BCSWowbagger wrote:The following post was written by Wambundu (Jason Drake) on May 13th, 2018 in the Delenn internal thread "Card-by-Card Review".
4051 ladies and gentlemen CUT
Honestly, I've been working on this, but it took longer than I expected. So...
Evolution of Game Speed
Let's say that, prior to the
First Contact expansion (when Assign Mission Specialists began the accelerated reporting process), a game typically took 14 turns; and let's say an average game today takes 7 turns.
Twice as fast, right? But a "turn" is a big bucket containing a lot of elements.
Previously, 14 turns gave you 14 card plays and 14 card draws. Today, we expect 7 turns to provide you 21 plays and 21 card draws. Measured in card plays, the game is not shorter at all, but 50% longer. More cards enter play (and need to enter play), which makes the selection of personnel in your deck more relevant to the outcome (balancing the skill matrix and free report options, for example). Ergo, there are more actions and more strategic/tactical decisions, which altogether means there is "more game" being played.
Previously, I expect the average winning deck faced no more than six dilemmas, given not only the popularity of two-mission wins but the various dirty tricks for bypassing dilemmas. Today, victory requirements require viable decks to solve at least two missions, all the dilemma bypass strategies (Q, Senior Staff Meeting) have been hit with errata or bans, high-point missions are more vulnerable (because built-in rules protect lower point missions from theft
and because skill inflation makes it much easier for your opponent to steal missions without a deck built to steal missions), and Delta Quadrant players need 140 points. I estimate that the modern winning deck faces approximately eight dilemmas. So here, also, there is a an increase in the number of cards that enter play, certainly more
interaction (with opponent's dilemmas, if nothing else), and thus 25% "more game".
It's also worth noting that, prior to First Contact, the 30-card seed deck counted 6 missions. So today there are 6 more seed slots available, and the available cards include a number of downloading chains (increasing the actual seed slots even more) and a variety of ways to begin with personnel or ships in play. And, although the choice of seeds & downloads is generally predetermined by the deck design, there are always choices involving arrangement and placement which happen during the seed phase. So with more choices and more cards, there is "more game" happening during the seed phase, too.
But while draw rates and reporting rates have increased, the range of ships has not. Continuing with the estimate of 14 turns shrinking to 7 turns, each ship can only move half the distance it used to over the course of a game. Likewise, the ability to "unstop" your nouns has not increased (it has actually decreased), so your personnel and ships can only take half as many actions that result in being "stopped" over the course of a game. Viewed from a broad perspective, it is accurate to say that ships now move only half as fast and the effect of being "stopped" now lasts twice as long.
Strategic type classification
What is a "speed solver"?
I find an interesting comparison to be Chris Sonsteby's
Worlds 2017 deck and my own
Worlds 2014 deck. Chris used a substantial twenty dilemmas (counting Quantum Incursions), with the rest of the deck geared towards overcoming dilemmas as quickly as possible and minimal contingencies for interference and defense. He predicted his opponents would likewise not attempt much interference (e.g., battle), and so he would be able to solve his missions despite minimal seed deck support for his own engines. My 2014 deck used just 13 dilemmas (counting the Kobayashi Maru Scenario and excluding the self-seeds), with heavy contingencies for defense against battle and some minor potential for interference. I predicted that my opponents would attack me, and so my defensive cards would mitigate those effects while my minimal dilemma seeds would not create an excess vulnerability.
If Chris had optimized his deck to solve his missions
in the fewest turns possible, he would have seeded just 12 dilemmas and added 8 more cards for engine support. If my deck has been optimized to score 100 points as quickly as possible, I would have elimimated the defensive cards in favor of more mission-oriented resources.
So are these speed solvers? I say yes. Absolutely yes. They are built to score 100 points
faster than the opponent, based on the predicted nature of opposition decks. In that sense,
every deck is a speed solver; and so long as victory is awarded to the first player to reach 100, neither
Ladies and Gentlemen nor any other card we imagine can change that.
But with that in mind, I think a more useful distinction would be "Direct Solver", characterized by a lack of non-seed resources available for interference, and a lack of non-seed resources for defense, especially where such defense can be achieved with the existing mechanisms used for solving missions (e.g., continuous high-volume reporting to overcome battle losses). Within that category is some variation in expected game turns, based largely on the number of seed slots devoted to dilemmas. Chris's deck would certainly be a Direct Solver; my deck would be less of a Direct Solver because of defensive resources; a deck which ran a couple of copies of Brain Drain and used
Diplomatic Intervention would be slightly less direct; and so on.
Furthermore, we can distinguish Direct Solvers that do
not expect to attempt missions in the first 3-4 turns. The delay might be due to a large number of dilemma seeds (slower reporting/fewer starting personnel), the use of personnel to set up engines or bonus points (Process Ore, Dabo), or the availability of dilemma-busting strategies that require specific or numerous cards (
Extraordinary Methods, special downloads, etc.).
The counterpart to this, obviously, is a deck which
does attempt missions in the first 3-4 turns, and this would be most affected by Ladies & Gentlemen. Strategically, such a deck does not expect to overcome dilemmas immediately, but tries to remove kill dilemmas (at the cost of personnel) and reveal wall dilemmas, in both cases relying on the ability to report the necessary replacements and/or needed skills. Let's call this a "Speed Attempter."
The distinctions are important for several reasons, which I will get to shortly.
Some Overused Cards
DILEMMAS, recent decks using:
Dead End = 225
Friendly Fire = 144 (Personal Duty = 54)
Cytherians = 134 (Mission Debriefing = 37)
Rules of Obedience = 132
Quantum Leap = 116
Medical Crisis = 109
Jol Yichu' = 99
The Ghost of Cyrus Ramsey = 97
Scientific Method = 93
Quantum Incursions = 122
Denevan Neural Parasites = 106
Edo Probe = 72
FLI + Garbage Scow = 53
Buried Alive = 45
Emergent Life Form = 28
The Whale Probe = 25
Sidebar regarding Quantum Incursions
What's so good about Quantum Incursions? The Empathy requirement has been noted as difficult for some affiliations, but other dilemmas requiring Empathy (without more common alternative requirements) include Cardassian Trap, Frame of Mind, Lethean Telepathic Attack, Mission Fatigue, and Talosian Cage. They have 19 combined appearances in recent decks.
Any specific instance of Quantum Incursions requires only two different skills, and no more than two levels of one skill. By contrast, The Ghost of Cyrus Ramsey requires an extremely rare 3 Transporter Skill or 3 MEDICAL classification (48% of the MEDICAL personnel in the game do not have MEDICAL classification, and it cannot be added with skill-adding cards); Medical Crisis effectively requires 3 MEDICAL and 2 Biology, and can easily be set up with multiple dilemmas that remove MEDICAL. These are the game's most popular wall dilemmas, yet they are not as popular as QI.
To pass Quantum Incursions, suppose you start with 4 skills (a substantial requirement for a wall), with the ability to add two more on the next attempt (next turn), one more on the turn after, and nothing else further on. Remember that you can't just have any of the four skills and you can't just add any skill; 1 SECURITY doesn't help without 2 AU personnel, and a second SECURITY doesn't help without Navigation; also keep in mind that you might have to work on some other missions while pinging the QI for a favorable set of requirements, so a low limit is reasonable.
With that, the aggregate probability of passing QI within a given number of turns is as follows:
1 turn = 16.7%
2 turns = 44.4%
3 turns = 72.2%
4 turns = 86.1%
5 turns = 93.1%
The dilemmas in
italics are those which explicitly require time (as measured in game turns) to overcome. Dead End and Edo Probe cannot be overcome with skills; they are likely to send you to another mission, ultimately causing delays via movement and stoppage. Friendly Fire and Emergent Life-form lock out a mission or ship for the duration of a countdown. Cytherians causes a delay for ship movement (and lots of it). Garbage Scows, Buried Alive, and The Whale Probe are all guaranteed one-turn delays (perhaps requiring Mission Debriefing).
Among the remaining dilemmas, Denevan Neural Parasites is going to have maximum effectiveness late in the game, especially if a player expects to lose the following turn if he can't complete a mission (thus incenting him to send down a very large away team). And the other six are just really good walls.
Now remember that, for mechanics still linked to turns in the same manner as always (countdowns, stoppage, and ship movement), the game has already shrunk by half (from an estimated 14 turns to 7 turns). So it's no wonder that these stall dilemmas are highly popular. Ladies and Gentlemen will eliminate
four more turns of available ship movement, unstoppage, and countdown which need to take place
after missions are attempted and dilemmas encountered.
Some Underused Cards
A number of cards provide a continuous benefit for completing a mission. And by "continuous", I mean that the benefit potentially increases if you have have more future turns once it's earned. For example, "once each turn you may..." is continuous. So is "download a personnel", because the personnel can be used for more things the longer he is in play.
OBJECTIVES
I picked out four of the most apparently lucrative Objectives with continous benefits, those being
Protect Historic Encounter (one personnel download, but also includes a free report when seeded),
Establish Trade Route (download a facility
and two equipment),
Combined Strike (5 card draws, bonus points, and a possible download), and
Collect Metaphasic Particles (double turn + add Youth and unstopping ability)). The have
eleven combined appearances in recent decks.
MISSIONS
There are
10 missions worth 30 points or less that include "when you solve" game text. Benefits include card draws, personnel downloads, and even a facility download. They have
five combined appearances in recent constructed decks.
ARTIFACTS
I picked out what I thought were the seven most powerful which met the requirement of continuous benefits: Betazoid Gift Box, Interphase Generator, Kurlan Naiskos, Orb of Prophecy and Change, Orb of Wisdom, Sword of Kahless, and The Earring of Li Nalas. Their combined appearances in recent decks is
seven.
(I excluded The Genesis Device because its beneift does not increase with the number of remaining turns. You fire it off exactly once, and decks which use it are explicitly trying to avoid playing a lot of turns afterwards or doing more than one other mission.)
Again, the game has already shrunk from an estimated 14 to 7 turns, so it's no wonder these cards are not very popular. And for these Objectives, Missions, and Artifacts, Ladies and Gentlemen will eliminate up to
four turns of available benefits.
Can the effect of L&G be achieved already?
Stefan Slaby won the 2017 Austrian Regional with
me shoot you die, a deck with relatively modest battle power that seeded
22 dilemmas.
Some of his comments from the "Road to Worlds" interview:
Non-AQ decks could have avoided the battling entirely, but would have to do 140 points against 22 dilemmas and Mission Debriefing, so that didn't really worry me.
... my resources and my battle abilities were still rather limited, and could easily be outpaced by a dedicated battler.
Seeding four dilemmas under most missions (and having Mission Debriefing out) was a great experience, I can only recommend it to anybody who thinks games take too few turns these days! (Fair warning: It does create a lot of modified wins, though.)
From the
tournament record, you can see that Slaby had just one Full Win and three Modified Wins.
And I know his experience is not unique, because I've had it myself. Here's what I think happens: When Player A builds his deck with the expectation of reaching 100 points in, say, eight turns, he subconsciously budgets about five minutes for each turn. If his opponent can win in fewer than eight turns, his opponent gets a full win. But if his opponent has interactive delaying tactics, the time budget doesn't get adjusted, so even if that opponent moves more quickly, the game will go to time at about 9 turns. Player A subconsciously attributes this to the fact that his opponent was playing an interactive deck and, despite being a good sport and a perfectly congenial fellow, he never adjusts his playing speed to allow his opponents a chance at a full win.
Competitive deck-builders are aware of this, and adjust their interference strategies appropriately. They avoid those which require a lot of clock time and, even more so, those which cost them too many turns en route to victory.
Predicted Effects of L&G
I have no objection if you want to send this to the playtesters, but I doubt their feedback will change my mind. I expect they will say that the card is a lot of fun, and certainly anyone would find it interesting for the pure novelty. But it will take time to see the full implications in a competitive environment, and I don't think playtesting replicates tournament timing restrictions.
L&G will cause a slight increase in outpost-killer decks, but these will still be rare because of the isolation of the Delta Quadrant and the frequent usage of Homeworlds. Less overwhelming "ambush" decks will have more time to prepare an attack, but they won't be
able to attack until the four turns have expired, because their opponent will hole up at a facility if not allowed to attempt missions. Thus all of the action will start happening four turns later, each turn will take longer because there are more cards in play to manipulate, and the combined effect will be a severe
increase in games going to time.
The unpopular (and in my opinion interesting) Objectives, Missions, and Artifacts listed above will become even less popular, because L&G will remove four turns of potential usage.
The overused dilemmas listed above (which hamper variety and creativity) will see even more play, because L&G will remove up to four turns of ability to overcome these turn-dependent effects.
Defining the "Problem"
If a particular strategy, tactic, card, faction, etc. is being overused
in comparison to others which are available, then our job as Designers is to make the overused strategy weaker and/or make the alternatives stronger.
But we should target the
strategy and not the
result.
If my opponent and I are each playing Federation Continuing Mission decks with 18 dilemmas, no battle contingencies, and a plan to win by solving any 3 convenient missions, who gets hit harder by Ladies and Gentlemen?
Whoever is more effective. And that, in a nutshell, is my primary philosophical objection. It's the same failing as
Scorched Hand,
Shape-Shift Inhibitor, and
In The Zone. Each of these targets something that all players are trying to do as much as possible (draw cards, play personnel, or score points) and explicitly punishes you for being good at it.
...
Now let's revisit the concept of a "speed attempter" and ask the question: Is this actually a
strategy or is it merely the observation of someone being better at doing the same thing everyone is trying to do?
If it's simply an observation of quality play, then we should do nothing at all. (Or, if we want to make games longer all around, approach it more directly-- e.g., by increasing dilemma difficulty or increasing victory point requirements).
If it's actually a
distinctive strategy, on the other hand, then it must have particular strengths
other than simply being fast. It must also have particular weaknesses resulting from
opportunity costs-- i.e., it is surrendering certain opportunities in order to maximize attempting (and solving) speed.
If we as Designers believe this is an overused (and relatively overpowered) strategy, we can identify those strengths in order to make them weaker; and identify the opportunity costs in order to make them more substantial.
[Note that any strengths and costs related to a generic Direct Solver will also be true of a Speed Attempter, so we don't have to explicilty constrain the former, only the latter.]
Some of the features of a "Speed Attempter", then:
* Minimal Reporting Locations
The deck gives up extra free reports that are location-dependent, because the time required to collect personnel from around the spaceline delays mission attempts.
* Engines that do not require personnel or other set-up
The deck avoids engines which require personnel, especially those which require personnel in specific or diverse locations, because personnel need to be available as soon as possible to attempt missions.
* Non-renewable Resources
The deck favors one-off mechanics like Assign Mission Specialists and any once-per-game download (e.g., Anya
Salia). It is expected that the advantage of tripping dilemmas early will outweigh the potential advantage of alternate engines which can be used continuously.
* Weak Mission Crews
The deck attacks missions with incomplete skill sets, again expecting that the advantage of tripping dilemmas early will outweigh the advantage of having more personnel survive.
* Lack of In-game Interference Ability
The deck skips interactive and interfering cards, expecting that it's more efficient to increase one's own speed than to decrease the speed of one's opponent.
* Ability to overcome turn-dependent dilemma effects (Dead End, Friendly Fire, Quantum Incursions, Cytherians)
Viz.