War #3 - Feedback

[Daxx]

Good summary, Desertknight.

[Sir Valimont]

People seem to be confusing the issue when it comes to dealmaking. Here is the issue:

There is an auction process in War through which generals acquire players. As is natural, better players cost more. Because of this, the general has to balance his team intelligently, spending as much or as little as necessary to get a good team without having a major card disadvantage.

Because of this framework, the desire is naturally to get good players cheap. In some cases, that works out fine: a player might be unknown and sell for less than his worth. That's a natural part of the process and one of the great things about War is finding out each time which new members of the community are secretly best-buys.

However there are veterans who are known to be worth a lot. These players in no case should cost almost nothing. That goes against the spirit of the event and is UNFAIR to other generals and players. Dealmaking that makes that happen needs to be removed from the event.

It is not the "concept" of dealmaking that is the problem, and it is not the activities (like using chat) that are the problem either. The problem is a system that allows a player worth 24 cards to sell for 6 cards.

The solution for such a problem is absolutely not to "stop masters from chatting" or somehow make them "promise" to abide by rules. That is a completely irresponsible system. A responsible solution is one that removes the possibility of the dealmaking in the first place.

By far the best solution I have heard of to-date is one ScaredGirl and others have proposed:

1. Before the first round, any player can be bought by any master for a fixed very high price. Let's say 25 cards. In other words, if a general absolutely wants player X as a lieutenant he can pay 25 to get him. Other generals can make the same offer; the player can choose a team.

2. During the auction everyone is a slave. Blocking teams from bidding on a player is unnecessary with rule 1) above and also goes against the spirit of the event.

3. There is no bid limit. People seem to think this is an issue because of the "troll bidding" that will happen. Somehow these people have missed reality. This is the third War and there has never been troll bidding that has caused major issues ... and only a handful of people that cost the max anyway. It's just silly to think that no bid limit would therefore cause problems.

In general if a general bids a certain amount, he should be ready to pay that amount. That is how auctions work. You might try to raise the cost of another player, but then you have to be prepared to lose your investment, and end up with an expensive player you didn't want. Your decision, your problem. And if you're a general who definitely wants a player and will pay any price for him, you had better buy that player up front for the fixed price of 25 or else people will likely bid him up to 35 knowing you will come over the top.

This system works fine. Players who want to cost exactly 6 but only be buyable by one team should not be playing the event. That is not the spirit of things: it is a community event where teams are not decided by players' whims but by an auction system that guarantees some team balance and some shuffling of players so that they learn to work with members of the community they may not know as well. There is no place for insisting on being on a particular team no matter what and still not costing very much. And there is also no place for trying to game the system so that a should-be-expensive player costs next to nothing.

[YoungSot]

I want to strongly second most of Sir Valimont's suggestions. Every restriction and regulation we apply to the auction process increases the chance that someone will be able to exploit the system. A simpler auction system is pretty much immune to problematic deal-making. Basic free-market principles take care of that.

With that in mind, I wonder if the pre-first-round-fixed-price-bidding is really necessary? If a general really wants a player, and others are aware of that fact, he/she will end up having to pay as much as they value that player. That may be a lot of cards, but it's that generals decision. Why is that a bad thing?

"troll" bidding is actually kind of helpful. It is always a risk to the troller, and in the end it simply ensures that the victorious general will end up paying as much for a player as they value that player. The only reason this might become a problem is because of the "can only bid on 21 players" rule. If this rule were removed, Troll bidding would be extremely risky, because if you outbid someone on a player you don't actually want, the original bidder can just go spend their cards elsewhere, rather than being forced to bid higher on a player than they'd normally pay.
Once again, basic free market principles will take care of these problems.

A final important change (at least I don't think it's currently being done this way): generals should have to pay for EVERY auction they end up winning. Not just the top 7. This further encourages ppl to only bid on the players they actually want, and would end up keeping the total auction size manageable.

[TheonlyrealBeef]

The only reason this might become a problem is because of the "can only bid on 21 players" rule. If this rule were removed, Troll bidding would be extremely risky, because if you outbid someone on a player you don't actually want, the original bidder can just go spend their cards elsewhere, rather than being forced to bid higher on a player than they'd normally pay.
Once again, basic free market principles will take care of these problems.

Major troll senses major exploit

I would personally start the bidding with 67 cards on every single player (7 x 67 = 469, 500 - 469 = 31 which is exactly enough for one legal deck). I get to choose the players that get in my team, and every team has to bid more for their players, but will then no longer be able to field even a single deck. Only works if I were to be the first to bid though, but the principle stands: it should not be possible.

[YoungSot]

I would personally start the bidding with 67 cards on every single player (7 x 67 = 469, 500 - 469 = 31 which is exactly enough for one legal deck). I get to choose the players that get in my team, and every team has to bid more for their players, but will then no longer be able to field even a single deck. Only works if I were to be the first to bid though, but the principle stands: it should not be possible.

I tried to understand this... and failed. What forces the other teams to "bid more for their players"? They could just bid on different players and you'd be stuck with only one legal deck...

Am I missing something?

[pikachufan2164]

I would personally start the bidding with 67 cards on every single player (7 x 67 = 469, 500 - 469 = 31 which is exactly enough for one legal deck). I get to choose the players that get in my team, and every team has to bid more for their players, but will then no longer be able to field even a single deck. Only works if I were to be the first to bid though, but the principle stands: it should not be possible.

I tried to understand this... and failed. What forces the other teams to "bid more for their players"? They could just bid on different players and you'd be stuck with only one legal deck...

Am I missing something?

The key phrase is "every single player." Masters only have to pay for the 7 highest-priced players they bid on and won. They don't have to pay cards for players they bid on, but didn't win.

[Daxx]

The current bidding mechanics require you to bid higher than the last bid. Since he has bid 67 cards on every single player, there are no players available for less than the practical maximum of 67 cards. Therefore he is the only master capable of fielding a deck, and wins by default.

The only problem with this is that current rules allow you to purchase remaining players for 24 cards each if you cannot assemble a team by the end of the auction, but presumably that rule would have been scrapped under the proposed system.

As an aside, the proposed market's competition is neither wholly perfect nor is the nash equilibrium an optimal solution to the problem that people appear to want to solve. There is simply too much imperfect information, and there are too many distortions in the auction caused by the constraints of the tournament itself.

The best option I see is to embrace these imperfections in the auction mechanism as part of the War process. Allowing dealmaking and negotiation between Masters both in the auction phase and in other phases is not an inherently negative thing; it just tests for different abilities (ones that are arguably still relevant to the War) - trying to turn this into a simple optimisation problem makes for a very dull game.

[YoungSot]

Ok. I finally got it. Amusing, though like any joke it's less funny if it had to be explained  .

But of course in my proposed system you wouldn't just uncap the number of players you can bid on. You also force the master to pay for EVERY bid they make that they are winning. Just like real money, you couldn't bid on someone if you didn't have the cards to afford them. If someone beat your bid on a player, you would then have more cards to bid with, but if a player bid  a ton on everyone then when it came time to pay up they'd be bankrupt and lose instantly.

Anyway, I agree with you daxx that it could work fine if we leave the system mostly as-is and are alright with backroom dealing. But IMO if we do make changes we should move toward a more simple, intuitive system.

[Amilir]

Troll bidding is a real problem though.  You are working with the idea that the only consequence is that a general ends up with a player they didn't really want for the price.  The OTHER consequence is that the player is stuck with a stupid master that didn't want him.  The players are not entirely property, and the master is not the only one that suffers.  This is something of a problem with the current rules as well IMO.  Someone that severely overbids will get the players, yet put them in a terrible position at the same time.

There is another problem with the auction though.  Players want to go for as little as possible.  The  less a player goes for, the more cards his team has initially.  This leads to under the table deals and players denying their true value.  There doesn't seem to be any good way to solve this problem sadly.

[Sir Valimont]

Troll bidding is a real problem though.

Pardon me Amilir, but this statement is utterly, utterly wrong.

The biggest problem is in fact this opinion that many have. "Troll" bidding as it's called is not a problem of any kind. Having a "stupid" master win a good player is a hypothetical that makes no sense. If a good player is up in an auction, then a "smart" master should have outbid the "stupid" master. It's the "smart" master being stubborn and crybaby-ish that lets smart players get sold to others. If instead of feeling injured by the "troll" act of DARING to bid on a player just to increase his price (which is the entire point of an auction), those "smart" masters should realize the worth of their players and pay more for them.

For the players: Anyone who is upset because of the team he or she ended up on should not have submitted an application in the first place. There are plenty of other community events. This one is War. There is an auction. The team you end up on is not up to you. It should not be up to you. You are for sale, nothing more, nothing less. Desiring to change this system is a fundamental shift in the culture of the event ... and since it's the only event that has an auction it would be silly to change it.

Anyway, I agree with you daxx that it could work fine if we leave the system mostly as-is and are alright with backroom dealing.

Of course we are not "alright with backroom dealing." It is horrible for the event. This event is not about the "ability" to use "negotiation" tactics (that are really driven 99% by popularity and 1% by actual negotiating skill or intelligence) to get people to make deals with you behind the scenes. This event is about strategizing in PvP deckbuilding and vault management. It is about predicting your opponents' decks and building counters. It is about understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each element.

People like to philosophize about things and lose their touch with reality as a result: talk about how "War" has no rules and other such nonsense is completely irrelevant. This is not a literal "War." This is a community event on a gaming forum with a given framework and very specific rules. The strategy within those rules is wonderful to try to wrangle properly; the strategy OUTSIDE of those rules, such as making deals that are by definition unfair -- like fixing an auction so that something is intentionally not bid on by people who do value it -- are detrimental to both the event and the community as a whole.

[Amilir]

Hypothetical:  Some master bids extremely high on seven players he doesn't like, then uses his powers to force his teams to lose.  THAT is what I mean by "troll bidding is a problem".  A master has the potential to keep players out of war.  While it isn't a strict problem/very likely/or impossible to handle, it would certainly upset people, 'fair' or not.

[Sir Valimont]

Hypothetical:  Some master bids extremely high on seven players he doesn't like, then uses his powers to force his teams to lose.  THAT is what I mean by "troll bidding is a problem".  A master has the potential to keep players out of war.  While it isn't a strict problem/very likely/or impossible to handle, it would certainly upset people, 'fair' or not.

I don't think a system needs to account for a person going completely out of his way to be an utter jerk, way out of the confines of the system ... especially not if we're assuming that that person is an elemental master. It seems very, very unlikely.