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Author Topic: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]  (Read 164695 times)

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WanderingWinder

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #425 on: July 04, 2012, 11:30:11 pm »
+1

Quote
I've been trying as hard as I possibly can to engage fairly and usefully with the criticisms directed at me and my beliefs. If you could point out some places where you think I've failed at that, I would appreciate it.
I would appreciate if you confirm the following:

I did read, just not sure this is exactly what you meant. But it still sounds too crazy for me, so just let me reconfirm:
so you think it is actually better to play paper-scissors-stone to qualify for the nationals, because it is fairer?

No, of course it's not. I can't really believe I have to write this out, but people are on such different planes of understanding that I suppose I do. Isotropic Dominion and Offline Dominion are utterly different games, and their rules cannot and do not affect each other. They are undeniably similar, and our community concerns itself with both, so it was decided to allow a tournament of one to feed into a tournament of the other, even though (I thought) it was clear to absolutely everyone involved that they would be playing under different conditions, and believe that those conditions are different enough to classify it as a different game (though a reasonable one to mix into a Dominion tournament). We could use different language, like "different variant" or "different rules" or whatever, but the fact remains that there is a conceptual divide between them, and that arguments of the form "X is illegal in Offline Dominion so it is clearly illegal in Isotropic Dominion" and "X is not what Nationals will be testing for, so it's not what we should be testing for either" are 100% invalid, and myriad counterexamples abound that no one is complaining about.
I mean, seriously, if this is true, why does silver cost $3? Why are there 8 provinces for 2 -player? Why are there 12 provinces for 4-player? Why are any of the things the way they are? Of course, it's because the rules isotropic uses are by-and-large inherited from dominion. Yes, there are some small differences, like you can't see discards. But in general, all the rules are inherited, with only specific exceptions. The null assumption on any particular rule would be that it stands.

blueblimp

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #426 on: July 04, 2012, 11:34:01 pm »
0

Isotropic Dominion is a Dominion variant. It's not exactly the same as Dominion as described in the rulebooks. (For example, can't see the top of discard.) Saying it's "not Dominion" is silly, but then again, I also think saying Isotropic+PCE is "not Dominion" is silly. I don't think it's consistent to say that Isotropic Dominion "is Dominion" but Isotropic+PCE "isn't Dominion". They are both variants.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #427 on: July 04, 2012, 11:38:13 pm »
0

Isotropic Dominion is a Dominion variant. It's not exactly the same as Dominion as described in the rulebooks. (For example, can't see the top of discard.) Saying it's "not Dominion" is silly, but then again, I also think saying Isotropic+PCE is "not Dominion" is silly. I don't think it's consistent to say that Isotropic Dominion "is Dominion" but Isotropic+PCE "isn't Dominion". They are both variants.
I'd agree with this, largely. If both players agree to one of them, it's fine - it's a dominion variant, which isn't straight dominion, but is under the umbrella.
This is why I don't really have any problem with disableable PCE.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2012, 11:39:31 pm by WanderingWinder »
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zxcvbn2

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #428 on: July 04, 2012, 11:40:21 pm »
0

Isotropic Dominion is a Dominion variant. It's not exactly the same as Dominion as described in the rulebooks. (For example, can't see the top of discard.) Saying it's "not Dominion" is silly, but then again, I also think saying Isotropic+PCE is "not Dominion" is silly. I don't think it's consistent to say that Isotropic Dominion "is Dominion" but Isotropic+PCE "isn't Dominion". They are both variants.

But one is clearly closer to, well, "Dominion." Neither is exactly like playing IRL, but you can't say they're equally different from "I only play exactly by the official rules with the real cards and IRL Dominion."

I will say that you are absolutely right, though. Neither is exactly as Dominion was intended to be played, and there's nothing inherently wrong with either of them.
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Powerman

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #429 on: July 04, 2012, 11:57:49 pm »
0

What I find most amusing is the talking about whether things are allowed or not allowed in the rules, while the creator of the game and rules specifically says they are not allowed (or they are cheating).  I mean come on.  If the game designer does not know the rules, who does?
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Kirian

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #430 on: July 05, 2012, 12:18:11 am »
+3

As I've been reading the last six pages or so, this has been running through my head:

"Person Man, Person Man/Hit on the head with a frying pan
Lives his life in a garbage can/Person Man
Is he depressed or is he a mess?/Does he feel totally worthless?
Who came up with Person Man?/Degraded man, Person Man" -- TMBG

----

"I am of course very disappointed that Personman flouts the intent of this qualifying tournament. But it's not grounds for disqualification, so I don't know what else you want me to do." -- theory

"tl;dr: No point counter. Maybe you'll take notes, and we won't know, but you'll be constrained by the Isotropic time limit. We assume good faith among all players and reserve the right to post hoc DQ anyone based on the post-game video, although we sincerely hope we will not have to." --theory, with suggestions from rrenaud

----

Listen, Personman.  It is clear that you flouted the intent of the tournament.  It is clear that you bent the rules of the tournament almost to the breaking point, thus forcing theory's hand into either changing the rules or allowing what is clearly public cheating.  You did this through semantic and extremely pedantic arguments, beyond nitpicking.  What you then did, though technically legal in the tournament, would have been cheating in any other reasonable Dominion game, and this has been affirmed by Donald X multiple times just in this thread.

You have come to the forum and advocated the position that cheating ought to be legal because it cannot be enforced, a position which has now been crushed into the ground by multiple people.  You have tried to represent yourself as decent by acceeding to theory's requests about emails, but previously you refused to acceed to theory's repeated requests to not use the PCE/card counter, and after he officially banned it, still found a way around it.  You did so publicly, and on video.  You have admitted to it in this thread.

Yet you still attempt not only to insist on your correctness but to insist that you maintain the ethical high ground, despite the fact that at no point have you acted in good faith.

This goes beyond mere cognitive bias.  This is pure doublethink.  You ignore facts and ideas when convenient, then use the same facts and ideas when they can bolster your argument by being twisted ever so slightly.  You have used circular reasoning several times.  You have done all of this enough that even those who once supported you have started to wonder what you're talking about, and reconsidered their own views.

All for the sake of making an esoteric point about the unenforceability of a small subset of rules under a small subset of conditions, you have effectively invalidated the entire tournament, and made future online tournaments useless for entry into the national competition.  You have shown yourself as a cheat and a fraud, and yet you continue to claim otherwise.

This is madness.  (Fine, insert pic of Leonidas here.)

To sum up:

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popsofctown

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #431 on: July 05, 2012, 12:31:26 am »
0

I am only defeating the particular argument I quoted, and am not trying to settle the whole thing with the discard comparison.

Just that "Isotropic dominion uses the exact same rules as IRL dominion, and all players already know, at all times, to constantly preserve that" is not right.  If I ask you what's on top of your discard pile, for us to replicate offline dominion you need to tell me at least one card that could be there.  If you denied me access to that information IRL you would be cheating.  If you deny me access to that information on isotropic, you are not cheating.  Because it's a different variant of Dominion, one where you discard Trader and Watchtower to a Militia, and I still have no clue whether I should buy an IGG or not.

The argument, "theory forbid the use of the point tracker in this particular tournament" is not covered by my discard pile counterexample.  Only the argument "All offline rules apply online, and thus players in the online tournament need to preserve all the offline rules".
Well, I said "by default," as in, if the experience with that rule is significantly poorer(ie, the discard thing), then we should consider changing it, otherwise not.  I'm not saying preserve all the offline rules.  I'm saying do so if there is no good reason not to.  The idea that people can more easily cheat online does not strike me as a good reason to change the rules to allow the cheating.
Now it's about your opinion on the change, not a rigid adherence to the default rules.  And that's okay.  As long as your argument isn't "I'm holding the base Dominion rulebook, I have the high ground Anakin".  I was perceiving your argument as being that no reasoning at all could justify a change to online dominion that contradicts offline dominion.

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popsofctown

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #432 on: July 05, 2012, 12:35:53 am »
+1

You have done all of this enough that even those who once supported you have started to wonder what you're talking about, and reconsidered their own views.
Fwiw, I still support his actions given the events as I currently understand them. You will not have one stark mad black sheep lunatic of the forum, you will have at least one other, and you shall call him pops.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2012, 12:43:32 am by popsofctown »
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RisingJaguar

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #433 on: July 05, 2012, 12:37:11 am »
0

Maybe I am just naive, but does anybody on the isotropics keep track of cards in other people's deck.  I honestly would never have thought about doing that.  If I want to keep track of cards, I just... focus.
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Powerman

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #434 on: July 05, 2012, 12:39:02 am »
0

Maybe I am just naive, but does anybody on the isotropics keep track of cards in other people's deck.  I honestly would never have thought about doing that.  If I want to keep track of cards, I just... focus.

I try to always remember what's in both of our decks, yes.  At least of the important cards.
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blueblimp

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #435 on: July 05, 2012, 12:48:45 am »
0

Maybe I am just naive, but does anybody on the isotropics keep track of cards in other people's deck.  I honestly would never have thought about doing that.  If I want to keep track of cards, I just... focus.
I don't think I'd keep track beyond a single number. So if isotropic's built-in point counter is off, I'd only be remembering points and not any particular card. If the counter is on, maybe the split on some key card.
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michaeljb

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #436 on: July 05, 2012, 12:52:56 am »
+4

You know, the way this thread has gone on for 18 pages, with countless arguments and counter-arguments, pleas for quotes to back up claims and accusations of inconsistencies, as well as pointing out who's siding with who, all vaguely reminds me of something else...what was it...

Oh, that's right.

Vote: Personman
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michaeljb

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #437 on: July 05, 2012, 12:54:34 am »
0

Actually, I just realized someone else has been suspiciously quiet. Unvote

Vote: Robz
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Jfrisch

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #438 on: July 05, 2012, 12:59:57 am »
0

@Personman somewhat confused by your beliefs. Is there an explicit rule in the tournament against, for example, using dominion simulators to deterine an optimal strategy. I don't think it was explicitly mentioned but it is clearly against the rules. Is asking a strong friend for help explicitly against the rules? Would you do those?
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Donald X.

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #439 on: July 05, 2012, 02:53:11 am »
+49

Actually, I just realized someone else has been suspiciously quiet. Unvote

Vote: Robz
Too late, that was a lynch.

Personman (22) - michaeljb, ftl, sjelkjd, eHalcyon, czechvarmander, zxcvbn2, timchen, methods of rationality, Captain_Frisk, joel88s, philosophyguy, Turambar, RisingJaguar, Ozle, Polk5440, Kirian, GigaKnight, DG, chwhite, nopawnsintended, yuma, Powerman [no relation]
Wandering Winder (3) - Davio, popsofctown, Personman
Not voting - Wandering Winder, Robz888

A crowd gathers at Personman's house. They tear down the door, they climb through the windows, they break down the walls. "We know you're in here, Personman!" And so he is, in plain sight. They drag him out to the town square.

"We're all friends!" he says politely and calmly. "Sure I killed them - and I'd do it again! They could kill me if they wanted to, by talking the mod into modkilling me, so it was only fair that I kill them. It was necessary to avoid breeding suspicion. It prevented anyone from having to argue about who could kill who. It was justice! Wow I'm kind of a great guy for doing it, when you think about it. Also the mod flat out said I could kill people when he said I had no abilities. Consult my previous posts if you find this hard to follow."

They toss a rope over a tree branch. "Anyway it wasn't killing, it was killing with an axe. They're utterly different." Michaeljb ties a noose. "But you haven't said anything new!" Personman protests. "You have to endlessly produce new ways to explain that nonsense is false, or be quiet. That's only reasonable! Thanks for having this dialogue, guys." They stand him on a chair, and put the noose around his neck.

"What?" Personman somehow doesn't understand. "My perspective has been advantageous to me every step of the way, so how could it possibly be flawed? You guys don't know what you're doing! Here, pretend this is relevant and says something and isn't just tossing around some words that sound good together and hoping no-one will call me on it: Life isn't a game!"

"Yeah, life isn't a game," says Donald X., putting a foot on the chair. "Unfortunately for you, this is a game." And he kicks the chair away.

Personman, townie Sociopath, is dead.

Night has begun. Get in your PM's, people. The thread is now locked.
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ftl

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #440 on: July 05, 2012, 03:21:42 am »
0

Donald X, forum mafia.

What.
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DStu

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #441 on: July 05, 2012, 03:22:13 am »
0

Personman (22) - michaeljb, ftl, sjelkjd, eHalcyon, czechvarmander, zxcvbn2, timchen, methods of rationality, Captain_Frisk, joel88s, philosophyguy, Turambar, RisingJaguar, Ozle, Polk5440, Kirian, GigaKnight, DG, chwhite, nopawnsintended, yuma, Powerman [no relation]
Wandering Winder (3) - Davio, popsofctown, Personman
Not voting - Wandering Winder, Robz888

But the mod arguing all the way along with the town is also a 'variant' of mafia, isn't it?

+1 though
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samath

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #442 on: July 05, 2012, 03:36:45 am »
+1

Wow, and here I was thinking game designers were above trolling. Haha, that was pretty funny, though.

We seem to like logic trains, so here's another one.

1. Where the rules are unclear in a tournament, the tournament director is allowed to clarify.
2. The rules were not crystal clear about whether note-taking was permitted. The standard I use here is: If you have to refer someone to anything that is not in the official (offline) Dominion rules or in the tournament rules, it's not clear. Donald X's forum post saying that note-taking is cheating certainly falls outside of those two. You can't expect everyone to have read the entire forum before entering.
3. theory (with rrenaud's help) ultimately decided to ban the PCE, but to allow note-taking.
4. Personman, after clarifying that keeping such a spreadsheet was legal note-taking, played honestly and fairly and lost. Though his develop engine in game 4 was pretty awesome.

Therefore, no cheating actually occurred. I want this to be clear because while we might disagree with Personman's stance that the PCE should be enabled, I have no objections to his actual play in this tournament.

On the other hand, it does appear overwhelmingly clear that (and here are some things we can vote on!)
Proposition 1. This Dominion community, on the whole, approves of and plans to abide by unenforceable rules for online Dominion, even when there are actual prizes.
Proposition 2. This Dominion community, on the whole, desires that note-taking (on a spreadsheet or on pen and paper) be disallowed in online tournament play. (Of course, this would need to actually be stated in the rules.)
Proposition 3. This Dominion community, on the whole, desires that official tournament play allow for the official point counter and disallow the unofficial point counter, possibly (in both cases) unless all players in that particular game agree otherwise.
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Davio

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #443 on: July 05, 2012, 03:41:07 am »
0

Epic post by DX.

Being killed by the game designer, it's almost like... divine intervention.
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Donald X.

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #444 on: July 05, 2012, 05:51:10 am »
0

Wow, and here I was thinking game designers were above trolling. Haha, that was pretty funny, though.
Man, that's not trolling. Trolls write short posts that provoke long posts. I don't think anyone's trolling here. I guess you could count my tower defense line, but that was just a delightful moment of comic relief to help us get through these hard times.

On the other hand, it does appear overwhelmingly clear that (and here are some things we can vote on!)
Proposition 1. This Dominion community, on the whole, approves of and plans to abide by unenforceable rules for online Dominion, even when there are actual prizes.
Proposition 2. This Dominion community, on the whole, desires that note-taking (on a spreadsheet or on pen and paper) be disallowed in online tournament play. (Of course, this would need to actually be stated in the rules.)
Proposition 3. This Dominion community, on the whole, desires that official tournament play allow for the official point counter and disallow the unofficial point counter, possibly (in both cases) unless all players in that particular game agree otherwise.
Saying that people are in favor of abiding by unenforceable rules is at best a misleading way to talk about what's been going down. The conversation topics have been more specific than that.

Note-taking does not need to be explicitly forbidden, I can repeat this endlessly. It would probably get explicitly forbidden as a FAQ if we had official rules, but it is madness to think that you can do anything that hasn't been forbidden. It breaks all games, except possibly Step-on-feet.

This Dominion community is being represented here by its most vocal members, further limited to those who have the stomach for this thread. So I dunno. I expect there are a decent number of people who like having a point-counter; I guess you could check what people pick on isotropic. I expect that most people are against note-taking because they don't want to feel like they should be taking notes - being illegal means they can avoid that work without giving up an advantage (hey this is a neat complement to Personman's stance). There are people like clearclaw (a BGG guy) who are strongly in favor of tracking any trackable information, but I don't think there are enough of them playing Dominion to ever go as far as providing a card-tracker in the online version (though there are probably enough who want a point-counter to provide that).
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Davio

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #445 on: July 05, 2012, 06:08:50 am »
+1

Well, I could live with the decision to ban the PCE, but let players take notes if they so wish.

If someone wants to go through the trouble of tracking by hand to squeeze out an extra percentage point of winning chance, good luck with that. In reality, I think people don't care enough to make the effort and only a few will actually do it. I can live with a few, I don't care about a few. If I'm playing with someone and he tells me he tracks the game with P&P, I'll tell him: as long as you don't slow the game down, which is, of course, impossible, but if he could somehow play at normal speed, I wouldn't have a problem with it. The randomizer probably plays a bigger role in deciding who wins than his mighty pencil.

I know I had threatened to provide some offline software to prove my earlier point, but hey, even that's too much trouble for me. While there is no difference in theory between using the PCE and using P&P, there is in practice. I will stand by my point that whatever rule is eventually decided on is unenforceable and that I would have liked a built-in PCE.

It could be just like Diablo III where you have a character sheet where you can check your main stats and a details sheet where all of your stats are visbile. If the consensus is against such a thing, I can accept it and move on.

I realize I may have made friends and enemies by defending Personman's point of view, sometimes with confrontational and spiteful posts, but I'm here to make neither friends nor enemies. I'm here to have a good time. So I apologize if I've offended anyone.

I just hope the different branches can merge and become a tree again.

Though I must admit, this topic has been a lot of fun. It was nice to break the daily routine like that. Still, 18 pages is a lot, especially since it can be condensed in 1 page, so I won't throw any more fuel on the fire and will readily accept whichever way the consensus goes.
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ST218

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #446 on: July 05, 2012, 08:05:20 am »
0

I have very little input that has not been said, but I wish to note that DXV's posts have given me some very enjoyable laughter, and for that, I thank you all.
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Schneau

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #447 on: July 05, 2012, 08:52:37 am »
+2

I haven't read most of this thread, but I find it a shame that a lot of the community seems to be tied up in arguing while others are doing awesome and fun things on this forum, like Qvist's card lists and rinkworks' design contests. I think Dominion is about having fun, not getting mad, so those threads are going to be where I spend my time, not here.
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theory

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Re: Finals order [plus a point/card counter debate]
« Reply #448 on: July 05, 2012, 09:10:49 am »
0

I think I would have to agree.  I'm more than happy to start another topic on this subject, where you can debate how future online tournaments ought to rule on the card-counter.  But debating whether one individual's actions during this past tournament were moral, ethical, immoral, or unethical is starting to beat a dead horse. 

On the other hand, the rest of the topic went surprisingly well, considering the subject matter. 
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