[Suggestion] MP discarding should be simultanious

Taking turns to discard in MP greatly adds to the length of battles. Why not have both teams discard at the same time? When they're both done, the turn progresses. To avoid any unfair advantages, no need to output into the log which cards were discarded until both are finished.

Edit: Apologies for misspelling simultaneous in the thread title. I'd edit it if I could!

 

That's a great idea not only regarding time but regarding tactics as well. If my opponent discards her Parry and her Shrug It Off , I'm not very likely to discard my Anvil Strike anymore.

 

I like the "discarding simultaneously" idea, but I don't agree your discard should be hidden.

Seeing what you opponent is discarding actually adds to the strategic aspect of the game, rather than subtracting from it. Sure, it gives away what you're discarding "right now" but it doesn't say a thing about what are you keeping, or what you are going to draw next turn. You could make for yourself a very rough idea about what your opponent's deck might look like, but what exactly is he going to do next? Nope.

It also allows for a lot of opportunities for mind-games. Yeah, he is discarding a parry right now, but what is he keeping? Is he trying to trick me, and he has one more parry in his hand? Is he preparing an attack with a high-dmg card? Does he have uncovered movement cards?

You're really not giving away much information when the opponent can see what you're discarding. Actually, a smart player will use this fact to his own advantage.

Also, I would like to remind you, you can see what items your cards are coming from whenever a card is played, which goes waaay a longer way to inform your opponent what might be going on in my hand.

You might be tempted into saying "well, you shouldn't be able to know what my equipment is", but I believe that would be wrong too. And that's for a whole lot of similar reasons.

I'll remind you players of chess can see the whole board. They do have complete information about what's going on. Is chess less of a strategic game? Hell no. Is complete-information preventing mind-games from happening in chess? Not in the slightest.

Giving away "some" information is a good thing for a strategy game, as long as both players have equal access to the same information (In fact you should think about how dramatically a CH game is changed as soon as a copy of Elvish Insight is played). Actually, there can't be meaningful strategy unless enough information is given away. How much of that information is "enough information. not too much, not too little" is a very difficult question to answer, and basically a whole branch of game theory is dedicated to studying this single problem alone.

But ultimately, good strategy (and, by extension, good strategy-game players) is not about "being sneaky and not letting my opponent know what I might be up to" (despite a lot of people would think otherwise). Good strategy is about being clever than my opponent, and putting myself in a position that my opponent can't possibly come out on top, even if he reads my strategy.

 

Without wanting to get into a debate on whether or not we want to employ a kind of game-theory optimal strategy for CH, I actually agree with you on most if not all points. I added a disclaimer about the option to hide the log until finished as I predicted (perhaps incorrectly) that there would be a backlash against the idea for that reason and I didn't want it to kill suggestion which would in my opinion be of benefit with viewable discards and also without viewable discards.

 

Yeah. Well, it's not like a "universally optimal solution" exists anyways. Ultimately it's about what the devs want to achieve with their design, so they might as well scrape all which is written in any text book on the matter and just go nuts with alternative approaches etc.

Also, don't feel like I want to start arguments. I like to post ass-long explanations in order to make my points clearer even to those who, comprehensively, might not know much about certain subjects. I'm sorry, it's just who I am, I guess?

But otherwise I'm always moved by the best intentions

 

I totally agree with Bandreus' arguments on this issue, including the support for simultaneous discards. Making discards hidden would detract from the game, in my opinion.

 

If it was simultaneous discards. I would always wait and see what the other person discards first anyway

 

unless discards were not shown until both players discarded

 

I may have poorly worded and my apologies if so, but that's exactly what I meant to argue for in the OP.

 

Although I agree with the strategy of discards, think about what would happen if two players "locked" each other out. What would happen if a player had two missile blocks and two parries, and her opponent has something hidden, an obliterating bludgeon, and an obliterating spark? The players would probably wait. A possible solution is pretty easy, though: activate the timer for the players in MP. Just thought I'd point that out.

Edit: when I say "activate the timer" I mean activate the timer for discard period.

 

There's a potential technical problem with allowing players to discard simultaneously. The problem is that some (future) cards may have discard effects which need to be done in a particular order. Toughened Hide Strips is the only card I know of which has a special discard effect - but it's not hard to imagine new cards being added which may have non-commuting discard effects. For example, if a card dealt 1 point of damage to the character when the card is discarded, then it may matter whether that card is discarded before the enemy's cards or after.

(This is another example of why it might be good to allow a draw. ie. If both teams have a character die from discarding during the simultaneous discard phase, the game could be declared a draw. Other examples of when it might be nice to have a draw include Firestorm killing both teams at once, and stuff like that.)

 

Discard has to be in turns, as karadoc explained. Currently, whoever pass first have to discard first, and then get the play first next round. I'd say its a reasonable disadvantage to give up when you got to go first.

We could allow discard one card at a time, passing by each player until one player no longer need to discard and the other player simply discard the rest. This can add some strategic option if 2 characters are between attack range of each other. Though currently you still have to discard from characters left to right so it doesnt recreate that strategic discard anyway.

 

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but what's stopping the following scenario: At end of turn, both players discard at the same time. As they do this nothing is outputted to the battle log. Once both players have discarded completely, a new turn starts and the discarded cards are outputted to the battle log and the turn is with the first passer. Time is saved, but nothing has actually changed.

 

My understanding is that your suggestion would not interfere with any current mechanics. However, if the suggestion was implemented then it would block a certain type of new card from being allowed into the game: cards with 'non commuting' discard effects. ie. if the order that cards are discarded matters for some game mechanics, then those game mechanics would no longer be allowed.

Toughened Hide Strips is the only card I know of with a discard effect; and that particular effect is one where the order currently doesn't matter. But it's easy to imagine new cards or new effects in the future where the order really does matter. For example, a card which said something like this "when this card is discarded, the closest enemy character also discards their oldest card". Or if there was an attached card that said something like this "when the character would be healed, that character instead takes that amount of psychic damage" (with a card like that, the order of discards would become important for Toughened Hide Strips).

So although your suggestion might make the game a bit faster to play, the cost is that it would eliminate the possibility of some interesting cards in the future. (And it would also have a small effect on tactics in the current game.)

 

I think having the player that passed first discard first is an intended mechanic. It is the price you pay for having the first turn of the next round.

Also, is the time spent waiting for your chance to discard really that significant? You can decide what you want to discard while you're waiting.

 

Perhaps there could be a mechanic to 'mark' cards you intend to discard while you are waiting for the opponent's discard, and then you can toss them with a simple click of a new 'discard marked' button. That's at least speed things up for some situations.

 

Actually, as of right now the person to discard first is NOT whoever passed first and will get priority next round, it is whoever passed first the previous round. I think that taking turns discarding adds a significant strategic element and should stay as is.