War #5 - Suggestions and Feedback

[RootRanger]

Are people seriously getting mad at fire? They performed the best they could without breaking the rules. That's what you're supposed to do. Are you saying that Fire should not try to play the best they can? Because that's just immature jealousy.

If Fire had chosen to salvage in situations in which it would be purely stupid to salvage, then this would be no different from making any other mistake in war, such as fielding a bad deck or making a wrong prediction. If people are raging at Fire for playing the best they can under the given rules, why not rage at the other 11 teams for playing the best they can under the given rules?

[rosutosefi]

Guys, I have a very good idea: calm down. The amount of personal attacks in this thread is ridiculous.

Now this: If you were on fire's position, wouldn't you do the same? Wouldn't it be more disrespectful of you did not try to win war in the best way you could? If you limited yourself out of some honor system and some other team will suddenly did what you intended to do, how would you feel? Even if no one did the same and you lost because of this unofficial honor system, wouldn't it still raise the question about "who actually won"? Tell me honestly, what will you do? I'm not saying fire did what's right, I'm just saying they do not deserve this hate.

[Jenkar]

Personnal opinion : one strategic sub to avoid fielding a suicide is fine, three in a row, less so.

Under the current rules it's allowed, and even though i feel iffy about it, there's no reason to hate fire for it. The only personn i dislike is the one who said it was an abuse, so wat, in chat. It's up to each personn to set their honor system for themselves, but when they don't respect it and don't care about it, that's a problem. (Sot& UTA for example are not doing that and therefore don't deserve any of the hate, nor does the fire time as a group)

Also, most of you : keep in mind honor systems are meant to be personnal. Right now most of you are trying to put guilt on fire for not respecting your view of what's right, which is beyond silly.

[Higurashi]

State your opinions on the War and suggest improvements. That's all we need in this thread. You can argue each other's practices in chat, but there's no place for personal attacks in this community. Period.

[rosutosefi]

I think it would be better if the number of players fielded would be based on the number of losses incurred. If there aren't enough cards in the vault, then let them field less players. No 3-player teams returning to four players and such. This way, all these "stay in this sweet spot" shenanigans will be stopped, and you'll give more incentive to winning. Could be balanced by making card discards based on your "extra cards" but all balancing could be thought out by the more experienced war people here. 

[mrpaper]

I think it would be better if the number of players fielded would be based on the number of losses incurred. If there aren't enough cards in the vault, then let them field less players. No 3-player teams returning to four players and such. This way, all these "stay in this sweet spot" shenanigans will be stopped, and you'll give more incentive to winning. Could be balanced by making card discards based on your "extra cards" but all balancing could be thought out by the more experienced war people here. 

for that to work, all rounds would need to make you lose the same amount of cards, so no more 12, 18,24, 30.  Maybe starting at 24 but staying there could be ok, but I am not convince if it is a good idea or not.  Also, the whole auction on players would need to be blown away (for snake selection?) because you can't ask a team who paid 25 more cards then another to field the same amount of deck.

On the war rule for subbing now... I don't feel there is much to add in the fact any of you don't like that rule, we got that and warmasters also.  I gotta say that this wouldn't be talked half as much if we had lose any of our matches.  Also, no one have mentionned that last round event helped the 3 other teams (giving em 4 cards of they're choice) which we couldn't take. I interferred once in chat about it and it was to say that solutions must be taken here and that personal hatred is bad for the community no matter what.  I still believe that so I hope we will only see constructive solutions for war 6, I'M all about that too.

For my personal solutions, I doubt having a max of sub can work, some teams have a member or two that go m.i.a so the whole team would die by this, and if I go unlucky and face someone 12 hours apart from me a couple of time I won't wake up at 4 a.m. for a match.  That being said, I have merge some ideas,  how about you can elect not to salvage once no matter when in war, if you try to do that two rounds in a row, you're opponent decide for a 0 or 6 card salvage and that whether there is a sub involved or not.  I'd also give access to team to get rid of regular member to put em in support team and the opposite at any time in case the general can prove the member is inactive.

[Jenkar]

Also, no one have mentionned that last round event helped the 3 other teams (giving em 4 cards of they're choice) which we couldn't take.

Wouldn't*. That was a choice event card.

That being said, I have merge some ideas,  how about you can elect not to salvage once no matter when in war, if you try to do that two rounds in a row, you're opponent decide for a 0 or 6 card salvage and that whether there is a sub involved or not.  I'd also give access to team to get rid of regular member to put em in support team and the opposite at any time in case the general can prove the member is inactive.

I like this.

[kev]

In War2 Gravity was nearly forced to show their entire vault because the rule at the time was number of players fielded =vault/30.  See here.  People were up in arms about it, so the rule became vault/36 for War3.  I made my thoughts about the new rule clear here but when I became a Warmaster before War4 I was asked not to eliminate the rule, so I instead made it vault/33.

I have a semi-crazy idea.

If a sub wins, then the opponent they beat determines their salvage from 0-6 cards.

Early in war, teams will lose salvage, and late in war teams can no longer strategically sub.

Intriguing.  The downside is that, as proposed, it’d almost require an extra phase each round for Generals to post opponent sub salvage decisions.  It can only be part of the deckbuilding phase if we lengthen the phase accordingly.

Maybe instead Warmasters should make the decision.  So the language in Rules would become “Penalty for using a replacement is that you claim no salvage if you win, or salvage in-element pillars if no salvage would cause you to field fewer decks next round.”  For that matter, maybe subs should just always salvage in-element pillars, which would be way simpler and still meets all our goals.


I’m happy to see so much thought being put into problems with the current rule set in this thread.  I’d love to see additional thought being given to out-of-the-box ideas on how to make War more fun and fair.  I don't think War needs a complete overhaul, but I don't think the War6 Warmasters will be committed to running the exact same event, either.  I'll be posting here after the War ends, too, and simplification will be a central theme in my wall o text.

[rosutosefi]

for that to work, all rounds would need to make you lose the same amount of cards, so no more 12, 18,24, 30.  Maybe starting at 24 but staying there could be ok, but I am not convince if it is a good idea or not.  Also, the whole auction on players would need to be blown away (for snake selection?) because you can't ask a team who paid 25 more cards then another to field the same amount of deck.

Of course there has to be a cushion, and some balancing. For example, everyone fields 6 players at the start of war. Discard is 12. Let's say you start with 240 cards. I'm a potato. My brain cogs are stuck and need to start over on a new idea.

Maybe this: Once your vault hits 3 players, make it so that salvaging cards won't push you to to 4 players. But deck discards could be increased. Maybe like if you have 128 cards this round and won all three of your matches (which pushes you to 146 cards) you'll still field 3 players next game but will have to discard 5 more cards per loss ((146-131)/3). The team could assign which extra cards could be discarded in case of a loss, and there will be less exploiting of these sweet spot thingies.

[kev]

for that to work, all rounds would need to make you lose the same amount of cards, so no more 12, 18,24, 30.  Maybe starting at 24 but staying there could be ok, but I am not convince if it is a good idea or not.  Also, the whole auction on players would need to be blown away (for snake selection?) because you can't ask a team who paid 25 more cards then another to field the same amount of deck.

Of course there has to be a cushion, and some balancing. For example, everyone fields 6 players at the start of war. Discard is 12. Let's say you start with 240 cards. I'm a potato. My brain cogs are stuck and need to start over on a new idea.

Maybe this: Once your vault hits 3 players, make it so that salvaging cards won't push you to to 4 players. But deck discards could be increased. Maybe like if you have 128 cards this round and won all three of your matches (which pushes you to 146 cards) you'll still field 3 players next game but will have to discard 5 more cards per loss ((146-131)/3). The team could assign which extra cards could be discarded in case of a loss, and there will be less exploiting of these sweet spot thingies.

Don't forget to multiply by the square root of X/Y, where X is the number of cards discarded two rounds ago and Y is the current phase of the moon.  I kid because I care.    Seriously, though... simplification.

[dragonsdemesne]

In War2 Gravity was nearly forced to show their entire vault because the rule at the time was number of players fielded =vault/30.  See here.  People were up in arms about it, so the rule became vault/36 for War3.  I made my thoughts about the new rule clear

I think I suggested it before, but I think War would be more fun if this were changed to something like 30 + vault/30.  (vaults would have to be increased by 30 cards in size, but war would take the same amount of time since both the elimination limit and starting vault are increased by the same amount)  That way, if you have, say, 60-75 cards (or whatever the range) you field one deck, and if you have 59 or less, you're out, rather than 29 or less you're out like now.  My reasoning is that then if a team is reduced to playing one deck per round, you can't automatically predict what they're going to use even if you know their entire vault.  It allows for teams to keep more things hidden, which increases the skill required.  My team didn't have issue with this in war 5 (since we went 0-5 one round and were wiped out all at once, so it never came up for us :p) but in war 4, round 10 and to a large degree the previous round or two were basically predetermined once the matchups were announced.  In round 10 for instance, I successfully predicted the winner of every single match except the finals, and that only because light did not use the deck I thought they would, whereas in every other match the teams used what I thought they would, mostly because there were no other choices.

[Cheesy111]

In War2 Gravity was nearly forced to show their entire vault because the rule at the time was number of players fielded =vault/30.  See here.  People were up in arms about it, so the rule became vault/36 for War3.  I made my thoughts about the new rule clear

I think I suggested it before, but I think War would be more fun if this were changed to something like 30 + vault/30.  (vaults would have to be increased by 30 cards in size, but war would take the same amount of time since both the elimination limit and starting vault are increased by the same amount)  That way, if you have, say, 60-75 cards (or whatever the range) you field one deck, and if you have 59 or less, you're out, rather than 29 or less you're out like now.  My reasoning is that then if a team is reduced to playing one deck per round, you can't automatically predict what they're going to use even if you know their entire vault.  It allows for teams to keep more things hidden, which increases the skill required.  My team didn't have issue with this in war 5 (since we went 0-5 one round and were wiped out all at once, so it never came up for us :p) but in war 4, round 10 and to a large degree the previous round or two were basically predetermined once the matchups were announced.  In round 10 for instance, I successfully predicted the winner of every single match except the finals, and that only because light did not use the deck I thought they would, whereas in every other match the teams used what I thought they would, mostly because there were no other choices.

I like this a lot.