Wondering about the popularity of 'no live scoring'

Forum rules
Please DO NOT POST BUGS on this forum. Please report (and vote) bugs on : https://boardgamearena.com/bugs
User avatar
CoffeeCoffeeCoffee3
Posts: 1
Joined: 26 April 2024, 20:24

Re: Wondering about the popularity of 'no live scoring'

Post by CoffeeCoffeeCoffee3 »

I agree completely with the post below. IRL, we don't sit around asking people to show cards and count tags. So we often feel like we are unsure of whether we are winning or not and that really adds to the overall enjoyment. As this poster said, knowing you are out early in the generations really sucks the FUN right out of the game and that's why I play...for FUN!

"TBH I was really surprised Mars has live scoring. Half of the fun of original game is that you DO NOT know exactly. You have a feeling for people having good/bad scores, but some strategies strongly lean towards opponents inability to keep track of how much are you having exactly (animals, microbes, ...).

Live scoring turns the endgame into cold calcul of "how much points exactly do I need to score/take away from someone to win?" It shouldn´t be that way. Especially in arena games (even those turn-based ones) should counting points during the game be extra information and people should have made their own effort for it (ingame notes are there after all). Having dynamic calculations of how exactly each title and competition involves each other is brutal and I personally really don´t like it. And I feel it should be omitted from arena games.

In table you know Terrarating as scoring and that´s all. Guess the rest (so you do not slow the table down). Having everything served on a silver plate turns this into precise-targeted endgame animosity every time and is not much fun in general."
User avatar
Craimefraych
Posts: 2
Joined: 05 February 2015, 03:44

Re: Wondering about the popularity of 'no live scoring'

Post by Craimefraych »

IMO, the quality of life improvement in automated versions of boardgames are part of what I seek, when playing competively.

When playing on computer, I want to dive into the game and try to play as flawlessly as possible. I've seen youtube TM players counting on excel sheets when live scoring was off or when playing on steam versions, as they were playing competively.

When playing on phone, I often am on some not 100% focus like when I am in public transport, so live scoring help me keeps track of what is happening, without requiring endlessly to go back and look at the last moves.

However, it clearly change the feeling of the game as mentioned in most posts above. For beginner players, I would recommend to play IRL on the board version, as for any boardgames. For online more than 2 players fun sessions, no live scoring is the way (IMO).
User avatar
Earthboundia
Posts: 85
Joined: 01 August 2022, 04:53

Re: Wondering about the popularity of 'no live scoring'

Post by Earthboundia »

Generally speaking, there is the argument of being able to enjoy the game because you won't know if you've lost. I agree with that. But for me the bigger point is that with games like TfM, there are a lot of competitive players who will deliberately drag the game out trying to "point optimise" (almost always being plant/animal/microbe tag players) to the point of the game no longer being fun for those who aren't. If you don't have live scoring, then it's easier to avoid that.
Yahyra
Posts: 159
Joined: 06 January 2016, 03:33

Re: Wondering about the popularity of 'no live scoring'

Post by Yahyra »

Indeed I long to play a competitive, close game and optimize my strategy. It seems so does most of the folks, I rarely seem to see the 'no live scoring' option in tables hosted. Of course my 20 minute observation is not a scientific statistically relevant sample, just sharing my opinion / $0.02.
Post Reply

Return to “Terraforming Mars”