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Author Topic: Black Market?  (Read 35794 times)

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drsteelhammer

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Black Market?
« on: September 10, 2016, 09:29:44 pm »
+1

I remember Stef mentioning changes to Black Market on his stream and asking for feedback in passing. Did you intend to entertain the chat with it or are you still interested in feedback?

fyi the changes he mentioned were that the black market deck wouldn't be displayed in the chat anymore aswell as the BM deck being shuffled wenn you've seen every card once.
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J Reggie

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2016, 10:22:33 pm »
+7

It'd be really nice to have the option to include every kingdom card except the ones in the current kingdom, like it actually says on the card.

Davio

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2016, 02:07:28 am »
+2

Drop the "putting them back in some order" part.
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Qvist

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2016, 08:41:07 am »
+19

I don't really like hiding the contents. The most fun part in Black Market for me is figuring out if it's worth going for it. If you hide the contents, you kind of have to go for it every time, and I really don't like cards that you have to go for most of the time. Also not sure as well how you would hide the contents with cards in it that add extra piles or the Baker token for that matter.

It'd be really nice to have the option to include every kingdom card except the ones in the current kingdom, like it actually says on the card.

An option might be okay, but I really don't like it as a default. Because this means we always play with Prizes, Travellers, a bane card, Mercenary, Madman ..., the interface would become proabably very unclear. Also for the same reasoning, you kind of have to go for Black Market if there is every card in it which ruins the fun of figuring out if it's worth going for it.

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #4 on: September 11, 2016, 09:26:12 am »
0

Also for the same reasoning, you kind of have to go for Black Market if there is every card in it which ruins the fun of figuring out if it's worth going for it.

That's true. When I play that way IRL, it takes enough time to set up that you'd better go for it, but online it'd be different. I'm not sure if I agree that you have to go for it though. There are enough cards that there's no way you'll see them all.

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2016, 10:14:37 am »
+8

Yes I was asking for feedback. I like thinking and talking about these kind of things. A little warning though, when it comes down to Dominion cards, all you and I can do is have opinions and reasoning, but in the end only one opinion will actually count (Donalds).


I don't really like hiding the contents. The most fun part in Black Market for me is figuring out if it's worth going for it. If you hide the contents, you kind of have to go for it every time, and I really don't like cards that you have to go for most of the time. Also not sure as well how you would hide the contents with cards in it that add extra piles or the Baker token for that matter.

Also for the same reasoning, you kind of have to go for Black Market if there is every card in it which ruins the fun of figuring out if it's worth going for it.

While you have some valid points, here are some more thoughts in kind of random order:

1) If you put all cards in the Black Market deck (the way the card was designed to), your game probably sees only the top 30-or-so. If both players go heavy engine maybe the top 100. There is no functional difference between a card not being in the black market deck, and a card being below the top-X anyway, where X is the number of cards your game reveals. (except for setup)

2) Your decision to go for the Black Market or not should not depend on its content, period. This has nothing to do with card or program design, just some strategical advice. Look at the rest of the kingdom; if you can build an engine go for Black Market - always.

3) The 25-cards-in-BM was not invented by Donald. Isotropic had it, goko probably assumed that's how it was supposed to work, but it simply doesn't state that on the card. Donald never really cared enough to do something about it, it's only a promo anyway.

4) Putting all cards in the BM is a bit awkward for setup rules indeed. I wouldn't mind always getting an extra pile (YW) or a coin token (baker) but always doing all the setup... hmmm.

5) Putting all cards in the BM might turn out to be too much for clients that don't like loading all the images (say, on a phone with a lousy internet connection). A bit soon to tell though.

6) In the current implementation the combination of full-game-log and a recycling small black market deck implies that on the second cycle you can know exactly what shows up, if you are willing to invest (waste) the time on it. Regardless of what else, I want to stop that.

7) While you may enjoy reading through all the black market deck cards at the start of the game, there is a reasonable chance your opponent doesn't enjoy the wait.
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mustang255

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #6 on: September 11, 2016, 10:31:51 am »
+3

I like the way Donald does the Black Market deck; he just picks an entire expansion and puts 1 of each card from it in the deck.

It lets players know what is in the deck without reading through it card-by-card, makes the deck a reasonable size, and is fairly straight-forward for setup and takedown (not applicable to digital gaming, but still).

Even if it isn't the default option, it would be nice to have that as an option when using Black Market.
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drsteelhammer

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #7 on: September 11, 2016, 11:12:59 am »
+3

1) If you put all cards in the Black Market deck (the way the card was designed to), your game probably sees only the top 30-or-so. If both players go heavy engine maybe the top 100. There is no functional difference between a card not being in the black market deck, and a card being below the top-X anyway, where X is the number of cards your game reveals. (except for setup)

It is functionally equal to the "dark" black market deck with no info on what 25 cards are in there, not functionally equal to the status quo BM which lets you make informed choices in the midgame
2) Your decision to go for the Black Market or not should not depend on its content, period. This has nothing to do with card or program design, just some strategical advice. Look at the rest of the kingdom; if you can build an engine go for Black Market - always.

I don't know when and when not to go for Black Market better than you, so I don't disagree with that part of the advice. However, have you never played/not played BM due to the upcoming cards? Certainly I did, and for example I saw MicQ do the same in his last League match.
3) The 25-cards-in-BM was not invented by Donald. Isotropic had it, goko probably assumed that's how it was supposed to work, but it simply doesn't state that on the card. Donald never really cared enough to do something about it, it's only a promo anyway.

Donald himself admitted that he doesn't bother with getting 250 cards out for Black Market. I think the 25 card deck was a nice improvement, and I'm glad we can credit Iso and not Goko for that.
4) Putting all cards in the BM is a bit awkward for setup rules indeed. I wouldn't mind always getting an extra pile (YW) or a coin token (baker) but always doing all the setup... hmmm.


not to mention the 20 non-kingdom piles that technically would have to be out everytime.....
6) In the current implementation the combination of full-game-log and a recycling small black market deck implies that on the second cycle you can know exactly what shows up, if you are willing to invest (waste) the time on it. Regardless of what else, I want to stop that.

sad times. This is actually one of my favourite things to do with BM, atleast in League matches. I can see the point of researching the log being boring (for your opponent) even if it's personally not an issue for me.

I was actually going to suggest that the Log just doesn't display the revealed cards, but that doesn't seem like a good idea either since it says "reveal" on the card.

I just feel like there are very few winners when it comes to this change. People who already hate the card calling it a "slot machine" will have their beliefs reinforced by taking away more tacticial aspects whereas people who like the card lose potential to use this card strategically.
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Chris is me

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #8 on: September 11, 2016, 11:27:40 am »
0

I understand and mostly agree that the contents of the BM deck usually aren't the deciding factor on when to go for it, but I don't think that information should be taken away from the user just because of that?

And sometimes it is relevant - I check the BM deck to see what and how many of "the missing piece" are in there. The answer is almost always "at least two", so I go for it. But sometimes it's more than half shitty cards, or there's so much good stuff I need two BMs, and in both those cases knowing the deck contents matters to me.
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Qvist

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #9 on: September 11, 2016, 11:41:50 am »
+4

2) Your decision to go for the Black Market or not should not depend on its content, period. This has nothing to do with card or program design, just some strategical advice. Look at the rest of the kingdom; if you can build an engine go for Black Market - always.

I definitely disagree. If the board offers you everything you want for the engine, then you don't need to go for Black Market most of the times (unless there's something like Tournament in there), if the board is missing like a trasher, then it depends on the contents of the Black Market deck if you go for it. If the Black Market deck for example also is missing the trasher, there is just no need to go for it. I know you love Black Market and nearly always go for it. You're a good player, but that doesn't mean this love for Black Market negatively impacts the way you play with Black Market on the board. Of course it depends on the content. If you go for the perfect engine board and in the Black Market deck is for example Masterpiece, Taxman, Scout, Feodum, Fool's Gold, Treasure Map, Transmute etc. that you don't need, you don't need Black Market. It may be true that in most cases on average there is something in there that you might need, but still that doesn't mean it's correct to go for Black Market blindly just in the off chance there isn't.

3) The 25-cards-in-BM was not invented by Donald. Isotropic had it, goko probably assumed that's how it was supposed to work, but it simply doesn't state that on the card. Donald never really cared enough to do something about it, it's only a promo anyway.

I know, he also ruled/recommended that there have to be at least 3 Alchemy cards in the kingdom, but I doubt this will be the standard as well.

7) While you may enjoy reading through all the black market deck cards at the start of the game, there is a reasonable chance your opponent doesn't enjoy the wait.

Well, I doubt my opponent has to wait a long time until I read the contents of the Black Market deck.

dedicateddan

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #10 on: September 11, 2016, 02:44:31 pm »
+1

The primary reason not to go for black market is that terminal space is limited and the black market deck contains many +action cards

I like the implementation of the black market deck suggested on the card "one copy of each Kingdom card not in supply." There's a small chance of hitting every good card, and the deck is large enough that the ordering of the cards on the bottom is irrelevant

The discrete size of the black market deck currently online introduces a number of issues. Notably, it's possible to identify the most important cards in the deck and track their position throughout the game
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LibraryAdventurer

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #11 on: September 11, 2016, 04:49:17 pm »
+1

I agree with drsteelhammer and Qvist that it's good to have a limited number of cards and know what's there in the Black Market deck at the beginning of the game.

6) In the current implementation the combination of full-game-log and a recycling small black market deck implies that on the second cycle you can know exactly what shows up, if you are willing to invest (waste) the time on it. Regardless of what else, I want to stop that.
I also agree that this is a problem, but why not just shuffle the cards on each time through the deck?

Beyond Awesome

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #12 on: September 11, 2016, 04:55:08 pm »
0

I agree with drsteelhammer and Qvist that it's good to have a limited number of cards and know what's there in the Black Market deck at the beginning of the game.

6) In the current implementation the combination of full-game-log and a recycling small black market deck implies that on the second cycle you can know exactly what shows up, if you are willing to invest (waste) the time on it. Regardless of what else, I want to stop that.
I also agree that this is a problem, but why not just shuffle the cards on each time through the deck?

BM states put the cards back on the bottom in any order. Shuffling the deck would be errata
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #13 on: September 11, 2016, 04:58:32 pm »
+2

I know, he also ruled/recommended that there have to be at least 3 Alchemy cards in the kingdom, but I doubt this will be the standard as well.

Quote from: Donald X.
I made the set with the idea that maybe just one Alchemy card would show up in a game - that's why it has so many chaining actions. Valerie and Dale wanted the 3 cards recommendation; they said they enjoyed the cards more that way. So, that's the reason for that, and there's no other reason.

https://boardgamegeek.com/article/17872919#17872919
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Donald X.

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #14 on: September 11, 2016, 05:09:56 pm »
+6

I know, he also ruled/recommended that there have to be at least 3 Alchemy cards in the kingdom, but I doubt this will be the standard as well.
That didn't come from me; Valerie and Dale wanted it. All the work I did on the expansion was done with the idea that you might just have one Alchemy card show up.

As reported I like Black Market to be all of the cards from one expansion; as noted obv. a big thing is that that's easier for playing with it irl. If it's a mix then I prefer it to not be shown (as if it were a giant pile you were never getting through), and to not include cards with setup in it (it's just always confusing, though you can put up a message).

The contents of the Black Market deck is information you might make use of if you had it; that's the point to not giving it to you, to not spend time on that. If I had made it as a computer-only card, it would just pick three random cards every time, with no deck at all (oh probably with a short list of exempted cards e.g. ones with setup).

Stef asked last month if he could shuffle the Black Market deck after the first pass (so that he wouldn't be looking through the log to see what order cards would come up); I said yes. I don't know how it will end up working. If it's the kind of thing someone wants to worry about then I do not need to take that from them.
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blueblimp

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #15 on: September 11, 2016, 06:19:06 pm »
0

Didn't isotropic restrict log history to just a few recent turns? That prevents reading back through the full log to get BM info. BM isn't the only case where you may be incentivized to read through the whole log, so I think providing the full log is inherently problematic.

(By the way, back when isotropic was still around, I spent a little time working on a feature for drheld's extension that would track BM contents. Never bothered finishing it though.)
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SCSN

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #16 on: September 11, 2016, 06:21:06 pm »
+6

Didn't isotropic restrict log history to just a few recent turns? That prevents reading back through the full log to get BM info. BM isn't the only case where you may be incentivized to read through the whole log, so I think providing the full log is inherently problematic.

(By the way, back when isotropic was still around, I spent a little time working on a feature for drheld's extension that would track BM contents. Never bothered finishing it though.)

Isotropic provided the full log when the point counter was enabled, and the last 3 turns when it was not.
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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #17 on: September 11, 2016, 07:43:34 pm »
+2

Quote
If I had made it as a computer-only card, it would just pick three random cards every time, with no deck at all (oh probably with a short list of exempted cards e.g. ones with setup).
This is the idea that appeals the most to me. Whether it is or isn't a "deck" that won't show you a second copy of a card doesn't seem important, as long as you don't have to click to order the cards you aren't buying.
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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #18 on: September 11, 2016, 09:11:14 pm »
+1

If BM did use every single Dominion card, I do think it would cool that every game we got a bane card and coin token to use.

With that said, I also like the idea of just using a single expansion as the BM deck. Maybe Alchemy, Cornucopia, and Guilds could be counted as a single expansion since they're small sets.
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dedicateddan

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #19 on: September 11, 2016, 11:30:18 pm »
+4

Quote
If I had made it as a computer-only card, it would just pick three random cards every time, with no deck at all (oh probably with a short list of exempted cards e.g. ones with setup).
This is the idea that appeals the most to me. Whether it is or isn't a "deck" that won't show you a second copy of a card doesn't seem important, as long as you don't have to click to order the cards you aren't buying.

I support this implementation. It sounds perfect for online play. It also feels consistent with the intent of the card
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Infthitbox

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #20 on: September 12, 2016, 11:16:14 am »
+2

I would support having all cards in the Black Market deck and ignoring the setup text on the cards in the black market. So you don't have an extra pile for Young Witch, you don't get a coin token from Baker, and your miserable Urchin never grows up, your Hermits never lose their minds, etc. In addition to being simpler, it makes a certain amount of sense that a 'hidden' element of the game cannot affect setup. Of course, if you include every card in the BM deck, the question of whether to randomize the order each iteration is mostly moot.
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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #21 on: September 12, 2016, 11:31:44 am »
+1

I would support having all cards in the Black Market deck and ignoring the setup text on the cards in the black market. So you don't have an extra pile for Young Witch, you don't get a coin token from Baker, and your miserable Urchin never grows up, your Hermits never lose their minds, etc. In addition to being simpler, it makes a certain amount of sense that a 'hidden' element of the game cannot affect setup. Of course, if you include every card in the BM deck, the question of whether to randomize the order each iteration is mostly moot.

Young Witch would be strong but probably ok. Death Cart would be super broken, and Marauder and Cultist would suck.

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #22 on: September 12, 2016, 12:03:01 pm »
+1

I would support having all cards in the Black Market deck and ignoring the setup text on the cards in the black market.

I like this idea, and it seems like it could easily fit within the current rules with a clarification from DXV. If the card wasn't visible during setup, you don't do the things it says to do during setup. It's a little similar to other cards like Knights or Ruins where you only actually interact with the one card you can see.

It might break a few cards (Marauder), but that seems okay for a promo. The Black Market already drastically changes some cards (Page, Rats, etc). And you probably won't even see most cards in the deck anyway. Is there anything that would be truly game-breaking?
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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #23 on: September 12, 2016, 12:10:51 pm »
+1

I would support having all cards in the Black Market deck and ignoring the setup text on the cards in the black market. So you don't have an extra pile for Young Witch, you don't get a coin token from Baker, and your miserable Urchin never grows up, your Hermits never lose their minds, etc. In addition to being simpler, it makes a certain amount of sense that a 'hidden' element of the game cannot affect setup. Of course, if you include every card in the BM deck, the question of whether to randomize the order each iteration is mostly moot.

Young Witch would be strong but probably ok. Death Cart would be super broken, and Marauder and Cultist would suck.

Death Cart would still tear your deck apart, piece by piece. It just doesn't give you the convenient fuel. Yeah, both Young Witch and Death Cart would get better, some cards would get worse. But we are talking about the effects of a promo card on a handful of cards which will have a small chance of appearing in any game with that promo, and are limited to one copy each. I'm fine with that.
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Donald X.

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Re: Black Market?
« Reply #24 on: September 12, 2016, 03:46:45 pm »
+2

I would support having all cards in the Black Market deck and ignoring the setup text on the cards in the black market. So you don't have an extra pile for Young Witch, you don't get a coin token from Baker, and your miserable Urchin never grows up, your Hermits never lose their minds, etc. In addition to being simpler, it makes a certain amount of sense that a 'hidden' element of the game cannot affect setup. Of course, if you include every card in the BM deck, the question of whether to randomize the order each iteration is mostly moot.
The issue was, what if a card really needed setup. Not just a coin token we usually don't get or whatever, or a Trade Route you just aren't getting because it won't go anywhere, but something that made the card no longer make sense at all, made it a rules question with no obvious answer. The way to be safe was to do the setup. The good solution is to just not include those cards in the Black Market deck. And of course ideally Black Market would just say that right on it and then there you go.
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