CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

joshwithguitar

Member

Registered: 2015-01-07

Posts: 128

Re: Out-there idea for a "better" game

One thing I've noticed with the experimental game is that it is a lot more open to chance - there isn't a lot of difference between 1st round picks and if one of you is betting the ante on the first pick then the other really should be joining.

This is quite different to both vanilla CM and poker in which you have a decent idea of your chances from the very start - the difference between a 36 to start or 1 to start in vanilla is quite large. So you have more of an opportunity to pick your fights and play conservatively. Conservative play is also rewarded in poker. Conservative play against a non-conservative opponent in Exp Mode will not work out so well though.

..

Member

Registered: 2014-11-21

Posts: 259

Re: Out-there idea for a "better" game

Well I wouldn't be so quick to give up on a suited game mode before tweaking, players gaining more experience, and seeing what effect having the score graph has. Either way, rapid iteration.

In this game (regular CM and the suited version), there is simply too much information about what your opponent might have, especially after pick 3.  The following happens reasonably often:

--You KNOW you've won, and your opponent KNOWS you've won too.

Sure, but that adds an extra tactical consideration: try not to get into that situation after the reveal, and if you've got great numbers ideally you wouldn't give the opponent horrible numbers either, or they'll just fold.

What you seem to be saving is that CM has too much of a good thing, as you don't need to play a lot of rounds hoping to get that position of holding a sure winner and getting to squeeze your opponent. You make your own luck, and plenty of it, rather than facing the bad odds of multi-way poker. But also there's nothing that can happen that's remarkable. Sure you can get a perfect score, but it doesn't matter what the score is just as long as it's the best possible on the board.

Here's another idea: randomly generated magic squares with interesting properties, like that 1-2-3-34-35-36 example I showed. When generating those I noticed the other numbers also formed unusual patterns. There could be whole classes of 6x6 magic squares with special properties that affect game strategy which are never seen when generating without special constraints.

IIRC you added the reveal step to CM after some early testing. So removing it would get closer to the poker experience? Do you think an alt mode with it taken out again would be a worthwhile experiment? I doubt it would be a better game, but is relevant for this debate.

Would it be possible to separate Elo calculations by game type? Seems to be messing with the Elo leaderboard right now.

Last edited by .. (2015-05-20 10:06:52)

Cobblestone

Member

Registered: 2015-01-28

Posts: 212

Re: Out-there idea for a "better" game

I just played a single hand of the experimental mode.

I knew from the description of it that I just wasn't too interested in it, but I figured I'd give it a shot. Unfortunately, I really don't care for it. I'm having trouble "seeing" the shapes... like I literally got a bit of a headache trying to make sense of the board. It's a touch overwhelming and confusing. It seems to be lacking the elegant simplicity and strategy of vanilla CM. CM has a very "easy to learn, difficult to master" quality to it. This new mode just seems more like poker, which I know is what you were going for, but I just really don't care for poker.

I should say that I'm not writing this to be discouraging. If this is a mode people enjoy, then it should absolutely be explored and developed further. I may try it again in the future, but I don't feel as strongly about it as I do the regular game.

Ultimately I stand by your original vision. Vanilla CM is wonderful. It's a fantastic game. Strategy, simplicity, theme, community, everything. I think it already is the "better" game and doesn't need to be fixed. I love this community too. I actually really like the underground feel of the whole thing but I understand there's concern about the game's lifespan. I think this is the kind of game that requires some patience while is spreads. I have so many people I've talked to about it that are interested, but just need a bit of a push to try it out. The launch contest may have seemed like the push they needed, but I actually had some of them say the idea of being a beginner during a contest was intimidating.

I've mentioned before that I'm going to start livestreaming and planning parties around the game. Hopefully this will help, because I want this game to succeed.

jasonrohrer

Administrator

Registered: 2014-11-20

Posts: 802

Re: Out-there idea for a "better" game

Yeah, after testing this suited version a bunch, I don't think it adds much beyond novelty.  It didn't really add any kind of missing drama.  The same play pattern of knowing what your opponent's possibilities are is there.  In standard, you block them from getting high numbers on later turns based on the number you think they got on earlier turns.  In suited, you block them from getting matching suits and values in later turns based on the likely suits and values they got in earlier turns.  Yeah, you don't need the score graph as much, because our brains are good at pattern matching, but so what?  The score graph was a really cool part of CM.  I've never met anyone who didn't say, "Whoa, cool!" when they learned about how the score graph worked.

There are bigger problems with CM (2-player only, parity problem, etc.) that this new mode does not solve at all.

So, in the end, I'm going back to the idea that "truly novel" games are really important to me as a designer.  CM is brand new in every conceivable way, and that's a really important point.  It may not appeal to this or that audience because of that, but so be it.  I've always stuck by the idea that a really amazing design that never takes off in a big way is much better than a less interesting, pandering design that becomes a hit.

Poker may be a better game than this, but that doesn't mean that this game should change to be more like Poker.

Also, after 20 hours of Poker in Vegas.... it was one of the most amazing gaming experiences of my life.  I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to play one of the most amazing games ever invented....

Dan_Dan84

Member

Registered: 2015-02-14

Posts: 106

Re: Out-there idea for a "better" game

Also, after 20 hours of Poker in Vegas.... it was one of the most amazing gaming experiences of my life.  I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to play one of the most amazing games ever invented....

Wow, great! Any stories from the trenches? Being dealt AA twice in a row? Winning against someone trying to bluff you out with nothing? One of your opponents going on tilt and basically handing you all of their chips?

The other day I was telling an American I met out here about CM, and as these things go, we got to talking about online poker. He told me about a friend of his who did quite well: he made $1000 online! So, this friend decided to try his luck in Vegas. He sat down at a $5000 table... and lost his entire buy-in on the first hand.

I hope you did better.

jasonrohrer

Administrator

Registered: 2014-11-20

Posts: 802

Re: Out-there idea for a "better" game

Well, after 20+ hours of live poker, with a max of $600 on the line (the buy-in was $300, and I had to re-buy one time), I walked away with $617.

Day 1 I walked away short ($517 after the two buy-ins).

Day 2, I played much better.  I sat down with $300 and walked away with $400.

My bank roll for the trip was $2000.

Your friend's story is accurate.  Even with expert level play, you should not play with your whole bankroll.  For example, if you hold AA, you need to get half the table to fold pre-flop before you have a >50% chance of winning the hand (thus, "slow playing" the AA preflop is a bad move).  At that point, math says you should get as much of your money in the pot as you can (getting another player, or more than one, all-in is the best you can do).  Still, even though long-run math is on your side here, you will lose 43% of the time.  Thus, you need a long-run bankroll to back you up.  That's where the 5% max rule comes from.  If you sit down with the whole thing, you are much more likely to go broke.

Note that even if you get everyone but one person to fold when you hold AA, you will still lose 14% of the time.

This is interesting to play with:

http://www.pokernews.com/poker-tools/po … ulator.htm

Note that vs. AA, KK is just as bad as 22.

Best story:

Day 2, I sit down at a table full of strangers.  My max buy-in is $300.  I get dealt my first hand, and it's KK.  I raise, one guy re-raises, everyone else folds, I re-raise back, he goes all-in with a $600 stack.  I call him for $300.  (He probably just thought I was trying to establish an aggressive image on my first hand, or that I was a fool... who knows.)

Flop comes 6QK.  "Sorry man!" and I show my kings.  The look on his face as he pushes me a stack of $300 and I instantly double-up to become the big stack at the table.

I never saw his cards, so I don't know what he had.  But he said something like, "I wouldn't have gone all-in if you had a larger stack."  Which means he didn't have AA, and we know he didn't have KK.  What did he have?  AK?  QQ maybe?  Or maybe something even worse.

My mistake was that I didn't get him to show first.  I think because he went all-in first and I called him, he was the one who had to show first, but it may vary by card room.  I missed a chance to learn something about that player.

http://poker.stackexchange.com/question … ards-first

..

Member

Registered: 2014-11-21

Posts: 259

Re: Out-there idea for a "better" game

Haha, great story.

I'm surprised to hear that a single $300 buyin can last you for 10 hours of playing despite being no-limit. In terms of average rate of profit or loss it sounds like it's not that different from playing dozens CM games for $15 each for 10 hours straight, despite having vastly more at stake. Interesting contrast.

I wonder to what degree interest in online poker would decrease if there wasn't anywhere to play it live (ie, as practice for the live game).

Last edited by .. (2015-05-26 13:58:49)

jasonrohrer

Administrator

Registered: 2014-11-20

Posts: 802

Re: Out-there idea for a "better" game

Actually, I wonder if the opposite isn't true.  It seems like the interest in live poker is partly fueled by the lack of opportunity (in the US) to play online.

Yes, it was exciting and interesting to interact with all of these characters in person, but it is very slow in terms of gameplay (fold fold fold fold), and would become quite a grind over time.

Online, you can play 4 (or more) tables at a time.  You're still fold-fold-fold-fold at every table, but there's some playable hand 4x as frequently, and if you play with the same skill, you make 4x the money per hour.

The internet kids had their livelihoods devastated when Black Friday happened and they had to revert to going into poker rooms and playing one table at a time.