file Finals are boring. Pt. 1: Slow Play

28 Nov 2012 07:55 #41925 by Squidalot
I hate the idea of a penalty shootout - that becomes far more about chance than anything else (where you are in the turnorder for the shootout, has your prey overextended to get a final lunge in before time etc).

Extended rounds only been shown to fail in a very small set of trials and if you recall they weren't unlimited - unlimited might be more effective at getting them playing


I think this would be easier to fix through card design - less pool/neutral effects more damage.

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28 Nov 2012 15:03 #41947 by ReverendRevolver

I hate the idea of a penalty shootout - that becomes far more about chance than anything else (where you are in the turnorder for the shootout, has your prey overextended to get a final lunge in before time etc).

Extended rounds only been shown to fail in a very small set of trials and if you recall they weren't unlimited - unlimited might be more effective at getting them playing


I think this would be easier to fix through card design - less pool/neutral effects more damage.


fixing through card design Will take awhile though. but it would be the "right " way theoretically.

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28 Nov 2012 16:47 #41951 by Jeff Kuta
If there is a problem with the tournament rules and the incentives they create, then fix those.

Adding new cards to try and solve a tournament level problem will inevitably just screw up the game.

If games are "taking too long" then perhaps that means that the 2 hour time limit is insufficient. Maybe players are thinking too much or not paying attention when they should. This is not unfamiliar ground.

But making new hyper-aggressive cards intended to impact the tournament scene will have many unintended consequences. Proper design considers game balance before external factors.

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28 Nov 2012 17:33 #41954 by Lönkka
Making prelims/finals longer will just evolve meta a bit and soon we'll just have the exact same situations now but with longer lasting tournaments due to the additional time. Not good.

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28 Nov 2012 21:43 #41963 by Squidalot
Jeff - the amount of games in tournaments timing out has increased at the last two ECs - this is probably related to card design i.e. cards were added that have led to this, play style change over the last 3 years or a mixture of both.

One significant aspect of play style change I would say is deck design.

I think deck design has changed over the last few years, oiften smaller, more efficient (so should be better at ousting..) decks and although many these decks have the ability to do brutal amounts of damage quickly they're generally not in both prelim and in finals due to the 'if I fail I get brutalised so i'll wait and see approach'.

The last person I saw really go for broke in a final straight out from the starting blocks was Ruben in Atlanta (2009?) and the others players stopped him leading to a strange vat and mouse game - yet with enough momentum to prevent a timeout.

However I often see plenty of round matches where everyone is sitting there for far too long doing very little hoping to somehow get two quick vps and GW in a preliminary round. I don't think any sudden death aspect in a final will help if players are still using the same play in prelims to get there their mindset will still be wrong for the final (sudden death is just as not fun to watch as you've sat through 2 hours of inactivity to get there) and this is why I think proper design is required -not necessarily to add more damage dealing cards but to make sure;

* new cards are straight forward to understand (lots of players get confused by a whole range of cards e.g. Enkil Cog forced Impulse to become part of the rulebook rather than just being a handy tool)
*Cards don't add more complexity to the game than they bring enjoyment (too much text on a card generally not worth it see Seeds of Corruption)
*Cards shouldn't have more rulings about them than card text (mask of a 1000 faces)
*all new (and old) cards are templated - so similar cards use the same phrases and work in the same way.

I believe that these things will really help speed up the game - so players can spend more time talking about who to parity shift or just waiting in game for the opportune moment rather than the current mixture of complex stuff + talking [too much?] + opportune moment.
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29 Nov 2012 15:51 #42025 by ReverendRevolver
I personally hated people taking 6 years to decide who to hit for 1 with a KRC long before pool gain and girls decks were timing out tables. I'm not sure what the point of that playtime is. but that's the only rule issue I currently would like to see changed.

cards fixing the problem Will probably work eventually. I'd just like to see everyone go back to playing actual vtes instead of sit, bloat, wait. imbued were less annoying than bloat, get a vp , wait to win being a strategy.

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