Dog Pit - Suggestions and Feedback

[DevilLoss]

i dont think upgraded cards should be allowed for stregth if anything making stregth do 4x damage is enough as long as people are willing to put some xp into it. as for stregth = salvage. maybe make it were half comes from intell half from damage taken. also did we add in anything saying if you kill another dog you get some kind of bonus this would also allow people to invest more into stregth.

[Chromatophore]

This event seems to suffer from the problem that posting your deck update early places you at a disadvantage, especially when you have a pretty good expectation of who your next round opponent will be.

Being able to adjust your salvage/stat gain to your next round opponent is pretty unfair.

The current solution

Decks are to be posted immediately after your matches are completed.  Starting in Round 3 any player who does not post the decks immediately after the battle will be assessed a 5 card penalty.  These cards will be randomly removed from your Health by the organizer.

In order to hasten the play of the event, the 1 day training period is being eliminated.  Please train your dogs after each battle.  If you are unsure of the damage you took or XP gained, all the official numbers are posted in the first post of each Round thread.  Please make certain that your results are the same as those.  If there is an error, contact me immediately.

Any player who fails to complete the update of their dog sheet before the end of the round will forfeit all XP gained and will take double damage for that round.

appears to provide an incentive to players to postpone their matches until as close to the round deadline as possible so that they can post their decks later.

I would suggest that players instead PM their new decks to the organizer immediately after the battle and then publicly post their decks when the round concludes (or within some agreed-upon amount of time after the conclusion of the round).

I recognize that this would tack on a bit of time to each round, extending an event which may already suffer from a rather slow pace, but i think the interests of fairness outweigh these concerns.

[TStar]

Since all dog sheets are public I don't see how delaying to post a deck is an advantage.  Your potential opponents can all see what cards you have whether you delay posting decks or not.  Since your training doesn't have to occur until the end of the round you can just delay posting it until the deadline if you are concerned.

[Chromatophore]

Since all dog sheets are public I don't see how delaying to post a deck is an advantage.  Your potential opponents can all see what cards you have whether you delay posting decks or not.  Since your training doesn't have to occur until the end of the round you can just delay posting it until the deadline if you are concerned.

Ah okay i think i misunderstood.

When you said "Decks are to be posted immediately after your matches are completed" and "Please train your dogs after each battle" i thought those were two ways of saying the same thing, implying that training should occur immediately after completing your match.  But now i think the first statement is referring to the decks the player used during the match, rather than the updated deck for the player's next round.  Is this correct?

[TStar]

Since all dog sheets are public I don't see how delaying to post a deck is an advantage.  Your potential opponents can all see what cards you have whether you delay posting decks or not.  Since your training doesn't have to occur until the end of the round you can just delay posting it until the deadline if you are concerned.

Ah okay i think i misunderstood.

When you said "Decks are to be posted immediately after your matches are completed" and "Please train your dogs after each battle" i thought those were two ways of saying the same thing, implying that training should occur immediately after completing your match.  But now i think the first statement is referring to the decks the player used during the match, rather than the updated deck for the player's next round.  Is this correct?

That's correct.  The decks you used that round need to be posted immediately, but the training need only be completed by the deadline.

[RootRanger]

First of all, I would like to say that this has been a great event and I've really enjoyed it. However, I find the Swiss system to cause problems for this event because it can cause losing to be the advantageous strategy.
Swiss is a great system when users cannot do differentiating amounts of damage to the success of others. This is not the case in Dog Pit.

Let me provide an example. In Children of the Oracle, losing 0-3 to Player A caused players to lose as many points as a loss to Player B. In this case, Swiss was a good system because players would never try to intentionally lose against Player A to avoid Player B because it would not possibly help their success in the event. Dog Pit is different. In Dog Pit, losing to  Player A could potentially cause players to take less damage than losing to Player B. Here, Swiss is not the system to use because it can and has created situations where losing to Player A to avoid Player B would be the best choice. I can provide two examples. In Round 3, 10 men played kevkev. The winner would play a dog that could potentially have enough strength to eliminate 10 men from the event. 10 men won and was eliminated the next round. If he had instead lost to kevkev, 10 men would have taken 1 damage and likely still be in the event, and one of the strongest dogs as well. In Round 4, I played 10 men. The winner would play Chromatophore, who had enough strength to eliminate both dogs. If I had lost to 10 men, I would have taken 1 damage and likely still be in the event, and one of the strongest dogs as well. To summarize, the Swiss matching system creates situations in which losing would give a player a better chance at winning the event than winning. I don't think it is good to have an event that works this way. The Swiss system also punishes players that do well by making them play dogs with more wins, thus more Exp, thus more strength (usually).

Based on these situations, I think the Swiss system should be replaced with random pairing. If random pairing was used, it would never be helpful to lose because the difference between winning and losing would not effect the opponent for the next round. Another advantage of random pairing is that it is no longer be beneficial to post your salvages and discards one minute before the round ends, at least not as beneficial as it was before. In Round 4, Chromatophore and I both salvaged cards with just one minute left because neither player wanted the other to see what they would be using.

[kev]

First of all, I would like to say that this has been a great event and I've really enjoyed it. However, I find the Swiss system to cause problems for this event because it can cause losing to be the advantageous strategy.
Swiss is a great system when users cannot do differentiating amounts of damage to the success of others. This is not the case in Dog Pit.

Let me provide an example. In Children of the Oracle, losing 0-3 to Player A caused players to lose as many points as a loss to Player B. In this case, Swiss was a good system because players would never try to intentionally lose against Player A to avoid Player B because it would not possibly help their success in the event. Dog Pit is different. In Dog Pit, losing to  Player A could potentially cause players to take less damage than losing to Player B. Here, Swiss is not the system to use because it can and has created situations where losing to Player A to avoid Player B would be the best choice. I can provide two examples. In Round 3, 10 men played kevkev. The winner would play a dog that could potentially have enough strength to eliminate 10 men from the event. 10 men won and was eliminated the next round. If he had instead lost to kevkev, 10 men would have taken 1 damage and likely still be in the event, and one of the strongest dogs as well. In Round 4, I played 10 men. The winner would play Chromatophore, who had enough strength to eliminate both dogs. If I had lost to 10 men, I would have taken 1 damage and likely still be in the event, and one of the strongest dogs as well. To summarize, the Swiss matching system creates situations in which losing would give a player a better chance at winning the event than winning. I don't think it is good to have an event that works this way. The Swiss system also punishes players that do well by making them play dogs with more wins, thus more Exp, thus more strength (usually).

Based on these situations, I think the Swiss system should be replaced with random pairing. If random pairing was used, it would never be helpful to lose because the difference between winning and losing would not effect the opponent for the next round. Another advantage of random pairing is that it is no longer be beneficial to post your salvages and discards one minute before the round ends, at least not as beneficial as it was before. In Round 4, Chromatophore and I both salvaged cards with just one minute left because neither player wanted the other to see what they would be using.

Agree with every word of this.  Thanks for posting it so I didn't have to, Root.

[ak65ala]

In tracking this event, I find it intresting that 4 of the remaining 5 dogs are rainbows (Cheering for Five in One).  I liked this event, and I liked the RPG feel of it, and I liked how it was setup (I think RootRanger does have a point).  I just don't like how the best way to win is to be just like everyone else.  In most other events, there are special restrictions to limit the "best" PvP decks from being available (see Prisoner's Dilemma and Grid).  Now, if this event is different and you all like rainbows against rainbows, and be a rainbow to win... all the more power to you.  I just.... wish it was not that way. 

I hate homogeneous design; optimal against optimal; creativity = weakness = death.  I think it has to do with the dogs being visible to everyone, disallowing the strategy of surprise, and allowing a rainbow the ability to fully morph into a counter to the other's dog = easiest victory.  Not sure the 'fix' nor if there is even a problem here.... just me making some comments.

[TStar]

In tracking this event, I find it intresting that 4 of the remaining 5 dogs are rainbows (Cheering for Five in One).  I liked this event, and I liked the RPG feel of it, and I liked how it was setup (I think RootRanger does have a point).  I just don't like how the best way to win is to be just like everyone else.  In most other events, there are special restrictions to limit the "best" PvP decks from being available (see Prisoner's Dilemma and Grid).  Now, if this event is different and you all like rainbows against rainbows, and be a rainbow to win... all the more power to you.  I just.... wish it was not that way. 

I hate homogeneous design; optimal against optimal; creativity = weakness = death.  I think it has to do with the dogs being visible to everyone, disallowing the strategy of surprise, and allowing a rainbow the ability to fully morph into a counter to the other's dog = easiest victory.  Not sure the 'fix' nor if there is even a problem here.... just me making some comments.

People unfortunately did not build their initial dogs with the best rainbow counters cards like Wings, so as the event evolved it turned into a rainbow fest.  One rule change I will likely adopt is a way to convert your cards from one kind to another to allow players more flexibility in building decks and counters to other dogs instead of relying on a single deck.

[Kakerlake]

Having unlimited access in the initial dogbuilding is indeed a problem I didn't realize when building the rules.

An interesting idea to fix this would be a banning rule: In each matchup, the weaker dog (with less dummy points) may chose one card (2 if there is a 4 point difference) the opponent may not use in the matchup.
This would force players to make more versatile decks since rainbows are pretty much dead without nova.
If they have the same ammount of dummy points, no cards are being banned.

[RootRanger]

Grabbow is easily countered. If you don't like it, use a counter.

[TStar]

Having unlimited access in the initial dogbuilding is indeed a problem I didn't realize when building the rules.

An interesting idea to fix this would be a banning rule: In each matchup, the weaker dog (with less dummy points) may chose one card (2 if there is a 4 point difference) the opponent may not use in the matchup.
This would force players to make more versatile decks since rainbows are pretty much dead without nova.
If they have the same ammount of dummy points, no cards are being banned.

The problem with this is what happens if you ban a card that puts a player below a 30 card deck?  Most of the event, for example, Chromatopup ran with 31-35 cards so if you banned Nova for example he wouldn't be able to field a legal deck.