Getting matched

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grackel13

Hi there,

I just bought the Silver expansion set of Dominion so I can keep learning. But after I bought it, I'm getting matched to tables with cards I don't know! While I learn, I just want to be matched to Base cards. I don't have any of the expansion cards checked as "familiar." How can I go back to just getting matched with tables that use Base cards? Should I not have bought this at all? Thanks for your help!

drsteelhammer

Hi,

the best way to play games only with familiar cards is either by playing practice matches or making a table and only allowing cards from certain expansions show up.

regardless of what subscription you have, rated games will always use all the cards any of the two players own.

grackel13

Thank you so much for the reply -- I probably should have held off buying, but now I'll learn how to create tables. I appreciate the clarification! All best.

grackel13

Um, except now I sit here with my created table and nothing happens? Whereas before I would be matched fairly quickly? Why did I buy this??

Stef

Quote from: grackel13 on 20 September 2017, 04:48:35 AM
Um, except now I sit here with my created table and nothing happens? Whereas before I would be matched fairly quickly? Why did I buy this??

I don't really understand what you want.

You still have exactly the same options as before, except now more people will want to play with you (those that require their opponents to have cards).

If you don't want to play with anything except base cards yourself, then buying a subscription to non-base cards isn't going to help you, but it won't hurt you either. In that case the only thing it does is that you now support the system, and maybe you like the idea of contributing to something you enjoy.

Ingix

It is my experience that most players want to play rated games (which use the full set of cards available to a player). That's why grackel13 previously was matched often, but with cards that he didn't (yet) want to play. When using non-rated games, it usually takes much longer to find an opponent (but once found, there may be several games in succession).

dane

If I've correctly understood the requirement, the solution is to use matching after first setting its advanced options to permit practice games but not rated games so that the familiar cards' list will be honoured.  I think currently grackel13 is making a table but then finding that no one joins the table.

JW

#7
Quote from: Stef on 20 September 2017, 09:47:42 AM
I don't really understand what you want.

You still have exactly the same options as before, except now more people will want to play with you (those that require their opponents to have cards).

If you don't want to play with anything except base cards yourself, then buying a subscription to non-base cards isn't going to help you, but it won't hurt you either.

The original poster is being harmed by having bought a subscription, because they can no longer play rated games using only cards from the base set. And by far the fastest way to find a game is to use the automatch feature to find rated games.

One solution would be to refund all but the first month of the original poster's subscription, and remove the subscription. Another solution would be to allow a player to "deactivate" the cards that they have purchased, so that they can, for example, still play rated games as if they only had the base cards, but can mix in other cards when they want to.  Similarly to this poster, Burning Skull had to create a separate account called "Drowning Skull" for his great "How to Base Dominion" series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpPtxyGNGcg) because it is much harder to get a game with only the base dominion set if you are a subscriber.

More generally, the difficulty of transitioning to games with lots of new cards for people new to Dominion suggests that there should be a subscription option less expansive than Silver - say, an option that adds only Intrigue and Seaside- to ease this difficult transition (I created a separate thread to discuss this: http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=2185.0).

grackel13

That is it exactly, JW -- thank you for stating the problem more clearly than I was able to. It's not the money at all -- I'm very happy to support a game I'm loving learning. I just don't want other players to have to suffer through me being slow, having to look up cards constantly, etc. Plus I was just really having fun honing my base skills, and it's a big leap up to have this many expansions suddenly. What JW said later was exactly what I would have loved and thought I was buying: the ability to choose from more cards (I'm familiar with Intrigue). I don't want a refund, but I would totally support JW's suggestion of having more flexibility with allowed expansions while being matched. I definitely used to be matched quickly, and creating a table is much slower.

Live and learn! Thanks everyone for your replies and thoughts.

Stef

The problem of matchmaking is actually quite a complicated one. Here are some thoughts on it:

1. Familiar cards is exactly what you're looking for. This feature allows you to say which cards you already know, and how many unknowns you want to allow in your kingdom.

2. The problem with the matchmaker that respects familiar cards ("practice games") is mostly that it isn't popular enough. It takes quite a bit longer to find a match there. It's less people, and it's harder to find a match because not every pair is valid (you may want to play with base+intrigue, but maybe someone else wants prosperity+hinterlands).

3. People are a bit spoiled by how fast rated matchmaking now is. I had to wait 10-15 minutes myself on average on any of the previous implementations (iso, goko, MF).

4. @JW the problem can't be solved by making the games part of the rated matching. Yes rated matching is more popular, but that is because more people want to play with all the cards they can get their hands on. Making "practice game matching" somehow part of "rated matching with special options" would just compartmentalize the player pool in a way that is less explicit, but it wouldn't magically allow a match between a player that wants to play with everything and a player that wants to play with 1 or 2 sets.

5. Alternatively you can skip the matchmaker altogether and find a match yourself. It would be nice if the client would make it easier to talk to friends, it will one day. Hanging around here also works. Creating a table and just waiting could also be improved, by making it easier for other people to spot your table. One day it will be.

6. At some point we'll add Campaigns as an alternative way to learn the new cards.

7. We could add some concept of "pretend you don't have subscribed to certain expansions you actually subscribed to". I doubt it would be very popular, but maybe I'm wrong there.

8. There won't be any cheaper subscription models. That's just an economical argument - Silver and Gold are already so cheap that almost nobody will reject it because of the amount. If people don't subscribe it's because they just don't want to pay for various reasons. And people playing with less cards aren't actually cheaper to support for me then people playing with all cards (assuming those cards get implemented anyway).

splee

About (2) - people wanting only specific sets are just gonna have to deal with waiting longer for their particular matching conditions to be met. Yes they want fewer expansions to learn, but as in (4), "more people want to play with all the cards they can get their hands on". If you make Rated respect Familiar cards, we might end up with a bunch of Gold subscription players in here complaining about how many games they're forced to play with Base + Intrigue and how they paid money to not have to do that.

Also, if people are playing *rated* games while they're still learning mechanics and having their first experiences with some cards, they're gonna have a bad time.


It seems more a "new/learning players" thing rather than a Familiar-cards-in-Rated thing.

A/ if campaigns were implemented, players would have a natural arc to the introduction to new cards

B/ if the AI was better then new players could crank out a ton of semi-enjoyable games, see & learn all their cards


JW

Quote from: Stef on 21 September 2017, 10:28:30 AM
4. @JW the problem can't be solved by making the games part of the rated matching. Yes rated matching is more popular, but that is because more people want to play with all the cards they can get their hands on. Making "practice game matching" somehow part of "rated matching with special options" would just compartmentalize the player pool in a way that is less explicit, but it wouldn't magically allow a match between a player that wants to play with everything and a player that wants to play with 1 or 2 sets.

I may have been unclear, but my intent was that a player can "deactivate" some of the sets that they have purchased, so that they can, for example, still play rated games as if they only subscribed to the base set, or Base + Intrigue, even if they have a Silver subscription. 

I assume that at lower ranking levels, a substantial percentage of games are played by players who have not subscribed to any cards. And the majority of those players presumably do not use the "wait until an opponent with a subscription is available" feature (because they don't like long wait times). So a substantial percentage of games among lower-rated players feature only cards from the base set. If someone who is a lower-ranked, new player only wants to play with the base set, Intrigue, and Seaside, most of their would-be opponents without subscriptions would prefer that match to no match. But it gives the person who subscribes more flexibility in choosing which cards their rated games will contain. 

I had a separate and different proposal, in a thread that's now locked, that players who have not subscribed to any cards should be able to avoid games against someone who has subscribed to all cards, for example. That specific example shouldn't split the player base much because people with subscriptions to all cards are more desirable matches for more experienced opponents.

In combination with the hypothetical "pretend I haven't subscribed to expansions" feature it could set up a scenario when two players with Silver subscriptions are incompatible because one doesn't want to play with Hinterlands, and the other one does. But in general I would expect the combination of "pretend I haven't subscribed to expansions" and "don't match against people with (too many) more cards" just to be used by players who are new to the game, to ease learning the cards. Dominion is a good enough game that people who know the cards tend to prefer full random games to waiting for that one opponent who dislikes Alchemy with an equal fervor.

Quote7. We could add some concept of "pretend you don't have subscribed to certain expansions you actually subscribed to". I doubt it would be very popular, but maybe I'm wrong there.

8. There won't be any cheaper subscription models. That's just an economical argument - Silver and Gold are already so cheap that almost nobody will reject it because of the amount. If people don't subscribe it's because they just don't want to pay for various reasons. And people playing with less cards aren't actually cheaper to support for me then people playing with all cards (assuming those cards get implemented anyway).

If you aren't going to offer a subscription smaller than Silver (with 4 large sets and 2 small sets), there will be more demand for the "pretend I'm not subscribed to expansions" feature among beginners than there would be if there were a smaller subscription.


grackel13

Original poster here, still agreeing with everything JW says  :)

So my solution thus far has been to create a new username to play Base and to get matched quickly. Lost my ranking, but don't care.

I'll use my original username, the one with Silver subscription, to play games with friends, to create tables, and (eventually) to get matched with rated games. Tbh, I didn't even see before the "practice" option, though now that I do ... it seems very few people want it.

What I would love is the ability to turn off and on certain expansions that I've bought via my Silver subscription. I think that would enhance learning and allow for the steep jump from Base to the many expansions Silver encompasses. I get that that's not possible now, and I'll continue with my work-arounds and learning, but it might be something to consider for the future.

Again, grateful for this community, the thoughtful responses, and especially for the moderators' and JW's insights and suggestions.

All best.

markus

Quote from: grackel13 on 22 September 2017, 03:58:39 AM
Tbh, I didn't even see before the "practice" option, though now that I do ... it seems very few people want it.
I'm curious whether you tried practice game and how long it took you to find an opponent or until you gave up?
In theory, this would be the current solution to your problem and you could even make only 1 expansion after another familiar after getting a subscription.

JW

#14
Quote from: grackel13 on 22 September 2017, 03:58:39 AM
I'll use my original username, the one with Silver subscription, to play games with friends, to create tables, and (eventually) to get matched with rated games. Tbh, I didn't even see before the "practice" option, though now that I do ... it seems very few people want it.

What I would love is the ability to turn off and on certain expansions that I've bought via my Silver subscription. I think that would enhance learning and allow for the steep jump from Base to the many expansions Silver encompasses.

Not to belabor the point too much, but one reason that a Copper subscription would be particularly useful for new players who prefer a more gradual introduction to the game is that it wouldn't require any new interface or knowledge on the part of players. It would just be a third option in an existing screen (the store). As this example shows, some features (in this case practice games, and the options they provide) can be lost on players new to the system.

As I see it, Stef isn't accounting for the fact that he already lets people without any subscription play as much as they want, and there's a resource cost to them as well. The Copper subscription would be another way to draw players in and expose them to the game, while getting some revenue from people who aren't ready for the full Silver subscription experience. But it's his decision to make.

arcee

Certainly a good way to disable a set would make it more likely that I would use Gold instead of Silver when I'm craving my Dominion fixes.