Hi,
I have opened a bug report asking ufm to give the option to revert to the old scoring rules. I think the new rules make the game worse, and here below I explain why.
If you agree, please upvote: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=108927
Thank you!
I have opened a bug report asking ufm to give the option to revert to the old scoring rules. I think the new rules make the game worse, and here below I explain why.
If you agree, please upvote: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=108927
Thank you!
In a reply to one of my bug reports, you told me that the new, "merciful" scoring scheme was implemented to help weak players. I thought about it, and I would like to offer you a rebuttal.
1) Hoola is, at best, 50% strategy and 50% luck. So, with a couple of lucky hands (for example one or two other players with no melds, or a Hoola or a blast), even a player which has zero points can, given enough time, manage to win the game in the end. Of course, if you have zero points in turn 7 out of 8, it's still quite improbable, but what happened in my game, the game stopped at turn 3 out of 8, so the last player still had 5 turns to make it happen. Why would you want to prevent them to attempt an heroic comeback?
2) The new scoring is not merciful to the last player, in fact it's merciless to the second player. If you are in second position, and you want to win, now you have to win more points than the first ranked player, but also make sure that you don't win too many points from the last ranked player, otherwise you might trigger the game end before you catch up with player #1. So that makes the game very difficult. It's even worse if you are player #3 in 4-players game, or player #4 in a 5-players game. You are never given an even chance to win. The only beneficiary of the new rule is the first ranked player, who can build a lead in 2-3 rounds, and then hope to kill off the last player to trigger the game end.
3) Where was it written that Hoola is supposed to be merciful?
Hoola is a nasty little game that punishes you at every opportunity: if you are not careful, you turn can be stolen, or you give away a useful card and have to pay for everybody's losses. Its mercilessness is what makes this game brilliant and fun! The new rules undercut this nastiness and make the game a little worse.
Thanks to you, I have learned about this game, that I am now playing in real life with family and friends. We play using the merciless rules, and I never found anyone (including my 10-years-old niece) complaining about going below zero. In fact, you can joke about the temperature being low on their side of the table
In conclusion, if you want to keep the merciful scoring for new users, please do. But please, also make an option for Hoola lovers to be able to play using the old merciless rules!
Thank you,
a Hoola lover
