CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

Off topic fun fact: according to my FitBit, holding an amulet and playing a $.57 game elevated my heart rate into the "fat burning" zone for an hour and 17 minutes this morning.

That means there's less than 7 people playing (N * 2 + 3) and you haven't gotten matched up with an amulet holder, right?

I thought this was something you were changing? Or did you decide against it?

(Also, ugh why am I stuck at work earning a paycheck like a chump?? There's CM to play!!)

Edit: Just noticed it's in the changelog for v19.

...what happens if you clicked play amulet game while you're no longer holding the amulet? Is there an "amulet has been lost" screen?

I'll +1 the reckless play observation. I've never had so many games end within the first 5 rounds as I did during this contest! All of my games yesterday were like that. I even had a game that ended the first round. Also, I had one match were my opponent all-in'd every single first betting stage. It's annoying as an amulet holder because you just have to sit there and take it over and over until you feel like trying your luck. Then again, I had a few reckless players that would call my ridiculous all-ins when I had the better numbers, so it worked in my favor sometimes.

Granted the opposite was also true. I had some games last longer and be more thoughtful than usual with a lot of back and forth. Me and Economy Maker had an especially epic and grueling showdown were the ante was nearly 30 coins when it ended. So maybe it balances out.

I think you'll be fixing my real major gripe by showing the amulet holder the game stakes.

Anyway, ya! Thanks for the contest!

Congratulations to you too, Josh!

Hey jere, the bot has started @ tweeting me wins from random games today.

Any chance we could get the auto tickdown score displayed on the waiting for opponent screen when queuing up an amulet game? Or a timer of how long we've held it?
I've been setting up a timer and an auto-refresh tab of the leaderboard in my browser while waiting, but I just figured I'd ask.

That's weird, because experience shows otherwise. I won and picked up an amulet at 0. Then won another game, and instead of 200 points, I had 158. This makes sense since I waited about 40 or so minutes to get in to that other game. I'm glad to hear you're giving winners 200 regardless of where they got it from. That should solve the issue, but if you're looking for bugs, then it seems there's one here.

I said this in the other thread, but I'll repeat it here. I agree with the others that say there needs to be a way to drop the amulet without having to join a match.

It's incredibly frustrating to win an amulet and then not have anyone else to play against. Even if I wanted to drop it, I couldn't get in a game to do it. All I could do was sit and watch my points decay. At the end of the night I won two games and ended with 38 points. With this current system, a person who wins one and loses one immediately would have vastly more points.

A small part of me wants to suggest the BWAAAM sound from the trailer, but the rest of me knows that's exactly what not to suggest.

I think setting the stake cap at the value of the winnings while holding the amulet is pretty amazing, actually. It's accessible to low-stakes players and newbies, because they could still win an amulet at low stakes and the risk is only what they've won or less, but it's also good for high-stakes players because amulets could be found and played potentially at high stakes too.

I understand that a fixed stake is a clean solution, tho. If you went with raising stakes, then you'd have to allow people to track what the stake cap is of each amulet, which might be confusing. With a fixed stake cap, I think you really would have to tell the amulet holder what a game's stake is once the match starts to avoid burning new players on the game. I'd also suggest that amulet players leaving the game ~only~ drop the amulet in lieu of the 6 coin penalty. That way they're able to bow out of a super high stakes game, giving up their amulet, but also not be futher penalized by losing $.18 (or add a Drop Amulet button outside of a game for the reasons I mentioned before). Still, it kinda sucks to be like OMG I WON THE AMULET to having to drop it because the stakes are half your bank roll.

A set stakes cap may potentially make playing with the amulet accessible to only those who are bold or have a high bankroll. A new player will be neither. Since this is being run during launch week, I'm thinking getting new players involved is part of the goal.

So I had an idea this morning, but I'm pretty sure you're not going to like it... I'm going to throw it out here anyway.

The conversation here yesterday kinda threw me, and I was trying to figure out in very simple terms what the intentions and goals of the contest are. Here are my assumptions:
1. As a launch contest, you want it to be accessible to new, low-stakes players.
2. It also needs to be interesting for veteran, high-stakes players.
3. As Ano(?) eloquently stated, the game's value of a penny is greatly increased over reality. It represents a real, possibly difficult win.
4. The amulet has a real world value more than pennies, and the contest should place an in-game perceived value on it over pennies as well.
5. People should be able to play as normal until they've (surprise!) won an amulet, this high-value item.
6. The contest is to promote the game and encourage players to play as much as possible, whether they're playing for an amulet or not.

So given all these things, having to be accessible to everyone, not affecting gameplay for non-amulet players, and allowing everyone to play many many games without destroying their bankroll, here's my idea and please hear me out:

Asymmetrical stakes.

What if it worked like Josh's suggestion - an amulet game steals another player from their game, either someone waiting in a created game or joining a game. Since the non-amulet holder is aware of and have selected the stakes they're willing to risk, they'll never know they were in an amulet game because if they lose, they still lose their money normally to the amulet holder. However, if the amulet holder loses, the non-amulet holder wins the amulet instead of money.

I think it's ok to do this because the amulet is supposed to be a high-value, rare item. Doing this would aide in giving it this perceived value in the game. The amulet holder is still going to play the same without money being at stake, because they don't want to lose the amulet. This lets everyone play with the amulet, unlike randomized stakes under a certain cap, where new players would have to drop the amulet or potentially lose over half their bankroll. Getting an amulet requires ~SKILL~ instead of just joining a game and hoping the amulet holder can't afford it.

So non-amulet holders play normally, and amulet holders, regardless if they're high-rolling veterans or low-stakes new players, can participate.
I think this checks off all of the items I listed above.

(Sorry I wrote a lot...)

I think at this point the contest is very geared toward high rollers, like Josh and jere mentioned. However, if you want to keep the stakes that high, then I'd like to suggest adding a Drop Amulet button to the interface. This way the little guys (myself included) and newbies can still participate, but with the strategy of winning and dropping amulets as often and quickly as possible to get points. Currently holding an amulet bleeds your points, which makes dropping it that way as pointless as having not even won it in the first place, and dropping it immediately requires leaving with a 6 coin ($.15 @ $2.50 stakes) penalty, which is also unattractive to new players who are trilled to win a penny.

Unless this contest is meant strictly for veterans and high rollers, then we don't have to be considerate of new players.