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The retail game uses cardboard coins making it no different than Five Tribes or Small World in that regard. And the designer said it's a nonfactor so really it's just there to punish inattentive players because anyone paying half attention is tracking your score. Seems like a silly thing to call someone a bad designer. e: Okay I didn't see the "official variant" but hey it's a variant for a reason and the only way to enforce it is if the table collectively agrees to it before playing. e2: Eh, I can't get mad at his reasoning either. "This was never an issue in play testing but I included optional suggestions just in case certain groups want ideas for rare scenarios." Would it have been more okay if it were a file you had to download from the annals of BGG? al-azad fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 04:31
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this is why Stonemaier and Sirlin are the eternal game designer opposites. Without one, you cannot have the other. Where one is, the other cannot exist. The eternal balance of good customer service and ability to design for high level play.
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Jul 12, 2016 04:32
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Lorini posted:gently caress that. We play once seen always seen but I guess his apparently weak design can't handle that. That was something that put me off the Mistborn board game that Crafty is Kickstarting right now. You get these Favor chits, and some are positive, some are negative, but they all have the same backs. It looked like everyone would know what you were earning when you earned it, but you could just leave your chits face down so people could know with a look the number of chits, but not their value. These sorts of obfuscations just serve to benefit players with either good memories, or who want to keep notes. Now, if the number of chits is common knowledge, but their value is never public, that's a different matter entirely.
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Jul 12, 2016 04:34
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Lorini posted:once seen always seen I really can't imagine designing against this principle. Like, if you can get something of a secret value during the game (like bonus tokens in Jaipur), then I can understand that why you want to obfuscate things overall since it is partially unknown anyway, so stop the slowdown of people asking about totals since they can't get it for sure anyway. But to try and do this with non-identical tokens is just  to me.
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Jul 12, 2016 04:37
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I remember people here explicitly praising hidden VPs as a good thing against AP-prone players when I brought it up a while ago. Specifically, that it was a good design feature of Puerto Rico and Small World and that my friends and I keeping it as open info was not optimal. And now it's treated as a bad thing? 
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Jul 12, 2016 04:37
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e: didn't refresh, everybody already said this
rchandra fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 04:42
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Chill la Chill posted:I remember people here explicitly praising hidden VPs as a good thing against AP-prone players when I brought it up a while ago. Specifically, that it was a good design feature of Puerto Rico and Small World and that my friends and I keeping it as open info was not optimal. And now it's treated as a bad thing? It's almost like there are a lot of people on this forum! That is a really dumb rule but in the context of the game it would have very limited effect in rare situations I think.
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Jul 12, 2016 05:05
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Chill la Chill posted:I remember people here explicitly praising hidden VPs as a good thing against AP-prone players when I brought it up a while ago. Specifically, that it was a good design feature of Puerto Rico and Small World and that my friends and I keeping it as open info was not optimal. And now it's treated as a bad thing? Often games are not fun if someone spends half an hour calculating out the optimal move. Everyone at the table knows it's not fun, but for quite a few people it's difficult to resist. Additionally, in practice there is a big difference between known information, and hidden-but-theoretically-trackable information. People don't generally write everything down even if they could, just in the interest of time. So in practice, hidden-yet-trackable information becomes "Dave has a lot of red meeples, but not very many blue", which is useful information but much less AP-inducing than knowing "Dave has 8 reds, 2 blues, and 3 unknown meeples". This would probably be different if you were playing high-stakes keyflower with a million dollar pot. In that case, you might want to play it open just for expedience. (Alternatively, you could ban note-taking and have explicit clock rules, and just accept that better memory gives someone an advantage just like other better mental skills.)
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Jul 12, 2016 05:07
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I play Power Grid with secret money, despite every transaction being trackable. Also, when I played Container for the first time last week, my group agreed to play with secret money.
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Jul 12, 2016 05:10
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Chill la Chill posted:I remember people here explicitly praising hidden VPs as a good thing against AP-prone players when I brought it up a while ago. Specifically, that it was a good design feature of Puerto Rico and Small World and that my friends and I keeping it as open info was not optimal. And now it's treated as a bad thing? I think it depends a lot on the information. It would be silly in Ticket to Ride to force a player to split their hand between what they pulled out of the common row, versus what they draw blind. But with ticket, I care less about exactly how many of a given color my opponent has, but rather the trends in what they're picking up, as it's the trends that are informative. But the only reason I can think of to obscure the final score, especially in something like Small World, just seems to serve to try to keep players that are really getting their rear end kicked from dropping out because they can't win.
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Jul 12, 2016 05:15
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I'm happy to forego the odd win rather than have to endure endless min-max maths driven AP. If the game has a points tracker, great. If not, then I'll eyeball it.
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Jul 12, 2016 05:19
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Jabor posted:Often games are not fun if someone spends half an hour calculating out the optimal move. Everyone at the table knows it's not fun, but for quite a few people it's difficult to resist. Additionally, in practice there is a big difference between known information, and hidden-but-theoretically-trackable information. People don't generally write everything down even if they could, just in the interest of time. So in practice, hidden-yet-trackable information becomes "Dave has a lot of red meeples, but not very many blue", which is useful information but much less AP-inducing than knowing "Dave has 8 reds, 2 blues, and 3 unknown meeples". foxxtrot posted:I think it depends a lot on the information. It would be silly in Ticket to Ride to force a player to split their hand between what they pulled out of the common row, versus what they draw blind. But with ticket, I care less about exactly how many of a given color my opponent has, but rather the trends in what they're picking up, as it's the trends that are informative.
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Jul 12, 2016 05:29
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Chill la Chill posted:I'm the sort of player who reveals known card information in competitive MTG games. A lot of the more socially-unsavory types would prefer writing it down and pretending nobody knows what they know but lol. Same with TTR. Optimal play make you use known cards first anyway, so it really doesn't matter. But a lot of people have a weird mental hangup about "showing" what's not-really-hidden info. Absolutely, my point with Ticket was more that it was inconvenient to split your hand, and it would add little to do so.
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Jul 12, 2016 05:34
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foxxtrot posted:Absolutely, my point with Ticket was more that it was inconvenient to split your hand, and it would add little to do so. You just leave it out and it's not inconvenient at all. Like, it's on the table next to your fanned hand. It subtracts the time someone else would take to try and remember what card it was you took 5 turns ago.
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Jul 12, 2016 05:43
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Rutibex posted:These are just your personal preferences, not everyone believes that all things in life must be entirely compartmentalized. You seem to think that anyone that buys Tanto Cuore does so to jerk off to it, but that's not the case at all. Tanto Cuore is a mechanically sound game, in addition to having anime boob girls. Could it be that some people like Tanto Cuore as a game, but also find the cheeseball art to be an enhancement?
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Jul 12, 2016 05:54
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Antagonistic, insulting, or otherwise disruptive comments ARE NOT welcome here. Please use the  icon when you see disruptive or antagonistic comments or any other violations of the Community Rules. This serves two purposes:1- using the icon will bring that post to the attention of forum moderators so they can deal with it appropriately. We prefer that you not respond to the post directly. Responding invites the offender to continue, and if you respond aggressively you may end up dragging yourself down with the offender.2- if enough users flag a post using the icon then that post will be hidden from general view, preventing others from being exposed to it.Thanks!
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Jul 12, 2016 05:56
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Chill la Chill posted:Right. I just don't think this is going to cause more AP than it would otherwise. Is it really more likely to cause AP? Most likely, the only thing anyone cares about is "who is winning," and the game's point is to win. Losing by 5 or 20 points doesn't matter since you didn't win. An AP-prone player would try to calculate all the hidden stuff anyway, wouldn't they? It speeds it up in that manner. Not in my experience. They don't remembered everything perfectly, so the AP-prone player ends up making a move that's generally good instead of trying to optimise to beat player A by exactly one point while also defending against player B by exactly the margin necessary while also minimising their vulnerability to player C...
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Jul 12, 2016 06:15
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Kiranamos posted:Antagonistic, insulting, or otherwise disruptive comments ARE NOT welcome here.
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Jul 12, 2016 06:16
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Lorini posted:Exactly why I don't like Stonemaier as a designer. Right up there with dumbest rule ever. I think you are misunderstanding this. It's not a question of counting the coins that the player has sitting in front of them, it's a question of evaluating the coins they would be awarded if the game were to end right there and then. Because the actual victory condition is most money, and the various "achievements" that get you stars award you money based on your popularity (as well as other factors). I don't think it's at all unreasonable to not want people doing the full scoring math constantly. Or at least not if they're going to hold up actually taking their turn for any length of time in the process.
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Jul 12, 2016 06:23
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As a slight update to my Pandemic Legacy post earlier, it double sucks that our Medic died because we could have saved him! We forgot to upgrade at the end of the first game and planned (even before all the outbreaks occured that killed him) was get him an extra scar slot just for situations like this. But considering as his character card is already torn up, it's a bit to late backtrack on that 
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Jul 12, 2016 06:34
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Kiranamos posted:Antagonistic, insulting, or otherwise disruptive comments ARE NOT welcome here. Your mom is a manatee and your father a horse
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Jul 12, 2016 07:00
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Your mom is a rutabaga and your father a cereal box.
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Jul 12, 2016 07:04
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First impressions: The Voyages of Marco Polo. It's the game that I really wanted when I tried La Granja. Fast, furious elbowing through Asia with tight resource mechanics. I can't wait to try it out with more than 2. Have been thinking about the game since played it about 7 hours ago. Really want to play it again and again. Scythe: definitely good, solidly medium high tier. I wish that you could accomplish a little more per turn. I played with 3 people who are fairly non-aggressive and I kinda stomped by just never attacking but also looking like a pain to attack. It seems like the game at least partially depends on group think to determine a winning strategy, but my friend who only plays euros and doesn't do highly competitive games still loved it. It's extremely pretty. I don't think I could play more than one or two rounds of this game in a week, though. It's slightly too long - but that may change as it gets more plays.
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Jul 12, 2016 07:34
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If you don't own Mage Knight yet and like Star Trek, is there any reason to buy Mage Knight over Star Trek Frontiers? Does STF gently caress up the mechanics or lack something Mage Knight had, or is it basically the exact same in terms of playability and quality?
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Jul 12, 2016 08:15
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Front page article about some card game.
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Jul 12, 2016 08:18
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Gorgo Primus posted:If you don't own Mage Knight yet and like Star Trek, is there any reason to buy Mage Knight over Star Trek Frontiers? Does STF gently caress up the mechanics or lack something Mage Knight had, or is it basically the exact same in terms of playability and quality? A number of mechanics have changed, but I don't know enough to say for sure if they're bad so much as just different. I'd be genuinely curious to know the answer myself.
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Jul 12, 2016 08:23
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malkav11 posted:I think you are misunderstanding this. It's not a question of counting the coins that the player has sitting in front of them, it's a question of evaluating the coins they would be awarded if the game were to end right there and then. Because the actual victory condition is most money, and the various "achievements" that get you stars award you money based on your popularity (as well as other factors). I don't think it's at all unreasonable to not want people doing the full scoring math constantly. Or at least not if they're going to hold up actually taking their turn for any length of time in the process. Specifically, the player who has the power to end the game doing that math, every turn. I've played two games of Scythe and in both of them one player was way way ahead on stars, the factor that ends the game. In both those games, that player ended up losing, so they were shooting themselves in the foot by taking the game ending action instead of trying to catch up.
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Jul 12, 2016 08:47
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Gorgo Primus posted:If you don't own Mage Knight yet and like Star Trek, is there any reason to buy Mage Knight over Star Trek Frontiers? Does STF gently caress up the mechanics or lack something Mage Knight had, or is it basically the exact same in terms of playability and quality? From what I've read online the games are fairly close to each other, but MK has a bunch of extra content available in the form of expansions. Lost Legion in particular is excellent, Volkare scenarios are so much better than regular city conquest scenarios. So unless you really dig the Trek theme, I'd recommend Mage Knight because of the additional content available.
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Jul 12, 2016 09:12
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:As a slight update to my Pandemic Legacy post earlier, it double sucks that our Medic died because we could have saved him! We forgot to upgrade at the end of the first game and planned (even before all the outbreaks occured that killed him) was get him an extra scar slot just for situations like this. But considering as his character card is already torn up, it's a bit to late backtrack on that Remember the rule where if you do something wrong that's heavily to your disadvantage, and you can't rewind, you get more funding!
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Jul 12, 2016 12:31
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Chill la Chill posted:I remember people here explicitly praising hidden VPs as a good thing against AP-prone players when I brought it up a while ago. Specifically, that it was a good design feature of Puerto Rico and Small World and that my friends and I keeping it as open info was not optimal. And now it's treated as a bad thing? With people you can trust to avoid AP, you can just reveal the hidden pieces. But having hidden VPs can really speed up the game when you play with new people.
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Jul 12, 2016 13:52
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Trynant posted:I picked up two games designed by Alban Viard, self-publishing French dude who's a few glossy components and pretty website above making complete shoebox games. Both games are about complicated tile-building euro-scoring stuff. In both cases, the rules aren't particularly complicated (once you get past some really sub-par rulebooks that really do need you running to boardgamegeek to figure out what the hell is going on), but the geometry puzzles of placing tiles mixed with point optimizing creates an inferno of a couple of brain burners. They already seem to be out of stock
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Jul 12, 2016 14:10
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That's a downer. Small City is a fun puzzle game and I just bought Town Centre off the back of it. (Clinic seems to be a mix of the two and less pure, I probably won't get that one.)
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Jul 12, 2016 14:22
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Trynant posted:I picked up two games designed by Alban Viard, self-publishing French dude who's a few glossy components and pretty website above making complete shoebox games. Both games are about complicated tile-building euro-scoring stuff. In both cases, the rules aren't particularly complicated (once you get past some really sub-par rulebooks that really do need you running to boardgamegeek to figure out what the hell is going on), but the geometry puzzles of placing tiles mixed with point optimizing creates an inferno of a couple of brain burners. Thanks for this writeup, it really clicked for me. For Scythe: Undead Hippo posted:Specifically, the player who has the power to end the game doing that math, every turn. I've played two games of Scythe and in both of them one player was way way ahead on stars, the factor that ends the game. In both those games, that player ended up losing, so they were shooting themselves in the foot by taking the game ending action instead of trying to catch up. In my two first games I recently played, the 6th star placer lost by about 10-15 total in one game (other player had much more popularity), and lost 51-54 (lost by exactly the amount granted by the bonus tile) in the second. Neither game seemed bullshitty, we were still learning and what we learned is that it's a little counter-intuitive but the stars are simply the highest scoring element - nothing more. So you with 6 and an opponent with 4 isn't necessarily a huge lead and is easy to calculate with a glance at the scoring/popularity track. You need to balance your growth in other scoring elements with your star placement, and the longer the game goes on the more you need military power to protect your poo poo as it gets more valuable (but combat things like power and combat cards contribute zero to your score.) In the first game the 6th star placer had tons of military power but they actually over-invested in it to the detriment of their score; the other player (me) ignored their territory later in the game because I didn't want the popularity hit but they kept turtling; they could have used those turns for something else (again, military power has zero scoring impact.) I think if you treat it kind of like in Tigris & Euphrates where only your lowest scoring category "counts" you're in the right mindset, rather than thinking of the six stars as the victory condition in itself.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:31
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bad post, better later
Mayveena fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 17:53
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Megasabin posted:They already seem to be out of stock Sorry about that. And Trynant, thanks for the props. Just glad you enjoy them both as much as you do!
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Jul 12, 2016 17:55
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So my friend who plays 'once seen always seen' (within reason, not with card drafting), says that playing this way is fine with Scythe. Note that neither of us have a lot of tolerance for AP'ers. Our first rule of gaming is to make sure that everyone else at the table is enjoying themselves, and AP'ers seem not to acknowledge that.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:01
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Rutibex posted:This is my key objection to the entire line of reasoning. There is no monolithic organization called "the industry" that coordinates boardgame content. If we were in soviet Russia there might be a point to be made about what sort of content the state propaganda department provides (or what the BBC provides in Briton). This is not the case, "the industry" is made up of individuals who are all making their preferred game. Rutibex, the reason people are treating you like a cartoon of a human being is because of how you're speaking and acting. You aren't communicating your ideas in any sort of way that makes sense or resonates with people. A reminder here that what touched you off This Time was Gutter Owl saying "I don't like this in my that and here is a reasonable and well-articulated reason why" and your response comes off as rudely blowing off steam, then you double down on it by doing more of the same. When you follow all that up with a post like this one that contains an impassioned plea about how you're being misunderstood -- well, no one is prepared to or interested in taking you seriously. Maybe you're frustrated at the inability to communicate your ideas but honestly I'm not sure you can shake people seeing you as an unwelcome creepy weirdo who's not worth engaging in any serious way unless you do. It would help if you limit yourself to talking about what you (as in, literally you yourself) personally think and feel and why; and I don't mean indulging in sarcastic or hyperbolic talk about society, the industry, or any of that nonsense because no one takes that seriously. Talk about what you think and feel and why instead of trying to convince people of something or helping them see the matrix. I mean something like (and this is my statement, not an attempt to put words in your mouth) "I like looking at pretty girls, and a card game with pretty girls in it seems great to me because it combines two awesome things and even if art is bad it's still a good card game. The idea that I should feel bad about enjoying the art or liking a game regardless of the art because I'm somehow helping bad things happen doesn't make any sense to me" would be more relatable to people even if they don't agree. If you are trying to share what you're thinking or feeling but what you wrote doesn't make you feel like you have exposed some part of yourself, then you probably haven't written anything worth thinking about. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 18:09
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Mister Sinewave posted:Rutibex, the reason people are treating you like a cartoon of a human being is because of how you're speaking and acting. You aren't communicating your ideas in any sort of way that makes sense or resonates with people. I thought the issue people had with him was that he has terrifying homemade versions of talisman, one of which I am fairly certain is made of human skin.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:14
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Caros posted:I thought the issue people had with him was that he has terrifying homemade versions of talisman, one of which I am fairly certain is made of human skin. Nah, that's Chaos in the Old World.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:29
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Puerto Rico is where we've had our most "time to do some arithmetic" moments. You could end the game, and you know you'd either come first or second by a slim margin. Do you end the game? In our group, what you do is you count and find out. Everyone knows it's not really fun, but we all allow it. Ending the game and finding that you lost by a point is less fun. Prolonging the game instead of winning is also less fun. It's just a not great situation. What can solve it is having proper score trackers so you can always figure out everyone's score without having to spend 2 or 3 minutes doing math.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:14
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