[nobthehobbit]

Have positive bonus points but only so far as they cancel out negative bonus points (or maybe meet requirements in excess of 100 points, such as from The Big Picture).

[Takket]

i'm not for canceling bonus points because i think that will drive up mod wins, since we're talking about always needing 3 mission wins here. or 50 point missions become super popular (to the detriment of many other options). Not to mention it drives a lot of cards into the binders.

What I would be open to, is perhaps a positive bonus point CAP at 25. You couple that with two 35 point missions and you are at 95. But again tread carefully because i don't want to see EVERY deck running some mission like Locate Telepaths to sneak that extra 5 from mission points on a protected mission. Or maybe we leave that up to the Meta that if we see someone obviously trying to do just that, we choose to stack an extra dilemma there?

I think the real question is not "do we want to get rid of bonus points" but rather "do we want to kill the 2 mission win for a deck running all 35 point, or less, missions?" We kind of started the ball rolling with AMS errata.

[BCSWowbagger]

I think, generally speaking, this game is ruined by cards that nullify dilemma and cards that score positive bonus points because they subvert the game itself. They cheat the game from being played to win. Just my opinion, but I honestly think the game is better with no positive bonus points.

Bonus points don't subvert the game if they force other interactions with opponents / opponents' cards -- interactions that are both challenging and, to some extent, unpredictable. In other words, it's okay to avoid dilemma combos (challenging, unpredictable interactions with opponent's cards) if those interactions are replaced with other, equivalent interactions.

The problem with bonus points right now is that we have a lot, lot, lot of ways to score bonus points that either aren't interactive (Process Ore: Mining), or are fake-interactive (Test For Weakness), or are interactive but involve much less challenge and unpredictability than dilemmas (Organ Theft). The first kind is the worst and most popular; the third kind is the closest to healthy (even though players hate facing them the most).

On the other hand, in their defense: all those bonus points mechanics do create interesting puzzles in deckbuilding, which some players really love. From an exciting-game perspective, pre-errata Assign Mission Specialists was a bad card; it just gave you bonus points, sometimes many bonus points, for doing what you were already doing, which is solve missions. But, from a deck-building perspective, it was a fascinating card, driving hours of mission selection, careful poring over skill boxes, and immense amounts of deck fine-tuning.

Another place positive bonus points can be appropriate is their original purpose: in Premiere, bonus points were almost exclusively a cost. If you seeded a strong dilemma like Nanites, you were taking the risk that opponent would overcome it and score 5 points. Really strong dilemmas like Barclay's Protomorph risked giving opponent 10. This discouraged you from banking too hard on the strongest dilemmas in the game. It was a kind of bonus point you could only score through interaction, and it was unreliable because the bonus points were coming from your opponent, not from yourself (unless you were going after your own seeds, which of course many people did). That was fine, but it was largely abandoned after... what, DS9?

[boromirofborg]

The problem with bonus points right now is that we have a lot, lot, lot of ways to score bonus points that either aren't interactive (Process Ore: Mining), or are fake-interactive (Test For Weakness), or are interactive but involve much less challenge and unpredictability than dilemmas (Organ Theft). The first kind is the worst and most popular; the third kind is the closest to healthy (even though players hate facing them the most).

I agree with you mostly. I will say PO:M isn't interactive is usually a choice by the opponent. All you have to do is come be there to shut it down.

I find that a lot of players don't want to do that, and want to race. There should be a cost for that.

Now on the other hand, the quadrant rules that decipher set up do make it a coin flip that I can do my mining in peace. But that's a game structure problem that Decipher aggrivated in VOY, not a bonus point issue on its own.

[stressedoutatumc]

I think, generally speaking, this game is ruined by cards that nullify dilemma and cards that score positive bonus points because they subvert the game itself. They cheat the game from being played to win. Just my opinion, but I honestly think the game is better with no positive bonus points.

Bonus points don't subvert the game if they force other interactions with opponents / opponents' cards -- interactions that are both challenging and, to some extent, unpredictable. In other words, it's okay to avoid dilemma combos (challenging, unpredictable interactions with opponent's cards) if those interactions are replaced with other, equivalent interactions.

The problem with bonus points right now is that we have a lot, lot, lot of ways to score bonus points that either aren't interactive (Process Ore: Mining), or are fake-interactive (Test For Weakness), or are interactive but involve much less challenge and unpredictability than dilemmas (Organ Theft). The first kind is the worst and most popular; the third kind is the closest to healthy (even though players hate facing them the most).

On the other hand, in their defense: all those bonus points mechanics do create interesting puzzles in deckbuilding, which some players really love. From an exciting-game perspective, pre-errata Assign Mission Specialists was a bad card; it just gave you bonus points, sometimes many bonus points, for doing what you were already doing, which is solve missions. But, from a deck-building perspective, it was a fascinating card, driving hours of mission selection, careful poring over skill boxes, and immense amounts of deck fine-tuning.

Another place positive bonus points can be appropriate is their original purpose: in Premiere, bonus points were almost exclusively a cost. If you seeded a strong dilemma like Nanites, you were taking the risk that opponent would overcome it and score 5 points. Really strong dilemmas like Barclay's Protomorph risked giving opponent 10. This discouraged you from banking too hard on the strongest dilemmas in the game. It was a kind of bonus point you could only score through interaction, and it was unreliable because the bonus points were coming from your opponent, not from yourself (unless you were going after your own seeds, which of course many people did). That was fine, but it was largely abandoned after... what, DS9?

The problem with bonus points and the cards that generate them is that you already get a benefit, generally speaking. And, considering that the win condition for the game is “score 100”, bonus points only serve to shorten the game, interactions or not. If, with bonus points, I only have to score 50 points by co pelting missions, my game win conditions have been shortened. No one has to like it but it doesn’t make it false.

[BCSWowbagger]

And, considering that the win condition for the game is “score 100”, bonus points only serve to shorten the game, interactions or not. If, with bonus points, I only have to score 50 points by co pelting missions, my game win conditions have been shortened. No one has to like it but it doesn’t make it false.

That's fine, though. Missions + dilemmas are important because they are interactive and challenging -- the central challenging interaction of the game. If you use bonus points to replace a mission with something else that's interactive and challenging, that's fine.

I'll go further: if you replaced all missions + dilemmas with something else that's interactive and challenging, that is (in theory) also fine. The problem was that, in practice, this never balanced well, leading to Intermix Ratio.

[JeBuS]

And, considering that the win condition for the game is “score 100”, bonus points only serve to shorten the game, interactions or not. If, with bonus points, I only have to score 50 points by co pelting missions, my game win conditions have been shortened. No one has to like it but it doesn’t make it false.

That's fine, though. Missions + dilemmas are important because they are interactive and challenging -- the central challenging interaction of the game. If you use bonus points to replace a mission with something else that's interactive and challenging, that's fine.

I'll go further: if you replaced all missions + dilemmas with something else that's interactive and challenging, that is (in theory) also fine. The problem was that, in practice, this never balanced well, leading to Intermix Ratio.

I think the main balancing issue has always been that both players need to be playing that alternate game. Not just that, but they both need to know they'll be playing that alternate game in advance.

[BCSWowbagger]

That's a huge part of it, yes. Any alternate win condition -- and, really, any interactive bonus point mechanic whatsoever -- is so niche that it always comes as a surprise to opponent, who almost inevitably has no tech for it. Unless the mechanic itself gives opponent some free resources to work with to put both sides on a roughly even footing, opponent just gets rolled.

[JeBuS]

That's a huge part of it, yes. Any alternate win condition -- and, really, any interactive bonus point mechanic whatsoever -- is so niche that it always comes as a surprise to opponent, who almost inevitably has no tech for it. Unless the mechanic itself gives opponent some free resources to work with to put both sides on a roughly even footing, opponent just gets rolled.

Yeah. Today, basically each player gets to decide how much "challenge" they want in order to get bonus points.

Take Obsession as an example. Going into a game, I already know the exact level of challenge I need to overcome my own . So, it's not really a challenge, is it? If the opponent is also playing some variation of *pew* *pew*, then getting there first is the only real challenge. But, if the opponent isn't, then no challenge at all.

I think that holds true for pretty much every single bonus point mechanic in the game, with just a few exceptions. The onus is on the opponent to find a way to disrupt scoring bonus points, rather than a built-in challenge to the player trying to circumvent the main game loop to score them.

[boromirofborg]

And that comes back to a basic tension in the player base. There is a non-zero amount that want to be able to play a game where the only interaction they have to plan for is facing my dilemmas.

Or should the game be where you should have a plan to disrupt your opponent in some way.

I don't want tis to turn into SpaceBattles the Game, but I'd be surprised if there was a 6-episode stretch of the TV show that didn't show the crew having to directly overcome the machinations of someone else, usually one of the other possible player affiliations.

IMO, I would argue more bonus points should work like Process Ore:Mining and Drought Tree, where there is a built in method for the opponent to interact. (And an expectation that you should.)

[AllenGould]

I think that holds true for pretty much every single bonus point mechanic in the game, with just a few exceptions. The onus is on the opponent to find a way to disrupt scoring bonus points, rather than a built-in challenge to the player trying to circumvent the main game loop to score them.

I would suggest it's also true of the main game loop. It's just that people are willing to spend 3 seed cards to slow down one mission.

[nobthehobbit]

It's also that there are enough different ways to score points that there just isn't room in the seed deck for all the cards you'd need to be able to deal with them.

[AllenGould]

It's also that there are enough different ways to score points that there just isn't room in the seed deck for all the cards you'd need to be able to deal with them.

I don't know if I buy that, when people spend 60% on their seeds on a single vector.

[nobthehobbit]

You spend 60% on the most common approach to winning the game, and 40% on setting yourself up to win the game. And since solving missions is the most common approach, diluting that part of your deck in favour of attempting to include a card or two to tackle less common strategies will just make you weaker against the bulk of the field.

[boromirofborg]

You spend 60% on the most common approach to winning the game, and 40% on setting yourself up to win the game. And since solving missions is the most common approach, diluting that part of your deck in favour of attempting to include a card or two to tackle less common strategies will just make you weaker against the bulk of the field.

Something that other games address by Best of 3 matches and sideboards. B03 is far from feasible for 1e, and Q's tend has been the historic sideboard method along with Ref piles.

From a pure game theory perspective, part of this is desired. It gives the rare strategies a leg up against the mainstream. The key (and this is a challenge for all games) is threading the needle to allow an offbeat strategy to be viable while not overpowering, still allow a main stream deck to have counterplay (even if not optimal), and be fun for both players.