Please add an option to ban the eagle

[demyurge]

If that data point or API was available, it would only be able to affirm the hyperbolic claims (i.e. "take it or lose it") are false. For example, it can be disproved by finding one game where player X played card Y, and player X lost. The data point would not be able to prove or disprove claims that player X playing card Y affects player's X win position most of the time. To reach that conclusion, one would need to use more advance techniques, such as AI (e.g. Monte Carlo tree search) to determine the cards significance to the game outcome.

Or you know, simply computing "win rate after side entrance has been played in round 1" could be enough to draw conclusions, you don't need advanced algorithms for that. You could do all sorts of stuff like limit to a specific ELO threshold, etc.

[twsansbury]

A simple computation could allow a conclusion to be drawn, but it will not have a level of confidence that can prove or disprove the aforementioned claim. Examining the data point of a card being played does not allow one to distinguish between the player winning from playing the card or if the player would have won without playing the card. One can distinguish between those cases easily for final turn eagle plays, but it starts getting much more complex when eagle is played earlier.

[demyurge]

A simple computation could allow a conclusion to be drawn, but it will not have a level of confidence that can prove or disprove the aforementioned claim. Examining the data point of a card being played does not allow one to distinguish between the player winning from playing the card or if the player would have won without playing the card. One can distinguish between those cases easily for final turn eagle plays, but it starts getting much more complex when eagle is played earlier.

Still not getting your point, sorry.
An average card should lead to a 50% win rate over a large number of games. A good card will have somewhere between 51% and 60%, and a bad card between 40% and 49%. It's as simple as that. You could make a definitive power ranking of all sponsors and animals in the game with enough data. But maybe that would solve the game a bit too much. Anyway like everything in Ark Nova, the power of a specific card at a given time depends entirely on the context: available projects, sponsors already played, money and enclosures available, action order, time left before endgame, etc.

[greenjacket124]

A simple computation could allow a conclusion to be drawn, but it will not have a level of confidence that can prove or disprove the aforementioned claim. Examining the data point of a card being played does not allow one to distinguish between the player winning from playing the card or if the player would have won without playing the card. One can distinguish between those cases easily for final turn eagle plays, but it starts getting much more complex when eagle is played earlier.

An average card should lead to a 50% win rate over a large number of games. A good card will have somewhere between 51% and 60%, and a bad card between 40% and 49%. It's as simple as that. You could make a definitive power ranking of all sponsors and animals in the game with enough data. But maybe that would solve the game a bit too much. Anyway like everything in Ark Nova, the power of a specific card at a given time depends entirely on the context: available projects, sponsors already played, money and enclosures available, action order, time left before endgame, etc.

Your last sentence proves why it is not just a simple calculation at all and why your first two sentences aren't true. It's as simple as that.

[megrim2019]

Please stop pretending, everyone knows the card is unbalanced and no one with any game experience needs data or analysis to back that up. Every popular game has been played extensively and other developers or players acknowledge the imbalance in their game, such as Wingspan and Space Base, both games which are on here. I do not understand why this community is so reticent to allow an option to ban the eagle cards. I guess this mod is dead though because its been a year and the Marine expansion still has not showed up.

[Monkeyunit]

A: The decision isn't up to the community but to the publisher. BGA only implements offical variant approved by the publisher (/designer)
B: The expansion not being on here also not up to the mod, but Publisher had to give their approval.

Barking up the wrong tree here.

Also, Eagles not OP.

[BlanketAddict]

I think eagles are OP but there's some other stuff that's even more OP, and this game has a very good ruleset for balancing out stuff being OP for the most part. I think it's common to overrate eagles, because they're very flashy, and in situations where both players are going to cross around the same time they are completely unbeatable, but really the correct way to play would've been avoiding that situation in the first place by pushing the tempo of the game and not giving the opponent time to set up their optimal finish.

Even if the publisher approved it I think a mode without eagles would be kind of bad because it'd change the way the animal types are balanced and determination is a very fun ability imo, if anything were to be banned I'd say archaeologist because there's a couple maps where it's basically unbeatable.

[pjt33]

Try playing the pacifist mode. The hypnosis snakes which become determination are even more OP, and you'll appreciate how well balanced the eagles are.

[demyurge]

A simple computation could allow a conclusion to be drawn, but it will not have a level of confidence that can prove or disprove the aforementioned claim. Examining the data point of a card being played does not allow one to distinguish between the player winning from playing the card or if the player would have won without playing the card. One can distinguish between those cases easily for final turn eagle plays, but it starts getting much more complex when eagle is played earlier.

An average card should lead to a 50% win rate over a large number of games. A good card will have somewhere between 51% and 60%, and a bad card between 40% and 49%. It's as simple as that. You could make a definitive power ranking of all sponsors and animals in the game with enough data. But maybe that would solve the game a bit too much. Anyway like everything in Ark Nova, the power of a specific card at a given time depends entirely on the context: available projects, sponsors already played, money and enclosures available, action order, time left before endgame, etc.

Your last sentence proves why it is not just a simple calculation at all and why your first two sentences aren't true. It's as simple as that.

No, it just means that for some cards the situations where they are good happen more frequently than for other cards. But they are still situational. Free Range Monkeys is a terrible card in most situations, but in some situations it can be good. However I'm willing to bet over all games ever played on BGA it has a win rate lower than 50%.
But it's true that it becomes tricky if you start selecting your sample by player level. As high level players are more likely to recognize these favorable situations and therefore only play a bad card in the rare cases where it is good, therefore leading to a higher winrate.

[howwow90]

I bet Free Range Monkeys is still >50% winrate universally since its so bad that even lower ELO players wouldn't play it. Also I bet its super complicated card explanation leads to lower rated players playing it less often-->so more cases of higher rated players playing it only when favorable. Gosh, so many extenuating circumstances!

All that being said, I agree with your round 1 side entrances point!