Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?  (Read 5032 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

soulnet

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2142
  • Respect: +1751
    • View Profile
Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« on: January 16, 2014, 09:51:53 pm »
+3

Thief, Noble Brigand, Pirate Ship, Knights, Rogue. They all reveal two cards. Why always two? Is there something inherently wrong with revealing 3? Would Thief or Pirate Ship be overpowered if the revealed 3 cards?

Saboteur is of course different because it does not have a fixed number. Swindler I guess could be argued that is a case that reveals just 1 card. But I am amazed that two of the weakest attacks (Thief and PS) also reveal just 2. I don't remember this being mentioned as a possible fix, nor I remember a story behind the number set in 2 appearing in the secret histories.
Logged

Kirian

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7096
  • Shuffle iT Username: Kirian
  • An Unbalanced Equation
  • Respect: +9411
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2014, 10:05:55 pm »
+2

I don't know in what order the cards were generated, though one assumes that Thief was pretty early.  I imagine that Thief originally just looked at the top card.  No treasure?  Oh well.  Obviously that would be incredibly underpowered.  So, instead, look at two, hey, Thief doesn't seem as bad now.  OK, sure, in hindsight it's still pretty bad, but this seems the most plausible reason--and then the cards that "look like Thief" should do the same as well.  Saboteur and Swindler, which trash and replace, don't look the same, and so don't have to be like that.

Note that it also gives a choice to someone--the attacker in the case of Thief, NB, and PS, and the attacked player for Rogue and Knights.
Logged
Kirian's Law of f.DS jokes:  Any sufficiently unexplained joke is indistinguishable from serious conversation.

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2014, 11:41:09 pm »
0

Pirate ship and thief are not weak in multiplayer. Revealing only 2 cards probably has some benefit with physical cards such as how easy it is to draw and manipulate them (with one hand).
Logged

LastFootnote

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7495
  • Shuffle iT Username: LastFootnote
  • Respect: +10721
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2014, 11:57:27 pm »
0

One card would be too swingy. Three cards would hurt too badly in multi-player games where you may have several players attacking you between each one of your turns. I'm not saying that an Attack that looks at 3 cards couldn't work, but it would probably look different from the standard Thief or Knight attack.
Logged

A Drowned Kernel

  • 2015 World Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1067
  • They/Them
  • Respect: +1980
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2014, 12:29:38 am »
+1

In some cases Knight and Rogue might be weaker at 3 cards, because that gives the defending player greater choice.
Logged
The perfect engine
But it will never go off
Three piles are empty

Ratsia

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 168
  • Respect: +113
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2014, 01:09:42 am »
+4

Besides "this was good enough in beta testing", one rather apparent reason for choosing two would be that it is the lowest number that is not way too swingy. Going from one to two makes the cards notably better, whereas going from two to three would have a smaller effect. Hence, three would just increase the complexity, at least in terms of playing time, unnecessarily.

One can also use a purely probabilistic argument. If Thief revealed just one card then an early-game Thief that attacks a deck of, say, 13 cards out of which 9 are treasures would have a probability of 31% of not hitting any treasures. With two cards this probability dramatically reduces to just 8%. This is a qualitative change, making a fairly common event a rare occasion that still happens (barely) often enough to be meaningful. For 8 treasures in a deck of 13 cards the numbers would be 38% and 13%, respectively.

With three cards we would be down to 1% (or 3% with 8 treasures). The probability would already be so low that anyone suffering from such a bad luck would rightfully feel pissed (assuming they thought playing Thief was a good idea in the first place). A better way of implementing a similar card would be to go with the Saboteur idea and just make it find a treasure every time; it would work quite similarly but not have this very low probability of sometimes not working at all. Of course this only holds for the early-game -- against engines such a Thief variant would be a different beast altogether -- but I guess you get the point.


My personal opinion on game design in general is that one should rarely design mechanics that use very small (or very high) probabilities for the basic outcomes. Instead, most of the random events should fall into roughly three categories: Those with roughly 50-50 odds, those with roughly 70-90% probability, and those with roughly 10-30% probability. If one has a desire of implementing something with just 1-10% probability of success/failure then it usually pays off of to think whether it should be just 0% instead. This doesn't mean the games should not have low probabilities for outcomes of series of actions, but one should be really careful when designing individual mechanics that operate with single digit probabilities.

The above argument relates nicely to dice games. With d6 all the possible outcome probabilities are quite okay; you cannot model anything with less than 17% probability. However, a game that used d12 or d20 as the dice and had individual outcomes for (some of) the dice results would usually not work that well.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2014, 01:11:56 am by Ratsia »
Logged

Davio

  • 2012 Dutch Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4787
  • Respect: +3412
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2014, 07:20:40 am »
0

Also, keep in mind that these cards have been designed with multiplayer in mind.

Cards which reveal 2 in a 2p game, reveal 4 in a 3p game and 6 in a 4p game, significantly higher numbers. Also, you can keep n Treasures with Thief in an n-player game, so it increases in strength rather rapidly. It turns from a nasty Workshop into a mega-Trader with regards to gaining Treasures.

If you would make Thief reveal 3, it would reveal 9 cards in a 4-player game! Odds are that you're at least going to find a couple of Silvers that way. Consider the previous example where a single Thief has an 8% chance of hitting a Treasure. Attacking 2 players yields an improbable 0,6% chance of not hitting anything, thus you have a 99,4% chance of hitting at least one Treasure. 84% of the time you will even hit two.

Pirate Ship in a 4-player game is an almost guaranteed hit; it's so darn good that most players will buy it and eventually no one has any money left and whoever was lucky enough to build up his PS a bit quicker will have a significant advantage.
Logged

BSG: Cagprezimal Adama
Mage Knight: Arythea

soulnet

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2142
  • Respect: +1751
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2014, 07:45:07 am »
0

I understand the analysis, but at least with Thief (and to some extent with PS as well), hitting Copper is actually BAD. Even in multiplayer, I find Thief rarely useful without alt-VP. Maybe revealing 3 for Thief would be fine.

I am guessing is more likely that one is too bad, and two may seem at least ok. And the reason for the minimum I suspect is not power balance, but speed of play. Reveal cards is one of the slowest things in Dominion.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2014, 07:46:46 am by soulnet »
Logged

Davio

  • 2012 Dutch Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4787
  • Respect: +3412
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2014, 07:59:31 am »
0

Well, Thief is still not spectacular in 3p or 4p and it shouldn't, but it's a lot more useful.

Still, I have always thought that Thief missed some topdecking or something similar.
Logged

BSG: Cagprezimal Adama
Mage Knight: Arythea

Jack Rudd

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1323
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jack Rudd
  • Respect: +1379
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2014, 12:14:01 pm »
+1

The above argument relates nicely to dice games. With d6 all the possible outcome probabilities are quite okay; you cannot model anything with less than 17% probability. However, a game that used d12 or d20 as the dice and had individual outcomes for (some of) the dice results would usually not work that well.
Dungeons and Dragons works OK. (Of course, a typical game of D&D will have tons of d20 rolls, no one of which is absolutely critical, which tends to work no matter what your die sizes are.)
Logged
Centuries later, archaeologists discover the remains of your ancient civilization.

Evidence of thriving towns, Pottery, roads, and a centralized government amaze the startled scientists.

Finally, they come upon a stone tablet, which contains but one mysterious phrase!

'ISOTROPIC WILL RETURN!'

Ratsia

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 168
  • Respect: +113
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #10 on: January 17, 2014, 01:34:15 pm »
0

Dungeons and Dragons works OK. (Of course, a typical game of D&D will have tons of d20 rolls, no one of which is absolutely critical, which tends to work no matter what your die sizes are.)
It works, but not really as a game in the same sense I meant in my argument. Role-playing games typically aim at a completely different kind of experiment compared to board games. Also, while they (well, at least the old-fashioned ones) often involve a lot of randomization, the key decisions are actually fairly deterministic, at least if the gamemaster knows what she is doing.

Anyway, applying that role to D&D would mean something like that one should never create scenarios where the success and failure depends on one such roll; having some stereotypical dungeon crawling scenario that ends in one roll of d20 where 1 means all characters die would simply be horrible. Then again, that would be equally bad even if d6 was used.
Logged

Awaclus

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11809
  • Shuffle iT Username: Awaclus
  • (´。• ω •。`)
  • Respect: +12847
    • View Profile
    • Birds of Necama
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #11 on: January 17, 2014, 02:46:11 pm »
0

I think the major reason why it works in role-playing games is that your character isn't supposed to know how likely you are to succeed.
Logged
Bomb, Cannon, and many of the Gunpowder cards can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way

The YouTube channel where I make musicDownload my band's Creative Commons albums for free

A Drowned Kernel

  • 2015 World Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1067
  • They/Them
  • Respect: +1980
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #12 on: January 17, 2014, 03:42:03 pm »
0

having some stereotypical dungeon crawling scenario that ends in one roll of d20 where 1 means all characters die would simply be horrible.

I'm pretty sure the old Tomb of Horrors had traps where you didn't even get to roll.
Logged
The perfect engine
But it will never go off
Three piles are empty

pitythefool

  • Thief
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 98
  • Respect: +85
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #13 on: January 17, 2014, 07:02:18 pm »
+3

You should also consider the defense cards.  Secret Chamber is a decent defense against Noble Brigand and Thief as long as they reveal only two cards.  Not so good against attacks revealing three cards.  There should be some balance.  I suppose Secret Chamber could also be changed to shuffle the top three.
Logged

Ratsia

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 168
  • Respect: +113
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #14 on: January 18, 2014, 04:09:05 am »
0

I'm pretty sure the old Tomb of Horrors had traps where you didn't even get to roll.
Which actually fits my argument nicely. Not having a chance to survive a trap is, arguably, better than having a small chance of surviving. It means that you can only thank/blame your own actions when avoiding the trap. That said, I guess most (modern) people would agree Tomb of Horrors was horrible.

Setting aside the way D&D and the like used to be played in the 70s and 80s, and could actually argue that roleplaying games are better approached as mostly deterministic systems. Sure there can be random elements in meaningless small things (though some games have stripped those out as well), but the big decisions are often determined directly by the conscious choices of the players. Many classical hack&slash gamers will perhaps treat combat as a special case, so that the characters indeed have probabilistic chance of dying or being severely injured if they enter combat, but even there the basic rule is that most of the time the players will know in advance that the chance of failing will be extremely low if not zero (and/or the game is equipped with means of reversing the outcome, such as resurrection or some stupid healing potions).
« Last Edit: January 18, 2014, 04:10:45 am by Ratsia »
Logged

pedroluchini

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 205
  • Respect: +205
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #15 on: January 18, 2014, 05:44:32 pm »
0

Cards which reveal 2 in a 2p game, reveal 4 in a 3p game and 6 in a 4p game, significantly higher numbers. Also, you can keep n Treasures with Thief in an n-player game, so it increases in strength rather rapidly. It turns from a nasty Workshop into a mega-Trader with regards to gaining Treasures.

Not that Thief needs to be made even weaker, but would you say it could be more easily balanced if it said "You may gain one of the trashed Treasures"?
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #16 on: January 18, 2014, 10:13:50 pm »
0

Quote
Setting aside the way D&D and the like used to be played in the 70s and 80s, and could actually argue that roleplaying games are better approached as mostly deterministic systems.

There are a number of diceless RPGs but the customers generally want dice.
Logged

Ratsia

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 168
  • Respect: +113
    • View Profile
Re: Why trashing attacks reveal two cards?
« Reply #17 on: January 19, 2014, 03:52:29 am »
0

There are a number of diceless RPGs but the customers generally want dice.
That's not what I meant. I meant that even RPGs that involve dice rolls, possibly even a lot of those, should often be played so that the critical parts of the scenario are still (almost or completely) deterministic. If the characters are chasing a person running away you would not roll dice to see whether they can catch him, but instead the gamemaster would set up the scene so that e.g. trying out outrun the person fleeing would always end up as a failure, but stealing the nearby bicycle and using that for the chase would lead to success. I know some people will simulate also mental capabilities (e.g. whether the characters should realize the bicycle idea even if the players wouldn't) with dice and doing that has its place in RPGs as well, but I hope you still get the point: If the rest of the scenario heavily depends on the outcome of this event then it should not be left at the will of the dice.


Also, the RPG cultures in different countries and age groups are quite different. I'm here talking about RPGs that actually are about playing a role. Of course the same systems can also be used for pure 70s hack-and-slash action as well, but calling that kind of pastime role-playing would make a bit of injustice for the term -- that's actually much closer to a (bad) board game.
Logged
Pages: [1]
 

Page created in 0.052 seconds with 20 queries.