I would love to hear discussion from other players about this because I feel this is quite rarely the correct play. RP usually keeps Sundews ticking in remotes first and builds a remote which costs about 5-10 creds to get in before dropping Caprice. Game is usually decided on how long Sundews keep being active and which agendas get stolen from the centrals during this time frame. Spending a big pile of credits to try to destroy Caprice seems a mistake often, especially because RP usually plays 3x Caprice and 1x Interns. Trying to destroy Caprice from the remote can also give easy scoring window for NAPD or with Ash/2nd Caprice. All this of course depends on game situation but most of the time I feel runner has more to lose by trying to destroy remote with only Caprice if the run costs over 5 creds. I feel I have played quite much and well against RP and I usually ignore defended remote with Caprice but not sure if this the correct choice (I feel it is correct especially if Nisei is scored).
So the actual bid may be random, but he is still making skill-based choices to determine how to weight the options.
I agree - I also believe that you either need to burn the econ (especially sundew) or try to win in centrals (pref. both) before worrying too much about the caprice remote. Itās often worth forcing the rez at least though, for uniqueness reasons.
āHe does bid randomly, he just doesnāt bid in the same way every time he rollsā¦ he will adjust his distribution to lower the random chance of betting zero when he sees a pattern.ā
So he follows the advice in that BGG thread? And jacksoning back econ, how dare he.
I mean, maybe there would have been a better hypothetical card to help glacier than caprice. But it sounds like this guy just plays well.
Clearly it is dependent on when the corp āgoes for itā, what resources are at your disposal (parasite), and what your long-term game plan is. Killing the economy of RP is extremely important, and should be something the runner is doing while theyāre setting up and poking R&D. If you have an open window to kill caprice while theyāre setting up, consider how far you can set them back unless they find another one (or that one interns). Yes, sometimes they have all 3 caprice and 1 interns and you canāt keep her out of the remote, but if youāre running R&D enough and poking HQ at times, you can snipe some of them. If a Nisei is scored, you want to try to get them to blow the token by using high-impact run events and multi-access. You do not want to get into the Exaclibur + Nisei chain problem. If you have Atman, thatās a solution. If you have Parasite, thatās another one. If youāre any criminal, look to land a Siphon (or just steal + bounce if youāre Leela). Know your deckās weaknesses so that you can play around them. Itās dangerous to fall into the trap that every runner plays against a defended Caprice remote the same way.
Iām pretty aggressive about contesting Sundew.
I figure, hey, might as well make 'em rez so I can get started early on the Parasiting big ice.
Bullfrog Psi games are arguably more terrifying and high stakes. If someone is trying to Bullfrog me somewhere, it must be somewhere very bad.
To answer your question, yes, I do enjoy playing Psi games, even now. Though you structured that question in such a way to make me sound like a simpleton for saying yes. I forget which fallacy that is.
If you fight their drip econ Caprice and TFPs are not free. And you can quickly make them the more fun kinds of Psi games like @kiv describes.
Itās still a die roll, and he changes the weighting on every roll, making it essentially completely random. Not even he knows what heāll be betting, so tell me how itās skill, he even says heās just getting lucky by rolling randomly.
I still think the best way to deal with her is by simply bypassing her and going somewhere else. The real problem is when Caprice is combined with Ash, MK2 tokens and TFP. It can create a no win situation for the runner very easily.
Because heās choosing what the dieās results will mean. Heās choosing which distribution is most effective for the given scenario (whether itās 1,2 -> bid 0; 3,4 ->bid 1; 5,6 -> bid 2; or 1 -> bid 0; 2,3 -> bid 1; 4,5,6 -> bid 2 as examples). That decision involves reading the board state.
Psi games are not random.
You can roll a die when you do psi games, and Iām certain you can still win. However, Iām sure you can also roll a die each time Architect fires and still win. This does not make Architect random.
You donāt really need to choose anything in Netrunner. Letās say your options for pressure are R&D, HQ, or a remote, you could very easily roll a die, but that doesnāt mean that the decision of where to run is completely random and running is completely unskilled.
In short, saying āpsi games are random because Iāve got a friend who does it randomlyā is complete tripe. That person does use a mechanic in a random way, but that doesnāt mean the mechanic is random. Psi games do have choice in them, and you can be good or bad at psi games, and you can even analyse them with game theory.
He doesnāt care about the board state, he changes the weighting on every roll. Itās still a random die roll and he goes with whatever he rolls. Itās always a random chance with him.
I never said psi games were random, I simply said that you can make them truly random using a mechanism outside of the game like the person Iāve been talking about who uses dice.
If heās changing his system randomly with every roll, he should see something like a 66% win rate. Youāre telling us that he reliably wins nearly all the time, so either:
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what heās doing is not as random as what youāre arguing. There is no doubt chance involved, but he has found distributions that beat the expected norm of 66% and thus has made some kind of skillful distribution decisions. This is the very definition of skilled play in a game of chance.
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heās a lucksack and so far his random behavior has resulted in better than expected results. Donāt rely on this continuing to be true in the future.
If, on the other hand, heās actually winning something closer to 66% of the time and it just feels like āall the timeā because you find the mechanic of Caprice to be annoying and capricious (definitely understandable) then youāre right and heās not playing skillfully with Caprice. What youāve described so far, however, is definitely skillful play and not random play.
[quote=āXenasis, post:151, topic:4308ā]
You can roll a die when you do psi games, and Iām certain you can still win. However, Iām sure you can also roll a die each time Architect fires and still win. This does not make Architect randomā¦ Psi games do have choice in them, and you can be good or bad at psi games, and you can even analyse them with game theory.[/quote]
This isā¦ a bit of a red herring. Sure, you could play any other effect (e.g. Architect) randomly, but when you invoke game theory you should be cognizant of the fact that game theory is going to lead you to play Psi games randomly (not necessarily with an even distribution, of course) in a large number (I daresay the majority) of game situations where it actually comes up. While there are probably some far flung scenarios where randomizing your Architect options is the optimal choice, theyāre not terribly relevant in most games.
You canā¦ but then you wonāt see better than 66% performance out of your psi-games. Youāre telling us that this person is doing better than 66%, so heās either skillful (which is what youāre describing about changing his distributions based on past behavior) or lucky so far and you should expect his winrate on psi games to approach 66% over time.
EDIT: Along these lines, people have talked about possible anti-Psi cards and one that comes up is some kind of recurring credit for the runner to use playing psi-games. I think this is a terrible idea because if you remove the skin from the game (ie the different values of money lost to different options) thereās literally no reason for the runner not to treat psi games randomly, which negates any skillful play from the corp. Much more useful would be something like āgain a credit when the corp initiates a psi gameā since youād still be faced with the opportunity cost of just gaining the cash and spending none. Thatās why Nesei Division is well designed in this respect, but if it were something more like Making News it would be super dumb.
He says itās an edge case and that probability will catch up with him eventually. Iād say heās winning at least 4 out of 5 psi games from what I hear other players. Also Iām sure that losing the game because you failed the psi game on the last agenda is a terrible experience that can skew peopleās opinion of the game played.
Honestly Iāve beat him before but by stealing the none psi game agendas from HQ and R&D but I admit Iāve seen other players give up mentally when heās got a rezzed caprice with a mk2 token.
Yeah, maybe heās closer to the standard odds, then, which would indicate something more like random behavior. Iāll totally agree that the way psi games work (and how they can make you feel like a win you deserved slipped away in a manner than not seeing an agenda on the top of RnD doesnāt make you feel like you lost something you deserved to win) can make people shut down and feel oppressed. Thatās a side effect of Caprice that Iām not a fan of; I think itās an un-fun card. However, I donāt feel like itās a random/unskilled card. You can play psi games skillfully and win more than your share against players who arenāt playing randomly with a uniform distribution, which feels like strong enough counter-play to keep the card from being ābrokenā.
Caprice doesnāt have to be random (and if one side or the other plays her randomly, theyāre accepting a floor to their win-rate that is probably not ideal) for her to be an oppressive card. If youāre trying to argue that sheās not fun to play against and makes people feel like they donāt have a fair chance to win (fair in a subjective rather than odds-based sense), thatās definitely a fair argument.
If someone is trying to Bullfrog you somewhere, theyāre probably playing a janky Nisei Division deck and there are no stakes because itās probably not a tournament.
All I did was ask if anyone actually likes playing psi games. The only way to consider that deceptive phrasing is if youāre reading WAY too deeply into the qualifier āactually,ā which was only used in this case because most people seem to be on the complaining side.
If it is comepletely random, you will win on average 1/3 of psi games by bidding 0 every time. He can randomly change the distribution of random results all he wants and it wouldnāt matter.
If however, he is purposefully changing the distribution, then it is a matter of skill.
To do a quick end-run around the follow up argument that heāll just notice youāre bidding 0 and change his distribution, that is skillful play. If he moves off 0 because he sees you always bid 0, then heās opened an opportunity for you to take advantage of 1 and 2 being more likely than 0 and you can improve your own odds past 1/3rd. Or maybe heāll assume youād think heād shift and stay the same and watch you over-react and suddenly you understand why some people are arguing that this mechanic is really cool: because it actually makes you play mind-games if you think about it at all past the first layer of analysis.