Suggestions to improve point allocation

[ChiefPointThief]

To the point about deck distribution flams helps with that as well. When you start w/ 3 5s and then you may have a card that needs to be saved it can be difficult. But with flams you can get rid of a 5 and still get a perfect score. Now you have more room in your hand to play that 3 that needed to be saved and suddenly what would be a very difficult challenge w/o flams is rather simple.

Flams help, but they are not the free out-of-jail card that you are implying. On the one hand, they may be useless, I've lost count how many times we get the "play from discard" flam when there is nothing that can be played, or the "put back in deck" at the end of the game when there is no time to play whatever card is rescued. On the other hand, they're random, you never know if playing a 5 will give the token you desperately need or not,

I am strictly speaking from a 2p point of view. I haven't tried higher player counts yet. But I believe flams are what I say they are. The key is simply not playing your 5s until necessary and reaping all the benefits from flams. I don't think it is possible to lose playing flams only with 2 good players. I will test this theory and let you know my findings I just played a game where my p threw away 2 5s. We resurrected them both and scored perfect. As far as elo, games that would result in breaking even or negative loss turn into gains w/ flams.

[aesche]

With 2 5s lost, you easily can be unlucky and not get any/both resurrections (on time).

[Stroom]

I am strictly speaking from a 2p point of view. I haven't tried higher player counts yet. But I believe flams are what I say they are. The key is simply not playing your 5s until necessary and reaping all the benefits from flams. I don't think it is possible to lose playing flams only with 2 good players. I will test this theory and let you know my findings I just played a game where my p threw away 2 5s. We resurrected them both and scored perfect. As far as elo, games that would result in breaking even or negative loss turn into gains w/ flams.

There are always possibilities to not get max score, even with flams.

If you lose 2 5s, then it means that at least one of your flam effects might not be triggered as you can't play the last 5. If it is one of the "put-back" or "play" effects that is behind the last 5 then it is unplayable.

Also, if all 1s of one color are at the end of the deck, it means that you can't play all of the cards.

If one player has 3-4-5 of one color and the other 3-4 are discarded and you get the 2, you might not have enough moves left to play 3, 4 and 5 by one player. The most common end-game tight finish is where one player has 5 and the other has 4. You have to make sure that the player with the 5 gets the 3 so he can play 3, triggering end game, the other player plays 4 and then the final 5 can be played.

[ChiefPointThief]

I am strictly speaking from a 2p point of view. I haven't tried higher player counts yet. But I believe flams are what I say they are. The key is simply not playing your 5s until necessary and reaping all the benefits from flams. I don't think it is possible to lose playing flams only with 2 good players. I will test this theory and let you know my findings I just played a game where my p threw away 2 5s. We resurrected them both and scored perfect. As far as elo, games that would result in breaking even or negative loss turn into gains w/ flams.

There are always possibilities to not get max score, even with flams.

If you lose 2 5s, then it means that at least one of your flam effects might not be triggered as you can't play the last 5. If it is one of the "put-back" or "play" effects that is behind the last 5 then it is unplayable.

Also, if all 1s of one color are at the end of the deck, it means that you can't play all of the cards.

If one player has 3-4-5 of one color and the other 3-4 are discarded and you get the 2, you might not have enough moves left to play 3, 4 and 5 by one player. The most common end-game tight finish is where one player has 5 and the other has 4. You have to make sure that the player with the 5 gets the 3 so he can play 3, triggering end game, the other player plays 4 and then the final 5 can be played.

I'm not saying losing 2 5s or anything similar in hopes that flams will save you is smart but that flams can turn bad situations into ideal ones. Even with the example you gave with the 345. If you tossed a 2 you can use a flam to play it instantly or resurrect before waiting for the other one to pop up. You don't have to use those abilities on dead cards only.

The odds of all same color ones or 2 2s at the bottom is very slim. You can still win even with both 3s or 4s at the bottom. I believe the calculation for ones is 1/60 x 1/59 x 1/58 (if 60 card game). I can be wrong but either way very slim.

[Stroom]

I'm not saying losing 2 5s or anything similar in hopes that flams will save you is smart but that flams can turn bad situations into ideal ones. Even with the example you gave with the 345. If you tossed a 2 you can use a flam to play it instantly or resurrect before waiting for the other one to pop up. You don't have to use those abilities on dead cards only.

The odds of all same color ones or 2 2s at the bottom is very slim. You can still win even with both 3s or 4s at the bottom. I believe the calculation for ones is 1/60 x 1/59 x 1/58 (if 60 card game). I can be wrong but either way very slim.

Yes, that is what the flams do. But in a game with 30 cards, you can have 5-6 cards that need to be "saved" in a similar way and you don't know which one is important until the very end. And you can save only 1 or 2 of them.

I have played the game literally 200x more times than you. Over that many games, I have had all 1s of the same color within the last 4 cards 2 times. And then if one player has 4 and 5, it is impossible to get a max score. Especially if there are no clues left.

You definitely can not win if the 3 is at the bottom. When you draw the last card, that is the last card you will be able to play.

The percentage calculation can definitely be wrong. Especially with flamboyant where you shuffle the deck afterwards, it recalculates the possibility. And you have to multiply it by the number of colors too.

I looked at your few last game replays... You could improve a lot. Wasting a lot of clues and completely missing some cards that could have been clued to be played. Also, do not use the around-the-table view. Stacked view is much easier to understand, which IMO increases player skill. Everyone who keeps making bad moves often uses the table view.

[Travis Hall]

Based on my 25k 2p games, I would not say that black powder is "harder" per se. Just more randomness is involved but the game plays pretty much the same way.

This starts to get into what is meant by “harder”. Black Powder definitely reduces the probability of getting a high score (in any form of the game), and how much that affects any individual game very much depends on the fall of the cards. 2p games provide relatively few opportunities to compensate for the problems that can occur with Black Powder (but I believe not none); but with more than 2 players, there are techniques and strategies that can be applied that help a skilful team overcome difficult draws of the black cards.

For example, a good 3-5p team using Black Powder will know extraction techniques, so that they can safely get black cards that are blocked by other cards played (and they know the differences between how extractions work with Avalanche of Colours vs Black Powder), and how to clue opening 1s. And on the strategy front, they know to prioritise cluing black cards, and how to do so, to prevent them becoming blocked.

Even in 2p, some of that applies. You can extract blocked cards in 2p, for example. But it’s rarer that you will have the opportunity, so not as great an opportunity to use it, compared to other player counts.

[Stroom]

Based on my 25k 2p games, I would not say that black powder is "harder" per se. Just more randomness is involved but the game plays pretty much the same way.

This starts to get into what is meant by “harder”. Black Powder definitely reduces the probability of getting a high score (in any form of the game), and how much that affects any individual game very much depends on the fall of the cards. 2p games provide relatively few opportunities to compensate for the problems that can occur with Black Powder (but I believe not none); but with more than 2 players, there are techniques and strategies that can be applied that help a skilful team overcome difficult draws of the black cards.

For example, a good 3-5p team using Black Powder will know extraction techniques, so that they can safely get black cards that are blocked by other cards played (and they know the differences between how extractions work with Avalanche of Colours vs Black Powder), and how to clue opening 1s. And on the strategy front, they know to prioritise cluing black cards, and how to do so, to prevent them becoming blocked.

Even in 2p, some of that applies. You can extract blocked cards in 2p, for example. But it’s rarer that you will have the opportunity, so not as great an opportunity to use it, compared to other player counts.

Yes. I know how it works and how to do these things in 2p but overall it isn't making the game more complex, just often more luck dependant - what card comes up, ow many clues do you have and how many cards the other player is already holding that are critical. With 2p, the limit of how many cards a player can hold for saving, fills up pretty fast. With multicolors and black powder, you often have to start sacrificing in order to get a higher score. So overall it's just based on how easy the deck is, not about your skill... at a high enough skill level.

Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose. And that is OK.

[Travis Hall]

Yes. I know how it works and how to do these things in 2p but overall it isn't making the game more complex,

I’m not disagreeing with you there. Well, not much - I think Black Powder is making the strategic space of 2p Hanabi slightly more complex, but only a little compared to the effect on how often games cannot be completed with a good score.

But I think it’s worth noting how the effects are different at different player counts.

[ChiefPointThief]

You definitely can not win if the 3 is at the bottom. When you draw the last card, that is the last card you will be able to play.

I said you can win if the same two 3s are at the bottom. So the first 3 would be the second to last card. Making it a winnable game as long as the same person doesn't have the 4 and 5.

I looked at your few last game replays... You could improve a lot. Wasting a lot of clues and completely missing some cards that could have been clued to be played. Also, do not use the around-the-table view. Stacked view is much easier to understand, which IMO increases player skill. Everyone who keeps making bad moves often uses the table view.

Thank you for sharing this. You must've looked at my first 3p game. The around the table view is very confusing. Even after I made my first mistake I decided to be very cautious and I made 1 or 2 more mistakes after that because of the view. Luckily my p didn't act on my clues immediately or else it could've been a real disaster. The odd part is out of all my games this time it would've been the most justified to talk about my play but my p was nice about it. It could be in part because they asked me prior to start if I knew finesse and I explained I didn't and that this was my 1st game with 3p. Someone not spamming negative comments after a mistake is very rare though so I went back and gave them a green thumb.

[Stroom]

You definitely can not win if the 3 is at the bottom. When you draw the last card, that is the last card you will be able to play.

I said you can win if the same two 3s are at the bottom. So the first 3 would be the second to last card. Making it a winnable game as long as the same person doesn't have the 4 and 5.

If one player has both 4 AND 5 then no matter who gets the 3, even if 2nd to last, you can not play all of them. There is always a chance that max score is not possible. With 2 players, it often comes up to not having clues to stall or just bad order of cards.

I looked at your few last game replays... You could improve a lot. Wasting a lot of clues and completely missing some cards that could have been clued to be played. Also, do not use the around-the-table view. Stacked view is much easier to understand, which IMO increases player skill. Everyone who keeps making bad moves often uses the table view.

Thank you for sharing this. You must've looked at my first 3p game. The around the table view is very confusing. Even after I made my first mistake I decided to be very cautious and I made 1 or 2 more mistakes after that because of the view. Luckily my p didn't act on my clues immediately or else it could've been a real disaster. The odd part is out of all my games this time it would've been the most justified to talk about my play but my p was nice about it. It could be in part because they asked me prior to start if I knew finesse and I explained I didn't and that this was my 1st game with 3p. Someone not spamming negative comments after a mistake is very rare though so I went back and gave them a green thumb.

I looked at one of your 2p games. Some of the moves did not make much sense.