One question I’m curious about: does anyone know how score differentials worked out here on BGA (or elsewhere) between players of similar Elo/skill levels?
I have no idea whether at some point in the past Arena games featured a non-draft setting. My suspicion is that equally rated players would see huge point differentials in non-draft games more often than in draft – but that’s a suspicion.
@FrankJones – I had a bit of a chuckle reading your evaluation of the game designer’s own skill level as a player of the game. The analogy that springs to mind is that of a designer of a race car who will never be able to extract as much performance from the car he designed as a top racing driver. That doesn’t mean the designer’s views on design and recommended settings are ill-informed, whether they are about the game designed by a game designer or about the race car by a car designer.
The TfM rulebook describes drafting as a variant for when “more interaction is desired”. The rulebook text makes clear that drafting also means you draft essentially for your opponent too (“affect which cards your opponent gets access to”), offers better prospects for finding cards that you want (“increases your ability to pursue a certain strategy”) and that drafting gives access to otherwise hidden information (“predict which parameter will rise first”). The Fryx brothers may not have grasped all the minutiae of the game dynamics, but this sets out the broad sweep of what drafting means. Looks like a strong and relevant understanding from my perspective. In short: drafting is available, fully endorsed as an option, and it’s what “we” on BGA play most of the time.
The one thing I find surprising is the original post:
I have no idea whether at some point in the past Arena games featured a non-draft setting. My suspicion is that equally rated players would see huge point differentials in non-draft games more often than in draft – but that’s a suspicion.
@FrankJones – I had a bit of a chuckle reading your evaluation of the game designer’s own skill level as a player of the game. The analogy that springs to mind is that of a designer of a race car who will never be able to extract as much performance from the car he designed as a top racing driver. That doesn’t mean the designer’s views on design and recommended settings are ill-informed, whether they are about the game designed by a game designer or about the race car by a car designer.
The TfM rulebook describes drafting as a variant for when “more interaction is desired”. The rulebook text makes clear that drafting also means you draft essentially for your opponent too (“affect which cards your opponent gets access to”), offers better prospects for finding cards that you want (“increases your ability to pursue a certain strategy”) and that drafting gives access to otherwise hidden information (“predict which parameter will rise first”). The Fryx brothers may not have grasped all the minutiae of the game dynamics, but this sets out the broad sweep of what drafting means. Looks like a strong and relevant understanding from my perspective. In short: drafting is available, fully endorsed as an option, and it’s what “we” on BGA play most of the time.
The one thing I find surprising is the original post:
All Arena games and most tournaments feature a draft. Non-draft is the exception from what I can see. Perhaps in Play settings, if you start joining games there, you’ll find people who deliberately set up a non-draft game to have some variety from what’s on offer in Arena and tourneys. The set of reasons people give above about why they prefer non-draft looks interesting and well-thought-out. I prefer drafting. And I don’t even have real “reasons” for that anymore. I notice I just stay away from the format these days, and if I stumble into a non-draft game by mistake, I dislike the experience, and that tells me enough: I’ll stick to drafting.I do not understand why most of the games I see is without draft, this includes Strong and Expert players also.
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