Option to remove bad cards

[FrankJones]

The whole point of having less useful cards is to work around them. That's the strategy of it. Besides, if we don't have bad cards, it would make "tuck" birds like the American, Purple Martin, etc. less powerful.

Maybe. My understanding is that the game designer used an elaborate spreadsheet with a lot of variables with the intent of making the birds balanced, and with the intent of making the strategic component deciding how and when to use the birds most efficiently.

I doubt very many game designers intentionally create underpowered cards just to add the strategy of recognizing which ones are bad.

[FrankJones]

Mediocre birds that cost 3 food including 2 of a same food are brutal to try to play in Round 1. A bird with that a food cost should have a very strong ability.

The 3-food birds in the OPs list are far too weak to offset the punishing food cost.

I believe it weakens a game to have weak/underpowered cards that rarely get played and are frustrating to draw. The Visionary Leader is the most frustrating bonus card to be dealt because it is never going to have any synergy with any starting hand. It's the most frustrating bonus card to draw late because it is almost always a zero.

Although players may differ on which birds are "the worst", I can't imagine anyone coming to the defense of the Visionary Leader bonus card.

[Archisian]

The whole point of having less useful cards is to work around them. That's the strategy of it. Besides, if we don't have bad cards, it would make "tuck" birds like the American, Purple Martin, etc. less powerful.

Maybe. My understanding is that the game designer used an elaborate spreadsheet with a lot of variables with the intent of making the birds balanced, and with the intent of making the strategic component deciding how and when to use the birds most efficiently.

I doubt very many game designers intentionally create underpowered cards just to add the strategy of recognizing which ones are bad.

Yeah, I kind of see it as a side effect of selling the product. That's why I brought up Magic the Gathering, because they for sure intentionally make crappy cards that will never ever get played. They playtest those cards before release, so they have to know the utility of each card. Now, I don't know that with absolute certainty, but I played Magic enough to know that there is no way that they can't know how bad certain cards are. But it makes sense for making money because bad cards, especially commons and uncommons take up space in booster packs and pre-made decks. Sifting through packs and discarding the least viable ones and creating the best deck possible. I definitely know when I started, I had very little idea on the strategy of Magic and just went with cards I liked. I remember my first couple of decks being a goblin and fairy deck because I just liked the cards. I found cards that synergized together with the theme and tried it out. I lost every single time I played because goblin and fairy decks, at least at the time (Lorwyn and Shadowmoor respectively), were terrible no matter what. It would be interesting if WotC play-tested those cards with those synergies, saw how bad they are at competitive, and still released it thinking it would be a viable deck.

It's not totally analogous to board games, since board games make money off selling the whole game rather than individual cards. But I do think some of that process is considered to a degree. As I said earlier, I don't think there are cards that are truly unplayable. There's probably been some folks who made something like the Acorn Woodpecker work. But I personally rarely played it and some of the other cards on the list.

I was thinking about some cards I disliked and thinking about what would happen if you changed them, and then I realized making them underpowered keeps the game in check. For example, Oologist (4 eggs on bird=1 pt) is such a terrible bonus card that I toss it almost every time (and oddly enough, I somehow I end up drawing it a lot). I thought about what would happen if you make it 2 pts instead of just 1 pt. I then realized it can quickly become very powerful, since there are a lot of grassland birds with 4+ egg nests and if you max out the nest on, let's say Northern Bobwhite, that turns it into an 8 pt bird. It would make Oologist more viable, but at the risk of possibly developing a meta around it and a couple of other strategies (like tuck power birds). So I give the developers of Wingspan credit for making all the cards at least have some utility in a competitive game.

[Archisian]

Mediocre birds that cost 3 food including 2 of a same food are brutal to try to play in Round 1. A bird with that a food cost should have a very strong ability.

The 3-food birds in the OPs list are far too weak to offset the punishing food cost.

I believe it weakens a game to have weak/underpowered cards that rarely get played and are frustrating to draw. The Visionary Leader is the most frustrating bonus card to be dealt because it is never going to have any synergy with any starting hand. It's the most frustrating bonus card to draw late because it is almost always a zero.

Although players may differ on which birds are "the worst", I can't imagine anyone coming to the defense of the Visionary Leader bonus card.

Oh yeah, I really hate that card too haha. It only really works if you are totally invested in the wetland and/or with birds like Ruddy Duck, Common Yellowthroat, or Pied-billed Grebe, but their low point value means you should only really invest in just one of them.

[FrankJones]

I was thinking about some cards I disliked and thinking about what would happen if you changed them, and then I realized making them underpowered keeps the game in check. For example, Oologist (4 eggs on bird=1 pt) is such a terrible bonus card that I toss it almost every time (and oddly enough, I somehow I end up drawing it a lot).

That's "Breeding Manager". A terrible bonus card, always a discard (unless the other one is visionary leader).

Oologist is a very good one, pretty much an automatic for the small bonus, not too difficult for the big bonus (points for having eggs on 6 or 9 unique birds).

I thought about what would happen if you make it 2 pts instead of just 1 pt. I then realized it can quickly become very powerful, since there are a lot of grassland birds with 4+ egg nests and if you max out the nest on, let's say Northern Bobwhite, that turns it into an 8 pt bird. It would make Oologist more viable, but at the risk of possibly developing a meta around it and a couple of other strategies (like tuck power birds). So I give the developers of Wingspan credit for making all the cards at least have some utility in a competitive game.

How does having terrible bonus cards keep things in balance? Some bonus cards simply give 2 points per qualifying bird. They are strong bonus cards. Falconer, Rodentologist, bird counter. Breeding manager is just garbage. 1 point per bird that can even hold 4 eggs in the first place AND has 4 eggs on it? Terrible.

Sure, maybe they would be strong if modified. Better would be to just toss them in the trash (which is exactly what we did with our physical version of the game).

[FrankJones]

Mediocre birds that cost 3 food including 2 of a same food are brutal to try to play in Round 1. A bird with that a food cost should have a very strong ability.

The 3-food birds in the OPs list are far too weak to offset the punishing food cost.

I believe it weakens a game to have weak/underpowered cards that rarely get played and are frustrating to draw. The Visionary Leader is the most frustrating bonus card to be dealt because it is never going to have any synergy with any starting hand. It's the most frustrating bonus card to draw late because it is almost always a zero.

Although players may differ on which birds are "the worst", I can't imagine anyone coming to the defense of the Visionary Leader bonus card.

Oh yeah, I really hate that card too haha. It only really works if you are totally invested in the wetland and/or with birds like Ruddy Duck, Common Yellowthroat, or Pied-billed Grebe, but their low point value means you should only really invest in just one of them.

Even then, it's terrible. Without the expansions, wetland scoring strategies are rare/impossible. ANs having excess cards just means inefficient actions were taken to acquire more cards than needed. Ending the game with enough cards to qualify for the high bonus on visionary leader means things have gone wrong. With an excess of cards, we want a "tuck and lay egg" bird, not the visionary leader bonus card.

The purpose of those "draw 2 discard 1" birds isn't to stockpile a bunch of birds we don't intend to play. The purpose is to save a few trips to the wetland, and, to draw 2 desirable cards and discard one trash card.

[kitwin]

It feels like the thing all the cards (powerful and useless) have in common is what they can do to the early game in particular.

I doubt the BGA engine could do this, but I'd find it an interesting variation to remove some number of power outliers (power 5 and some number of duds) in round 1 to smooth out starts between players, and then shuffle in all those cards in round 2 before the tray is populated. This would prevent bonus cards from having their power altered too much because of an uneven loss of the birds that match them.

All the cases for weak birds being useful (and they can be) usually happen in later rounds, or at least after a basic engine is established, and that'd make for a less spikey round 1.

It's a fun thought experiment anyway.

I'd agree with setting Visionary Leader on fire, though . Breeding Manager is actually not my clear-cut second worst though (maybe the seed-eating bird card for me?). I actually really like the mini-game of setting up your eggs before you draw a bonus card in the end game with it in mind. I've gotten an extra 3 or 4 points because I laid my eggs in the off chance Breeding Manager came up before. It's one of those tiny edges experienced players can lean into. It's underpowered for sure, but not driving you towards a making actively bad game actions the way Visionary Leader does.

[FrankJones]

I actually really like the mini-game of setting up your eggs before you draw a bonus card in the end game with it in mind. I've gotten an extra 3 or 4 points because I laid my eggs in the off chance Breeding Manager came up before. It's one of those tiny edges experienced players can lean into. It's underpowered for sure, but not driving you towards a making actively bad game actions the way Visionary Leader does.

Setting up for Breeding manager and drawing Oologist would be rather frustrating.
Also, comparing the 2:
Oologist: High Bonus (6 points): Requires having 9 birds (fairly common), and a total of 9 eggs.
Breeding manager: 12 eggs on 3 qualifying birds just to get 3 points. 24 eggs on 6 qualifying birds to get the "high" bonus, which still isn't as high as the high bonus on some cards.

I agree with "Bird Feeder" (Birds that eat grain) being one of the worst. High barrier to entry for small bonus or high bonus.

[kitwin]

Oh I'm referring to handling both. If I have 9 eggs, I want them spread on 9 birds. If I have 12, I want those extra 3 on the same bird. It's a tiny edge, and yes, an underpowered card, but I actually kinda enjoy that mini game.

[FrankJones]

Oh I'm referring to handling both. If I have 9 eggs, I want them spread on 9 birds. If I have 12, I want those extra 3 on the same bird. It's a tiny edge, and yes, an underpowered card, but I actually kinda enjoy that mini game.

Understood.

Does that really make the breeding manager any less terrible of a bonus card though? Sometimes eggs are scare, or 4-nest birds are scarce. Without expansions, it's difficult to draw a lot of cards to get what we need.

And with so little variety in EOR goals, it's not uncommon for egg placement in round 4 to be dictated by the 4th round goal.