A suggestion for the events

KoneIV

After doing the survey recently I was surprised by the number of different events there have been. And then when I looked back through the forum there was a lot of different levels of support for each event (except emrakals corruption - bad event). And a lot of people wanting more variety in the events.
Why not put the onus on the coalitions which event they do, what I'm suggesting is that instead of everyone individually joining the events (set for us), the leaders (co-leaders maybe) chose which event their coalition plays when it is event time(3 or 4 to choose from per event window). This will allow each coalition devise their own strategy on which event they want to play or suits their members.
I understand there could be some issues running different events at the same time but I think it could add an extra layer of interest in the game, coalitions and the events.
Thank you
KoneIV

Nitymp

What will actual happen is that, if the coalition scores all count during the same time frame, this will just mean that top coalitions will pick the highest max scoring event every time and actually reduce the variety of events, as we would just do the same event every single time.

malafein

Nitymp wrote:

What will actual happen is that, if the coalition scores all count during the same time frame, this will just mean that top coalitions will pick the highest max scoring event every time and actually reduce the variety of events, as we would just do the same event every single time.

They could just adjust the ribbon rewards again like they did for NoP to make sure all the events have similar max ribbon potential.

Nitymp

malafein wrote:

Nitymp wrote:

What will actual happen is that, if the coalition scores all count during the same time frame, this will just mean that top coalitions will pick the highest max scoring event every time and actually reduce the variety of events, as we would just do the same event every single time.

They could just adjust the ribbon rewards again like they did for NoP to make sure all the events have similar max ribbon potential.

Yes could work. But then the easiest event will always get picked, which will most likely be NoP.

KoneIV

My thoughts involved each event being its own bracket so there could be very different amounts of coalitions in the events. I know the rewards offered would have to be totally adjusted to account for multiple brackets for each event. That is part of what will go into choosing which event the coalition wants to do, do they pick the easy to play event so everyone gets the progression rewards or the harder/less popular event to get the coalition higher up the leader board

majincob

KoneIV wrote:

My thoughts involved each event being its own bracket so there could be very different amounts of coalitions in the events. I know the rewards offered would have to be totally adjusted to account for multiple brackets for each event. That is part of what will go into choosing which event the coalition wants to do, do they pick the easy to play event so everyone gets the progression rewards or the harder/less popular event to get the coalition higher up the leader board

I think the point is that to stay at the top of the overall leaderboards, coalitions would need to pick whichever is the easiest/highest scoring event regardless of the rewards or personal scoring brackets, which would lead to repetitive play.

Maro's rule of good game design: the optimal thing to do should be the fun thing to do.

If the fun thing to do is play in a variety of different events, maybe individuals could choose which events to play in and coalitions could get bonuses for having people do over a certain threshold in a variety of different events, that would offset or overshadow having everyone stick to the same easy/best event.

Ohboy

majincob wrote:

KoneIV wrote:

My thoughts involved each event being its own bracket so there could be very different amounts of coalitions in the events. I know the rewards offered would have to be totally adjusted to account for multiple brackets for each event. That is part of what will go into choosing which event the coalition wants to do, do they pick the easy to play event so everyone gets the progression rewards or the harder/less popular event to get the coalition higher up the leader board

I think the point is that to stay at the top of the overall leaderboards, coalitions would need to pick whichever is the easiest/highest scoring event regardless of the rewards or personal scoring brackets, which would lead to repetitive play.

Maro's rule of good game design: the optimal thing to do should be the fun thing to do.

If the fun thing to do is play in a variety of different events, maybe individuals could choose which events to play in and coalitions could get bonuses for having people do over a certain threshold in a variety of different events, that would offset or overshadow having everyone stick to the same easy/best event.

If events held no rewards at all, the optimal thing to do is always the fun thing.

The rewards are what is forcing people to pick the unfun choice. Someone is always going to fall under the optimal-fun-curve if players work to maximize points, no matter what the format.

Would your coalitions still compete for top spot if there were no rewards? If yes, I suggest you're already on the curve, no matter how much you're complaining. If not, I suggest that no amount of changes in the rules will put you on the curve because the participation in a coalition is the one pulling you off.

majincob

Ohboy wrote:

If events held no rewards at all, the optimal thing to do is always the fun thing.

The rewards are what is forcing people to pick the unfun choice.

Rewards aren't the only motivating factor. When I speak of "the optimal thing to do" I'm talking about what you have to do to "win" the game. "Winning" varies person-to-person in open-ended games like this but in general when I say "win" I'm talking about getting a better score than anyone else. The rewards certainly add stakes to the competition and makes the game more fun for a variety of reasons, but they aren't the sole motivator.

When you design a game you decide via your rules what the best way(s) to win are. If choosing the best way to win isn't fun, you have failed as a game designer. People rightly assume that winning the game should be fun, it's the basic nature of games. So when they work to win a game and realize it wasn't fun it's not their fault for choosing to not have fun, it's the game designer's fault for not making a system that is fun.

Ohboy wrote:

Someone is always going to fall under the optimal-fun-curve if players work to maximize points, no matter what the format.

Would your coalitions still compete for top spot if there were no rewards? If yes, I suggest you're already on the curve, no matter how much you're complaining. If not, I suggest that no amount of changes in the rules will put you on the curve because the participation in a coalition is the one pulling you off.

I'm not clear on what you mean when you say "optimal-fun-curve", could you please describe it?

Ohboy

majincob wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

Someone is always going to fall under the optimal-fun-curve if players work to maximize points, no matter what the format.

Would your coalitions still compete for top spot if there were no rewards? If yes, I suggest you're already on the curve, no matter how much you're complaining. If not, I suggest that no amount of changes in the rules will put you on the curve because the participation in a coalition is the one pulling you off.

I'm not clear on what you mean when you say "optimal-fun-curve", could you please describe it?

I might not have worded that properly. What I meant was that if this game didn't have rewards, the thing everyone would be doing would already be the most fun thing. Because... Why would they pick to do the less fun thing? So the best way to figure out where optimal fun is to ask yourself what you would do if there weren't rewards involved. Would you still compete in coalitions? Join events?

There are a few ways to have fun that isn't about winning with the highest score, and games have started moving away from the best score = win format in recent years. But point taken.

With the quoted statement, I was joking with the curve thing. Basically when you put all the hypothetical optimal fun points on a chart, you can plot a curve. Anything that falls under that curve isn't optimal.

majincob

Ohboy wrote:

majincob wrote:

I'm not clear on what you mean when you say "optimal-fun-curve", could you please describe it?

I might not have worded that properly. What I meant was that if this game didn't have rewards, the thing everyone would be doing would already be the most fun thing. Because... Why would they pick to do the less fun thing? So the best way to figure out where optimal fun is to ask yourself what you would do if there weren't rewards involved. Would you still compete in coalitions? Join events?

There are a few ways to have fun that isn't about winning with the highest score, and games have started moving away from the best score = win format in recent years. But point taken.

With the quoted statement, I was joking with the curve thing. Basically when you put all the hypothetical optimal fun points on a chart, you can plot a curve. Anything that falls under that curve isn't optimal.

My argument is that the default pointer to what is fun is to win the game. If I play a game I assume that winning it (which is usually the objective) is the best way to discover what is fun. If I try a new game and win (or see someone else win) and doing that isn't any fun then I either don't play it again or I remake the game to highlight what is fun and make that the new win condition.

The prizes are really secondary. If there were no prizes, I would still try to win (get the highest score), but having won there would be no prizes so the end result would be even less fun (because winning prizes is fun). So yes, with no prizes people would still be doing the same thing as now, only there would be less fun overall.

You can try to artificially make new win conditions, such as yunnnn beating EC with single rare/mythic decks. But that only affects certain aspects of the game (deckbuilding) and not others (objectives). The only way to change certain win conditions is to petition the devs here in the forums and hope our suggestions are adopted or inspire something new.