|
Recently getting pretty heavily back into board games due to Seafall of all things. I put it that way ("of all things") due to what I've seen as the general consensus, which was that it was a lot of good ideas implemented somewhat poorly. I can see where those critiques are coming from, but we're about 7-8 sessions in and are all still enjoying it quite a bit. Apart from that though, the local, very good FLGS does a buy 2 get 1 free sale for the entirety of December and I have probably taken advantage a bit more than I should have. Mostly buying two games for friends/family and one for myself, but all told I've picked up Forbidden Desert, Islebound (a friend already has Above and Below or I would have bought that instead), and the Arkham Horror LCG core set (friends and I used to be big into the Arkham board games). Friend of mine just up and gave me Pandemic and the On the Brink expansion, too. I'd played them before but it's been a few years. Played Islebound on Friday and liked it okay (wife liked it more). Got to play Lords of Waterdeep for the first time yesterday with friends (very fun game) and won a game of Forbidden Desert with my wife last night. I'd played (and still own) Forbidden Island before, but I think I like Desert better. Anyway, this post is all over the place. Just pretty happy to pick up a new, inclusive hobby. I'm a pretty big video gamer but that's such an isolating activity for me that this is a welcome difference. Will probably be following Trad Games more often now!
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 19:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 01:19 |
|
|
Merauder posted:Someone else recently asked about Bear Valley in the thread, and this was my thoughts on it. Might need to give it another shot one of these days, but overall I was not impressed. drat, that sucks. A 10 dollar, light, push your luck game with a funny theme seemed like a winner...
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 19:31
|
|
|
A while ago I was looking at Star Wars: Rebellion but didn't pull the trigger. I just happened to notice today that it's some crazy high rank on BGG like #5. Is it actually that good or is it there just because it's Star Wars?
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 19:33
|
|
|
Chomp8645 posted:A while ago I was looking at Star Wars: Rebellion but didn't pull the trigger. I just happened to notice today that it's some crazy high rank on BGG like #5. Is it actually that good or is it there just because it's Star Wars?
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 19:41
|
|
|
Chomp8645 posted:A while ago I was looking at Star Wars: Rebellion but didn't pull the trigger. I just happened to notice today that it's some crazy high rank on BGG like #5. Is it actually that good or is it there just because it's Star Wars? I would say the latter. It's got some very good parts but combat is dreadful and it takes too long to play for what it is. It feels like peak FFG; a decent game that could have been great with more testing/editing. If it didn't have the SW license I doubt it would have been in the top 100. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Dec 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 19:42
|
|
|
I am really not a fan of battleships / rps mechanics where winning comes down to lucky guessing. Some people say it's "bluffing" and "deduction" but more often than not it's just plain old luck. Feels cheap.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 19:48
|
|
|
Mechanically, probably the only new hotness I've played so far that I rate as highly as BGG rates is Feast for Odin. Terraforming Mars and Scythe are both good, but without their theme/presentation they're just solid Euros. I'm playing Great Western Trail Thursday so we'll see how that holds up, but at least in my group no one rates it as highly as Mombasa (which has a really lovely theme but is pretty brilliant mechanically).
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 19:53
|
|
|
I'd like Terraforming Mars if it wasn't a drafting game, with all the inherent issues of drafting games.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 19:57
|
|
|
So thought experiment/serious question: Is there any game using D6 as a resolution mechanic that wouldn't be better with a Kemet-style deck of results (where you have to use all cards before you get used ones back). Thinking about this because Risk: Europe looks like it could have been a fairly good game without D6 combat.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 19:57
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:I'd like Terraforming Mars if it wasn't a drafting game, with all the inherent issues of drafting games. I'd be curious to hear about the issues inherent to drafting games. I'm still not that big a fan of Terraforming Mars, but I feel that the draft improves the game way more than blind draws.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:04
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:So thought experiment/serious question: Is there any game using D6 as a resolution mechanic that wouldn't be better with a Kemet-style deck of results (where you have to use all cards before you get used ones back). 100% of games using a D6 would be made worse by the use of a deck of dice. I don't want to have to count cards in a game with dice, gently caress that noise. Dice games are supposed to be low-brain power.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:19
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:So thought experiment/serious question: Is there any game using D6 as a resolution mechanic that wouldn't be better with a Kemet-style deck of results (where you have to use all cards before you get used ones back). I would say that anything "roll to move" wouldn't be improved, because games that have it don't usually have other meaningful decisions to make. Doesn't make it worse, but goes from "a bad game" to "still a bad game". edit: But pretty much anything else is improved. Even Catan, knowing that you're going to get something approaching a normal distribution across a game's worth of dice rolls makes the building/upgrade decisions more meaningful.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:20
|
|
|
Don't get me wrong, Terraforming Mars is really random without a draft, and I'd never play without doing some kind of draft. The problem with drafting is that luck can have an effect on the game and this is especially apparent when people share the same strategy. For some people this isn't an issue and they are right that being able to draft is a skill you can develop. But I've played enough 7W that playing with equal skilled players can make the end game feel like "well if only I'd gotten X cards and my opponent didn't, i would have won" and a game that where I can analyse why I lost beyond "should have got luckier" isn't enjoyable to me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:24
|
|
|
Rutibex posted:100% of games using a D6 would be made worse by the use of a deck of dice. I don't want to have to count cards in a game with dice, gently caress that noise. Dice games are supposed to be low-brain power. He's not talking about a dice deck
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:25
|
|
|
I'm selling Mombasa at the next local con auction. Boils down to: "oh you didn't develop the city other people developed. Sucks to be you!". No thanks, done with that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:27
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:Don't get me wrong, Terraforming Mars is really random without a draft, and I'd never play without doing some kind of draft. The problem with drafting is that luck can have an effect on the game and this is especially apparent when people share the same strategy. For some people this isn't an issue and they are right that being able to draft is a skill you can develop. But I've played enough 7W that playing with equal skilled players can make the end game feel like "well if only I'd gotten X cards and my opponent didn't, i would have won" and a game that where I can analyse why I lost beyond "should have got luckier" isn't enjoyable to me. So it's more of an issue with decks of cards, in general, than it is with drafting it seems. There will ALWAYS be a modicum of luck involved with a randomized deck and dealing cards to people, and drafting just serves to cut that percentage down a bit by giving players more agency over their options than just "well, here's what I got". Sure, you can still get some unlucky deals leading into a draft or be seated near someone with a similar strategy cutting you off, but I can't fault drafting for that. That's just cards sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:28
|
|
|
discount cathouse posted:I am really not a fan of battleships / rps mechanics where winning comes down to lucky guessing. Some people say it's "bluffing" and "deduction" but more often than not it's just plain old luck. Feels cheap. I'm not sure what it's like in this game, but a lot of games are starting to do stuff like this now and it CAN work really well if it's designed well. Sirlin taking stuff directly from fighting games is an example of this, but it really can work if you design it properly. For instance in a fighting game (and to simplify a lot,) you both are in "neutral" and zoning each other until someone gets a knockdown. Getting a knockdown means you outplayed your opponent in neutral, so it should be your advantage. When you knock someone down, you generally are rewarded by getting to mix them up, this means you have a ton of options you can do while they have a very limited set of options. Just because Ryu can dragon punch on wakeup and hit you for attacking him doesn't mean it's a "random guessing game," because if you guess he is going to DP you, you can punish him with a full combo when he lands. If you decide he is going to DP you and choose to block, but say you guess wrong and he doesn't DP, guess what, you're still right on top of him and at worst you are back to neutral, but he didn't actually gain an advantage over you. You just tried to make a read on him, and he outguessed you. His reward is simply escaping the rigged guessing game. When this kind of system is bolted directly into a boardgame--like in Yomi--or less directly--like in Inis--as long as the designer understands that the guessing can't end up just being totally raw paper/rock/scissors, then it usually works and is fun and balanced. The way it works in fighting games actually works quite well in board games, which is to make sure that the guessing game is initiated by one player cleanly outplaying/outmanuevering another, and then make the resulting guessing game "rigged" in favor of whoever outplayed the other. This gives the person who the guess is rigged against still a chance to get out, but he has to exercise good risk mitigation and reading his opponent's tendencies to come out of the situation with an advantage. This can end up feeling very "not fun" to people who suck at making reads like this or recognizing that the odds are actually stacked in their favor. It can feel like you're at a disadvantage when you "shouldn't be" if you are being predictable and your opponent can read you really well. I understand how this can feel cheap or lazy, and if you are bad at this skill or simply do not find this skill fun, it can ruin a game for you. For many people it might help to realize how this mechanic is actually working and try to get good at making reads like this. If you try and it's still not fun, then it's probably not for you. I haven't played Kemet, but I know the combat system there has a system where this applies, and I feel like Inis definitely has it in a much more abstract sense. It's very preferable to letting actual luck decide, which is just doing dice rolling stuff. The "innovation" of giving you more dice or better dice if you expend more resources is still not good to me, because you can still lose out of pure luck. If you instead do a system where reading your opponent's tendencies is what gets you out of a disadvantageous situation, I prefer that because it's inherently less lucky than "stacked dice rolls."
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:31
|
|
|
angel opportunity posted:If you decide he is going to DP you and choose to block, but say you guess wrong and he doesn't DP, guess what, you're still right on top of him and at worst you are back to neutral, but he didn't actually gain an advantage over you. Actually I was playing Potemkin and did wakeup pot buster, and took off 40% of your health.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:33
|
|
|
I may have just ordered a slightly damaged copy of 1830 from BGB for CA$60 because it was free shipping.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:36
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:So thought experiment/serious question: Is there any game using D6 as a resolution mechanic that wouldn't be better with a Kemet-style deck of results (where you have to use all cards before you get used ones back). Wargames with CRTs
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:40
|
|
|
Lorini posted:I'm selling Mombasa at the next local con auction. Boils down to: "oh you didn't develop the city other people developed. Sucks to be you!". No thanks, done with that. I haven't had this experience but I haven't played it a ton yet -- mostly I'm enamored with the card play which is a like a meatier Concordia.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:42
|
|
|
Merauder posted:So it's more of an issue with decks of cards, in general, than it is with drafting it seems. There will ALWAYS be a modicum of luck involved with a randomized deck and dealing cards to people, and drafting just serves to cut that percentage down a bit by giving players more agency over their options than just "well, here's what I got". Sure, you can still get some unlucky deals leading into a draft or be seated near someone with a similar strategy cutting you off, but I can't fault drafting for that. That's just cards sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:44
|
|
|
angel opportunity posted:
I feel like this doesn't work with Boardgames because it' way to easy to avoid having a predictable pattern without time pressure. Poker, for example, relies on switching up playing conservative with playing reckless on a semi-regular basis, and it's really not that hard to do if you have a grasp of the probabilities. "Making reads" works in a fighting game because a) the attacks all come under extreme time pressure so its really easy to fall into a habit b) there are lots of guesses in a match so it evens out/ tendencies become visible.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:45
|
|
|
I'm sort of surprised no one has tried using Ra's auctioning for drafting games (so instead of drafting or strictly using money you get bidding markers that range in value that change hands over the course of the game). I could see it working really well in a game like Terraforming Mars or Blood Rage because it wouldn't artificially increase the value of money (in TM's case) or introduce currency (in Blood Rage's case), but would give players more control/visibility. Like, I wouldn't turn over the cards one at a time ala Ra (I'd probably flip over like 4 at a time in a 4p game and let the active player nominate a card), but man I'd rather auction than draft although it would slow down the game a bit. Maybe you could even have visibility into the 2nd set of cards that would be auctioned, although again that would slow the game down a lot as everyone scans the cards Dominion style. T-Bone fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Dec 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 20:56
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:He's not talking about a dice deck No he's talking about something even more brain power intensive, so my point stands. If you want to play euro Risk then go for Small World, don't try to turn dice game into euro games with house rules.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:03
|
|
|
Ra is the same game as Sushi Go, except for auction vs drafting. Obviously they play out radically differently.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:04
|
|
|
angel opportunity posted:For instance in a fighting game (and to simplify a lot,) you both are in "neutral" and zoning each other until someone gets a knockdown. Getting a knockdown means you outplayed your opponent in neutral, so it should be your advantage. When you knock someone down, you generally are rewarded by getting to mix them up, this means you have a ton of options you can do while they have a very limited set of options. Just because Ryu can dragon punch on wakeup and hit you for attacking him doesn't mean it's a "random guessing game," because if you guess he is going to DP you, you can punish him with a full combo when he lands. If you decide he is going to DP you and choose to block, but say you guess wrong and he doesn't DP, guess what, you're still right on top of him and at worst you are back to neutral, but he didn't actually gain an advantage over you. You just tried to make a read on him, and he outguessed you. His reward is simply escaping the rigged guessing game. You're talking about this like there's a single right or wrong answer for what to do in a situation - some right move that you're "rewarded" for finding - there isn't. The optimal answer is to choose randomly from a weighted list. It is likely harder to calculate optimal here than it is in Rock/Paper/Scissors (ie. your optimal weighting isn't 33%/33%/33%), but it's precisely the same thing in the end. If both players are playing well, their moves and thus the outcome will be random. And if the interesting part is "reading your opponent" (ie. identifying how they will diverge from optimal for a given state), then that skill is present in Rock Paper Scissors just like it is in any other game like this. I don't want to grind this axe too far down, but this "Sirlin fallacy" seems to have given lots of people weird ideas about game theory. Hidden action selection can work fine sometimes - just like dice can - but neither are a good cornerstone for game that intends to be about skill. quote:For many people it might help to realize how this mechanic is actually working and try to get good at making reads like this. Well.. you've got this completely backwards. This is a mechanic that feels totally satisfying UNTIL you understand what's going on. jmzero fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Dec 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:07
|
|
|
Ralp posted:Ra is the same game as Sushi Go, except for auction vs drafting. Obviously they play out radically differently. The difference I think in grafting Ra's auctioning onto cards is that all players would get to see an entire set of each drafted hand (assuming you drafted say 4 at a time in a 4p game of TM -- so 4 drafts of 16 total cards). You could still have the option of trading up for a better draft number too. It would definitely take longer, but there's no doubt there would be more agency and visibility. It's interesting that most games tie auctioning to some other part of the game (so your money isn't ONLY used for the auction in the vast majority of auction games but also for buying other stuff), whereas drafting in games that use it is often times independent of any other mechanic. I have Ra, so I'm tempted to just try it in a game of TM/Blood Rage/7 Wonders and see how it works. T-Bone fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Dec 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:11
|
|
|
I'm gonna call whatever your opinion is the "anti-sirlin fallacy" which is an irrational belief that dice or simultaneous action selection cannot be the corner stone of a game about skill no matter how the system has been designed or implemented.
Tekopo fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Dec 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:15
|
|
|
Nitpick but randomly choosing rock/paper/scissors isn't "optimal"; sure it can't be exploited as a strategy but it also guarantees you'll never win more than 1/3 of the time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:20
|
|
|
Mister Sinewave posted:Nitpick but randomly choosing rock/paper/scissors isn't "optimal"; sure it can't be exploited as a strategy but it also guarantees you'll never win more than 1/3 of the time. I don't see a more reliable strategy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:22
|
|
|
discount cathouse posted:I don't see a more reliable strategy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:24
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:As an aside, there was an entire competition about building AIs to play rock/paper/scissors and it's a really interesting reading. Random didn't win, as a spoiler. "This is because a strong player can consistently beat predictable players, while a random player will win about half of its matches." We're talking about roughly equal skill here.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:27
|
|
|
discount cathouse posted:I don't see a more reliable strategy. Good ol' Rock, nothin' beats that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:27
|
|
|
discount cathouse posted:"This is because a strong player can consistently beat predictable players, while a random player will win about half of its matches."
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:29
|
|
|
I thought I knew what drafting was until I read a little about the MTG Cube Drafting Craze and found out there are fifty different kinds of drafts.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:34
|
|
|
Ok, so in iterated rock-paper-scissors what's the dominant strategy? If I'm going random every time, I don't see any effective way to counter that other than going random and breaking even.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:34
|
|
|
Vivian Darkbloom posted:Ok, so in iterated rock-paper-scissors what's the dominant strategy? If I'm going random every time, I don't see any effective way to counter that other than going random and breaking even. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DGNZnfKYnU
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:37
|
|
|
Vivian Darkbloom posted:Ok, so in iterated rock-paper-scissors what's the dominant strategy? If I'm going random every time, I don't see any effective way to counter that other than going random and breaking even. Insulting your opponent and choosing rock
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 01:19 |
|
|
discount cathouse posted:I don't see a more reliable strategy. The best move is your opponent's move +1. Therefore things hinge on how well you can model your opponent. That's something that can be done whether you're playing a machine or a human. E: to put it another way it is all about exploiting your opponent's decision making strategy. Doing it to them better (earlier, more reliably) than they do it to you. You need to keep in mind though that -- like for example poker -- RPS is only meaningful over many iterations. If it's a one shot then you might as well pick one at random and is no different than drawing straws. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Dec 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2016 21:39
|
|