Doomtown

Doomtown frustrates me, mostly because I can see a good game, but haven’t managed to play it yet. I bounced off because there wasn’t a community locally enough. There’s a few counter intuitive things, especially the path to victory, that make new players play it really badly (myself included).

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I played a crap of the original doomtown when I was young and still have mountains of the cards kicking about - loved it. Got given the reboot by a mate and was quite excited. However, I’ve only played it a few times in the past year as netrunner hits the table instead. What I would say though is this:

Clunky & Inelegant

I agree with this, that while they tweaked a few bits it didn’t seem like they significantly improved on the mechanics a great deal - it’s still a pretty clunky game for example with unintuitive exceptions about when you boot and when you don’t. Having played the original a ton it’s still basically the same game, which I think is a missed opportunity.

Shootouts vs Area Control

As azhrab indicates the winning concept is not actually about combat at all, it’s actually an area control game and is about control points. However, decks that just spewed out control points faster than the other player could grab them (“landslide”) were a problem with the old version (huge mines that you struggled to contest) and it sounds like it’s still a problem here. Regardless of that, the reason the I think this is a problem is that so much of the game mechanics and rules focus on combat, yet really the game is not about that. Consider netrunner, the majority of the complexity lies in the runs, which are indeed crucial to the game so it doesn’t feel at odds with its ruleset. If for example combat was way simpler in Doomtown (e.g. much quicker and less random) and you focused on moving around we might have a much more elegant design that sat better. However, the poker shootout element is one of the biggest pulls in terms of theme and the game would lose a lot by doing that unfortunately.

Deckbuilding

Yup. Deckbuilding has extra layers of complexity in Doomtown due to the card numbers and this is part of the game that does shine when you’re flipping through the binder agonizing over card choices. However, spells/gadgets and high pulls were a problem in the old game too and they haven’t fixed them it doesn’t seem. It looks like they’ve made it worse in some ways as they’ve spread the mad scientists around more instead of having their own faction (is it still like that? I’ve not followed), and deckbuilding is often about min-maxing or hammering a strat so if you’re going to use any gadgets then you’ll need consistent high numbers which immediately constrains your deck in important ways (in the old version it might crappy buildings & income + expensive, powerful dudes - not good). The normal solution is to not bother at all with spell/gadget pulls - they didn’t confer enough benefit previously and you added another layer of randomness to your game to contend with that the other player didn’t (and you still have to handle shootouts somehow) - you might buff yourself in certain ways, but if you couldn’t get out of the shootout/win before the poker you got wrecked all the same by 5 of a kinds etc.

Cheatin’

Yeah totally agree - the original swung around wildly with cheatin’ cards’ power level. Not sure how balanced it would be in the current game, but the one we most consistently ended up using that worked nicely was ‘Snakebite!’ - you got to Ace a dude in his posse. However, I believe most tournament decks generally just cheated utterly rampantly as it was still the most successful way (other than generally avoiding fights). Interestingly they brought in Kansas City Style which meant if you ever had a cheatin’ hand you just lost the game. So decks became about having one of each number/suit - quite an interesting idea really.

Mulligan

Good to see you’re not disappointing us on your reputation for hyperbole Alex! I’ve not played in tournaments, but it seems like people are going a bit overboard panning a game simply for the mulligan issue. Yes it’s not great but you do get to choose your starting dudes which is, well, pretty consistent. Random-factor is really what we’re talking about here and Netrunner has its fair share of random factor with agenda-based issues, random picks from hands etc that I could understand being argued as worse as they persist through the whole game rather than the first turn (though I don’t necessarily agree). The fact that I could run on R&D or HQ with the appropriate event and win turn one in Netrunner is nuts, totally nuts - but us fans just take it on the chin as “part of the charm”. There’s whole swathes of cards we basically don’t use because it’s too random and risk (see discussion about 5/3s). Netrunner also have IDs that rely on really strong opening hands which exacerbates the first turn issue, making mulligan’s more important/relevant. Doomtown’s first turn is not so swingy as netrunner (no account siphon/maker’s eye) unless you get into that big Turn 1 fight, which yes is a rookie error for sure, it’s just asking for trouble and is basically just rolling the dice as you have no decent shooters or ways to manipulate the fight - it seems obvious to me and I almost never do it. Spread out and take territory, manipulate them into booting dudes at sub-optimal places and then capitalise on that - the early game is all feints and power-base building as far as I’m concerned (though I’m not any good), and yeah just generally judging when to fight is a really really difficult. I do think overall though that Netrunner handles the random-factor way better than Doomtown, but I’ve only seen the early cards of Doomtown, Netrunner was still super swingy in the early days too.

Anyway…
I’ve not watched the tournament games but will give them a look. It’s a shame it has such a learning hump at the beginning as I struggle to get part-timers on board with this kind of game (using my cards), and I think where it really falls down is that once you get over the hump it still has some really big issues and so feels unrewarding in that regard.

I can see a good game in there…somewhere… I hope…(:D) but unfortunately I think I want to like it more than I actually can admit to. Back in the day I was younger and had played fewer games, was less analytical, but even then something niggled in the back about it - the theme and style just totally won me over though. I want to try it with 3 or 4 players as hopefully that could somewhere it shines more than netrunner - the more players you have the more inherently chaotic they get, and perhaps that’s where this game maybe will shine.

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Doomtown strikes me as interesting, but it was a bit of a non-starter with most of my friends because it came out at around the same time as Conquest, which they were much more excited about.

So if I hate playing poker, I shouldn’t try this right?

This was the main reason I couldn’t get much traction with my local play group as well.

I wouldn’t say that Landslide is a “problem” in the current game. It exists, but it’s just one archetype. In a way it’s like NBN Fastro, insofar as its very existence affects (or rather, should affect) the meta, because you absolutely should not start very low influence posses or you’re going to lose to Landslide in a few turns. In another way it’s a bit like Jinteki PE, in that the way you play against it is fundamentally different to how you play against most other archetypes. It’s strong but beatable, particularly if people tech against it. Even if they don’t, playstyle is a huge factor in the matchup.

I think this was pretty fair around release, because most of the powerful cards were on lower values, but it isn’t the case any more. In fact one of the criticisms about the relative power level of Fourth Ring Hex Control decks is that they can play the high values they need to succeed on hex pulls without having to sacrifice much, because there are great cards on value for eights, tens, jacks, queens and increasingly kings too. It was initially a problem because I think higher value dudes were perhaps slightly overcosted, or were almost exclusively very expensive, whereas now there are a good range of higher value dudes available (like this phenomenal starter for some decks), and a good chunk of the Eagle Wardens stuff works this way too.

Mad Scientists are still spread out across factions, but that’s not why they’re relatively weak. So far it hasn’t taken off because the cost of the gadgets/dudes/values you had to run simply weren’t worth it compared to (for example) goods that didn’t have to be invented. There has been good gadget support in the last few saddlebags, but I’m not sure if it’s quite there yet. Hex decks are, however, extremely strong, as are some of the new crop of Shaman/Spirit decks.

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I heard Conquest described as Easy Doomtown. I’m not sure I agree, but I do see some similarities in how both games link resource commitment with an expressive movement mechanism.

Depends why you hate playing poker, but I’d say you should give it a go if you like Netrunner well enough to join this forum. It’s got some really cool ideas, it’s just hard and balances a little wonky.

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Yeah, both games share elements of area control and strategic movement but Conquest has much more traditional unit combat rather than Doomtown’s poker shootouts. I would never describe Conquest as “easy”, since there’s a huge amount of decision-making on each turn and almost all cards have multiple valid uses, but I think people coming from a background in other card games (especially Magic) are already familiar with the unit combat model and adapt to it more easily than to the poker shootouts.

Cheezus man, you’re still salty about the mulligan?

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Anyway, I want to point out that learning to avoid T1 grand shootouts and the steep learning curve are the biggest stumbles of new players getting into Doomtown at the moment. The mulligan never comes up as an issue for new or experienced players.

I am obviously biased (disclaimer, I’m in the design team for DTR), but comparatively to the agenda flood (or R&D yolo) of ANR, DTR is nowhere near as random at the early game, since you get to choose 0-5 cards to start with on the table and you always start with some early econ. This is why mulligan is less important, so little so, that experienced players often decide to go for a dude mulligan rather than a hand mulligan, since a well designed deck has very few “unplayable hands”.

So yes, it’s a hard but rewarding game to get into, much like ANR, but the mulligan complaint is completely overblown.

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OK, fair enough perhaps it’s not a problem as such. It will be interesting to see how it pans out in the future as more and more high control point buildings turn. One of the things they talked about fixing from original Doomtown was the high control point mines - far less mobility out there and so it just ended up being about controlling high-CP mine - so they’ve moved it more in-town to keep the action going, maybe this will be enough to keep on the whack-a-mole effect of chasing down high-CP buildings, we’ll have to see.

Ah, good to hear the Hexes have got some punch this time - the Whateleys were one of my favourites in the old game (huckster outfit, undertaker-addams-family-weird-relatives-in-the-basement vibe) but I just never got it to work as well as, say, Law Dogs shootout deck. Being able to focus on whatever numbers you wanted (i.e. not high numbers) really helped in the old version as you could have a couple high and a couple low giving you more coverage. Whateley’s saving grace was this guy though, who was an absolute murder-machine: http://client-cdn.crystalcommerce.com/photo/categoryonegames/file/366543/large/unknown_hooded_figure.jpg?1432573080

As for Mad Scientists - yeah, weak gadgets was a real problem too for a fair while, until Suzy 309 came out http://client-cdn.crystalcommerce.com/photo/categoryonegames/file/370073/large/suzy_309.jpg?1432585831 and there was an experienced version that was even better (3/2).

However, I still think the spread may cause a problem for the mad scientists and also the random spellcasters sprinkled through the outfits - to make it consistent enough you have include the high cards, but to make that sacrifice worthwhile you might include a load of the scientists/spellcaster type in question otherwise you’re just making it hard for yourself - and then you’re really changing your deck structure for it. It sounds like they may be mixing it up a bit in terms card value which is great, but you’re still reducing options and when there’s a great low card that comes out you have to figure it out how to squeeze it in. However, I guess we’ll just have to see how this one pans out too really.

Landslide is being always kept in check and monitored closely by design. At the moment, it’s not winning a lot of tourneys but can consistently place high in the hands of new experienced players. It got a new boost from one of the new factions, but recent cards and sharing of gameplay knowledge is balancing it out.

Adding more CP deeds is usually not an issue since you can already field 4 deeds per value and as many deeds as you want anyway. The tricky part with slides is to know which deeds to play, when and how to avoid outpacing your own influence. It’s much much harder than it looks (prolly akin to the brainburner of playing a good jinteki:pe consistently through a tourney)

Hex Control was actuallly dominating most tournaments last season. Gadgets are getting some really powerful cards in the new expansions as well. I’m assuming those two will balance out soon :wink:

Ah yeah, I forgot about the 4-per-value limit which probably helps a lot (rather than 4-per-card in the old one).

Still, there’s a difference between fielding a four copies of some key high value deeds and 4 different deeds on every value with high CP that have suitably optimised abilities/prices too (both situations are justobvious exaggerations to illustrate and wouldn’t really happen of course) - and as more cards come out we inch away from one and towards the other so I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss it as not an issue. Indeed if it wasn’t an issue there would be no need for design to keep an eye on it, so it’s good that they are very aware of it though and I wouldn’t surprised if they already have some ideas tucked away in case it becomes an issue.

We do. Plus it’s the fact that heavy CP deeds don’t tend to give a lot of (or any) production (unlike classic DTR) and we don’t change that trend. In fact most slide decks tend to stay away from multiple CP deeds since it tends to hurt them more overall.

Generally experience form Classic has given us some good lessons on what kind of deck archetypes tend to be the sort of Non-Positive Experience that tends to turn away new players so when they need to be in the game for meta-balancing purposes, like Slides do, they need to retain are a very fine balance where they can be competitive but not dominating.

Ouch! As other people have pointed out, mulliganing matters less in Doomtown considering you’re picking your starting setup so it’s not like the game rides on your opening hand. As far as good vs bad game design, I think Grifters make the mulligan choice more interesting and interesting choices usually contribute to good game design. The choice isn’t like Conquest or Netrunner (Is this hand better or worse than the expected average hand) because it’s integrated into the board state. It’s also much less punishing than mtg’s mulligan rules where you lose a card every mulligan.

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How is this true?

As far as I see it, there are a few places for a deck to be:

  1. This Mulligan dude is better than any other dudes for your starting posse so you pick him.

  2. He’s not, meaning the correct posse for your deck does not allow you to mulligan.

It’s kind of like if in Netrunner you could only mulligan if you spend 1 less inf than your ID’s max (ignoring the absurdity of enforcing this rule). It does work, it does add a decision, but it also removes decisions (less inf to spend on other things or you don’t get the chance to mulligan which is a very interesting decision). Chiefly, this promotes gameplay where either the most optimal posse does not include the mulligan guy, and games have a higher chance of being uninteresting and there are less in-game decisions, or your posse does include the mulligan guy and it feels like a cost that could be used elsewhere.

All this being said, from what I’ve played of Doomtown, your hand does certainly matter less than in other games, but I feel like it’s a mistake not to have mulligans even if it makes the game just a little more interesting (it certainly adds decisions). Mulligans being less-essential doesn’t necessarily mean mulligans won’t be a positive force on the game. They could still implement mulligans and have the mulligan guy be a second mulligan, but eh, they probably won’t.

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Different decks will value mulligans more or less and you can adjust your deckbuilding and play around this fact. Add to this that the Grifters aren’t just “you can now mulligan”, but come with different stats and mulligan abilities.

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…eh? So not including a mulligan guy in your deck means the games are more uninteresting and have fewer in-game decisions? Any chance you could elaborate on how you’ve come to this conclusion? Something to do with more bad draws perhaps? Seems a reach if it is though.

I think this is really getting weird in general. (We’ll call Mulligan’s Ability X here) - so it seems to me that you’re arguing that by having Ability X not as default it’s worse for the game because if you want access to Ability X then you have to fore-go usage of other Abilities (i.e. cards with effects) because there’s less room in your deck. Phrased like that it sounds like any other card in the game to me. You want the ability that the card gives, but that comes at a sacrifice of a slot, so you have fewer options.

It seems to me, and again correct me if I’m wrong, that this boils down to “I expect mulligans, therefore using cards to get them feels like a penalty” - the problem there is not the card/mechanics but the expectation of a mulligan. That’s fair enough, but that’s a different argument (and in fact was the original argument earlier on).

Take Andromeda - why don’t all IDs start with 9 cards? You have to give up an in-game ID ability that has repeated effects to get your 9 cards (i.e. a card slot). Other games start with 9 cards right? Why not netrunner? You know what that sacrifice gives you? More consistency than the other guy at the trade off another ability/effect, which is exactly what the Mulligan guy gives you (or at least is designed to give you). But this seems to be what you’re arguing against.

Edit: The ultimate endpoint of that debate is that elimination of any card draw at all to produce a perfectly consistent starting hard and then sequence of draws (the chess style game of non-random), and then the opposite is just rolling a dice of course. Where the perfect balance point of that lies is a debate that has no answer and depends on tons of factors (mechanics, audience, stakes, skill-mitigation etc.) - there’s no universal perfect point for it, but it’s completely legitimate to feel a game is too random for your tastes.

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What I was saying was that if you don’t have the mulligan guy, games have a higher chance of being uninteresting and there are less in-game decisions because you don’t have the decision to mulligan or not.

Not at all, but the addition of a mulligan makes a game incredibly more interesting a higher percentage of the time. It’s a tried-and-true mechanic that’s beneficial for games. I believe it would be beneficial for Doomtown to have a mulligan. Not all card games benefit from a mulligan, and they benefit different amounts, but Doomtown benefits more than 0 so I think it’s a good thing.

I’ll make up a few numbers to demonstrate: Let’s pretend that in our card game, we have a 10% chance of drawing a hand it’s impossible to win with. If you have mulligans, it makes that chance 1%, and also adds decisions onto the start of the game for 100% of hands. With Mulligan Man, it adds decisions only for the players who have Mulligan Man in their starting posse, and subtracts from their deckbuilding decisions.

Now, the amount you can win in a game based solely off an opening hand is different from game to game, but in any game, a game that pits two theoretically optimal AIs that play perfectly is decided entirely on what cards you draw and assets you start with (i.e. posse, ID, deck composition). Obviously, players aren’t entirely robots but the quality of hand is higher in a game with mulligans, meaning the amount a game is decided by card draw is lessened. On top of that, having a mulligan adds an extra decision and adds one more interesting choice to the player in the game (as opposed to out of the game deckbuilding “do I want a sacrifice?”).

Because this would drastically alter the balance of the game in a way that would almost certainly be detrimental to the game. Still, it could theoretically be better for Netrunner if both sides started with 6 cards. I am not sure that this is true (I doubt it), but if it was, why would you resist a change that improves your game?

Mulligans do not do that. I am not suggesting that we take five cards from our deck and add them to our hand. Mulligans are a way to stop bad hands deciding games whilst still being limited by your deckbuilding. It’s not a replacement for good deckbuilding and in fact is just as limited by how well you made your deck as the first hand.

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