War #4 Brainstorming and Planning

[ddevans96]

...as long as their friends go for loyalist and you work it out with 2 other generals.

That's called backroom deals, and they're heavily discouraged.

[majofa]

I don't necessarily think destructive event cards are the solution, but I have one that might work.  I know this has been said before, but I will say it again.  Make the discarding start higher (say 24) and keep it that way for the remainder of the war.  It will move much faster that way.

I agree. We originally had a fixed number but started using the current system to prevent teams from losing too early and to increase the intensity as the event goes forward. It might sound good on paper but it's not that great in reality.

Main issue I think is the fact that teams who do well during round 1, don't get a big reward for it. Every win should be equally important I think, so I vote for going back to a fixed number.

The 24 you suggest sounds good to me.

Teams that do well during round 1 generally end up doing very well in WAR. Entropy in last WAR and Aether in this WAR. In the first round it's about the cards you gain, since you're just getting a feel for other teams' vaults. Losing so many cards early can also mean some players will only play 1-2 games, which I don't think would be much fun for them. (EXAMPLE: Gravity would have been down to 4 players for Round 3, so 4 people would only play 2 matches).

Can someone crunch some numbers on making discards a set 24 cards... how much would that speed up WAR? I ran some really quick, and it didn't seem to do much for speeding up WAR.
I think the other suggestions will do more for making it go faster. (Smaller buffer mainly)

One of the things that made this WAR go longer were 2 of the Event cards. The 'point' one prevented ~120 cards from being discarded. And the 'Shapeshifter' card enabled teams to keep 6 of their better cards just by putting 6 cards in their deck that they were willing to discard.

...as long as their friends go for loyalist and you work it out with 2 other generals.

That's called backroom deals, and they're heavily discouraged.

My idea would help prevent that.. but it looks like no one likes it anymore.

[ffun]

...as long as their friends go for loyalist and you work it out with 2 other generals.

That's called backroom deals, and they're heavily discouraged.

If a great player is taken for 12 cards can you say there was no backroom deal? Can you say there was? It's "heavily discouraged", yet very hard to prove either way or enforce in the current system.

[Sevs]

I still like the idea of "a team is eliminated when they do now win at least once in a round".

 if a team goes 0-8 they probably dont have the cards to truly recover and are suffering the rest of war. team  for example wanted out of war by round 4.

It also eliminated the "sweet spot" of 60-72 cards

On another note, the starting vaults could stay the same but have the discards start higher. so 12-->18-->24 -->30 instead of starting at 6.

Also if an automated vault tools are freely available, people would not be so inclined to call it homework by the later rounds.

[TheonlyrealBeef]

...as long as their friends go for loyalist and you work it out with 2 other generals.

That's called backroom deals, and they're heavily discouraged.

If a great player is taken for 12 cards can you say there was no backroom deal? Can you say there was? It's "heavily discouraged", yet very hard to prove either way or enforce in the current system.

I wouldn't mind as someone else suggested "all slaves". If they really are worth a lot, then pay the price. Easy peasy.

[Scaredgirl]

...as long as their friends go for loyalist and you work it out with 2 other generals.

That's called backroom deals, and they're heavily discouraged.

If a great player is taken for 12 cards can you say there was no backroom deal? Can you say there was? It's "heavily discouraged", yet very hard to prove either way or enforce in the current system.

I wouldn't mind as someone else suggested "all slaves". If they really are worth a lot, then pay the price. Easy peasy.

It's a shame really. Current system was a nice compromise between real auction and players having control over which team to join. Unfortunately this was not enough and players decided they want to exploit that system and gain advantage over others by making shady backroom deals.

Problem with "all slaves" system is that we have some lame players who refuse to play elements they don't like, and will make threats to sabotage the team if a specific General buys them. But I don't think there is any other fair solution for this but to go with "all slaves". If someone has a good solution (that isn't something 100% different), let me know.

[LongDono]

...as long as their friends go for loyalist and you work it out with 2 other generals.

That's called backroom deals, and they're heavily discouraged.

If a great player is taken for 12 cards can you say there was no backroom deal? Can you say there was? It's "heavily discouraged", yet very hard to prove either way or enforce in the current system.

I wouldn't mind as someone else suggested "all slaves". If they really are worth a lot, then pay the price. Easy peasy.

It's a shame really. Current system was a nice compromise between real auction and players having control over which team to join. Unfortunately this was not enough and players decided they want to exploit that system and gain advantage over others by making shady backroom deals.

Problem with "all slaves" system is that we have some lame players who refuse to play elements they don't like, and will make threats to sabotage the team if a specific General buys them. But I don't think there is any other fair solution for this but to go with "all slaves". If someone has a good solution (that isn't something 100% different), let me know.

Maybe a "too bad so sad" policy for bidding. Right now people can switch stuff too much, so put a limit on how many switches, ect.... players and teams can do.

[UTAlan]

That's called backroom deals, and they're heavily discouraged.

Hopefully not too off-topic - I propose that "backroom deals" during the auction and during the war are explicitly forbidden in War 4. Just a thought.

[kev]

Problem with "all slaves" system is that we have some lame players who refuse to play elements they don't like, and will make threats to sabotage the team if a specific General buys them. But I don't think there is any other fair solution for this but to go with "all slaves". If someone has a good solution (that isn't something 100% different), let me know.

Yeah the problem was with players who either would quit, half ass it, or threaten to quit when bid on thus potentially disrupting the auction.  But Zanzarino them.  Everyone will just have to be aware that they're at risk of being drafted by any team, and if that's not good enough then don't join the War.  All slaves is a better system except for the problem individuals and it doesn't make sense to build a ruleset around them.  Plus some of those specific individuals are no longer around and maybe if we dispose of the three tier system we can finally get rid of the word slave.

[ffun]

Problem with "all slaves" system is that we have some lame players who refuse to play elements they don't like, and will make threats to sabotage the team if a specific General buys them. But I don't think there is any other fair solution for this but to go with "all slaves". If someone has a good solution (that isn't something 100% different), let me know.

Yeah the problem was with players who either would quit, half ass it, or threaten to quit when bid on thus potentially disrupting the auction.  But Zanzarino them.  Everyone will just have to be aware that they're at risk of being drafted by any team, and if that's not good enough then don't join the War.  All slaves is a better system except for the problem individuals and it doesn't make sense to build a ruleset around them.  Plus some of those specific individuals are no longer around and maybe if we dispose of the three tier system we can finally get rid of the word slave.

Maybe a good compromise would be "all mercenaries" (see, got rid of the word slave already! ). You could choose up to X elements (probably 3 max., as it already is) for which you definitely wouldn't want to play (that restriction would be optional - you could choose only 1 or 2 banned elements, or even choose not to impose any restrictions). It doesn't solve the problem of players who just want to play for one specific element, but at least should avoid people having to play for elements they hate.

[SnoWeb]

[...] There have been some ideas on how to possibly fix this, like alliances, [...]

When team UW enters in war, I would leave an opportunity to the 2 last team to ally. This war it was Teams Gravity and Time. At that point we barely had the number of players and cards to make up a new competitive vault and team ...

[kev]

Maybe a good compromise would be "all mercenaries" (see, got rid of the word slave already! ). You could choose up to X elements (probably 3 max., as it already is) for which you definitely wouldn't want to play (that restriction would be optional - you could choose only 1 or 2 banned elements, or even choose not to impose any restrictions). It doesn't solve the problem of players who just want to play for one specific element, but at least should avoid people having to play for elements they hate.

I'm ashamed I didn't think of this option.  Nice work, ffun.