Palatinus' OverPower Forum

i'm not seeing how you lose up to 8 cards


one of the problems with dow as written, is that very often you can lose 1 (or more!) characters while discarding the activators

with this method, you could still play activators for defense, discarding 1 from hand.  this keeps a character alive AND gets you out from under dow.  how is it more devastating?  if i get to play an avoid or negate, and it costs me an ally/tactic/AA special, i'm coming out way ahead than if i had those cards in hand and was forced to discard activators

unless i'm seeing this all wrong

If you get hit with DoW and have 4 activators in your hand, with each activator you play, you lose an additional card.  If you make 2 activator defenses with 1 attack between them, you have already blown through 5 of your potential 8 card hand, to my 4 card loss.  You now have 3 cards left in hand to my 4 and have a much higher potential for conceding the battle or losing a character to my extra attacks that you would not be able to defend.  If that 1 attack was also made with an activator, you'd be down 6 cards, and have only 2 remaining in hand to my 4. If you were to give DoW this errated rewrite, it greatly increased venture value.  That's all I was getting at. The player who put down the DoW now has a large to immense hand advantage that battle.

Would you be more willing to sacrifice other cards in hand to play your activators? Probably, but would it be worth potentially losing the game by making them that much more difficult to play?  And what about the chance that you only have a 7 or 5 card hand going into the battle.  1 attack or defense at a 2 card loss could really put you in a much worse way then simply tossing one activator card at DoW. I'm simply saying that if you think it's obnoxious now, it would be more obnoxious forcing a discard to play the outside help.  If you were locked in a similar way with Any Heroes, would it be worth playing 2 cards to void 1 incoming?  Isn't that the logic behind why most people don't use basic universe cards?  The hit to hand advantage is too great.

I'm not saying I'm against errataing DoW, but I don't think adding a discard to used activators is the right way to bring balance to the card.

Quote from: Demacus on April 03, 2012, 01:03:15 PM
If you get hit with DoW and have 4 activators in your hand, with each activator you play, you lose an additional card.  If you make 2 activator defenses with 1 attack between them, you have already blown through 5 of your potential 8 card hand, to my 4 card loss.  You now have 3 cards left in hand to my 4 and have a much higher potential for conceding the battle or losing a character to my extra attacks that you would not be able to defend.  If that 1 attack was also made with an activator, you'd be down 6 cards, and have only 2 remaining in hand to my 4. If you were to give DoW this errated rewrite, it greatly increased venture value.  That's all I was getting at. The player who put down the DoW now has a large to immense hand advantage that battle.

This doesn't make sense to me...

under normal DoW rules, if i'm attacked twice and defend them, with one attack in between, then I've dropped 3 cards, but if I'm still holding 2 useless activators, then I'm still at -5 cards... at best, I'm able to bluff with the 2 remaining activators - but I still know it's a bluff, so i'm just as likely to concede... since venturing happens while I still have my full hand (minus discards & places, of course), then my opponent wouldn't have been able to venture against my potential bluff...

Anyway, in my experience, the card advantage gained of DoW is usually more than 4, because most of the time I have to concede with activators in my hand, along the way. That's the really demoralizing part and that's when I hate it the most (which makes BBH's idea pretty appealing). When I play some one who gets an early DoW in play (say, the first 2 hands), then I rarely get to use more than 2 or 3 battlesite cards. That's pretty severe when I had 12 under there.

Like I said, though, my real problem isn't even the after-effect of DoW. My biggest problem with it is that it's unblockable. All of the "counters" to DoW require offensive turns. There is no other card like that in the game. There is no other mechanic like that in the game. In that regard, it's almost more like an Event, than a Special 

Let me start by explaining why the discard plus activators is worse:

The thing is, if you have activators in your hand now, they are not useless if you use them to attack the DoW, as the card itself states is the case.  If you are conceding with them in your hand, you are simply hurting yourself further by not using them to be rid of the DoW, which is the issue.  With DoW as it stands now, you could be at the same hand advantage as your opponent if you don't think of your activators as dead cards, but use them INSTEAD of attacks and simply play the hand from a more defensive position until you truly have no further options. DoW is truly no worse then getting caught by the "No Any Hero Specials may be played" event, with 2-4 Any Heroes in hand. Yes, DoW will still be there at the end of the battle, but if you play your cards right, it's not as devastating as having cards that you truly CANNOT use.  The idea that padding your battlesite would help take away the strength of DoW by giving you more activators to throw at it and not lose your key tricks is also a good work around.

Now back to what I have liked about this thread:

That being said, I'm with you in your stance that the card is completely undefendable, just simply dealt with after the fact.  I think the best revision of DoW that I've seen on this thread is Breadmaster's original concept of reducing the battlesite's hits to KO by 26 for the remainder of the game.  That is devastating without being the "lock" that DoW currently is.  Where is BBH's idea on DoW? I didn't see him add anything to this thread.

Quote from: Demacus on April 03, 2012, 03:49:20 PM...if you don't think of your activators as dead cards, but use them INSTEAD of attacks...

Maybe the difference in our POV is as simple as this, because I very much think of those activators as dead weight. Card advantage is all about adding up potential venture, or potential KO and having Activators that attack DoW do not help me on either front, so I very much consider them as hollow attacks, dead weight, lost cards, etc.

i'm not seeing it either...both methods require a card to be placed on dow

original: i have no choice. it must be an activator

revision: i get to choose which card goes onto dow, and i get to choose which card i exchange an activator for

how is any card advantage gained or lost?  it just makes working around dow more versatile. 

i get how you think of activators as attacks, but in this case, the cards you discard onto dow are the attacks as well

Ok...  I'm gonna try this one more time.  Please keep in mind that I'm simply trying to make my PoV underdstood. I'm not forcing it on anyone, just trying to be clear.

Original: You have the choice of attacking with 1 card, or playing 1 activator on DoW until 4 have been played.  Net 1 card loss per offensive action. No option to play activators on defense.

Revision: You get to play your activators, but with an additional cost to discard a card from your hand. Net 2 card loss per activator played, with added restriction of not being able to play activators if you don't have an extra card in your hand to discard.

This is where there is a major difference in hand advantage.  Say you drew into a hand and pulled 3 activators, but only had 2 other cards in hand, due to dupes and unuseables.  You are still not getting the full potential of your activators because you can only play 2 before you run out of other cards to discard. With such a hand you essentially have 1 attack and 1 defense, then you are forced to concede/take a beating.  If you really like that rule, feel free to play with it.  All I was saying was that, to me, it seems like that revision made DoW stronger instead of weaker, which is what I gathered this thread was about.

The other thing I find interesting here is that you'd rather throw away 4 cards from your deck for the sake of playing your activators, instead of simply adding in 4-6 junk specials to the battlesite to toss in the case of DoW.  You are always better off using all your cards to their best potential, even if that potential has been halved, then simply throwing cards away for no real benefit.  That to me seems like the easier solution, but everyone has the right to do as they please.

where is the net loss though?

i can see where if you draw more activators than not, you'll be in a bind, but if you draw 3 activators and 2 other cards (assuming 3 discards here?), aren't you in an equally tough spot playing official rules?  essentially you have 2 cards now to fight off 8.

where this revision would shine, is when you draw 3 activators, and an equal number of other cards (say 2 discards).  ideally, you could defend/attack/defend...all with activators.  this causes 3 discards from your hand, but also lets you get 3 cards onto dow.  now your hand is empty, you can concede,  have kept your characters healthy, and almost busted dow. 

playing original rules.  you'd have to defend the first attack with one of your 3 cards from hand.  then you attack dow.  your opponent attacks you, and you defend with another card from hand (assuming you didn't get multiple offensive cards).  now you have 1 card left, and 2 activators.  if you attack dow again, your characters are pretty much wide open to attack. 

so your options are:

-get a second attack on dow, and most likely take damage (god forbid opponent has a tw)
-concede the battle (now you have 1 attack on dow, have done no damage to opponent, and lost venture)

in fact, the more i think this through, the more i'm digging this suggestion

and yes, i would rather throw away 4 from my hand and use activators than fill my site with junk.  junk cards increase duping, decrease your sites effectiveness when dow isn't in play, and give you more useless activators when dow is in play (it's not easy to get out mutiple activators on a turn and keep a team healthy)

Quote from: breadmaster on April 04, 2012, 03:52:29 PM(it's not easy to get out mutiple activators on a turn and keep a team healthy)

THIS ^^

that's the hardest part of dealing with DoW once it lands! That's why I'd be happy with BBH's suggestion that you could play multiple Activators onto DoW in the same action (or even if Activators could be used as follow up attacks, like from a DG or ID).

Anyway, I could deal with it's severity of effect, if only it could be directly defended. For example, if it was made to target the battlesite, like Power Leech targets a character. Then I could use a Negate or Avoid from the BS to defend it.

If you still don't see what I'm getting at, then you don't see what I'm getting at.

Ncann's idea of having DoW target something to be at least AG defendable truly makes the most sense and is the least confusing.

Quote from: Demacus on April 04, 2012, 05:28:13 PM
Ncann's idea of having DoW target something to be at least AG defendable truly makes the most sense and is the least confusing.

a power leech effect

So Breadman and I tested out a couple of games using the proposed adjustment to DoW - the ability to toss multiple activators at once.

In the games where it came up it made a noticeable difference.

One game, Bread threw down two activators one round, and two the next, quickly killing DoW, and it ultimately made the difference for him because he was back up and running really fast, a timely Gods of Stone draw in the next round and it was curtains for me.

In another game, he was able to drop 4 activators at once on DoW. I still took the win, but DoW was essentially reduced to a Power Leech for that round. Still powerful, and game winning, but not frustratingly so.

We'll continue to playtest this idea, but so far I think it holds a lot of promise - both in simplicity of the rule, and the effect of cutting the edge of DoW without diminishing the intent of it.

-BBH

Quote from: BigBadHarve on April 11, 2012, 10:58:20 PM
So Breadman and I tested out a couple of games using the proposed adjustment to DoW - the ability to toss multiple activators at once.

In the games where it came up it made a noticeable difference.

One game, Bread threw down two activators one round, and two the next, quickly killing DoW, and it ultimately made the difference for him because he was back up and running really fast, a timely Gods of Stone draw in the next round and it was curtains for me.

In another game, he was able to drop 4 activators at once on DoW. I still took the win, but DoW was essentially reduced to a Power Leech for that round. Still powerful, and game winning, but not frustratingly so.

We'll continue to playtest this idea, but so far I think it holds a lot of promise - both in simplicity of the rule, and the effect of cutting the edge of DoW without diminishing the intent of it.

-BBH

I'm very happy to hear this. in the future with you and breadmaster, I'll be happy to employ the same adjustment
(btw, sorry i missed your chat. my loss to cody was INTENSE!)

it was hard to guage...the events were crushing those games

i think bbh won 3/4, and iirc, 3 times he ventured 6 cards (and won easily each time)

Quote from: breadmaster on April 12, 2012, 01:02:05 AM
it was hard to guage...the events were crushing those games

i think bbh won 3/4, and iirc, 3 times he ventured 6 cards (and won easily each time)

sure sure. for the purposes of testing, you might try playing without those crippling events...? then again, maybe just using lots and lots of games as sample data is the better way...