Iso did it pretty well because you can just c+p parts of randomly generated kingdoms and allow the randomizer to do the rest. Unless I'm missing something, you can't do that in Goko.I don't understand what "c+p" means.
Not that I'm particularly active in the competitive dominion community anymore but my thoughts anyway:
Pro games should absolutely not allow for people to have an individual veto list, no matter how short, because the purpose of a Pro ranking system is NOT to maximize each players individual enjoyment, it is to foster an environment conducive to the highest levels of competitive play.
...
Now if there were cards which hindered high level competitive play for whatever reasons (which I don't think there are)
- you can pick 3 cards total from expansions/promos, but not the main set (this is to reduce the potential to game the system)
- the creator of a game chooses either to not include cards on all players' lists (the default) or to not include cards on any player's list (so, if you don't want to use this system, that's already the default; don't pick 3 cards, leave it on "all")
- matchmaking allows 1) I want "gone if all banned it," 2) I want "gone if any banned it," 3) I don't care, match me already
It would work for me, but I'm more concerned with whether it would work for other people so that other people would play casual games and I wouldn't have to play pro in order to find someone to play with.I would be happy with any solution where: A) I could avoid a certain couple cards I don't like, and B) I can find someone to play with.Well, for the jerk issue, does highlighting picked cards do the trick? Obv. you can randomly generate lists repeatedly until you see what you like, but that doesn't seem so scary, how much preying on people is happening that way.
I don't care if this solution is implemented in casual or pro or unrated, but currently not many people with multiple sets seem to want to play casual games without exploiting their favorite combo, much less unrated ones. So I guess what I want is for casual and/or unrated games to be fixed so more people will want to play them, which woud mostly likely involve some way to be pretty sure that some jerk didn't craft the kingdom to exploit their favorite combo or whatever.
FWIW, I share LF's opinion about ratings: When playing a rated game, it's easier to get mad & frustrated if I lose. For this reason, unrated games can be more fun. Without ratings, Dominion is a game (unlike some others) where it can be just as fun to lose as it is to win, but ratings messes up that aspect.As someone who at times hosts pro games and owns multiple (but not all) expansions, this would be extremely annoying. There's a much thinner market for casual 2p games than for pro 2p games. Part of the reason for this is that people have are suspicious that every kingdom in casual is designed or is something you practiced multiple previous times. Pro games are a solution to that whether you own all the cards or not.Okay so this is a separate issue: casual needs to get rid of that problem. Like, normally you don't see the set of 10 in casual, only cards they picked out, so if you can see all 10 you know they hand-picked the set, and if you can only see Develop then you know it's Develop and 9 random cards. You have a banned cards list that means you aren't worried the cards you can't see will be the ones you hate.
What about if casual is just unrated? What are the merits of separate casual / unrated? "Casual" sounds to me like the kind of thing where I'm not worried about rating. Obv. people looking to get a high casual rating with KC/Masq would lose out but we are okay with that. People who aren't ready for pro humans but want a rating can play pro games against bots or rack up ratings of different kinds in adventures.On one hand, I don't really care about rating. On the other hand, I would like to be matched with someone whose skill level isn't too far from mine, and I don't know how you'd do that without having a rating. So I think it's good to have separate casual and unrated types.
Yes, mostly I played two expansions with 5 cards from each, although I also played the large expansions by themselves, especially Dark Ages. The cards aren't trying to be better for that format, but you do see set themes reinforced that way. Some cards do end up better, due to being combos with the set themes.
"Pick from 2 sets" seems like a good option provided there aren't lots of options like that (which is to say, I still favor not having a bewildering list of options). Wait, this can be folded into the previous proposal; you can label a slot "from random set #1" or "from random set #2" and then you know, if you have three random set #1's they are from the same random set.
Probably optionally specifying a minimum number of expansions for matchmaking is okay? People for sure specify how many sets they have, that they don't want a certain quit% (though that needs fixing), that they want a certain rating.
Okay so this is a separate issue: casual needs to get rid of that problem. Like, normally you don't see the set of 10 in casual, only cards they picked out, so if you can see all 10 you know they hand-picked the set, and if you can only see Develop then you know it's Develop and 9 random cards. You have a banned cards list that means you aren't worried the cards you can't see will be the ones you hate.
- i don't see why veto/ban decisions have to be so concrete for a pro mode. we are using computers, we can do fancy things like probabilities. you could do something like give users X% points to distribute among cards, with that percent reducing the probability of seeing that card in a kingdom. if you want to burn it all to stop 2 cards from showing cool. if you want to just bias it against say alchemy cards then hey that's fine too. to me that allows you to achieve most of your enjoyment without adding in metagames or deviating too far from the full random model of competitive games.It's great to have computers do fancy secret tricksy things. It's not so great to have an interface with lots of options you aren't using.
I really need some clarification here. Is there really a perception that people are attempting to game the kingdom when playing casual??? In the last year and a half I have NEVER come across a kingdom where I thought someone set it up for the express purpose of exploiting some secret combo or evil pin.LastFootnote said half the games were casual, which does make it sound like this isn't actually much of an issue. Still if hiding the card list is sometimes acceptable and means you don't need to worry about a fix, it seems easy to offer.
I guess I think there is use for a casual ranking for matchmaking, but it's never going to be perfect.I think the matchmaking issue kills the idea of just not rating casual games. That probably also reduces unrated games to a footnote though, see what I did there. You could have people rate themselves for casual matchmaking, or have a quiz, but odds are everyone is happier with people having a ranking from playing games.
LastFootnote said half the games were casual, which does make it sound like this isn't actually much of an issue.
I think the matchmaking issue kills the idea of just not rating casual games. That probably also reduces unrated games to a footnote though, see what I did there. You could have people rate themselves for casual matchmaking, or have a quiz, but odds are everyone is happier with people having a ranking from playing games.
What I said was that over half the games are Pro. It's more like 30% to 40% are Casual, by my estimation. And maybe half of those casual games are Base-only.I see, I misread it. Well 30% is still enough to feel like "worries about rigged games" aren't destroying casual (although obv. if there's something good to do there it should be done).
I think for casual it's obvious that you should be able to ban cards, rather than wait and see the set of 10 (and also should be able to wait and see the set of 10). Being able to hide the set of 10 (from yourself and everyone) (and matchmake based on that) addresses rigged games concerns, although I don't know how much that really helps. I can believe it helps enough to be worth a checkbox.
Is there really a perception that people are attempting to game the kingdom when playing casual??? In the last year and a half I have NEVER come across a kingdom where I thought someone set it up for the express purpose of exploiting some secret combo or evil pin.http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1124861/highest-dominion-score-youve-ever-seen
Is there really a perception that people are attempting to game the kingdom when playing casual??? In the last year and a half I have NEVER come across a kingdom where I thought someone set it up for the express purpose of exploiting some secret combo or evil pin.http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1124861/highest-dominion-score-youve-ever-seen
I really need some clarification here. Is there really a perception that people are attempting to game the kingdom when playing casual??? In the last year and a half I have NEVER come across a kingdom where I thought someone set it up for the express purpose of exploiting some secret combo or evil pin.
Isn't it more likely just sour grapes? You got beat and you didn't see the winning strategy so it must be that the other person did something nefarious rather than just beat you?
I'm having trouble visualizing how this will work. Do people still create their own tables with automatch, or does automatch create the game for them? If people create tables, how does automatch decide whose table to use? Or is there a dichotomy between automatch hosts and automatch joiners and you choose which to be?Someone is hosting a game. That's part of the premise currently; they host a game and you play with their cards. I was imagining that that would stay true, but uh that's worth thinking about, why would it. There are people who want to play, they have the things they care about (I want a 3-player pro game), why not just match them up? Having a host however is tied to "and you play with their cards." And you want to be able to host in order to do specific things, I want to play this particular set of 10. So okay for the moment let's say, there is a host.
I think we should talk about this before (or concurrently with) talking about being able to play hidden sets of 10 in casual, etc. As it stands I can't really formulate opinions about that stuff without knowing the framework.
I am not sure what you are showing me here except a fairly interesting* kingdom worth playing a few times and an opponent who has no idea how to play with or against Goons. Maybe roy let it go 3 turns too long because he enjoys racking up those Goons points in a game he was essentially playing solitaire? This is hardly an egregious abuse.He is showing you someone who played the same set of 10 over and over with different opponents - further in the thread you'll see http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/logsearch?p1name=roy+rogers&p1score=any&p2name=&startdate=08%2F05%2F2012&enddate=02%2F18%2F2014&supply=Nobles&nonsupply=&rating=any&pcount=any&colony=any&bot=false&shelters=any&guest=false&minturns=&maxturns=&quit=false&resign=any&submitted=true&offset=0
I like the idea of always-on unlimited mutual veto. So if I (for example) don't want to play with Rebuild and play somebody else who feels the same way, then we won't play with Rebuild. If my opponent doesn't have Rebuild on his/her list, we might play with it, and I'm OK with that. Because the veto is mutual, there's no need for any checkbox either (because I can just leave my veto list empty if I want to opt out), which makes the UI simpler. Also, no need to limit the number of cards on the list, since if my opponent and I agree on a dozen cards we don't want to play with, well why not?
Then why not let them do it? What's the problem?I like the idea of always-on unlimited mutual veto. So if I (for example) don't want to play with Rebuild and play somebody else who feels the same way, then we won't play with Rebuild. If my opponent doesn't have Rebuild on his/her list, we might play with it, and I'm OK with that. Because the veto is mutual, there's no need for any checkbox either (because I can just leave my veto list empty if I want to opt out), which makes the UI simpler. Also, no need to limit the number of cards on the list, since if my opponent and I agree on a dozen cards we don't want to play with, well why not?
because that would really be cheating on the system. imagine if you put half of all cards on there. well, maybe your opponent only has a few, then it's fine. but what if your opponent did it like you, then there's a good chance for a mutually banned ~150 cards. or what if you put all cards on there except for your favorites? why not, your opponent will have lots of them missing on his list after all. what if everyone starts doing that?
I think he misread or misunderstood the mutual part.
EG, blueblimp is suggesting that cards are automatically rejected if ALL players veto them, not if ANY player vetos them.
Then why not let them do it? What's the problem?because that's a really unfair advantage over players who don't ban anything. if nothing is stopping you from putting all but your favorite 20 cards on the list, whenever two players who do this meet, you might have games with a pool of less than fourty cards. i really think that shouldn't be possible in pro mode.
because that's a really unfair advantage over players who don't ban anything. if nothing is stopping you from putting all but your favorite 20 cards on the list, whenever two players who do this meet, you might have games with a pool of less than fourty cards. i really think that shouldn't be possible in pro mode.How is that an advantage and how is that at all unfair? Is it also unfair if I play over 9000 games with 10 of my favorite cards IRL and then play pro mode against people who haven't banned anything?
because that's a really unfair advantage over players who don't ban anything. if nothing is stopping you from putting all but your favorite 20 cards on the list, whenever two players who do this meet, you might have games with a pool of less than fourty cards. i really think that shouldn't be possible in pro mode.How is that an advantage and how is that at all unfair? Is it also unfair if I play over 9000 games with 10 of my favorite cards IRL and then play pro mode against people who haven't banned anything?
because that's a really unfair advantage over players who don't ban anything. if nothing is stopping you from putting all but your favorite 20 cards on the list, whenever two players who do this meet, you might have games with a pool of less than fourty cards. i really think that shouldn't be possible in pro mode.How is that an advantage and how is that at all unfair? Is it also unfair if I play over 9000 games with 10 of my favorite cards IRL and then play pro mode against people who haven't banned anything?
uh... no, because the 9000 games don't influence your ranking, they're just practise. that's why i said "it shouldn't be possible in pro mode"; you obviously can do that in casual mode if you want to.
how is it unfair? man, in the last thread there were people saying they don't want to have 3 cards banned because that would "create different experiences for players" or something, when in fact pro mode should be alike for everyone. now we got a mode where you could have several hundred cards removed, and you're asking why it's unfair?
uh... no, because the 9000 games don't influence your ranking, they're just practise. that's why i said "it shouldn't be possible in pro mode"; you obviously can do that in casual mode if you want to.It would be unfair because I could ban cards that I'm bad at. If only cards that both players are bad at are being banned, it's not unfair.
how is it unfair? man, in the last thread there were people saying they don't want to have 3 cards banned because that would "create different experiences for players" or something, when in fact pro mode should be alike for everyone. now we got a mode where you could have several hundred cards removed, and you're asking why it's unfair?
with this logic you could also allow players to play tetris instead of dominion if both choose to, cause, you know, both players have the same experience, so it's fair. the point is that, if player A and B have lots of cards banned, players C and D don't and they play A vs B and C vs D, then you have different players having significantly different experiences and yet are both placed on the same leaderbord, as are the tetris guys.uh... no, because the 9000 games don't influence your ranking, they're just practise. that's why i said "it shouldn't be possible in pro mode"; you obviously can do that in casual mode if you want to.It would be unfair because I could ban cards that I'm bad at. If only cards that both players are bad at are being banned, it's not unfair.
how is it unfair? man, in the last thread there were people saying they don't want to have 3 cards banned because that would "create different experiences for players" or something, when in fact pro mode should be alike for everyone. now we got a mode where you could have several hundred cards removed, and you're asking why it's unfair?
But the only situation in which a ton of cards is actually banned is if all players in a game have all those cards on their lists. I don't see this being significantly different than all players just not owning those cards. The only difference is that you can "not own" individual expansion cards rather than entire sets. It's like if you bought Prosperity and then put your King's Courts in a safe. Unless you're going to insist that you need to own all the sets to even play Pro mode, I don't see how having a "mutually banned" list is any worse than selectively buying sets.
No one in their right mind is going to buy all sets and then put 150 cards on their ban list, and certainly not enough people to affect the integrity of the leaderboard in any way whatsoever. Focus on plausible real-world scenarios, not on abstract and remote hypotheticals that will never in a million years materialize; we're not at a Philosophy faculty, after all :D
with this logic you could also allow players to play tetris instead of dominion if both choose to, cause, you know, both players have the same experience, so it's fair. the point is that, if player A and B have lots of cards banned, players C and D don't and they play A vs B and C vs D, then you have different players having significantly different experiences and yet are both placed on the same leaderbord, as are the tetris guys.It's already allowed, you can play Tetris and the one with the lower score resigns the game of Dominion.
No one in their right mind is going to buy all sets and then put 150 cards on their ban list, and certainly not enough people to affect the integrity of the leaderboard in any way whatsoever. Focus on plausible real-world scenarios, not on abstract and remote hypotheticals that will never in a million years materialize; we're not at a Philosophy faculty, after all :D
uh, why? I mean, in the end it depends on the interface. If you have to drag&drop every card manually, then yes, few people will ban out more than, let's say 20. But if you do it differently, I don't see any reason why splitting 200/5 makes any more sense than splitting 100/100. Saying "I'll play these 200 cards a little bit more often than these 5" isn't any more logical than saying "I prefer this half of all cards over this one". You're going to see the all of the cards anway, it's not like you're just throwing away half of the product you bought. I definitely wasn't trying to theorize stuff that will never happen, i thought it was a legit problem. But, maybe it's not. It also matters how you present the list, people will be less inclined to put half of their cards on it if it reads "ban list"
What might the options be? Default *'d for when no-one cares.
- pro / *casual / don't care
- *rated / unrated / don't care
- minimum number of expansions (*0)
- minimum number of players (*2)
- maximum number of players (*6)
- minimum rating for opponents (*0)
- maximum rating for opponents (*max)
- maximum opponent quit% (*100)
- find opponents from friend-list only
- maximum number of selected cards by host (*1) [if casual or relevant to pro]
- *exclude cards we all hate-list / exclude cards any of us hate-list [if casual or this is also part of pro]
- card selection type [if casual or to the degree this is part of pro]
-- *random from available expansions [incl. main set obv.]
-- random from two available expansions plus promos (counting expansions as published, not half-sets)
-- random recommended set doable with available expansions
-- don't care
Special options for hosting:
- ability to request particular opponents (for people who just want to play together)
- pick expansion for particular slot
- pick card for particular slot
- pick a recommended set
- visible card list [if casual]
- pick starting player [when also picking particular opponents]
It would be unfair because I could ban cards that I'm bad at. If only cards that both players are bad at are being banned, it's not unfair.Despite not being one of the people who don't like the neo-veto mode concept, I am going to try to sum up the complaint against it.
If two players have "don't care" for Card Selection Type, it's fine if it defaults to full random. Cool. But it would be nice if "don't care" was the uh initial default so that I (and others) can choose something besides "full random" and actually find a match.Yes; the * marks the default for when no-one cares, like I said. If we both pick "don't care" for card selection, the cards still need to be selected somehow; in that situation they will be selected randomly from all available cards. I would have the default choice be "don't care" for everything listing "don't care" as an option (don't care if it's pro/casual, rated/unrated, how the cards are picked); then within that there's what you'll get if we all don't care.
Again there is the question, what is "pro" supposed to mean anyway. Currently it means "you don't see the cards before the game, and there's a different leaderboard."
If two players have "don't care" for Card Selection Type, it's fine if it defaults to full random. Cool. But it would be nice if "don't care" was the uh initial default so that I (and others) can choose something besides "full random" and actually find a match.Yes; the * marks the default for when no-one cares, like I said. If we both pick "don't care" for card selection, the cards still need to be selected somehow; in that situation they will be selected randomly from all available cards. I would have the default choice be "don't care" for everything listing "don't care" as an option (don't care if it's pro/casual, rated/unrated, how the cards are picked); then within that there's what you'll get if we all don't care.
Yes some of the items on that list had no "don't care" and so * was marking both a default choice and also what you'd get if you didn't care.
Each player has the ability to "turn off" any and all non-Base Set cards that he has purchased
As far as banlists go, here is my suggestion.I don't think that's ground Making Fun will give up. It's certainly not a battle I'd pick; ask them yourself if you want.
• Each player has the ability to "turn off" any and all non-Base Set cards that he has purchased, making him effectively not own those cards for the purposes of his games. He can do this in his "My Cards" page or equivalent.
• When a player plays a non-Adventure single-player game, the cards he has turned off will never appear.
• When players are matched together, their available card pool is the union of all their purchased cards that are not turned off. So if one player has turned off e.g. Rebuild but another in the game hasn't, Rebuild could still be in that game. Only if all players have a card turned off (or unbought) will it never show up.
This is of course different from the current table-hosting setup, where the host's cards are always the ones used. It seems like a sensical, elegant solution to me that more or less mirrors IRL games where different players might own different sets. I don't think it will impact sales much, if any, since most players either buy all cards or none.
For casuals it's really important to turn off base set cards. You buy an expansion because you have seen enough of the base set and want something new. All you get generated are witch+chapel kingdoms that you don't want to see again. Casual players should be able to exclude base set. When they buy their last expansion they should be able to turn off most of their other expansions just so they get a chance to play with their new cards instead of relying on a 1/15 chance for just one of those cards to show.This is largely covered by how you pick the set of 10 (hypothetically). I can say "gimme 5 Seaside 5 Prosperity." Then I don't get any base set. And I can click "let me see the list first" and reject one I don't like the looks of. I didn't list an option for "this card slot is from anything but this expansion;" I'm not sure that's getting us much.
The initial impetus for this discussion was someone hating Tournament. He didn't just hate it when the other guy also hated it; he always hated it. I think whatever hate-list system there is for casual should handle that; then that system should transition neatly to the system for pro if there is one.
This is largely covered by how you pick the set of 10 (hypothetically). I can say "gimme 5 Seaside 5 Prosperity." Then I don't get any base set. And I can click "let me see the list first" and reject one I don't like the looks of. I didn't list an option for "this card slot is from anything but this expansion;" I'm not sure that's getting us much.
• Let's say somebody creates a table using "5 Seaside, 5 Prosperity". First of all, that implies that either automatch still uses the host/join dichotomy OR that players will sometimes not use automatch to find games once automatch is a thing. Otherwise I don't see how you're matching two different players, one of which says, "5 Seaside, 5 Prosperity" and the other of which says, "10 Dark Ages". Or anything else for that matter. Pretty much you can only match people who "don't care" with each other or with people who are specifying restrictions.In that long post where I outlined a hypothetical thing, being as specific as "5 Seaside 5 Prosperity" fell into the "special options for hosting" section. If you pick that, you are hosting; people can get matched up with you, but not other people who are hosting.
• Let's say that one player creates a table that has Tournament in it. Maybe they're playing a recommended set of 10 or something. How does that interact with another player's hate list? Does that player just not see that table? Is there a little box that says, "WARNING! This table has cards you hate"?You aren't picking a table anymore, there is no list of tables unless that's fun just to look at. So you just don't get matched with someone who required Tournament.
Look at the rest of it, I also missed "allow pre-seen card list," and let's call "pick a recommended set" a match for "random recommended set," yes they may be practicing it I know. You have to agree to "pick opponent" so I think "pick starting player" is folded into that agreement window.You know, I am folding "pre-seen card list" into "maximum number of selected cards by host." If they can see the list and reject it, they have in some sense picked all of the cards.
For what it's worth, I don't see how using the cards the joiner has is that much more generous. As somebody who has all the cards, I'm reluctant to join a game except through Salvager's automatch, because darnit I want to play with the cards I bought. The primary benefit to using the joiner's cards is to help people who did spend money, because it gives us more flexibility.If the kingdom was generated from all of the cards owned by all players involved rather than just the host, I would have no problem joining almost any 2p pro game. I guess this would be more troublesome for casual/unrated if the kingdom is supposed to be generated before the game starts.I find it hard to believe they will ever want to be more generous than the already friendly "play with all the cards the host bought."
For what it's worth, I don't see how using the cards the joiner has is that much more generous. As somebody who has all the cards, I'm reluctant to join a game except through Salvager's automatch, because darnit I want to play with the cards I bought. The primary benefit to using the joiner's cards is to help people who did spend money, because it gives us more flexibility.If the kingdom was generated from all of the cards owned by all players involved rather than just the host, I would have no problem joining almost any 2p pro game. I guess this would be more troublesome for casual/unrated if the kingdom is supposed to be generated before the game starts.I find it hard to believe they will ever want to be more generous than the already friendly "play with all the cards the host bought."
For simplicity's sake, I'd argue that choosing a specific Suggested Set of 10 is effectively manually creating a board.I would put "specific suggested set" on the "they didn't pick the cards" side, because it's sufficiently innocent. I want to be able to block "they picked the cards, could be a trap" and not have that block "they want to try all the recommended sets and next up is this one."
Likewise, if the host can see and/or alter the specific cards, that's manually creating the board. And if the board is manually created, that game is never rated. That should solve the issues. If somebody is playing the same board again and again just to beat people up with King's Court/Masquerade or whatever, his opponents can just resign with no repercussions (and then blacklist that person).This does not sound good. I just got Guilds, I want to play with Guilds. Man that doesn't mean I want to play unrated games. Manual creation is only an issue if I can pick specific cards (or see the cards thus effectively getting to pick them), not if I can merely pick the expansions.
Again, for simplicity, I suggest that if even one card is forced by the table's host, that should also be an unranked game. Being able to practice with a card is great, but there are reasons why both you and your opponents would not want such games to be ranked.I guess I don't see how this is "for simplicity," but it might be fine to automatically not rank games with a selected card. I'm not sure how much it gets you, I mean okay it makes me less excited to KC/Masq people. I still want to be able to choose to play other games unrated.
This brings up another point. When two players that choose "Match Me" (instead of specifically hosting a table) and they're matched together, how does the game determine which player hosts? Unless it always defaults to the player with the most cards, I really doubt serious players are ever going to use automatch.For sure I would pick the player with more expansions (between two people who are not manually hosting); if I buy everything then of course I want to always have that. In specific cases where this isn't what someone wants (e.g. they don't have all the expansions but have promos and want to play them), there's manual hosting.
Of course, "Minimum # of expansions" is one of the suggested settings, but I honestly don't know if Making Fun will want to have that option. It basically just enables freeloaders by letting them only be matched with players who have bought cards. I see two possible solutions:The current system lets one player provide the expansions. That right there is what enables freeloaders. They are specifically enabled. That wasn't Making Fun's idea and maybe they will decide they don't like it, I dunno, but it seems like a fine set-up to me.
1) You cannot set "Minimum # of expansions" higher than the number you personally own.Right now everyone sets minimum # of expansions by choosing what games to join. That's where that comes from, I listed the things people are already doing. I wouldn't volunteer to give up ground here.
2) You cannot set "Minimum # of expansions" at all and the host defaults to the player who owns the most cards.
3) You cannot set "Minimum # of expansions" at all and the host is chosen randomly.
For what it's worth, I don't see how using the cards the joiner has is that much more generous. As somebody who has all the cards, I'm reluctant to join a game except through Salvager's automatch, because darnit I want to play with the cards I bought. The primary benefit to using the joiner's cards is to help people who did spend money, because it gives us more flexibility.Yes for sure you want to play with the cards from whoever has more cards. If you have the same number of expansions but different cards, there are two main cases I see (also there is every other case):
with this logic you could also allow players to play tetris instead of dominion if both choose to, cause, you know, both players have the same experience, so it's fair. the point is that, if player A and B have lots of cards banned, players C and D don't and they play A vs B and C vs D, then you have different players having significantly different experiences and yet are both placed on the same leaderbord, as are the tetris guys.It's already allowed, you can play Tetris and the one with the lower score resigns the game of Dominion.
For simplicity's sake, I'd argue that choosing a specific Suggested Set of 10 is effectively manually creating a board.I would put "specific suggested set" on the "they didn't pick the cards" side, because it's sufficiently innocent. I want to be able to block "they picked the cards, could be a trap" and not have that block "they want to try all the recommended sets and next up is this one."
Likewise, if the host can see and/or alter the specific cards, that's manually creating the board. And if the board is manually created, that game is never rated. That should solve the issues. If somebody is playing the same board again and again just to beat people up with King's Court/Masquerade or whatever, his opponents can just resign with no repercussions (and then blacklist that person).This does not sound good. I just got Guilds, I want to play with Guilds. Man that doesn't mean I want to play unrated games. Manual creation is only an issue if I can pick specific cards (or see the cards thus effectively getting to pick them), not if I can merely pick the expansions.
I think forcing specific expansions (but not cards) in "Classic" mode is probably fine to be ranked (but should almost certainly not qualify as Pro games).
Again, for simplicity, I suggest that if even one card is forced by the table's host, that should also be an unranked game. Being able to practice with a card is great, but there are reasons why both you and your opponents would not want such games to be ranked.I guess I don't see how this is "for simplicity," but it might be fine to automatically not rank games with a selected card. I'm not sure how much it gets you, I mean okay it makes me less excited to KC/Masq people. I still want to be able to choose to play other games unrated.
Of course, "Minimum # of expansions" is one of the suggested settings, but I honestly don't know if Making Fun will want to have that option. It basically just enables freeloaders by letting them only be matched with players who have bought cards. I see two possible solutions:The current system lets one player provide the expansions. That right there is what enables freeloaders. They are specifically enabled. That wasn't Making Fun's idea and maybe they will decide they don't like it, I dunno, but it seems like a fine set-up to me.1) You cannot set "Minimum # of expansions" higher than the number you personally own.Right now everyone sets minimum # of expansions by choosing what games to join. That's where that comes from, I listed the things people are already doing. I wouldn't volunteer to give up ground here.
2) You cannot set "Minimum # of expansions" at all and the host defaults to the player who owns the most cards.
3) You cannot set "Minimum # of expansions" at all and the host is chosen randomly.
You said "And if the board is manually created, that game is never rated." Manually created to me includes saying "I want 3 cards from Seaside, 3 from Prosperity, 4 from Dark Ages." I want to allow that game to be rated. Probably you agree and we are now just being ultra-clear.Likewise, if the host can see and/or alter the specific cards, that's manually creating the board. And if the board is manually created, that game is never rated. That should solve the issues. If somebody is playing the same board again and again just to beat people up with King's Court/Masquerade or whatever, his opponents can just resign with no repercussions (and then blacklist that person).This does not sound good. I just got Guilds, I want to play with Guilds. Man that doesn't mean I want to play unrated games. Manual creation is only an issue if I can pick specific cards (or see the cards thus effectively getting to pick them), not if I can merely pick the expansions.
I think you misread my intent. In my proposal, you may still choose expansions when playing in "Classic" mode (equal cards from up to 2 sets), just not individual cards. I even say that later in the same post:I think forcing specific expansions (but not cards) in "Classic" mode is probably fine to be ranked (but should almost certainly not qualify as Pro games).
I'm not sure how much more clear I could have been. I DO think that you shouldn't be able to force more than half the cards to be from a set that only has 13 or fewer cards. Like if you buy Alchemy or Vandals and Vermin and can then force all 10 cards to be picked from that set in a ranked, Casual game, you have effectively manually created a table. Especially if you can adjust your "Hate List" to include the 2 or 3 cards from that set you don't want, whittling it down to 10 exact cards.
By "simplicity", I mean removing options so that the resulting interface isn't an intimidating bundle of controls. I think your idea of "Maximum number of selected cards by host" which defaults to 1 is needlessly complex. Even if it's always 1 and you can't change it, where do you communicate to your users why it ranks games with 1 chosen card, but not 2?Well that's what I would have thought "simplicity" meant, but I didn't see how what you were saying cut options. You have a baby to take care of, you pick unrated, it's exclusive of any other concerns and (to maximally please such a person) should be an option separate from other things. For sure I shouldn't have to to finagle it - force a card so that I get my unrated game.
Likewise, I don't see the point of splitting Pro/Casual and Ranked/Unranked into two axes. It looks nice on the surface, but who is playing unranked Pro games? The reason to play Pro is that it's ranked on the Pro leaderboard. You should be able to play Casual and Unrated games that would qualify for Pro anyway (hidden cards, etc.).Well the question remains, what does pro mean. If it's all about ranking then sure you don't need unranked pro games.
Finally, I imagine most players are going to want "Minimum number of expansions" set to the maximum if given the option.Again I am trying to be friendly. Maybe the game is promoted and there is an influx of non-hardcore-players and none of them have sets. They sit there not getting matched because they didn't change the default. A pro logs on, sits there unmatched because the other people don't have a high enough rating, then another pro logs on and they get matched. The defaults matter the most for people with no experience, right? People who are used to the system just change the default to what they want.
• pro / *casual / unrated (with the ability to select any combination of these)Having it be pro/casual/unrated is fine. So far "which leaderboard to use" is what defines them, although again we have this issue of, maybe people don't want hate-lists on pro.
• minimum/maximum number of players (*2/6)
• maximum rating difference (*∞) (minimum of something reasonable, like 100)
• card selection type [if casual or to the degree this is part of pro]
-- *random from available sets
-- random from up to two available sets plus promos (with ability to choose expansions for either or both halves in Casual)
-- random recommended set doable with available expansions
-- manually created table
-- don't care
I guess I see an automatch where you get to specify this as a step beyond the current setup. Right now those who haven't bought sets have to hunt and try to snipe games that have all cards, maybe moving from lobby to lobby in order to find such games. With automatch, all they have to do is select "Minimum # of expansions = 14", sit back, and wait for a game. It's just like they shelled out the $45 themselves, except it just takes them slightly longer to find a game. That, to me, is a significant step toward enabling freeloaders beyond what is currently possible (without the extension).Well I haven't had the experience myself, at all, ever. And haven't been on in a couple weeks. My memory is I would look at the tables in whatever room I was in and there would always be someone saying "all cards 4000+ VP on" or whatever. It didn't look hard to get in those games, provided you had the rating. I guess if you didn't have the rating it might be harder, fewer people saying "all cards come one come all."
You said "And if the board is manually created, that game is never rated." Manually created to me includes saying "I want 3 cards from Seaside, 3 from Prosperity, 4 from Dark Ages." I want to allow that game to be rated. Probably you agree and we are now just being ultra-clear.
I am not so worried about trying to game the system by buying small/half-sets and then requiring them. I mean I picked those cards, not them. If you can ban 3 cards from Cornucopia and force all-Cornucopia then yes you did pick the 10 cards. At first it sounds bad but then it's like, what am I even doing there that's offensive? It's a loophole but I don't see what to be scared of.
I wouldn't have "this slot is from this half of Seaside" etc., just "Seaside." Obv. you may have only bought half but I am so not worried about people only buying half of Prosperity in order to trick people into playing Goons games or whatever. And in the end there (hypothetically) are blocked player lists.
Well that's what I would have thought "simplicity" meant, but I didn't see how what you were saying cut options. You have a baby to take care of, you pick unrated, it's exclusive of any other concerns and (to maximally please such a person) should be an option separate from other things. For sure I shouldn't have to to finagle it - force a card so that I get my unrated game.
Anyway I was thinking you were talking about not needing the "unrated" button rather than the "number of cards" thing. The point to "max selected cards" is that I may not want to play games where the host picked the cards. To be friendly to people who want to do fun things and aren't hurting anyone, I put the default at 1 rather than 0.
Again I am trying to be friendly. Maybe the game is promoted and there is an influx of non-hardcore-players and none of them have sets. They sit there not getting matched because they didn't change the default. A pro logs on, sits there unmatched because the other people don't have a high enough rating, then another pro logs on and they get matched. The defaults matter the most for people with no experience, right? People who are used to the system just change the default to what they want.
I think the default maximum number of players should be well 4-6 (though we technically support 6 I don't play with 6 personally, and you can then argue, how great is 5, especially if you aren't in person, chatting and stuff). Serious players will immediately change it to 2 and that's fine; I'm not stopping them. Again let's be friendly to the people who are like oh I want to play multiplayer.
Maximum rating difference means you can't just say "man I want to play someone good even though I don't have that rating yet." It gets you out of "now I have to update my settings because my rating went up" but I prefer the flexibility of specifying a value rather than a difference.
You have "manually created table." I'm never picking that without actually hosting; "someone out there, pick some cards, I'm here!" Instead it would need to be like, mark the ones you are okay with. Then, "Manually created table" does not specify enough; I am okay with "you picked the expansions, this time one from each expansion plus two random;" I just don't want you to have picked out the specific cards. They are different things.
You say "up to" two available sets. I would just make it two. It's the one special mode that says "here's something that's not pure random but which we think has special merit, try it out." That thing, for me, is 5 cards from each of two sets (then making an exception for promos because people will have them and not want to never see them). It's fun playing with 10 cards from one set and well the system allows that, you host a game and pick that. It doesn't need to be part of this.
You didn't list the hate-list stuff. Maybe you are thinking it's automatically one way or another depending on pro/casual, dunno.
The system was set up specifically to make freeloading possible, specifically to let you pick what games to join, to not buy expansions, to play with the expansions of the host. It may be that as things have played out it's less kind to freeloaders than expected - specifically, people saying things like "4000+" rather than playing with anyone. It may be that Making Fun has a different philosophy here than Goko. But as set up, the idea was that you could buy zilch, go into the lobby, and get into a game with someone who had expansions. It's a feature, not a bug.
I think we mostly agree. I was aiming for "if you manually create the board, it's automatically an unrated game" because that's very easy to remember and understand.Well that may be so, it's hard for me to evaluate personally. Okay let's take the case of, you just bought Guilds, you want to play with Guilds. Everyone was like that when Guilds came out. So they all force 4 Guilds and none of the games are rated and I would think plenty of people wouldn't like that. Whereas if today I feel like playing with Develop and that's automatically unrated that doesn't seem so bad.
Part of my bias is also that I don't see unrated games as being such a penalty.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree that repeatedly playing the same (perfectly valid, non-trap) board a hundred times [is/is not] OK to rate. If you don't see a problem with it, I don't think I'm going to convince you.Well it gives you an edge, no question. Doing it by forcing 10 cards from a small set seems just so unlikely to be an issue. No-one is thinking, "I want to cheat. I know, I will play all-Cornucopia games with 3 cards banned and get great at those 10 cards." I might force it to be unrated anyway just to close a loophole, but the special-case seems weird/complex. A game is rated unless you pick a card, or want at least N cards from one small set. The non-special-case - if you force an expansion, it's unrated - puts me back to, I just bought Guilds, my games are all unrated, this sucks.
Right, but again, that means that players who pick more than 1 are just waiting around, wondering why nobody is joining their game.Let's say the option is more like you have it - on the list of possible ways to generate the card lists there's "pick 'em," and it's never what happens for two normal matched players (you have to host to make it happen), but checking it means you are okay with it.
Let me be more clear. What I'm suggesting is the abolishment of "minimum # of sets" setting and that players are matched without taking that variable into consideration at all. If you bought all the sets, well then all the games you play will have access to all the cards because the player with more cards hosts. If you bought nothing, sometimes you get matched to someone with bought cards, sometimes not.I have to be able to play with my friends. So, I can host a game, call it "all cards," invite someone (who is not actually my friend it turns out), play a game with my cards. They have no cards, I've got everything, hooray for them. This works regardless of how matchmaking works. So... why not be friendly with the matchmaking?
Is that what most people will prefer? I think it's probably a huge pain in the neck to manually modify your settings as your rating goes up/down. Having it automatically slide so that you're playing opponents about at your skill level is arguably the most of the point of having a rating, and I'm not sure why anybody would prefer the manual system.I have never done any ratings-related stuff so I don't know how it goes, but I would imagine your rating doesn't endlessly change giant amounts? You build it up and then it's actually telling us about how good you are.
The question is, do you want to enforce seeing cards with approximately equal frequency? If not, great. You can just pick two expansions randomly and you'll see each Hinterlands card about half as often as each Alchemy card, and each Dark Ages card with even less frequency, etc.Uh, whatever, it would be some good way. Maybe we pick Alchemy less often because it's smaller but still take 5 cards from it when we pick it. You don't need to see all cards with precisely equal frequency. This is a particular special mode for a particular experience where set themes are reinforced via having multiple cards from a set; you can get flat random from the pure random option.
EDIT: Sorry, misunderstood. You meant how I took it off of the list of options. Yeah, either the hate list should apply to Pro or it shouldn't. Period. I don't care which way it goes. Obviously it should apply to Casual games or what's the point? Having a setting of "Union of hated cards/Intersection of hated cards" is just another needless option that complicates the automatch interface and makes it harder to find games.But, whatever modes it applies to, "intersection of hated cards" offends no-one except with regards to leaderboard accuracy; union of hated cards also may mean not getting to play with cards you like that lots of people don't. In casual, I may be willing to let my opponent veto cards that I don't veto myself; I may not.
I understand that it's a feature. I had assumed that the feature was primarily there for groups of people who knew each other in real life to jump online and play with the cards without everybody needing to buy them. If it was actually intended to (also) enable about half the random-match players to not buy into the system, well color me surprised.Well I can't ask Ted what he intended. To me it's mimicking the situation IRL where only one player needs to buy a game. You can bring Dominion to a public game night and play against random people who don't own it. The online game can be greedier but I can let Making Fun worry about that.
I understand that it's a feature. I had assumed that the feature was primarily there for groups of people who knew each other in real life to jump online and play with the cards without everybody needing to buy them. If it was actually intended to (also) enable about half the random-match players to not buy into the system, well color me surprised.Well I can't ask Ted what he intended. To me it's mimicking the situation IRL where only one player needs to buy a game. You can bring Dominion to a public game night and play against random people who don't own it. The online game can be greedier but I can let Making Fun worry about that.
Okay let's take the case of, you just bought Guilds, you want to play with Guilds. Everyone was like that when Guilds came out. So they all force 4 Guilds and none of the games are rated and I would think plenty of people wouldn't like that. Whereas if today I feel like playing with Develop and that's automatically unrated that doesn't seem so bad.
So, maybe "pick a card" forces you to be unrated, but "pick an expansion for this slot," I bet people would prefer to be able to play rated games of that.
Let's say the option is more like you have it - on the list of possible ways to generate the card lists there's "pick 'em," and it's never what happens for two normal matched players (you have to host to make it happen), but checking it means you are okay with it.
Maybe if the matchmaking is unfriendly, people with expansions still use it, because it's easy and hey they have the expansions. Making Fun might like the idea, like I said, I dunno.
Is that what most people will prefer? I think it's probably a huge pain in the neck to manually modify your settings as your rating goes up/down. Having it automatically slide so that you're playing opponents about at your skill level is arguably the most of the point of having a rating, and I'm not sure why anybody would prefer the manual system.I have never done any ratings-related stuff so I don't know how it goes, but I would imagine your rating doesn't endlessly change giant amounts? You build it up and then it's actually telling us about how good you are.
The question is, do you want to enforce seeing cards with approximately equal frequency? If not, great. You can just pick two expansions randomly and you'll see each Hinterlands card about half as often as each Alchemy card, and each Dark Ages card with even less frequency, etc.Uh, whatever, it would be some good way. Maybe we pick Alchemy less often because it's smaller but still take 5 cards from it when we pick it. You don't need to see all cards with precisely equal frequency. This is a particular special mode for a particular experience where set themes are reinforced via having multiple cards from a set; you can get flat random from the pure random option.
But, whatever modes it applies to, "intersection of hated cards" offends no-one except with regards to leaderboard accuracy; union of hated cards also may mean not getting to play with cards you like that lots of people don't. In casual, I may be willing to let my opponent veto cards that I don't veto myself; I may not.
In my original proposal, the idea is that when you choose "Classic" mode (equal cards from [up to] 2 sets), you'd be able to force one or both expansions if you chose and still have it ranked casual. This takes care of "I just bought Guilds and want to play it" and has the further advantage that you can match together multiple such requests that don't conflict. Like one player says, "half Guilds", and another says, "half Hinterlands" (or even "half Guilds and half Hinterlands"). You can match those two together as long as one of them owns both. That's complex, but it's all behind-the-scenes complexity.I see. Well it's more options in this window - optionally pick the expansions for "classic." That does handle it though, I think it's more likely that someone wants to play with their new set than it is that they want to pick some specific weird cocktail. OTOH I don't need to punish cocktails for casual; I remain unscared of the worst case for picking expansions for slots.
I guess I don't consider ownership-agnostic matchmaking to be "unfriendly". It's not like it's malevolently matching up haves with haves and have-nots with have-nots.If matchmaking is appealing for haves over hosting, then the new system would reduce how often have-nots see expansions vs. the current system. The matchmaking could just give you what you get now, but in this scenario would not. That is the unfriendly thing - taking something away (via how the system gets used).
The advantage of having it scale automatically and default to some reasonable range like ±1000 is that players never even have to touch it and their opponents' skills will automatically adjust to them.I think/agree that for most players the best thing would just be an on/off button for "match me with someone +/- 1000" (or whatever is good). Obv. some players would want more control, and then the question is, how bad is it for them not to have it, what % of players is that.
Please do not wave your hand and say, "It'll be some good way." My whole point is that there likely isn't "some good way".Your point is that there's no good way to get the cards to show up precisely even amounts when picking to play 5 cards each from two expansions. I don't value that goal though, I do not remotely need them to show up precisely even amounts.
I'm sorry, I was under the impression that you weren't concerned about the people who wanted to see oft-hated cards the usual amount.I am concerned about everybody, and am there for them.
I still think the easiest way to do hate-list is have it be the union in Casual and either the intersection or not used at all in Pro. That way you can leave it off the automatch options screen.It still seems like some pros would actually hate the intersection, would feel like other pros either had an unfair advantage over them in games they weren't in (if they didn't hate-list stuff) or else like they weren't getting to play with all the cards (if they did). So uh dunno there.
I think/agree that for most players the best thing would just be an on/off button for "match me with someone +/- 1000" (or whatever is good). Obv. some players would want more control, and then the question is, how bad is it for them not to have it, what % of players is that.
I don't want it to be "sometimes it's all one set" because that is not "5 cards each from two expansions." The mode becomes "sometimes 5 cards each from two sets, sometimes 10 cards from one set."
Your point is that there's no good way to get the cards to show up precisely even amounts when picking to play 5 cards each from two expansions. I don't value that goal though, I do not remotely need them to show up precisely even amounts.
And if you want 10 cards from one set, it's there for you, via hosting.
Seems to me, it would be good to have the union (or option of union/intersection) of ban-lists for casual and no ban list for pro. I'd be fine with playing only casual as long as I can find people to play with. And AFAIC a three-card ban list sounds just right.I still think the easiest way to do hate-list is have it be the union in Casual and either the intersection or not used at all in Pro. That way you can leave it off the automatch options screen.It still seems like some pros would actually hate the intersection, would feel like other pros either had an unfair advantage over them in games they weren't in (if they didn't hate-list stuff) or else like they weren't getting to play with all the cards (if they did). So uh dunno there.
The intersection for casual wouldn't need to be an option, because you could just not hate-list. The union for casual, it sounds reasonable but I dunno.
If the system had the intersection for casual and nothing for pro, I think the only complaint could be "I want more veto-ing than this dammit." It's a straight improvement over the current "no-vetoing at all" system. If someone is going to quit any game with Tournament though, we are confining them to hosting games, picking the expansions, and not buying Cornucopia. If casual has either the union or it's an option, we are confining them to casual but maybe they can feel like "if you want to be a pro you have to be able to stomach Tournament." It's a harsh world out there.
So then, if union is mandatory for casual and pro has no hate-list, then if you want a hate-list you play casual and if you want no hate-list you play pro, those options are there for you without an uh option. Because you hate Tournament, you never get to play with Possession; Possession will be there for you if you can stomach some Tournaments. I dunno it doesn't seem so unreasonable.
Any hate-list I think should be small. If it were intersection only then man it could be as many cards as you wanted. Once it's union I don't want it to be, "wow I hate Possession but if I play casual I will never see a single attack."
I think you and I just see this differently. I'm getting the feeling that you see this mode as "novel thing to try once and then go back to full random". Whereas I want to use it to play all my games, so an approximately even distribution is important to me. If this mode doesn't have that, I'll just never use it.No, I see it as something some people might often do. IRL a significant impetus is not having to cart everything around, but by playing with multiple cards from a set, you get more of a functional theme to your game, and some cards play better. It might seem less intimidating too.
Man, all this other stuff is also "there for me via hosting". It all just depends on whether people leave the checkbox for "I'm OK with others choosing the exact table" checked. I have no idea how that will go.Again I would flag "they picked a card for the 1st slot" but not "they wanted the 1st slot to be from a particular expansion."
I think you and I just see this differently. I'm getting the feeling that you see this mode as "novel thing to try once and then go back to full random". Whereas I want to use it to play all my games, so an approximately even distribution is important to me. If this mode doesn't have that, I'll just never use it.No, I see it as something some people might often do. IRL a significant impetus is not having to cart everything around, but by playing with multiple cards from a set, you get more of a functional theme to your game, and some cards play better. It might seem less intimidating too.
I also like having an option for generating the set-of-10 in some pre-established way that isn't pure random. I wouldn't want two but one seems good. I don't want it to have options, it's quick and easy. Sure it would have some novelty but you might stick with it.
I'm not trying to pick something that maximizes the pleasure of one individual, you or me or whoever. It seems easier to grok as "5 cards from each of two sets," even with a catchy name. It doesn't need to include "maybe 10 from the same set" in the same way it doesn't need "sometimes it's 5 treasures or 5 attacks or 5 whatever."
The case where someone just has base and Alchemy isn't too interesting here. Yes this mode won't be so exciting for them (when they host / provide the sets); they are already always () seeing a random mix from those two sets.
Again I would flag "they picked a card for the 1st slot" but not "they wanted the 1st slot to be from a particular expansion."
The main thrust of the Alchemy example was to show that there isn't an algorithm that can be generalized that picks exactly 2 sets and keeps an approximately equal frequency of cards. But despite the fact that you used to be a computer programmer, you seem to be studiously avoiding considering any specific set-picking method. For some reason.I haven't devoted any work to it because it's an unimpressive problem and working on it isn't getting me anything. I have games to work on; this is something for a programmer on this project to do. I have zero worries that something good is impossible, and you are not making me write code.
Fine, how about this as a compromise? 2 sets are picked from an unweighted random list of sets you own. But instead of exactly 5 cards from each, the number of cards is slightly weighted by set size. So if the 2 sets are the same order of magnitude, 5 cards from each. If one is larger than the other, 6 cards from the larger set and 4 from the smaller set. Finally, if one is all of Dark Ages and the other is small (like Guilds or the half of Intrigue you own or whatever), 7 cards from Dark Ages and 3 from the small set.That sounds fine.
EDIT: Unless "Promo" counts as a set for these purposes. Then I'm all good.Or if promos can show up in any expansion slot. Counting promos as a set seems problematic for people who have fewer than I don't know five of them.
Or if promos can show up in any expansion slot. Counting promos as a set seems problematic for people who have fewer than I don't know five of them.
The main thrust of the Alchemy example was to show that there isn't an algorithm that can be generalized that picks exactly 2 sets and keeps an approximately equal frequency of cards. But despite the fact that you used to be a computer programmer, you seem to be studiously avoiding considering any specific set-picking method. For some reason.I haven't devoted any work to it because it's an unimpressive problem and working on it isn't getting me anything. I have games to work on; this is something for a programmer on this project to do. I have zero worries that something good is impossible, and you are not making me write code.
Fine, how about this as a compromise? 2 sets are picked from an unweighted random list of sets you own. But instead of exactly 5 cards from each, the number of cards is slightly weighted by set size. So if the 2 sets are the same order of magnitude, 5 cards from each. If one is larger than the other, 6 cards from the larger set and 4 from the smaller set. Finally, if one is all of Dark Ages and the other is small (like Guilds or the half of Intrigue you own or whatever), 7 cards from Dark Ages and 3 from the small set.That sounds fine.
So Donald, do you prefer the "5-from-2 with weighted set selection" or the "weighted card ratio with even set selection"? I think they both seem fine.Possibly it's more fun to play with 4 Alchemy cards than 5. There's a certain something to keeping it even too though.
So Donald, do you prefer the "5-from-2 with weighted set selection" or the "weighted card ratio with even set selection"? I think they both seem fine.Possibly it's more fun to play with 4 Alchemy cards than 5. There's a certain something to keeping it even too though.
The promos could possibly be associated with expansions for this, just treated like cards in a certain expansion. Yes you might own the promos but not the expansions and be using this mode. Something like
Envoy - Intrigue
Black Market - Seaside
Stash - Prosperity
Walled Village - Hinterlands
Governor - Dark Ages
For what it's worth, I really like that Black Market is a promo instead of in a set. In my perfect world, when you used "2 Sets" mode, Black Market would be one of each card from a large set that wasn't selected, like it was in playtesting.
| Small/Small | 5 cards from each |
| Small/Normal | 3 cards from Small and 7 cards from Normal |
| Small/Large | 2 cards from Small and 8 cards from Large |
| Medium/Medium | 5 cards from each |
| Medium/Large | 3 cards from Medium and 7 cards from Large |
Quick follow-up here. I ran the numbers on choosing two sets from an unweighted list and then weighting the number of cards in the game with a static ratio. The best I could get was this:
Small/Small 5 cards from each Small/Normal 3 cards from Small and 7 cards from Normal Small/Large 2 cards from Small and 8 cards from Large Medium/Medium 5 cards from each Medium/Large 3 cards from Medium and 7 cards from Large
Even with these lopsided pairings, cards in your Small sets will still appear almost 19% more often than they would in full random. Maybe that's not a dealbreaker, it's a matter of opinion. Just thought I'd report on the data.