War #4 Brainstorming and Planning

[the dictator]

I dislike the way that the current system punishes teams that have a large vault by making them play proportionately more games. Because a loss is -30 and a win only adds 6, a team with an excellent win-percentage that plays more total games will almost always lose more total cards than a team with a worse win percentage that just plays less games. This means that the front-runners are unfairly weakened, artificially extending War's duration. It also exacerbates the effects of strategic exploits such as the 60-card sweet spot, allowing teams to "turtle" with a small but select vault, and do better than larger teams that are forced to play more matches. In my opinion, having more cards should mean that your "army" is larger and thus can concentrate on your opponents with a number advantage, rather than being forced to be spread thin and fight at a disadvantage.
On the other hand, vault management and the idea that "you're eliminated when you don't have the cards to play your matches" are both important parts of War, so we don't want our solution to remove those concepts. I've been brainstorming different ideas for how to fix this issue, and here is my favorite so far:


At the start of each round a Warmaster checks to see how many matches each team can play and finds the average. Subtract one from this average number, and you have the number of matches that each team will be required to complete in that round. The Warmaster then assigns those matches normally. If your team has more cards than is required, it will make deckbuilding easier. If a team has less decks then necessary to complete all their assigned matches (so any team more than one deck under average) they will have to assign decks to more than one matchup, and receive salvage or discard cards from the deck as normal for each win and loss. This solution is promising imo, because it is simple enough to understand/implement, it doesn't remove any of the key components of the War experience, it doesn't punish teams that have large vaults, nor does it reward them so much that a middle-of-the-pack team has no chance to overtake them. It should hopefully be more intuitive in it's results. 

Any thoughts or suggestions?

I can see your point, but I have to disagree with you because: more cards = more option = better (even if you have to make more decks). Also your system would favour the top teams which I think is a bad idea (we have had three wars now, and of the teams taking the lead early, there are only a few that didn't end up high in the end. If it where really as bad as you say it is, the ranks should invert each round, which clearly isn't happening.

Then, some other things that should be done:
Get rid of those sweet spots, by

Simply scheduling as many matches as possible (30 cards a deck).<- bad idea, has a potential to disable stallsAdding a no wins no more war rule (meaning you need to win at least one match each round)Making substitute penalties higher, especially in later round (because having to sub there can be quite easily prevented by editing the fighting order, and by contacting your opponent early to schedule the match). For example: round 1, lose 1 salvage; round 2, lose two salvage; ... ; round 6, lose salvage; round 7, lose salvage, and discard 1 card (from the deck used; round 8, lose salvage and discard two, etc.

With this system you can keep the sweet spots in the table, because people won't stay there that long (shall I salvage and lose some more cards (putting me below 60 next round), or shall I play the real game at risk of having to field two decks.

Something else I would like to see changed is the discarding, especially because the salvage doesn't follow a sliding scale. Also, getting one bad rould practically means game over, because you can't save your keycards, which you are obviously using, making your decks a lot weaker the next round, meaning your will lose even more matches, etc.

I agree with people saying you should allow the first rounds to be used for scouting (low discard), but why does the salvage have to be so large (relatively: 100% of discarding). My solution would be the following: start discardings at 12, then 16, then 20 and max them at 24, and set the salvage at 25% of the discarding. This allows you to recover from some heavy loss (because you can save some keycards. It also balances the salvages against the discardings, which is a good thing too.

and now i'm tired, maybe I will finish this later.

[~Napalm]

Whew that was a long read! I guess I'll start with the things I intended to say before I forget them, then comment on the other stuff

On the issue of Upgrades:
So in an early post it was suggested that we simply add a flat 3 upgraded card bonus to every participant in the war. This is an extremely basic system and I'd merely like to propose a more complicated version of it for consideration. *ahem* "For each of the three previous wars that an element was not victorious, that element can use 1 additional upgraded card in each of their decks." The only real change then is that the elements that haven't won a war will have a slight advantage over those who have. A very weak attempt to level the playing field if you will. I'm not sure if this is a good addition to a basic system, a kink in a balanced system, or an overcomplication of a beautifully simple system. Discuss.

On the issue of Discards and Salvages:
I really like dictators idea of making salvages be 25% of discards. I also love the idea of a maximum discard of 24, thus allowing every element to keep key cards late into the war so there isn't the "fizzle out" effect we have now. It also makes hard countering entire vaults more difficult to do because there is that added uncertainty as to what the enemy vault looks like, which is a definite plus IMO. But, With the 24 max discard, you need to ramp up very quickly, while still allowing for a brief exploratory period. I might suggest the following:
Round 1 - Salvage 2, Discard 8
Round 2 - Salvage 4, Discard 16
Rounds 3+ - Salvage 6, Discard 24

On the issue of Sweetspots:
I would just like to point out that the aforementioned "No Mercy" rule eliminates these altogether. This would be the rule that states "If a team does not win at least one of their match-ups this round, they are eliminated from War." While this is a pretty harsh rule, I think it'd be perfectly acceptable for War. It can serve to shorten War a little bit by eliminating "Sweetspots" and straight out eliminating a team that has 0 wins in any given round.

Well that's all for now, but we'll see if I don't have any other input later!

[PlayerOa]

Whew that was a long read! I guess I'll start with the things I intended to say before I forget them, then comment on the other stuff

On the issue of Upgrades:
So in an early post it was suggested that we simply add a flat 3 upgraded card bonus to every participant in the war. This is an extremely basic system and I'd merely like to propose a more complicated version of it for consideration. *ahem* "For each of the three previous wars that an element was not victorious, that element can use 1 additional upgraded card in each of their decks." The only real change then is that the elements that haven't won a war will have a slight advantage over those who have. A very weak attempt to level the playing field if you will. I'm not sure if this is a good addition to a basic system, a kink in a balanced system, or an overcomplication of a beautifully simple system. Discuss.

On the issue of Discards and Salvages:
I really like dictators idea of making salvages be 25% of discards. I also love the idea of a maximum discard of 24, thus allowing every element to keep key cards late into the war so there isn't the "fizzle out" effect we have now. It also makes hard countering entire vaults more difficult to do because there is that added uncertainty as to what the enemy vault looks like, which is a definite plus IMO. But, With the 24 max discard, you need to ramp up very quickly, while still allowing for a brief exploratory period. I might suggest the following:
Round 1 - Salvage 2, Discard 8
Round 2 - Salvage 4, Discard 16
Rounds 3+ - Salvage 6, Discard 24

On the issue of Sweetspots:
I would just like to point out that the aforementioned "No Mercy" rule eliminates these altogether. This would be the rule that states "If a team does not win at least one of their match-ups this round, they are eliminated from War." While this is a pretty harsh rule, I think it'd be perfectly acceptable for War. It can serve to shorten War a little bit by eliminating "Sweetspots" and straight out eliminating a team that has 0 wins in any given round.

Well that's all for now, but we'll see if I don't have any other input later!

Awesome. Completely balanced ideas, I really like 1 and 3.

[10 men]

I think 24 Discard is a terrible idea, it complicates exactly the part of the War we were trying to simplify, the Vault management. Finding 6 cards to save from every single losing deck would cause major headache. If you have a card that you really want to save you can still always make a 31 card deck.

[Mithcairion]

Whew that was a long read! I guess I'll start with the things I intended to say before I forget them, then comment on the other stuff

On the issue of Upgrades:
So in an early post it was suggested that we simply add a flat 3 upgraded card bonus to every participant in the war. This is an extremely basic system and I'd merely like to propose a more complicated version of it for consideration. *ahem* "For each of the three previous wars that an element was not victorious, that element can use 1 additional upgraded card in each of their decks." The only real change then is that the elements that haven't won a war will have a slight advantage over those who have. A very weak attempt to level the playing field if you will. I'm not sure if this is a good addition to a basic system, a kink in a balanced system, or an overcomplication of a beautifully simple system. Discuss.

Well, while I applaud where you're going with this, I think it is window dressing that doesn't really change anything.  How often does one upped card really matter (I would like to hear from those that played in the 'There Can Only Be One!' event on this, as the first battles everyone had only one upped card)?  While yes, I understand that there are some cards that have a significantly different dynamic upped than they do unupped, to my way of thinking having a single extra upped card (keep in mind, this will mean a single upped card in 6 of 8 decks for at least a few rounds) makes a negligible difference, at best.

On the issue of Discards and Salvages:
I really like dictators idea of making salvages be 25% of discards. I also love the idea of a maximum discard of 24, thus allowing every element to keep key cards late into the war so there isn't the "fizzle out" effect we have now. It also makes hard countering entire vaults more difficult to do because there is that added uncertainty as to what the enemy vault looks like, which is a definite plus IMO. But, With the 24 max discard, you need to ramp up very quickly, while still allowing for a brief exploratory period. I might suggest the following:
Round 1 - Salvage 2, Discard 8
Round 2 - Salvage 4, Discard 16
Rounds 3+ - Salvage 6, Discard 24

I'm torn on this issue.  To my mind, this is a natural part of War, the natural attrition of resources, morale, troops, etc.  Of course, here we have the fundamental debate of "What should the War event be?" once again, and I'll not go into that.  I'll suffice it to say that I have no problem with the system of 30 card discards the way they are now, and really wouldn't have a problem with it in this way, either. 

On the issue of Sweetspots:
I would just like to point out that the aforementioned "No Mercy" rule eliminates these altogether. This would be the rule that states "If a team does not win at least one of their match-ups this round, they are eliminated from War." While this is a pretty harsh rule, I think it'd be perfectly acceptable for War. It can serve to shorten War a little bit by eliminating "Sweetspots" and straight out eliminating a team that has 0 wins in any given round.

I've heard this suggested a couple of times and I can't help but wonder, how would this rule affect teams that were given a bye?  They would have 0 wins in that round, so according to the letter of the law, they should be eliminated, no?

[BluePriest]

Be patient with me as this idea is a work in progress, and I still dont completely understand war... I agree with youngsot that teams with more cards shouldnt be forced to have more battles. What if there was a minimum amount of battles a team had to fight (as long as they have the required number of players) and then teams could challenge other teams that still have cards remaining? This would add more strategy to war instead of it being all completely randomized. I forsee vault problems because it could end up being almost an autoloss for the defending team because if they werent expecting a battle then the remaining vault cards would hardly be considered a deck. Also, Im not sure when this extra challenge would be able to be squeezed into wars already tight schedule. Im more just throwing the idea out there though in case someone who understands war better likes it and can make it workable.

Another alternative would be that if a team has less decks remaining, they would just have to fight with the same deck multiple times. If they end up loosing more cards than they actually have then they would just have to discard the whole deck.

[Sevs]

Many complain of war being too long, but by having 24 card max discard, you are extending war another 20%. This war was what 15 rounds? with 24 discards this could have easily been 18 and since each team will be eliminated later because of the smaller discards the round 5 -10 will take substantially longer because more players = more time for deckbuilding and duels.


As for the larger vault teams shouldn't have to fight more battles, I do not agree. The advantage of the bigger vault it usually pretty substantial, in the variety of cards you have at your possible use. and the almost complete knowledge of others vaults.

Well, while I applaud where you're going with this, I think it is window dressing that doesn't really change anything.  How often does one upped card really matter (I would like to hear from those that played in the 'There Can Only Be One!' event on this, as the first battles everyone had only one upped card)?  While yes, I understand that there are some cards that have a significantly different dynamic upped than they do unupped, to my way of thinking having a single extra upped card (keep in mind, this will mean a single upped card in 6 of 8 decks for at least a few rounds) makes a negligible difference, at best.

Lol the first game i played in TCOBO i lost because of the upgrade. Dissipation shield stall with 1 dissipation shield But Napalm mentions wanting to give upgrades for EACH of the previous wars. so that would make it +3 more 10/12 teams. which is definitely significant

[Mithcairion]

Many complain of war being too long, but by having 24 card max discard, you are extending war another 20%. This war was what 15 rounds? with 24 discards this could have easily been 18 and since each team will be eliminated later because of the smaller discards the round 5 -10 will take substantially longer because more players = more time for deckbuilding and duels.


As for the larger vault teams shouldn't have to fight more battles, I do not agree. The advantage of the bigger vault it usually pretty substantial, in the variety of cards you have at your possible use. and the almost complete knowledge of others vaults.

But if you're up to 24 card discards in Round 3, that will help mitigate the added length, somewhat.

[The_Mormegil]

To shorten War you can always have smaller starting Vaults. Although, this will restrict deckbuilding even more and - if the Event Card System is kept - make balancing even more complex.

[the dictator]

And, because of the decreased discarding (thus less loss of keycards) you can also easily shrink the vault a bit (no need to take 24 graboids when you only want to play 12 of them each round, you won't need the other 12 for just in case, you can always save the others).

Edit, ninja'd by the mormegil

[majofa]

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.

Well, for really any discarding change. I did some numbers for Napalm's idea of discarding and it seemed like WAR would still go 12-14 rounds, unless one team really dominated. That was with 400 cards starting vaults. And I wasn't even including Salvaging in my calculations. I also didn't include Underworld.

[~Napalm]

Ok so to clarify. With my proposed system, every loss is 2 additional discards for round 1, 4 additional discards for round 2, 6 additional discards round 3, even discards round 4, and 6 less salvages rounds 5 on. So there will be a small chipping away of the Vault in the early waves and right when people start finally discarding less, 8 more players enter war, meaning more people are losing, and more cards are being discarded. Another thing is that the more people that are playing for as long as possible, the faster war goes. More players = more losses = more overall discards. While yes, keeping 6 additional cards for every loss mathematically looks like it should extend war by 20%, I doubt that it would extend it even 10% personally.

And on the issue of Byes:
I'm not sure if this would be a suitable rule or not, but I'm going to throw it out there for consideration anyway. I personally hate that the way byes work now by helping the team that is currently doing the worst sneak up a spot or two over other struggling competitors. This REALLY bugs me. I hate it. Sooo... IFF the "No Mercy" rule is going to be enforeced (possibly with an escape clause to avoid the possibility of being eliminated round 1) we can possibly add another rule about Byes stating the following: "If at all possible, no team with only member playing in a round can receive a bye." This means that every Round, EVERY team will still have to play a match, and with the no mercy rule, they will be eliminated if they lose. If a team with 2 decks gets a bye, and the 1 deck they play loses, they would still be eliminated. It makes it such that Byes are no longer a free pass, but a very sticky situation that a team is faced with. Again, I don't know if this is good fix or just a terrible rule. Discuss.

And on the issue of Buffers:
Too many of my ideas tie in with key other ideas. IFF the max discards were lowered to 24, some way to account for the loss of speed would need to be taken into account. Probably the simplest way is to just remove or lessen the buffer system we have. As I stated above, the more players we have playing at a time, the faster war goes on because more cards are being lost sooner. Having teams field more decks if possible is the best way to do this. I'm not sure how for you'd have to go to have it make a difference in war, but I think requiring teams to play a deck for every 32-33 cards would work. You could even go to a more scaled system as proposed in a previous post.