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Messages - Reverend Zed

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Alright, after continued playtesting despite what josh56 would be saying, all evidence points to the contrary.

At a cost of 8, Bulgrim was only bought twice, even when i had enough to purchase, because our games have a very short duration & there is hardly enough time to reach a buying power of 8 & already/ instead be buying provinces.

The only two options were to slow down play (nope), or use silver spamming with masterpiece, which has better avenues of victory anyway.

Of the two times that Bulgrim was used, he mainly used his "half golem" ability, which had little effect against a silver/ masterpiece build. And only accounted for 3-4 VP at the endgame using a market/peddler build.

My opponent really is fixated on a silver build, & even the avatar i made to benefit a silver deck was used only twice. Not to mention he was the only player able to regularly afford the avatar.

The other build opponents tried was an Avatar designed for play with Alchemy cards, only bought it once, & it did not change the game significantly. The silver build won 3/5 games, all without an avatar. Real playtesting shows that they do not change gameplay significantly.

Avatars used in playtesting:
Bulgrim: Cost [8] [Prototype costed 6]
Avatar
Static Ability: +1 to your total VP for every 4 Action cards in your deck.
Ability1: Choose one: +1 Action, or +1 Card, or Trash a card from your hand.
Ability2: +$1 for each Action card in your Discard pile.
Ability3: Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card. Discard any other cards & play the Action card.

Silver Serpent: Cost [9]
Avatar
Static Ability: +1 to your total VP for every 4 Silver in your deck.
Ability1: +1 Card, +1 Action.
Ability2: Gain a card costing up to $4.
Ability3: Gain +$1 for each Silver in your discard pile.

Xantcha: Cost [5]
Avatar
Static Ability: 1 to your total VP for every 4 Curses in your deck.
Ability1: +1 Card.
Ability2: Discard the top card of your deck, if its an action card you may play it.
Ability3: Gain $1 for each card you choose to discard during the Action phase.

Merchant Prince: Cost (5)
Avatar
Static Ability: +1 to your total VP for every 3 Gold or Platinum in your deck.
Ability1: +1 Buy.
Ability2: +1 Card, discard a card.
Ability3: Choose one: add a treasure token to Merchant Prince, or, remove any treasure tokens on Merchant Prince & gain $1 for each token removed this way.

Manshoon: Cost (7)
Avatar
Static Ability: +1 to your total VP for every 4 Potions, Gold, or Platinum in your deck.
Ability1: +2 Cards.
Ability2: Gain either a Silver or a Potion, you ma put it on top of your deck.
Ability3: Gain +$2 for each Potion in your discard pile.

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thank you everyone for the great feedback, i will be making changes to the OP based on your suggestions.

Considering that the first player usually has an advantage already, this makes the game seem rather unfair.

thank you for pointing this out, would it be a good idea to instead allow the player who goes last to pick their avatar first?

I would suggest each one having just 1 ability. This will allow them to be much easier to balance and also give them a bit more character e.g. Merchant Prince's static and 3rd ability clearly point towards a treasure and money theme but ability 1 and 2 are kind of just diluting that theme and give the card more flexibility than it really needs. I would say with this one just stick to option 3 and maybe change it to give you a coin token each turn so as to not add any unnecessary new tokens to the game.

I did consider giving them just one ability at first, & through the playtests people mostly used the avatars 3rd & "best" ability, but having variety is what might set them apart from other cards. As a "face" card, i would like to have them stand out from other cards. As for functionality, only one of their abilities can be activated per turn, & while the first ability is a simple +1 Action or +1 Buy, the second is usually situationally benificial (Bulgrims 2nd ability adds +$1 per action card in your discard pile, while not useful most of the time, it is in synergy with the Avatars focus on action cards in your deck).

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Also with just 3 examples there is already substantial crossover in abilities with +1 Card, + 1 Action and +1 Buy showing up multiple times already.

Apologies for the Voodoo Priestess, she was the baseline "template' for the rest, in terms of cost, static ability, & 3 different abilities to choose from. I kept it in the example to make it simpler to digest that they have 3 different abilities.

So Bulgrim has four options? I mean, his ability 1 is the same as the Voodoo ability 1 and ability 2. Just feels weird to put two abilities into one like that.

I got the idea from the pawn card, giving you options to choose from never hurts, his cost is much higher than the other Avatars so I decided to give him more options.

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As for reducing the avatars to one single ability, i'm all for that if thats what people prefer. However, my main question concerns their pricing for the sake of playtesting, as is. If through playtesting we find that only 1 ability is preferred, we will absolutely concur with the general consensus.

As it stands so far, the Avatars are expensive, & a $5 cost card is usually better (& preferred in playtesting) to an avatar that as was said earlier, is only as beneficial as your choice of deck building.

EDIT: Here is what the Bulgrim Prototype looked like for the first playtests:

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Variants and Fan Cards / New Card Type in 2nd Stage of Testing: Avatars
« on: October 10, 2017, 10:40:48 pm »
Greetings Dominion Folks. Though its my first time posting here, I have been designing fan cards for various games over the years, & thought I should take a crack at making something for Dominion.

My friend broke out his old boxes & we started playing again recently, & I noticed that the game lacks an element that most would deem unnecessary, though in my opinion could add flavor to more casual games.

Though the game is admittedly about the kingdoms, I wanted to add a "face" to the game, sort of a rudder by which to guide the theme of your build choices.

The first drafts were priced lower, but my friend said to raise the costs, stating they were too good for the cost of the card. That's where i could use some help is with the pricing of the cards, any feedback would be appreciated.


-Rules for Avatars:
Avatars, are cards used to represent the player & each is unique. Each player chooses one Avatar before the game starts, the player who goes first chooses his Avatar first.

Avatars are placed upside down (or face down) next to the players deck. Avatars cannot be activated without paying the Avatars buy cost, which counts as a buy. Once bought, the Avatar is turned back upside (Face up) & it is now active (since Avatars can only be activated during the buy phase, & their actions can only be used during the action phase, their non-static actions cannot be used the turn they are activated). Avatars are permanent once activated, & never get placed in a players deck.

Avatars have one static ability (always active, usually adding victory points in some fashion), & three active abilities. Avatars can only use one of their active abilities on each of your turns during the Action Phase.

I know the guidelines frown on using "permanents," but the avatar design was inspired by the old Vanguard cards, and the people that have tested them so far have no complaints, & in fact like them & think that they offer some new flavor to a game that we enjoy playing.

-Example Avatars:

Merchant Prince: Cost (5)
Avatar
Static Ability: +1 to your total VP for every 3 Gold or Platinum in your deck.
Ability1: +1 Buy.
Ability2: +1 Card, discard a card.
Ability3: Choose one: add a treasure token to Merchant Prince, or, remove any treasure tokens on Merchant Prince & gain $1 for each token removed this way.

Voodoo Priestess: Cost (5)
Avatar
Static Ability: +1 to your total VP for every 5 curses in each of your opponents decks.
Ability1: +1 Action.
Ability2: +1 Card.
Ability3: +1 Buy.

Bulgrim: Cost [8] [Prototype costed 6]
Avatar
Static Ability: +1 to your total VP for every 4 Action cards in your deck.
Ability1: Choose one: +1 Action, or +1 Card.
Ability2: +$1 for each Action card in your Discard pile.
Ability3: Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card. Discard any other cards & play the Action card.

Does Bulgrim do too much for a 6 cost card? At the cost of 8 he rarely got used at all, & even when activated they only get one action per turn. What do you think?

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