Board Game Arena

This is, at its core, a deck manipulation game. I found myself building an excel spreadsheet to track which cards I had seen this deck cycle. That is absurd.

Let me see my discard pile.

I created a bug report for this here:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=140765

It's not a bug that's the only skilled portion of the game. Using an Excel sheet or looking through your discard pile is as close to cheating as you can get and while there's nothing to keep you from doing this it goes against the design philosophy of the game. If you just want a game that is entirely luck based you might as well play slot machines.

duckmammal wrote: ↑04 October 2024, 05:29 This is, at its core, a deck manipulation game. I found myself building an excel spreadsheet to track which cards I had seen this deck cycle. That is absurd.

Let me see my discard pile.

I created a bug report for this here:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=140765

That.... is the entire point of the game. Physical, digital or otherwise.

There is an advantage to knowing which cards are in your discards/deck but:

• Memorising discards isn't practical for turn based

• Knowing what's in your deck doesn't entirely eliminate the uncertainty of stress cards (and the upgrades with a similar mechanic)

I saw a comment on BGG along the lines of, we don't know if the designers deliberately chose to make it a memory test, or if it was a side effect of what they were trying to achieve (e.g. some uncertainty, and not slow the game down by looking at discards) - so we don't really know if these memory aids would be considered cheating or not.

Well it's definitely not the "only skill portion of the game", or even the main one. A good player who doesn't bother much with remembering will easily beat a noob who can look at his discard pile me thinks. I've improved my game over time and I never bother with memorizing, except for usually knowing where my cool cards are.

It can certainly make a big difference at times, but the real skill is having fun! (sorry I'm a dork).

Personally I find using my brain for memorization in games a little boring. It's a skill but there's no interesting decision involved (although of course it can inform one's decisions). Other similar (uninteresting) "skills" are: being familiar with every card in a game with lots of cards, knowing the rules really well in a complicated game, knowing established "openings" etc. I find all of these skills relatively uninteresting compared to actual decision making, and memorization is roughly in the same category for me. Not that it's bad, it's just not where the fun is.

Still, I think it's better not to change things in real-time. Do we want players to slow things down looking through their discard pile? I'm more okay with it in turn-based, where inevitably lots of players are "cheating" anyway.

In any case the current implementation is correct per the rules.

Those are some opinions that I have and that's all.

I also don't see a reason to not see what is in discard when playing turnbased. It make no sense in this mode because you can't memorize across different games so ofc you take notes.

It's bascially same why Devs introduce investigating own deck in lost ruins of arnak. It's also not allowed in regular game but because you can't memorize this when playing several games they added this feature.

Calmon70 wrote: ↑06 October 2024, 00:12 I also don't see a reason to not see what is in discard when playing turnbased. It make no sense in this mode because you can't memorize across different games so ofc you take notes.

It's bascially same why Devs introduce investigating own deck in lost ruins of arnak. It's also not allowed in regular game but because you can't memorize this when playing several games they added this feature.

I mean you are right to some extent, but the rules explicitly state you can't look through your discard pile, and as it says on the bug report the OP filed the publishers have requested it to be like it's currently implemented. So if you want change you will have to convince them.

PaulB-UK wrote: ↑04 October 2024, 09:17 There is an advantage to knowing which cards are in your discards/deck but:

• Memorising discards isn't practical for turn based

• Knowing what's in your deck doesn't entirely eliminate the uncertainty of stress cards (and the upgrades with a similar mechanic)

I saw a comment on BGG along the lines of, we don't know if the designers deliberately chose to make it a memory test, or if it was a side effect of what they were trying to achieve (e.g. some uncertainty, and not slow the game down by looking at discards) - so we don't really know if these memory aids would be considered cheating or not.

Asger has basically said you are free to play the way you want to play, of course, that doesn't necessarily translate perfectly here in the sense of you can only play the way here that game is implemented. He is fully aware of the concept of you can count cards in Heat though, he spoke about this on commentary during the Heat final at WSBG that he'd expect that all these players are counting cards. And I remember some very early postings soon after the game was released, and before the game was even implemented here, he spoke of the idea that you could count cards in Heat, so it's a concept that's been around since the beginning pretty much.

As for why the rule exists, I don't think it's been confirmed, but I suspect it's AP, they didn't want players going through their discard twice a turn counting out everything before making their move.

Turn-based exists in a weird paradigm, because the game won't have been designed with turn-based digital play in mind, and if you are ever to convince the publishers of this it would likely be taking the argument in that direction, that in real-time you'd just count cards, but it's not practical in turn-based.

Just use the notes section to list the cards you use/discard until you reshuffle. Simples. No need for excel.
There is a move history you can view and count the cards that way too but that's a bit of a pain.

I played with Asger at WSBG. The no looking at discard was primarily implemented for pace-of-play/AP reasons. It was specifically asked by someone and that was his answer.

a houserule option I use with my board game ... is to roll dice instead of drawing cards for stress/"+" cards. (ie 1d4) (I have many D&D dice .., so .. yeah)

I find it speeds play up for many reasons ... rolling dice is quicker than drawing cards .. and less confusing for newer players.

Also, generally people like to roll dice

but definitely changes the way the game plays .., so not for everyone . and obviously not an option here ..