[Feedback] Oozeball Balance Changes

Okay, discount as many as you'd like, I've entered three Oozeball leagues and even in the most recent one I still timed out twice. And I always look at fixed deck leagues' card lists before I enter them.

A game timer has a particular function. It is to ensure that the game moves at a reasonable pace for the average player and to prevent the occasional abuse of stalling. It is essential for these functions. It should not however be a regular determining factor for the win or loss of a game. Lets leave my experience aside as you tend to want to discount it and I am only one guy. You also represent only one player, so we'll say your and my play cancel out. However, just looking at your experience as you describe it:

This indicates that the time allowed is not appropriate for the average player. If you're playing repeated games and the vast majority of your opponents are struggling with time (or from my experience most of my opponents are within a minute of me time-wise and I struggle with timing out which means they're close too) then the timer fails at its function. It is by your own account not ensuring a reasonable pace for the average player. Instead it is requiring an overly fast pace that even allows people to use win-by-opponent-timeout as a strategy. That is a clear indicator that the timer is not an appropriate length for its function and should be extended unless it's supposed to be a "feature" of this particular league.

 

I played 4 matches at the 10 minute timer and 3 of them ended at the timeout. Of those 3, one was a timeout in my favor, 2 gave me a loss. 10 minutes seemed clearly too short (given that there was also a timeout in my favor)

I've played 7 matches at the 15 minute timer and 1 of them ended in timeout(in another one my opponent almost ran out of time). I had 2 points but my opponent was able to keep his slime figures on the goal long enough that I ran out of time trying to figure out how to get him off. He wasn't trying to score with his ooze - he couldn't afford the risk that I'd get 1 more VP - but he had a time advantage. Most of them have at least one person go over the 10 minute mark.

So for games that weren't trying to stall - 15 minutes seemed adequate for 6 matches. It was inadequate for the stall match. I wouldn't necessarily mind 20 minute timers - but I mostly only play multiplayer for leagues, and I'd rather have a good game than one ending too early, but I understand why other people are unhappy with longer timers.

So, I'd rather find another way to fix it (lava on the VP, for instance), because maybe 20 minutes would have just been longer stalls. (I still think you'd need 15 minutes)

 

How much time would you suggest? Any more than 20 minutes would make it longer than a normal game and would be unwieldy. I'm not sure even 20 minutes would be enough.

In theory I could see something where each player has 1 minute to make a move, if they don't make a move in that time they automatically pass. But that would require a lot of development time to implement all for a single league game. Not really worth it. I don't think every league is supposed to be for every person... maybe this league just isn't for you?

 

For me personally I think 20 would be sufficient to eliminate timeouts as long as I kept my pace up, which at that point would be on me. (I timed out once in the Geomancer league and learned my lesson never having another timeout - even before they reduced the victory points, so I can play faster than my natural pace, it just seems with Ooze I can't consistently make it in 15 minutes even at speed.)

A nice idea though I agree probably not worth it. Funny thing... if this happened I would actually suggest a minute is too long, I think 30 seconds is more than sufficient to timeout on a single move.

That is entirely possible, and a legitimate argument. One that I've offered to any number of others responding to specific leagues. It's actually why I never planned on bringing up the point, but once the conversation was started I found myself throwing in my two cents (or maybe a whole dollar at this point!).

 

I'd say 20 min would be better than 15 min for Oozeball. I'm often able to time out my opponents when they aren't being careful with the time (if I'm not able to score enough instead) and I constantly have to rush my play.

The appeal of leagues like Oozeball, Graveyard Gambol or Geomancerery is in trying to out-think and outplay your opponent, like in chess or other strategic positioning games. This requires more time than some other leagues and the time running out for so many players diminishes the pleasure to be had from the format. If you're very rushed all the time, it's very hard to enjoy or adequately perform the required mental gymnastics unless you specifically train for it and I'd imagine few care enough to do that.

Unless Oozeball is designed to be an advanced league for fast thinkers only (which should be announced if so), I'd recommend lengthening the timer again.

Probably feedback from even more players would be required to get a better picture. How about it, everybody who hasn't expressed an opinion on the timer already? Do you find 15 min enjoyable or would you prefer 20 min?

Come to think of it, Blue Manchu can see from the logs what fraction of games end with a timeout so can gauge the adjustment need also from that.

 

I think it is designed for fast thinkers. On the test realm it was 4 VP required and 10 minutes... just imagine if that went live!

Jon has data on how many people time out and stuff, I'm sure he would change it if it was overly problematic like he did with Geomancer.

I'd probably like to see it stay at 15 minutes and have only 2 points. Maybe reduce it to 10 minutes with 2 points.

The only problem I have with the game is the ability to go on the VP spot with your slime figures to stall the game by forcing the enemy to play push cards to get you off. Seems a bit silly to me. But the "fix" is hard to do without a lot of work outside of tagging figures to score for the enemy.

 

But that is also a important part of the game. If your enemy scored points with a lot more time used up than yourself, he had more time to think about his moves.
Now he got less points to score but you can defend your time advantage. If the winner would be the one with the most points scored at the end it would be the same result, just the person with the lead would stall.
And the person who stalls might just wait for some better cards while he defends and if he does that while also playing fast, all power to him.

People like to complain but all in all, it is a very fair game because the cards in the decks are quite equal. Just compare it to Graveyard Gambol where you can almost win a game with one good draw.

 

That's not what I said at all...

A dominant strategy is to rush the VP location with your slime once you're near it with your ooze. Let the enemy waste their attacks to push you off, and then you get your ooze on the VP spot when the enemy has card disadvantage.

That, or just pass over and over to gain time advantage due to the enemy spending a lot time thinking about how to knock you off, while you just stand there and move back when you get knocked off.

 

That is exactly the point of the game.

 

When both players know what they are doing, the game can be very long. I had a couple matches aginst 1650+ players where after 30 minutes score was like 0 star each.

And 2 stars would be too harsh imo. Sometimes you have very bad starting hands while the opponant easily captures the victory square with his slime on turn 1, 3 is the minimum imo.

 

I've only seen someone come back after the enemy scored 2 VP on them like once out of a dozen games.

And yes, games can get very long with very skilled players who know about camping and delaying the middle with their slimes. Kind of annoying, but I enjoy it all save for that. Had a really good game the other day against someone and it was intense.

 

I think it would be much more fun if the starting position was closer to the goal. I've had a few games where I had a poor starting hand make it impossible for me to have a chance to score.

 

Or at least start on the difficult terrain maybe?

I do wish the positions were normalized. Some positions are just far better than others.

 

I had a game end on round 9 or 10 on time. 0 - 0. I ran out of time - my opponent had about 3 minutes left. We didn't even clog the point much - I think I left a guy on it one turn and he left one on it one turn. It's dissatisfying to call something like that a 'loss' since nobody scored. Obviously you can't just give victory to someone who gets the first point then walks away from his computer - but it feels like there has to be some other solution to the timer problem.

I'm not a fan of the "each move has a 30 second timer and then you lose if that expires" mode - because sometimes (especially at the start) I'd like to have time to think. But what if "each move has 30 seconds and then it's an automatic pass - 1 minute if it's the discard phase"? If you're taking longer(and I'm often someone who takes longer) then it forces a move, but doesn't force an end. Presumably you can get your ooze onto the center space and then pass it out.

(Edit: For end of round you'd have to do something other than pass since there are discard choices to make - auto-discard movement card and oldest cards?)

If someone is abusing the timer, then we can report them - but that was not a very satisfying game experience - and it wasn't my opponent's fault - he played a solid game. And 9 rounds isn't necessarily super slow play from anyone (I wasted too much time thinking about how to get my ooze on the point at the start - but after that we played in similar timeframes)

 

20 Minutes would be best. Timeout happens to often. No matter how fast i try to play.

 

I'm hearing a lot of complaints lately like this:
"So lame... ran out of time on Ooze ball. I was up 2-0 and about to score my 3rd.."
"no I like ooze ball , but frustrating when running a good game and winning with two to zero and lose of timer"

I've lost games due to time when I have had one or two points against 0 as well.

There has to be a way to change the rules so that if you are winning but you run out of time (and you were playing well, not stalling!) that you will still get a win or something.

 

There's no way to create something like that that isn't abusable. If you have a suggestion I'd be interested, but if anyone knew what "not stalling" was defined is they could get a single point and then just do that until time ran out.

I don't think every League is designed for everyone. If you're timing out then maybe it isn't for you? You only need to play faster than your opponent...

 

I like starting a game by greetings the opponant and wishing him a good luck and some fun. That's part of a civilised way of playing a match. I haven't timed out in a while but in Ooozeball I always hesitate to do it.

 

I do that in every game... just do it on the enemy's turn. I've never timed out or come close to timing out and I have like an 80%+ win rate...

 

I clean up pretty well in oozeball myself... but sometimes even I feel bad for my opponent, since they have more points but they're slowly running out of time...