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It strikes me that the ladder would make no sense if you matched based on anything but ELO ranking.

A more practical measure would be to introduce a warning level lower than 4 minutes, say 90 seconds or 2 minutes.  If you hit the warning level 3 times in a game, your opponent can force a resign.  If you hit the 4 minute mark once, same thing.

Basically it's 10 levels from 1 ("base only") to 10 ("all existing cards"), where level 2 for example are "non-complicated" cards (Menagerie and Armory, for example). Each expansion has some of them. Then level 3 introduces simple Duration cards, choice cards, a.s.o.

I think that could work quite well.
I'm guessing that you would match according to a range - i.e. i wish to play in levels 0 to 3, or levels 5 to 7.
If two players are matched with levels (X,Y) versus (M,N) such that the ranges overlap, then you'd play at the min of (Y,N), I suppose.

It would mean I could buy gold expansion but gradually ease into the additional mechanics.
No idea how that impacts the ladder algorithm but I'm sure brighter minds can figure that out.

Anyway, sounds promising.

It's often fun to play best 2 of 3, although if you don't ask for a rematch quickly, the opponent is gone before you can ask.

How about adding a button after you've played a game where you would select 'rematch' or 'best 2 of 3'?

There are different ways this could be implemented, but I believe it's best to make the evaluation after you've already played one game.

A slick way to program this would be for the button to normally say 'Request rematch' but if you'd already split 2 games evenly, the label changes to 'Best 2 of 3?'

I bet someone could program this in a couple of hours.  Easy-peasy and would add a fun dimension.

An even easier way to implement this -

If you just finished a game, and the opponent is still around, just the 'Ready' buttons is labelled  'Rematch' or 'Best 2 of 3' as the case may be.
This will provide an additional inducement to play the same opponent again.

I'm a free-to-play customer right now, and the one thing I can think of that would actually make me buy Silver or Gold would be to add another option to the "AUTOMATCH" list for Game Type.

Options:
1) Classic
2) Speed
3) Classic or Speed


Classic Dominion = The game as it is now

Speed Dominion = Each player gets a 5 minute timer, and every moment that the screen banner reads "Your Turn!" the timer starts a countdown towards zero.  Yes, this includes time when a non-active player is responding to an attack requiring a discard, or an Advisor/Envoy pick-a-card.  Any time it's "your turn" and the game is waiting for you... even if disconnected due to an internet problem.

When a timer reaches zero, the player who exhausted their clock automatically resigns.

Justification: I often have only 10 of 15 minutes to kill.  At times like this, I don't want to be stuck in a game with some perfectionist rank 50+ player who wants a 30 minute session so they can play every piece of their 40-card deck each turn

I respect that level of play, but I'm not always interested in being a part of it, and I don't want to be forced to resign just because the other player is trying to prep for a Tournament Game when I'm just here to kill time and have FUN.

DETAILS: Just like 2P and 3P have independent player ratings, Speed Dominion IS A DIFFERENT GAME than Classic Dominion.  Players must have separate ratings for Speed vs Classic (identical to the current treatment of 2P vs 3P rankings).

Those who don't want to play Speed... just don't enable it, and stick to Classic mode.  On a weekend when I have no schedule and no other tasks going on in my life, I'll enable Classic mode.  100% individual player choice.

Make it a paid feature so that  one of the players must be Silver or Gold in order to start a Speed Game (just like the current logic for expansion decks).


If I see this feature, I'll get out my credit card!

Or just reduce the 4 minute timeout.

No, there is no such general way. In some countries, including Germany, some (all?) boxes come with codes that can be redeemed on dominion.games for getting 1 year of 1 expansion. I guess that is what those people did.

No doubt what I encountered.

I was thinking about your comment on adding levels.  Is there an abstract or 'elevator pitch' on what is being contemplated?  Or a discussion thread?

I'm a Gold subscriber since the beginning (just for reference).

The question is do you dislike many of the Gold level cards (those in the Gold sub but not the Silver sub), or "just a few"? Possession is widely recognized as a very strange card and many players have banned it from their games (you can be 5 cards + 3 landscape cards, and also dislike (50% lower probability than normal cards) the same amount).

It's true that the newer expansions all introduce new mechanics and getting them "all at once" with the Gold sub instead with 1 per year with a new expansion is a daunting task. The plan to have more levels than base only, Silver, Gold has been worked on, but it's unclear when it will be implemented.  :-[

You've expressed my concerns very well.  Is there a way to add one expansion at a time to my arsenal?  I have encountered people in play that have done just that, somehow.

I quite enjoy playing at silver level on the ladder.

I wouldn't mind more of a challenge, but when I encounter gold level expansions in play, I don't really enjoy those cards at all.  Too much weirdness.  Like the Possession card, for example. 

I wouldn't mind hearing from players that have played at silver level, and then moved to gold.  Mixed, negative or positive feedback.  If everyone is positive, I'll make the leap in spite of my misgivings.

When you go to the "Matching" tab (the one you land on automatically after login), on the right side you have a pane named "Friends". Everyone you have declared your friend (when it is a one-side relationship, this is often called "following" that player) and is logged in will be listed there, with their status (logged in, at a table, playing).

When they are on a table, you can join them there via a button. This is the way most people set up their games when they want to play with someone they know: One makes a table, the other joins it. That's also the way most people watch high profile games (from the Dominion League or other tournaments). You declare a good or interesting player as your friend (it doesn't have to be reciprocated), then join their table and watch the game(s) they play.

Thanks, I will give that a whirl.

Over time I've added a number of friends from those I have played against.

But so what?  This isn't Facebook.  What am I missing?  There must be something to this feature that I'm not getting.

It's often fun to play best 2 of 3, although if you don't ask for a rematch quickly, the opponent is gone before you can ask.

How about adding a button after you've played a game where you would select 'rematch' or 'best 2 of 3'?

There are different ways this could be implemented, but I believe it's best to make the evaluation after you've already played one game.

A slick way to program this would be for the button to normally say 'Request rematch' but if you'd already split 2 games evenly, the label changes to 'Best 2 of 3?'

I bet someone could program this in a couple of hours.  Easy-peasy and would add a fun dimension.

I'm sure it's been observed that this is too long, but here are a couple of things to consider.

I believe an opponent disconnect or pauses to end a game roughly 1 in 10 times.
Long disconnects invariably only occur when a player is in a losing position, thus my feeling is that they're not involuntary.
On rare occasion I have disconnected by accident.  It does not take 4 minutes to get back in the saddle.

2 minutes is still a very long time.  Also, why not post a warning message to a player at 90 seconds, if not disconnected, then a forced resignation at 2 minutes.
I could easily live with those conditions myself, and I'll bet 99% of players would say that they could also.
How about a poll?

Hi,

Can you remove the auto play option from walled villages that are princed?
I just lost my princed village, because I had no other cards to play that turn, and forgot I had autoplay on.
So in those cases, I would just still ask the player whether they want to top deck, even if they have auto play ;)

Cheers,
Lotoreo

I was burned on this today.  I never use autoplay, and I lost two princed walled villages.  It doesn't return them to the deck either.
I've found Prince to be very unreliable - i.e. duration cards also.

I'd like to be able to choose to play matchmaking games without expansions, or select which expansions I'd like included, as a subscribed/paying member.

As far as I can tell, there's no way to change this option when I have a subscription, and matchmaking games are no longer fun when they're full of completely random cards - they often drag on for far longer than they should due to no card synergy and can be incredibly random/more luck-driven than skill-driven, etc. This is okay when I'm playing unranked games with friends, but when I'm playing ranked with strangers it doesn't give me what I want from the game, and I don't believe this kind of kingdom accurately reflects skill.

As a result of this experience, I have gone from playing every day before I bought a subscription, to having barely played at all in the weeks since I paid for a subscription. I regret this purchase deeply and would not have made it (at least on my main account) if it had been anywhere obvious that I would no longer be able to opt out of expansions for matchmaking.

If I understand your concern correctly, it's similar to the frustration I had when I purchased a subscription.  The solution was to match "unrated" which does limit the cards to the expansions and individual cards with which you are "familiar".  In addition, the algorithm will add unfamiliar cards based on an "option" screen setting, i.e. 0, 1, 2 or more unfamiliar cards. So that has kept me playing to this point.

I'd like to be able to play on the ladder though, at a level other than all expansions.  I understand the objection to allowing the use of 'familiar' cards on the ladder.  That is, you'd be able to tune your deck to a few familiar, synergistic cards in order to generate more wins. 

There are any number of ways to overcome this possibility.  The easiest would be to have a 'use familiar' option for rated games, but require a minimum number of familiar cards, perhaps 100 or even 150 cards. You would be matched only with players who also specified this setting and the card selection would occur on the same basis as an unrated game.  I don't see how that wouldn't work, but perhaps I'm missing something.

I did not have a chance to play the suggested matching method until tonight, but I can confirm that it works quite well.  Thank you for the suggestion.
(And why not have an intermediate level that presets those options and provides a ladder?  No need to answer, I just thought I would throw that out there.  You would need a minimum number of familiar cards to prevent a biased supply card draw, of course.)

Thanks for the suggestions!

It's indeed been said a few times that the step up from "base only" to "Silver" and from there to "Gold" is too big.

The table system is to unwieldy if you want to play with strangers, I agree.

Well, Ingix, I do appreciate the affirmation and also the further suggestion.  I am sure that if this is a perceived problem, then you'll figure out a solution along the way.  There is more than one way to skin a cat.  And I think the Dominion people would make a ton of money by improving the novice experience in whatever way you come up with.

I'll be trying the suggestion soon, but if you see this before I do, does the matching process yield the intersection of the two players' familiar cards, or a union of them.  Or is the net effect to create an intersection for (N-o) cards, where N is the number of card types in the supply, and o is the minimum of the two players unfamiliar card settings, and then add in unfamiliar cards for the rest?

If the question is not clear, I'll play with it and see.

Today I'll be playing with some real players known to me, and in that respect the game excels.