Starting Hand Drafting

[marathus]

Initial draft doesn’t solve the one issue it attempts to solve and generates a ton of others. Designers indeed don’t care about top level competition but it doesn’t make them wrong on this issue. It just means we get a lot of expansions that can’t be used in competition. That’s perfectly fine. Let Fryx entertain their target audience (and themselves). I understand PointLuna criticism but it’s not even the best corp in 2p let alone in other formats. Banning this corp as a house rule is fine. Changing one of the most important rules of the game because you think you know better than the designer is not. TollStation is just bad. It shines in 4p only if players make a ton of suboptimal plays and is just atrocious in 2p. That’s also why I said banning Saturn in 4p makes sense if there are “players of varying strength” at a tournament. Designers are right about 4p being competitive too. It’s just prone to kingmaking so it’s inherently worse than 2p for competition.

P.S. Every top level tourney I’ve personally seen or taken part in is played using the original ruleset. I wonder why.

[ArchDevious]

"Most people advocating for initial draft rules have not once reached 700elo rank let alone a higher one."

Not true. A lot of top players would like a draft option, including a arena champ in this very thread. Ive reached 700, I would like more options in game creation.

"Every top level tourney I’ve personally seen or taken part in is played using the original ruleset. I wonder why."

Not true. Every tourney I've played IRL has used various house rules

[marathus]

"Most people advocating for initial draft rules have not once reached 700elo rank let alone a higher one."

Not true. A lot of top players would like a draft option, including a arena champ in this very thread. Ive reached 700, I would like more options in game creation.

"Every top level tourney I’ve personally seen or taken part in is played using the original ruleset. I wonder why."

Not true. Every tourney I've played IRL has used various house rules

„Most” doesn’t mean all. Sure — it’d be cool to have an initial draft option. What I’m saying is that it’s not competitive. I highly doubt majority of top players disagree with that statement.

It is absolutely true that top level tourneys I’ve seen were played in the original format. This is my personal experience. It might be different for you. All IRL tourneys I’ve played in were using house rules too. But these are far from the top level.

[Yahyra]

Initial draft doesn’t solve the one issue it attempts to solve and generates a ton of others. Designers indeed don’t care about top level competition but it doesn’t make them wrong on this issue. It just means we get a lot of expansions that can’t be used in competition. That’s perfectly fine. Let Fryx entertain their target audience (and themselves). I understand PointLuna criticism but it’s not even the best corp in 2p let alone in other formats. Banning this corp as a house rule is fine. Changing one of the most important rules of the game because you think you know better than the designer is not. TollStation is just bad. It shines in 4p only if players make a ton of suboptimal plays and is just atrocious in 2p. That’s also why I said banning Saturn in 4p makes sense if there are “players of varying strength” at a tournament. Designers are right about 4p being very competitive too. It’s just prone to kingmaking so it’s inherently worse than 2p for competition.

P.S. Every top level tourney I’ve personally seen or taken part in is played using the original ruleset. I wonder why.

Thanks for sharing your opinion; I will try to keep my tone much less snide than yours (lol at 'I wonder why' after such an illogical statement).

I will here briefly share that right here, in this very forum you are posting on, a scant (counting) 8 posts below this one, there is a post about a large tournament called WBC world boardgame championship. Now, I am not the owner of WBC and, I must confess, I skimmed their rules for only a few seconds... but I seem to recall a plethora of rules for that tournament beyond the rule book. Everyone including you, OP, can argue whether or not that's a 'top level' tournament. We've had folks from this forum, and bga, participate, including many ranked much higher than you presently are, as I understand it.

Now, WBC, as I recall reading, they banned Manutech, and I think Point Luna, I also recall they force two actions, and they have all players physical separate and hide the cards they are buying, then present simultaneously the cards and resources they spend to purchase projects, with special designated mats or play areas. Many of those changes I love btw, but regardless... all outside your revered 'original ruleset'.

I highly, highly suggest going to an ophthalmologist regarding your eyesight and what you 'have personally seen'.

Hope this helps!

[marathus]

Thanks for sharing your opinion; I will try to keep my tone much less snide than yours.
(..)
I highly, highly suggest going to an ophthalmologist regarding your eyesight and what you 'have personally seen'.

Hope this helps!

Doesn’t seem like you managed to do so.

We clearly have different views on what a top level tourney is — by my definition I would be one of the weaker players. And since you bothered to check my profile you’re probably aware it’s an alt with 30 games played.

Just to clarify — I think initial draft option would be cool to have. It just doesn’t improve balance. And this is the #1 argument of most people advocating for it. It’s easy to disregard my comments using the „snide” argument or pointing out my low ranking on this alt account. I would love to see you battle any of the points in my first post.

I just don’t like it when people disregard designers’ original format (and in many cases their work) just because they can’t grasp how it works — hence some spice in my latest post. Apologies if that came off wrong — I meant to solidify my stance. That said I deem some of your comments just as unnecessary. I assure you that what I said is true for top level tourneys I’ve seen. Sure — other people can have different experience. But they also have a different view of what a top level tourney is. And if you consider Colonies or forcing 2 actions to be competitive then I don’t have much more to add.

In one of the latest threads on this forum Dizinovi commented on the very same format we’re discussing here. He was not snide but very firm. I highly doubt the majority of the top players consider the initial draft format to be an improvement over the original format.

I think we should have a WSBG drafting option- https://wsbgvegas.com/wp-content/upload ... G-MARS.pdf.

Basically it allows for drafting of crop and cards in the opening hand.

This would be a horrible idea for competitive play.
(…)

[FrankJones]

I just don’t like it when people disregard designers’ original format (and in many cases their work) just because they can’t grasp how it works — hence some spice in my latest post.

Generally speaking I agree with your remarks in this thread.

I just wanted to ads though - I don't believe we should view the designer's original format as sacrosanct. Far from it, there are often times when it becomes apparent the designers failed in their actual intent and thus some modifications are needed.

If a game is intended to have major imbalances, so be it. But when a famous game has obvious imbalances, combined with stated intent by the designer(s) to have used a spreadsheet to value cards with the intent of having balance, I do think re-evaluation is justified.

To be clear, I'm not a fan of drafting the starting hand. Just not for the reason of "We shouldn't interfere with the designer's intent". To me, that's a bad reason to do or not do something. If I spend time and money to play a game, I'm likely to make modifications or adjustments as I see fit. Similar to banned corps in Scythe, the power 5 in Wingspan, etc.

To me, the reasons for not drafting the opening hand are what you've previously explained. I just personally don't believe it will have the intended effect.

I know some players do very much want this option, and that's fine - I'm not going to say that my opinion is any more valid than theirs.
But, as has been noted previously, it's a non-issue because the Fryx family would need to agree.

So, it makes for an interesting philosophical discussion but not an especially practical one.

[marathus]

I agree. It’s just that I believe Fryx did a much better job than he gets credit for. There are some missed preludes and a project card or two but besides that everything is well constructed and miraculously holds up across many formats.

Many designers try to balance out their games with expansions. Instead Fryx stands by the design and releases expansions that are meant to be more casual. This naturally makes people think he’s not interested in competitive play. In my eyes it just shows he’s confident in his design and understands the game better than some really good players. As you said it’s not always the case for the designer. But it’s definitely not surprising either.

I’ve been there too. Some time ago I considered initial draft to be an improvement for the game (and I was ranked above 700elo at the time). Now I see that it’s just not true. I think a lot of players would find this game more interesting and rewarding had they realized it’s not decided by the patterns initial draft shallowly fixes. That’s all I meant to say. You may call some of my comments snide. I’d say they’re honest and bluntly truthful.

[FrankJones]

I tend to agree with the assessment about the expansions. Colonies especially seems more about fun and enjoyment than competitive balance, and that's fine with me. I like colonies; I had a very minor role in getting it launched (helping with some bugs edge-case rules), and I was disappointed at how few people seemed to want to play it.

In general, I would think a board game will get more widespread appeal by focusing on fun, enjoyment, and other things rather than being overly concerned with having it be perfect for highly competitive play.

[Lytical]

Winning is fun, the winner has the most fun. Colony is bad because even the winner hates it after a dragged out pointless (or too many points) 3+ hour slugfest when players just build their engines and ignore everything else in the game. Imagine trying to win a surfing competition during a typhoon, that's colony in many cases, let's take all the skills out of the game.

Initial drafting is especially important when considering colony, earth tag is insane here with even more discounts and rebates. Why play the game at all when someone starts with earth cat, earth office, outpost, space dock, cartel, space port colony and such. You need initial draft to reveal the hand information and spread out cards.

I agree. It’s just that I believe Fryx did a much better job than he gets credit for. There are some missed preludes and a project card or two but besides that everything is well constructed and miraculously holds up across many formats.

Many designers try to balance out their games with expansions. Instead Fryx stands by the design and releases expansions that are meant to be more casual. This naturally makes people think he’s not interested in competitive play. In my eyes it just shows he’s confident in his design and understands the game better than some really good players. As you said it’s not always the case for the designer. But it’s definitely not surprising either.

I’ve been there too. Some time ago I considered initial draft to be an improvement for the game (and I was ranked above 700elo at the time). Now I see that it’s just not true. I think a lot of players would find this game more interesting and rewarding had they realized it’s not decided by the patterns initial draft shallowly fixes. That’s all I meant to say. You may call some of my comments snide. I’d say they’re honest and bluntly truthful.

Fryx is a terrible designer, what are you talking about???? TM is like a lightning in a bottle for him, there is no other noticeable game after TM. He got all the math wrong in the expansions, that's not casual, that's just amateurish and not able to understand his own game. Straight facts. I am happy that you hit 700, that's great, but that's just meant you got competent, you still have a long way to go to know the game.

Yo, what happens when you get math involved and put money on the table? Do you smell Colony, Venus or Turmoil anywhere near the kitchen? You wonder why? They are straight up trash. Your whole thing about participating in a top level tournament and seeing only original rules is laughable at best, name a tournament, put out the rule set, show us it's not a family game night.

This is the most prestigious TM tournament on planet earth with some real money involved, God Bless America of course.

WSBG Vegas Rules and Procedures

Before setup begins, all players should confirm that only cards from the original T erraforming
Mars and its Prelude expansion are included and that all corporation, prelude, and project cards
are present. Corporate era cards should be included.

...

After these steps have been completed:
Deal 1 Prelude corporation to each player.
Deal 2 Original corporations to each player.
After looking at them, players should slide these cards under their player board, setting
any undealt corporations aside face down.
Deal 5 Project Cards to each player and draft them left, each player taking a card and
passing the rest to the player on their left. Repeat until all cards are selected. Be sure
not to mix up cards being drafted and cards being kept.
Deal 5 Project Cards to each player and draft them right, each player taking a card and
passing the rest to the player on their right. Repeat until all cards are selected. Be sure
not to mix up cards being drafted and cards being kept.
Players should slide their ten kept Project cards under their player board.
Deal four Preludes to each player and draft them left, each player taking one card and
passing the rest to the player on their left. Repeat until all cards are selected. Each
player will then choose two preludes to keep and set the other two aside.

....

[marathus]

You misunderstood me. When I was at 700elo I still considered initial draft to be an improvement over the current format. I’ve hit much higher rank since then.

If we’re talking strictly about Colonies then both the initial draft and TollStation rebalance make sense. But this was not the initial topic of the thread.

WSBG is cool. It doesn’t make its format any better than the original one. I don’t want to drag anyone else into this but I’ve already shown you that I’m not alone in this assessment.

You’re most welcome to call my statements laughable or question my understanding of the game — everyone has a right to their own opinion. I would just like to note that you have not been able to reach 600elo in 400+ games. It took me about 10 games on this alt. And before you say — I’m well aware of your RoyalRook account.

What is laughable is calling a designer of a game you’ve played 1k+ games of „terrible designer”.

Thank you all for the discussion. I will refrain from posting in this thread and hopefully let this die out — I seem to have struck more nerves than I intended to. I believe you won’t miss me. Apologies if you found my posts snide. But harsh truth is what it is.