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First Tilt - Virtual Playtesting Techniques
Jul 31 2012 05:00 AM |
doulos2k
in Game of Thrones
Small Council First Tilt doulos2k
With the awesome deckbuilder here on CardGameDB, you can have a ball building deck after deck after deck, but until you actually put that deck to the test, you really can't know how well it will perform. Granted, the more experienced you are in the game, the better chance you'll have at crafting a competitive deck, but even experienced players test their decks in real-world play. It's the only way you can know what it will do. You need to playtest that deck!Clu's most recent The Things I Do For Win hit on some great tips to ensure you're getting the most out of playtesting in general. So, make sure you give that a good read as I won't really rehash his tips here. As he points out. the most common method of playtesting is within your own meta. Most metas have a game at least once a week or every other week, so you should definitely take your deck ideas to those games and give them a whirl.
But, maybe you have a small meta or your meta just doesn't meet often enough or play long enough to get a really good feel for how your deck performs. What options do you have? Clu already mentioned OCTGN in his article. That platform provides you an opportunity to expose your deck to a large variety of players. The only downside to OCTGN is that you need to be running a Windows OS and you need to download software to make it work. For some of you, this may not be possible or simply too burdensome (or, you may be running on a Mac). Are there any options for you there?
TradeCardsOnline.com
Some of you may have been to or heard of TradeCardsOnline.com as a place where you can trade cards, but did you know that they have a game play area for AGoT? They do - and it actually works quite well. It's a web-based interface, so there's no software to install and it can be played in any modern browser (I have not tested this in a mobile browser, but my assumption is that it would be a bit klunky as it isn't designed for that).
It's a smaller group of players (for now), but if you build a deck using their deck builder (which doesn't have the built-in search features this one has, so it can be a bit harder to use if you're used to the one here), you can play that deck against any other AGoT player who has an account. In fact, there are a number of public decks (over 80 public ones as of this writing) that you can just pick up and play without building your own to get a feel for the interface. It uses a chat-based interface that works pretty well, so you don't even have to use Skype if you choose not to (although there's nothing preventing you from doing that either).
To be honest, what I tend to do is use the Deckbuilder here because of the integrated search functions and then go on over there and enter it after I've finalized it. While that's certainly more work, here on CardGameDB.com the advanced search options available can be a great help when you're trying to figure out what you need to fill out your deck. The one at TCOL is nice (includes the card images as well), but it is easiest to use when you already know exactly which cards you want to add. TCOL does offer search options, but they simply aren't as robust as what's provided here at CardGameDB.
Because the number of people who play there is smaller, there isn't always someone in the "room" - but you and a friend can build and play a deck pretty easily. There are a few people on the TeamCovenant site that play, so if you have an account there, you can always post and ask to schedule a game with someone. Most days, you can find someone who wants to play. I'd love TCOL to add a "schedule" feature that let others know when you were available to play and then they can somehow notify you when they're available so you can both sign on and start a match.
While this may not be as convenient as OCTGN (where there are usually players available), it is another option for those who either can't or won't go the OCTGN route.
Another incredibly cool feature worth mentioning is the ability to play back a previous game. You can see both hands on the playback and it can be very educational to play back your own game to look for errors in judgment and it can be a great learning tool to watch other games. I highly recommend it if you haven't tried it out. I've had too much fun being a fly on the wall post-game to see what my opponent was doing and how he was playing (especially if he stomped me) so I could get a better idea of how to play my own deck (or if my deck just didn't have responses to what he could do with his hand). The exceptionally great thing is that the playback is not real-time, so a game that took over an hour only takes about a 1/4 of the time to watch it played out. You can pause at any point to read what they're saying or mouse over the cards to see the zoomed in version to get a better idea of what's happening. I do wish they had a rewind feature at times, but it's still an awesome tool to have in your playtesting toolbox.
Now, they do offer something called a "premium" membership there which gives you the options to lock a deck while trying it out and you also get a better guarantee that a "room" will be available when you want to play. It's inexpensive to get a membership and it's easy to renew without hassle (I've also never gotten spammed from them - so it's a safe site).
Solitaire Testing Methods
The Draw Test
This test is usually something I'll do early on when trying to figure out my gold curve. While you can use utilities and pure numbers analysis to get a decent picture of your setups - nothing actually beats shuffling and drawing to see what you're likely to encounter real-world. So, I'd read about this somewhere and I've adapted it to my use.
Randomize your deck prior to shuffling. Pure statistics and ruffle-shuffle purists may call me on this, and maybe it's a superstition since I don't have the actual numbers to back it up, but my experience has shown me that simply shuffling your deck (even 7 times) without doing a physical randomization makes for a bad draw. What I do is separate my cards into ten piles in a semi-random order. Then, I shuffle my deck and repeat the process. What this does is ensures that whatever cards I had placed together after my last game are now more than likely not side by side anymore.
I then draw my first 7 cards. Then, if I like that draw, I keep that hand. If I don't, I'll Mulligan just as if I was playing a game for real. I'll drop my setup hand and draw back up. After looking at my cards, I'll try and decide on first plot. I'll then draw two and Marshal my cards based upon the gold count. Then I try and look at the board to see what challenge I would lose based upon what I'm weakest in on my side of the board and then treat that challenge as a loss. What does my board position look like now compared to what's in my hand? Can I marshal more characters next round effectively knowing my plot choices?
I'll repeat this whole process a few times to get an idea of how my deck plays in the opening hand. If I can't ever pull anything decent - I'll take a look at my curve and character base again to see if I've made some bad assumptions. But, this quick test has helped me to winnow down some bad choices.
The Solitaire Play Test
Warning - this is for the extreme AGoT fanatics (like me) who just can't get enough of playing and you just have to see how your deck might perform. This method is always going to be biased and skewed, so you can't rely on it, but I have found it to be a solid indicator of any fatal flaws in my strategy. If you do this and get addicted to it, you may find yourself up late at night with two decks gold and power cackling wildly as you pretend to be two players at once. It can be a pitiful sight and may prompt talk of intervention. There. I warned you.
Basically, what you do is play two decks against each other for a full game (or as far as you need to do determine definitively which would win). Crazy, right? Not really. If you have a new deck that you hope performs well, pick another matchup (assuming you can build multiple decks) and try to play the two against each other. Techniques I've used to help me to try and give it a good test:
- Give preference to the old deck (not the one you just built) and assume it's being piloted by the better player who has an easier time reading your board and making appropriate plot/card decisions based upon what is visible (and normative for your deck type)
- Try your hardest to consider what you would do as if you really have no idea what's in the other person's hand (even though you do).
- DO rewind situations to see if a different play would have been a better play (this can be a huge learning experience for you) with regards to marshal or challenge order
Nothing every replaces actual play against real players, but some solitaire choices can give you a little more insight into deck performance prior to bringing it into field against another player. But real people will always surprise you, so recognize that playing solo will not prepare you fully for a true matchup.
In the future, I hope that we'll see other virtual options come online that are accessible to a large number of players with easy entry. I know there are some folks trying to utilize Google+ and their Hangout features - so more options may be available soon and you can be sure they'll be covered here once any of us think they're robust enough to support solid play.
What about you? Any other play test options I've missed? Sound off in the comments!
26 Comments
doulos2k
Aug 02 2012 07:51 PM