Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: SamKennedy on January 04, 2018, 07:06:11 am
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I'm just new to Dominion, but I've noticed the more I read, the more I overthink games and the worse I play. Has anyone else experienced this? I'm guessing I just need to keep playing until I learn what works and what doesn't, however it's still somewhat discouraging :-\
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Welcome!
Yes, I found the same in my early days with the game. By reading a lot and playing little I thought I'd got concepts like engine-building nailed, only for it all to unravel horribly in actual games.
There's an article on skill plateaus at http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17655.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17655.0) which may be helpful. My advice would be to just aim at the next plateau, rather than the mountaintop. Even then you find that the path from one plateau to the next has some down-slopes in it; the first time you try to build an engine you will fail and lose to someone who stayed on the last plateau... but the tenth time you will succeed.
Good luck!
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Making engines, especially complex ones, are hard, and the risk of failure goes up along with the amount of VP associate with the possibilities should you build the engine correctly (that's not to say there's always an engine on the board, that's not even necessarily true when +2 actions, + cards, and multiple gains per turn are all available. It's just usually true with the current expansions.)
Think of it like this, if you read the content here, a lot of it written by rank 60 players, they are essentially writing NBA articles about how to keep your elbow in when you shoot a 3 pointer. But you might be more like in middle school. And when you're paired against another middle schooler and he just goes for 2 pointers he's going to beat you a whole lot until you actually get the 3 pointers down.
I have kind of hit a skill plateau in that I am passing on the high complexity engines too much, and I can't afford to at my rating. A couple ratings lower if the board's only engine required you to use Trade Route for trashing and buys and Walled Village as the village and Vault was on the board, I used to be able to say, that engine is too weak, neither of us can get that going faster than Vault. But my opponents have been nailing it over and over, which requires really good balance in the sequencing and selection of the Action cards they pick up. So now I'm starting to have to try the tough engines more often to keep up. I don't actually know how to pull them off, and am pretty sure a lot of times I would be taking a higher win% not trying them and just sticking with Big Money, but I have to learn sometime. (Sometimes there's a complex and simple engine both available on the board too, also, a good example would be Alchemist stack versus a Village/Smithy type engine that's stronger)
In my opinion (not a firm one), you should put the advanced stuff on hold and enjoy the phase where people pick up Loan instead of Steward in their suboptimal engine decks and just beat them with Big Money. Because big money can lose to engines in different ways, and it's interesting and also valuable to learn the different ways why. Sometimes an attack cuts too hard at what Big Money is trying to do, and the board lets them play the attack more often than you think. Sometimes Big Money can actually beat them to 6 of the Provinces, but there's a lot of Alt VP on the board to catch up. Sometimes the Big Money strategy is a little bit faster, but not faster enough to that it can ignore Duchies and must buy them because of the Engine's pressure, but then the engine can handle the Duchies being in the deck better than BM can. Stuff like that.
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where people pick up Loan instead of Steward in their suboptimal engine decks
Yeah or you could play the superior engine deck and buy both Steward and Loan.
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where people pick up Loan instead of Steward in their suboptimal engine decks
Yeah or you could play the superior engine deck and buy both Steward and Loan.
If you read too much advice like this, it's no wonder you're getting worse at Dominion.
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where people pick up Loan instead of Steward in their suboptimal engine decks
Yeah or you could play the superior engine deck and buy both Steward and Loan.
If you read too much advice like this, it's no wonder you're getting worse at Dominion.
I don't think I'm getting worse at Dominion.
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the more i read, the more ways I learn to lose in new, interesting, and instructive ways.
there is definitely an application gap when you only play a few battles per week.
your question reminds me of playing pool.
i was a passable pool player, using entirely instinct to aim my shots.
i started taking physics, and now I can't hit a shot to save my life.
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where people pick up Loan instead of Steward in their suboptimal engine decks
Yeah or you could play the superior engine deck and buy both Steward and Loan.
If you read too much advice like this, it's no wonder you're getting worse at Dominion.
In all seriousness, I think 90% of players under-trash. I know I still do, and I regret it every time.
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there is definitely an application gap when you only play a few battles per week.
I'm lucky if I play once a month...
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where people pick up Loan instead of Steward in their suboptimal engine decks
Yeah or you could play the superior engine deck and buy both Steward and Loan.
If you read too much advice like this, it's no wonder you're getting worse at Dominion.
In all seriousness, I think 90% of players under-trash. I know I still do, and I regret it every time.
Oh I’m not saying that trashing with more than a single Steward is bad. I get a second Steward somewhat regularly, or if possible I’ll get something nonterminal to supplement like Forager. It’s just that Loan is massively overhyped by some, ignoring the fairly massive drawbacks of it skipping key cards or hitting non-Copper treasures that most decks need some amount of. Sure Loan was underrated for awhile, but it’s not a card that’s harmless or automatic to drop into any deck, and it’s generally not a card you get on a board where Steward is available.
Let’s not have any delusions about all or most boards being perfect treasureless engines where your entire economy can come from a wide variety of Action cards, and terminal space is unlimited.
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Oh I’m not saying that trashing with more than a single Steward is bad. I get a second Steward somewhat regularly, or if possible I’ll get something nonterminal to supplement like Forager. It’s just that Loan is massively overhyped by some, ignoring the fairly massive drawbacks of it skipping key cards or hitting non-Copper treasures that most decks need some amount of. Sure Loan was underrated for awhile, but it’s not a card that’s harmless or automatic to drop into any deck, and it’s generally not a card you get on a board where Steward is available.
Let’s not have any delusions about all or most boards being perfect treasureless engines where your entire economy can come from a wide variety of Action cards, and terminal space is unlimited.
Well, that's the kind of advice that will make you get worse at Dominion. Steward/Loan is a way stronger opening than double Steward or Steward/Forager. Forager is a Curse or a Copper for your current turn whereas Loan is a Peddler, and you don't need any of the upsides that Forager has over Loan because you already get all of them from Steward. Steward also happens to be non-Treasure economy. If anything, Steward is a reason to go for Loan more than you normally would, as none of the usual complaints apply when Steward is present.
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And yet another thread ruined by the Chris is me vs Awaclus debate club. :-\
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Oh I’m not saying that trashing with more than a single Steward is bad. I get a second Steward somewhat regularly, or if possible I’ll get something nonterminal to supplement like Forager. It’s just that Loan is massively overhyped by some, ignoring the fairly massive drawbacks of it skipping key cards or hitting non-Copper treasures that most decks need some amount of. Sure Loan was underrated for awhile, but it’s not a card that’s harmless or automatic to drop into any deck, and it’s generally not a card you get on a board where Steward is available.
Let’s not have any delusions about all or most boards being perfect treasureless engines where your entire economy can come from a wide variety of Action cards, and terminal space is unlimited.
Well, that's the kind of advice that will make you get worse at Dominion. Steward/Loan is a way stronger opening than double Steward or Steward/Forager. Forager is a Curse or a Copper for your current turn whereas Loan is a Peddler, and you don't need any of the upsides that Forager has over Loan because you already get all of them from Steward. Steward also happens to be non-Treasure economy. If anything, Steward is a reason to go for Loan more than you normally would, as none of the usual complaints apply when Steward is present.
I find it confusing to think of Loan as a Peddler since it doesn't literally draw you any cards. It never lets you draw and play a Copper while trahing something in hand like Junk Dealer can. For early game trashers, I like to think of it like "net +$1" (plus cycling) when you play Loan, whereas Forager can be "net +$1" if you trash an Estate while Copper is in the trash, otherwise it is "net zero".
What makes learning Dominion difficult is that advice you read is hard to actually try out if it is not general enough. For example, in the Steward/Steward vs. Steward/Loan debate neither option is always correct. Neither are automatic. Figuring out which one to go for in a real game requires personal judgement, and building up proper judgement is not easy and takes time. Plus, as particular set of two cards appearing in the kingdom is not that common if you play full random anyway.
If the problem you are having is that you are constantl overthinking and exhausting yourself when you play, then your decision making will keep getting impaired as you play. Post-mortem after-game analysis and in-game analysis under pressure are two different skills. I don't know how to articulate advice on maintaining composure in a game.
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The best broad advice is learned so quickly in Dominion, that by the time people reach the the second or third plateau described in the article, most players have it figured out. I think people get frustrated by losing games. This is because most people here are playing because they have fun winning. Winning is fun but, understanding why you lost and enjoying the game despite the loss will keep you playing until you get to the next plateau. This is compounded by the fact that it can be hard to see why you lost in Dominion sometimes if you don't know the ins and outs of the game. It's easy to blame a card instead of seeing that you chose the wrong strategy.
My first IRL game with Adventures, My brother stumbled into Treasure Trove Magpie, while I tried to use Bridge Troll to get Hirelings cheap and draw my deck before my first action. He crushed me, but that was the first time I understood that it wasn't because the cards i was going for were bad cards, it just wasn't the best option on that board. You'll get better. It's just gonna be hard.
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The best broad advice is learned so quickly in Dominion, that by the time people reach the the second or third plateau described in the article, most players have it figured out. I think people get frustrated by losing games. This is because most people here are playing because they have fun winning. Winning is fun but, understanding why you lost and enjoying the game despite the loss will keep you playing until you get to the next plateau. This is compounded by the fact that it can be hard to see why you lost in Dominion sometimes if you don't know the ins and outs of the game. It's easy to blame a card instead of seeing that you chose the wrong strategy.
My first IRL game with Adventures, My brother stumbled into Treasure Trove Magpie, while I tried to use Bridge Troll to get Hirelings cheap and draw my deck before my first action. He crushed me, but that was the first time I understood that it wasn't because the cards i was going for weren't bad cards, it just wasn't the best option on that board. You'll get better. It's just gonna be hard.
This is true for all competitive games but it's especially annoying for card games because sometimes you win anyways due to getting lucky, which helps disguise your mistake. Or you lose anyways because your opponent got lucky, which disguises your good play.
A while ago (~3-4 years ago?), there was a pro League of Legends player (imaqtpie), who was streaming, and someone asked him, "as a Gold player, what separates me from a Challenger like you?" (Gold = top 10%, Challenger = top 50). And his reply was "Gold? Everything. Challenger players do literally everything better than you do." In Loser's Bracket this year, I lost a game because I played an Urchin when I shouldn't have, which made my Merc gain next turn miss the shuffle, which put me 2 turns behind on Merc trashing, and then I lost. I made the mistake on...about turn 6? How am I supposed to explain this mistake to a new player? There's a tipping point where you're able to consistently self-diagnose your mistakes, and I'm not sure where it is, but until you get there it's a bit of a struggle, and after you get there it's all about doing better next time.
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I lost a game because I played an Urchin when I shouldn't have, which made my Merc gain next turn miss the shuffle, which put me 2 turns behind on Merc trashing, and then I lost. I made the mistake on...about turn 6? How am I supposed to explain this mistake to a new player?
new players don't need to think about things missing the shuffle.
novice players should know about deck/discard management, but can learn about it in generalities.
"when you draw past the last card in your deck, it triggers a reshuffle, and if your discard pile is full of bad cards, you will want to avoid that"
"if you have a card that you want to get as quickly as possible, try not to trigger an unnecessary reshuffle right before you buy it"
but the best way is to talk your plans out loud during the game, so they can see and hear you manage your deck.
I literally did that 2.5 hours ago for a new-ish player, when I had discarded coppers to a cellar, and then declined to use a draw spell,
You shouldn't hold their hand forever. make them aware of the general strategy, and then they will have to figure out how to apply it with practice.
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It's not really about handholding. It's more about playing people who don't realize why they're losing. Sometimes I play games online, win, and watch the other person complain about their luck, at which point I like pointing out decisions they made that I disagreed with. (I like doing this because it usually shuts up their complaining, and maybe they'll learn something new out of it.)
Examples:
"ugh you're so lucky"
"Well when my Militia hit you on turn 4, I would have discarded Militia and trashed 2 with Chapel instead of discarding Chapel and keeping Miltia."
"my deck just wasn't giving me $5 that game"
"I mean you bought your first Silver on the 3rd shuffle, and none of your Actions gave money, so that's kind of your fault..."
I don't want to be handholding people through all of that. There are just layers to the strategy, and if you can't recognize the next layer of the strategy, it's hard to get better.
Good articles can help fix this, if they make you aware of things you didn't realize were important. But sometimes, the authors forget to mention things that are so obvious they're second nature to them, and that can limit their effectiveness.
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It's not really about handholding. It's more about playing people who don't realize why they're losing. Sometimes I play games online, win, and watch the other person complain about their luck, at which point I like pointing out decisions they made that I disagreed with. (I like doing this because it usually shuts up their complaining, and maybe they'll learn something new out of it.)
Examples:
"ugh you're so lucky"
"Well when my Militia hit you on turn 4, I would have discarded Militia and trashed 2 with Chapel instead of discarding Chapel and keeping Miltia."
"my deck just wasn't giving me $5 that game"
"I mean you bought your first Silver on the 3rd shuffle, and none of your Actions gave money, so that's kind of your fault..."
I imagine there will be some people who won't respond well to this, even if it's true. Having said that, I've had it happen to me and I appreciated it.
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My original post implied Loan/Silver is worse than Steward/Silver (or Loan/Loan is worse than Steward/Steward if you want to look at it that way)
I specifically picked a comparison of openings no pair of competent Dominion players would disagree on to keep the thread on the topic. This intent was probably obvious. Why did you derail the thread anyway.
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My original post implied Loan/Silver is worse than Steward/Silver (or Loan/Loan is worse than Steward/Steward if you want to look at it that way)
And it also implies that Loan/Steward is worse than Steward/Steward, which is not true. If it's not supposed to imply that, then it's super not clear that it's not supposed to imply that.
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My original post implied Loan/Silver is worse than Steward/Silver (or Loan/Loan is worse than Steward/Steward if you want to look at it that way)
And it also implies that Loan/Steward is worse than Steward/Steward, which is not true. If it's not supposed to imply that, then it's super not clear that it's not supposed to imply that.
I meant it as choosing to buy 0 loans and some number of stewards as trashers for an engine game is inferior to choosing to buy 0 stewards and any number of trashers.
I guess you mean to whine about me setting up a false dilemma for a subset of kingdoms, and it is a false dilemma for a subset of kingdoms (yes, perhaps the majority subset of kingdoms). But there is a subset of kingdoms where it is a dilemma, several that have powerful 4$ cards or powerful trashers you're looking forward to at 5 or 6, or what have you. And if you think Loan wins more of those dilemmas than Steward does, I'm pretty sure that's a very unpopular opinion.
I really don't get how a preference for Peanut Butter Sandwiches over Jelly Sandwiches constitutes a preference for Peanut Butter Sandwiches over Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches.
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I guess you mean to whine about me setting up a false dilemma for a subset of kingdoms, and it is a false dilemma for a subset of kingdoms (yes, perhaps the majority subset of kingdoms). But there is a subset of kingdoms where it is a dilemma, several that have powerful 4$ cards or powerful trashers you're looking forward to at 5 or 6, or what have you. And if you think Loan wins more of those dilemmas than Steward does, I'm pretty sure that's a very unpopular opinion.
I don't mean to whine. I mean to make it clear to anyone who read your post that Loan is not a weak card.
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I guess you mean to whine about me setting up a false dilemma for a subset of kingdoms, and it is a false dilemma for a subset of kingdoms (yes, perhaps the majority subset of kingdoms). But there is a subset of kingdoms where it is a dilemma, several that have powerful 4$ cards or powerful trashers you're looking forward to at 5 or 6, or what have you. And if you think Loan wins more of those dilemmas than Steward does, I'm pretty sure that's a very unpopular opinion.
I don't mean to whine. I mean to make it clear to anyone who read your post that Loan is not a weak card.
Awaclus, it's more like....pops's post wasn't about the power level of Loan. It was about poorly played engines being worse than Big Money, and that it's okay to just go for money and take the win if you aren't good at engines yet. The exact accuracy of the example of Loan and Steward isn't that important to the broader point.
But when you nitpick by quoting just the sentence about Loan, to talk about how Loan + Steward gives a better engine, and then defend the nitpick by saying that you just wanted to say Loan is good...it really feels like you are missing the point of what the post was trying to say. Especially given that your Loan opinion is controversial, and that you should know it's controversial because this is not the first time people have fought with you about Loan. Your reputation is "that guy who quotes single sentences to make jokes, and who also really likes Loan for some reason." You are playing into your own stereotype with seeming obliviousness. That is why some people are sick of arguing with you.
(People are also sick of Chris is me playing into the "I hate Awaclus" stereotype, but I mean, what can you do, it's people on the Internet talking to other people on the Internet in a way you disapprove of.)
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But when you nitpick by quoting just the sentence about Loan, to talk about how Loan + Steward gives a better engine, and then defend the nitpick by saying that you just wanted to say Loan is good...it really feels like you are missing the point of what the post was trying to say.
I'm not missing the point, the point is just not relevant to what I'm saying. I specifically only wanted to point out that Loan is a strong card, that's why the only part I quoted from pops's post was the part that could be understood as "buying Loan is a newbie mistake".
your Loan opinion is controversial
Want to play a cage match?
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Looking back at the old council room stats on Isotropic, Loan had a win rate of 1.00, i.e. a perfectly average card. Thief was 0.71 and Mountebank 1.09.
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I'm not missing the point, the point is just not relevant to what I'm saying.
What you're saying having no relevance to the point is missing the point!
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I'm not missing the point, the point is just not relevant to what I'm saying.
What you're saying having no relevance to the point is missing the point!
It's not. I get his point. There's just no reason to talk about his point in the context of how strong Loan is.
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You shouldn't be discussing the strength of Loan in this thread at all.
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It's not. I get his point. There's just no reason to talk about his point in the context of how strong Loan is.
Or, to put it another way, his point is not the point.
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wasn’t gonna post this because it keeps dragging this thread in the mud but I shared it with a few people who agreed with the sentiment so here it is. I’ll drop it entirely if it’s not well received.
I’m kind of sick of my responses to this too, that’s why I stopped posting in this thread (and believe it or not I’ve been trying to back off in general). But I do sort of want to bring this up while we’re all here having meta commentary about how much this sucks and we’re all agreeing with upvotes, before we all move on and do nothing about it. What’s the right thing to do about this toxic, draining behavior we’re all sick of?
The response that’s most popular, and usually gets trotted out when this is brought up, is to just ignore it. This is great advice for real world scenarios in public spaces, with people you won’t really interact with again - get through it, and then you can move on and not deal with it anymore. But in a small community of forum regulars, mixed in with new posters, all ignoring this does is tacitly accept it. The new posters that filter in will inevitably not know the unwritten rule of “literally everyone on the forum pretend the bad guy doesn’t exist and maybe he’ll stop”, and it takes just one person (or even nobody at all?) to provide enough response for the behavior to continue. The silence is also interpreted as acceptance, not rejection - nobody is objecting to the content, therefore it’s fine. It teaches other posters they can post in that manner, because they don’t see anyone objecting to that, and it teaches other posters that this is the kind of content you should expect.
The response I’ve been trying, which I’m now trying to stop doing because it also sucks, is to just call it out. “Hey, this is what you’re doing, you know you’re doing this, we know you aren’t posting in good honest faith because you’ve literally said so on multiple occasions, we all are tired”. This communicates a lack of acceptance for the behavior, which in some ways is better, but often it is escalatory and inflammatory. It creates an uncivil attitude in the forum, which is arguably worse to normalize than just being an obnoxious and persistent troll. It’s pretty clear that this sort of posting isn’t deterred by social pressure at all, so applying it just makes the experience less pleasant for everyone else. So that doesn’t work either.
So I guess what I’m asking is... does anybody have any ideas? Do we really just have to live with this in any given thread? Is there always just gonna be a chance that Awaclus comes in to make a side point, then argues it to death, and then has the gall to assert that other people in the thread are going off-topic from his already off-topic rant? Either we want this to continue, or we don’t - and if we do, sure, fine, status quo it is. But like, I feel like we largely don’t, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything we can do about it. We could discuss things somewhere else? Maybe we could push to have others moderate away this trolling? I’m just stumped, but its really unpleasant to deal with, and I don’t know how to handle it.
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So I guess what I’m asking is... does anybody have any ideas? Do we really just have to live with this in any given thread? Is there always just gonna be a chance that Awaclus comes in to make a side point, then argues it to death, and then has the gall to assert that other people in the thread are going off-topic from his already off-topic rant? Either we want this to continue, or we don’t - and if we do, sure, fine, status quo it is. But like, I feel like we largely don’t, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything we can do about it. We could discuss things somewhere else? Maybe we could push to have others moderate away this trolling? I’m just stumped, but its really unpleasant to deal with, and I don’t know how to handle it.
In Zen Buddhism, you can use 'mu' to un-say something or to un-ask a question.
We could agree that 'mu' could basically mean 'you are being toxic and you should stop doing that so I am not going to grace you with any other reply to this until you stop'.
Mu.
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Chris, I wouldn't agree with the sentiment that a 0 upvote un-responded post signals acceptance. I think you should give readers some credit. As someone who doesn't closely follow the forum it was pretty clear to me that the Loan fork of the thread was both an irrelevant nitpick and also not particularly well-received.
Awaclus, it also seems clear that your Loan opinion has both been made clear and also not accepted by the majority. So continuing to make it in a thread that obviously was never about Loan doesn't really do anything as far as making your opinion more accepted.
That being said, it seems pretty clear to me that this particular debate is best served by a titanic grudge match under mutually-agreed-upon parameters, with the stakes being either a temp ban, or agreeing to add to every post "I was wrong about Loan" for a week.
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Decided to edit this post because it's probably only making it worse.
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It is essential to the concept of forums that you be able to respond to the one part of a post that you want to respond to. It is essential to the concept of forums that you be able to respond to people responding to you.
It is essential to the concept of the dominionstrategy forums that you be able to talk about what you personally think the power level of a card is. It's like right in the title.
What is not essential is ranting about how you hate a particular poster for posting. It's, I'm going to call it "toxic, draining behavior." Try not doing that? Man.
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What has happened: Awaclus has been pedantic and annoying on purpose when it comes to certain opinions to the detriment of any conversation on this forum. He does not appear to be even entertaining the thought of not being correct, or of trying to not be annoying on purpose with his actions. Yeah, that's clearly going to grind some gears. And yet it's okay because unlike Adam Horton or Tristan Awaclus doesn't blow up or insult people (with the exception of calling an opinion "retarded" once).
The trouble here is there is clearly toxic behavior, but nothing is being done because it isn't extreme enough. And then if you do something about Awaclus, then suddenly that puts a target on potentially anyone for being "annoying". It's a scary precedent. And yet I am fully willing to endorse something being done.
Chris is me is absolutely right, even if he overreacts and uses inflammatory words. Something needs to be done. I don't know what, but there needs to be some sort of discussion about this.
What is not essential is ranting about how you hate a particular poster for posting. It's, I'm going to call it "toxic, draining behavior." Try not doing that? Man.
I seem to recall times where you have done the same thing. The article in question isn't "hating someone for posting", but "hating someone for what they post". Awaclus could be posting things that are not clearly designed to aggravate everybody on the planet.
I don't know, the "ignore it" strategy isn't working anymore, and this is going to keep popping up over and over, and ruin many more threads.
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It is essential to the concept of forums that you be able to respond to the one part of a post that you want to respond to. It is essential to the concept of forums that you be able to respond to people responding to you.
It is essential to the concept of the dominionstrategy forums that you be able to talk about what you personally think the power level of a card is. It's like right in the title.
What is not essential is ranting about how you hate a particular poster for posting. It's, I'm going to call it "toxic, draining behavior." Try not doing that? Man.
It's not hating a particular poster for posting. It's hating a particular poster for posting, endlessly, in a particular tiresome way.
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I seem to recall times where you have done the same thing.
I dunno, but I am doing it right now! And it does suck. I could have gone on more but it would have sucked even more.
The article in question isn't "hating someone for posting", but "hating someone for what they post". Awaclus could be posting things that are not clearly designed to aggravate everybody on the planet.
I read all those Awaclus posts in this thread, they are utterly unobjectionable. I do not wish to play mafia so I am not going to quote them all and point out what they are doing. Anyone having a problem with those posts is creating their own problem, you heard it here.
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It is essential to the concept of forums that [...]
Everything you say there seems to be from the perspective of someone who's posting. But there are also people reading the forums.
It's also essential to the concept of forums that it's reasonably easy for people to find the stuff that interests them and avoid the stuff that doesn't.
I get the impression the complaints are, at least implicitly, following the template of "X keeps posting about Y where it is only tangential to the topic in hand, and most people aren't interested in X's views on Y. X is wasting their time and should desist, but if X is determined to continue they should get a room for Y." A specific complaint might be bogus, but the template itself seems legit.
There's precedent for insisting that certain tangents get taken to a special area. Religion, sex, politics, loan...
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I would laugh if Loan became a bannable topic.
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I would laugh if Loan became a bannable topic.
Okay keep that kind of talk here folk:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18138.new#new (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18138.new#new)
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Everything you say there seems to be from the perspective of someone who's posting. But there are also people reading the forums.
I also read forums, would you believe.
I get the impression the complaints are, at least implicitly, following the template of "X keeps posting about Y where it is only tangential to the topic in hand, and most people aren't interested in X's views on Y. X is wasting their time and should desist, but if X is determined to continue they should get a room for Y." A specific complaint might be bogus, but the template itself seems legit.
Forums are much worse when you can't talk about tangential things. They suck and then everyone abandons them for better forums. Is my experience from many years on various forums.
Also X would have left it at one post if people hadn't decided to argue the point with X here. I mean really. Everyone gets off the hook except X, huh?
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This is definitely a topic that needs to be discussed, but couldn't it be split into a meta thread or something?
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I was thinking about writing up something on how I think many (with the main exception being those by Titandrake) Article's primary goals tend not to actually be educational content, but more of a springboard for internal F.DS debates. I think that would be an interesting topic which is relevant to the original purpose of this thread.
But thanks to the usual suspects + a surprise cameo by Donald, this thread has become a complete shitshow and I doubt splitting the thread would even save the topic at this point.
I don't want to fan the flames too hard but let me make one thing absolutely clear: The diversity of our forum participation IS suffering from the constant pedantry, the aggressive attitudes and the inconsequential debates consuming threads. I have plenty of dominion friends online and IRL who have as much when F.DS comes up. We may have high participation, but it's by an incredibly narrow set of users.
Perhaps this is why platforms such as Reddit dominate. Despite the numerous, numerous problems with the up-vote sorting system, it at least generally allows us to ignore this near-worthless content easily.
One last thing: We don't need to have either a strict, iron fist moderation policy with clear, unambiguous rules or a laissez-faire system. Theory is an amazing moderator, if too light handed for my tastes. Obviously it would be a ridiculous request for him to maintain every thread as on topic, but I trust Theory more than anyone to set some guidelines and then apply them when super necessary, or delegate it to someone else to do so
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What has happened: Awaclus has been pedantic and annoying on purpose when it comes to certain opinions to the detriment of any conversation on this forum. He does not appear to be even entertaining the thought of not being correct, or of trying to not be annoying on purpose with his actions. Yeah, that's clearly going to grind some gears. And yet it's okay because unlike Adam Horton or Tristan Awaclus doesn't blow up or insult people (with the exception of calling an opinion "retarded" once).
I have not been pedantic or annoying on purpose. I have not been pedantic at all and if you find me annoying, that's your subjective opinion.
I do entertain the thought of not being correct, but you're not entitled to having me change my opinion just because you tell me I should. That's why I proposed the cage match to Titandrake, to give him an opportunity to prove that he's correct and I'm wrong.
I also think that it's absolutely not fair to put Adam and Tristan in the same category. Adam has had a few disagreements with some people, Tristan has gotten permabanned multiple times.
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But thanks to the usual suspects + a surprise cameo by Donald, this thread has become a complete shitshow and I doubt splitting the thread would even save the topic at this point.
I'm there for you.
I don't want to fan the flames too hard but let me make one thing absolutely clear: The diversity of our forum participation IS suffering from the constant pedantry, the aggressive attitudes and the inconsequential debates consuming threads. I have plenty of dominion friends online and IRL who have as much when F.DS comes up. We may have high participation, but it's by an incredibly narrow set of users.
Perhaps this is why platforms such as Reddit dominate. Despite the numerous, numerous problems with the up-vote sorting system, it at least generally allows us to ignore this near-worthless content easily.
In fact lots of Dominion traffic has moved to discord (thus, not being here), despite it not sorting posts by how approved they are, and despite the presence there of both Awaclus and Chris is me.
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The more I read this thread, the worse I get.
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In fact lots of Dominion traffic has moved to discord (thus, not being here), despite it not sorting posts by how approved they are, and despite the presence there of both Awaclus and Chris is me.
The world is just moving too fast for me. I still haven't been to Reddit and stuff is already going somewhere else? I like my comfort zone. (That comfort includes real cards with established friends, instead of playing online with people I do not have personal relationships with.)
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In fact lots of Dominion traffic has moved to discord (thus, not being here), despite it not sorting posts by how approved they are, and despite the presence there of both Awaclus and Chris is me.
That's likely very true by the number of comments and likely very false by the net number of frequent contributors, as discord tends to filter out more people than open forums/reddit. Feel free to correct me however as I have no plans of tracking the discord.
Either way my point was not to claim that Reddit is a good platform, merely one advantage it has over here (and discord).
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The world is just moving too fast for me. I still haven't been to Reddit and stuff is already going somewhere else? I like my comfort zone. (That comfort includes real cards with established friends, instead of playing online with people I do not have personal relationships with.)
Everyone, back to boardgamegeek. Wait: where's rec.games.deckbuilders.dominion.misc?
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You can join the Discord channel today, if you read this entire thread (poor you) and are confused!
It's an AOL chatroom for a new age, complete with card art bots and Dominion-based emojis!
https://discord.gg/6Pveru9
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You can join the Discord channel today, if you read this entire thread (poor you) and are confused!
It's an AOL chatroom for a new age, complete with card art bots and Dominion-based emojis!
https://discord.gg/6Pveru9
But is it better to click on the link in your post or the link in your sig?
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Imagine this thread ends after post #17. Would that be the kind of thread we want, or don't want, on this forum?
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After 17? Probably better than it not being on the forum at all. By post nowish, maybe not better than it not being on the forum at all.
The nice thing about cutting it at 17 is that I would be tied for most upvotes, I have no other purpose for existence than that sort of thing you know.
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Imagine this thread ends after post #17. Would that be the kind of thread we want, or don't want, on this forum?
I think having the thread up to post #17 is better than not having it. I think having the entire thread up to this point is also better than not having it. Threads like this don't happen that often, and the meta-discussion is useful.
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This is going to be three short, sort of unrelated things from this thread all pushed together into one post, and I'm doing a card list for you all, so you can get used to hearing from me for 10 days or so.
This is my first post here outside of tournaments in over 6 months, while in the past 6 months I have posted over 1700 times in the strategy focused sections of the Dominion discord. Somehow the discord seems both more serious and more friendly, and it is probably mostly because of the attitudes here as O mentioned. Also in the strategy sections of discord and here, in the last 3 days discord has had more unique posters (and more posts, but that is format driven) - I am not alone.
The main reason discussions here are so unproductive and repetitive is that people don't give reasons or examples as evidence. Preaching bores people and they don't take anything away from it so they repeat a similar question and get preached at again. The forum should embrace what discord can't do, and that is well thought out longer posts. Getting rid of the upvote system which rewards low effort posts that people outside this forum likely get put off by would be a small step in that direction I think, and a little bit of self-moderation by posters would be the much larger one. Or going all out make a word minimum of at least 20, but really a little bit of self-moderation should be enough.
As for the original topic of this thread, articles are quite bad at teaching you how to play good Dominion. What a good article does is it establishes the author's framework for thinking about Dominion to the reader and makes some mentions of little things that might be helpful (Titandrake is quite good at this). In a huge number of low stress games (bots are kind of useful here), the reader needs to develop their own framework that isn't just "do what the articles say," otherwise they will get worse because they are going to have a bunch of conflicting messages from different authors because the authors think differently. Incorporating the little things into something they already have and is familiar to them is much easier than needing to think about each little thing independently.
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Then it’s settled! From now on each thread may have at most 17 posts!
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Then it’s settled! From now on each thread may have at most 17 posts!
And in years to come we'll have some vague recollection of why... but no-one will be able to locate these posts in which the rule was decided.
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but i know, one thing, that i love you
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Maybe I am incompetent, but I find Discord very difficult to follow and worse, not entertaining. My usage of it has dropped significantly. These forums are far better for finding helpful tidbits or juicy knock-down, drag-out fights.
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Definitely do not remove the respect system. I won't disagree that jokes should be upvoted less and content upvoted more. But that would essentially be censoring a certain format of speech, because you do not like the impact the speech has or what people are saying with it, and that should be against anyone's principles.
I don't know what the answer is, but maybe aggressively forking offtrack topics are a good idea. The large mafia subforum grew out of an "in defense of monopoly" thread, which shows that interesting things can come from sidetracks, but at the same time shows a thread can definitely dig deep into something that OP might not be interested. Forking isn't really censoring people if it's done in an internally consistent way, and censorship should be a one-step-after-last resort, when you turn the server off, maybe you censor the powered down server a little bit, that's when it's ok.
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Definitely do not remove the respect system. I won't disagree that jokes should be upvoted less and content upvoted more. But that would essentially be censoring a certain format of speech, because you do not like the impact the speech has or what people are saying with it, and that should be against anyone's principles.
How would that be censoring? Anyone could still write whatever they like (as long as it doesn't violate the forum rules) with or without upvote system. The lack thereof, if anything, it would encourage people to write more quality content which is a good thing.
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please don't remove the respect system.
I use it as a gauge to understand what strategic concepts and comments are well regarded.
It's not perfect, but it is FREQUENTLY useful for that.
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please don't remove the respect system.
I use it as a gauge to understand what strategic concepts and comments are well regarded.
It's not perfect, but it is FREQUENTLY useful for that.
Well, I've personally gotten the most upvotes for posts with terrible jokes.
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please don't remove the respect system.
I use it as a gauge to understand what strategic concepts and comments are well regarded.
It's not perfect, but it is FREQUENTLY useful for that.
Very true. It also leads to people trying to make jokes to get upvotes, though, so maybe an optimal system would have 2 different kinds of upvotes, one for quality posts and another for funny posts.
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The respect system is going nowhere. The whole point of it is supposed to be a way to silently express approval or lack thereof. Indeed I would have thought it would have solved the problem people had in this thread.
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Just to set the record straight, I personally have never told a joke for forum respect. My jokes are all pure of intention. I'm not a phony class clown like some users I won't name.
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Definitely do not remove the respect system. I won't disagree that jokes should be upvoted less and content upvoted more. But that would essentially be censoring a certain format of speech, because you do not like the impact the speech has or what people are saying with it, and that should be against anyone's principles.
How would that be censoring? Anyone could still write whatever they like (as long as it doesn't violate the forum rules) with or without upvote system. The lack thereof, if anything, it would encourage people to write more quality content which is a good thing.
It is "You may post any idea you wish, but if that idea is 'I agree with this post, but have nothing to add', you must use four hundred times the space you need to post it".
It is a lot like "This is a free country and you can host a radio station with any political ideology you desire, but if that political ideology is the libertarianism you must have a minimum of 60% commercial time".
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please don't remove the respect system.
I use it as a gauge to understand what strategic concepts and comments are well regarded.
It's not perfect, but it is FREQUENTLY useful for that.
I will echo this sentiment.
I've seen a bunch of long drawn out discussions between two or more people where next to none of the posts in the long debate get upvotes. That doesn't prevent the users from continuing the debate. It does warn me that I probably won't enjoy reading the whole debate, so I don't.
Similarly, I have a hard time imagining that someone like LastFootnote will stop making clever quips just because there is no upvote feature anymore.
Reddit's upvote/downvote system works thanks to a critical mass of people willing to upvote to greatly reduce the number of no-vote posts and resisting downvote trolls. We here at F.DS are not so lucky.
I think we also don't see a huge amount of upvotes for strategically relevant posts, possibly because we upvote for perfect agreement rather than acknowledgement of effort. I am guilty of this.
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The whole point of it is supposed to be a way to silently express approval or lack thereof.
How can one express disapproval through the respect system in a way which is distinguishable from not having read a comment, or having no opinion on it?
I know various systems are opposed to thumbs-down mechanisms because they encourage negativity. On the other hand, the absence of a thumbs-down mechanism might increase the number of people who feel moved to make negative comments.
If every comment received twenty thumbs-up and two denunciatory replies, that thread could make pretty turgid reading.
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The whole point of it is supposed to be a way to silently express approval or lack thereof.
How can one express disapproval through the respect system in a way which is distinguishable from not having read a comment, or having no opinion on it?
I know various systems are opposed to thumbs-down mechanisms because they encourage negativity. On the other hand, the absence of a thumbs-down mechanism might increase the number of people who feel moved to make negative comments.
If every comment received twenty thumbs-up and two denunciatory replies, that thread could make pretty turgid reading.
Ommiting a thumbs down feature, when not passed upon for reasons of technical feasibility, is also censorship.
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Just to set the record straight, I personally have never told a joke for forum respect. My jokes are all pure of intention. I'm not a phony class clown like some users I won't name.
Hey I’m working towards a 2-1 respect to post ratio here and it sure as hell isn’t thanks to my insightful kingdom analyses.
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please don't remove the respect system.
I use it as a gauge to understand what strategic concepts and comments are well regarded.
It's not perfect, but it is FREQUENTLY useful for that.
It's a better idea to learn to recognize the names of the top players for that purpose. The advice that gets the most respect is what the average player already agrees with, and you shouldn't strive to become an average player.
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Ommiting a thumbs down feature, when not passed upon for reasons of technical feasibility, is also censorship.
It's the kind of censorship I can get behind!
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The respect system is going nowhere. The whole point of it is supposed to be a way to silently express approval or lack thereof. Indeed I would have thought it would have solved the problem people had in this thread.
It doesn't help that it's not anonymous.
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Definitely do not remove the respect system. I won't disagree that jokes should be upvoted less and content upvoted more. But that would essentially be censoring a certain format of speech, because you do not like the impact the speech has or what people are saying with it, and that should be against anyone's principles.
I don't know what the answer is, but maybe aggressively forking offtrack topics are a good idea. The large mafia subforum grew out of an "in defense of monopoly" thread, which shows that interesting things can come from sidetracks, but at the same time shows a thread can definitely dig deep into something that OP might not be interested. Forking isn't really censoring people if it's done in an internally consistent way, and censorship should be a one-step-after-last resort, when you turn the server off, maybe you censor the powered down server a little bit, that's when it's ok.
You could split it in two.
Smiley for funny content, arrow or plus or thumbs up for serious content.
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Definitely do not remove the respect system. I won't disagree that jokes should be upvoted less and content upvoted more. But that would essentially be censoring a certain format of speech, because you do not like the impact the speech has or what people are saying with it, and that should be against anyone's principles.
I don't know what the answer is, but maybe aggressively forking offtrack topics are a good idea. The large mafia subforum grew out of an "in defense of monopoly" thread, which shows that interesting things can come from sidetracks, but at the same time shows a thread can definitely dig deep into something that OP might not be interested. Forking isn't really censoring people if it's done in an internally consistent way, and censorship should be a one-step-after-last resort, when you turn the server off, maybe you censor the powered down server a little bit, that's when it's ok.
You could split it in two.
Smiley for funny content, arrow or plus or thumbs up for serious content.
The Wine Merchant face on Discord is pretty fantastic for this.