We have been tinkering with the autodraw a bit in the Borderlands beta. We are thinking of making it work in the following way:
You always have an option to play any of the default base buildings. You can no longer add these to your decks. There would no longer be autodraw for any of the rest of the cards.

This would mean that things like alabaster pantheon and throne would have to be drawn naturally. This system would slow down domain acceleration and reduce the effectiveness of domain denial. It also seems simpler and easier for new players to understand.

What do you think?

This would be a huge change. It has many good things about it, but some potential problems come to mind:

How would Vapor Mahal behave for example?

Doesn't placing sites become pretty much the only way to capture wells, if Great Oaks and Mahals can't be relied on to autodraw?

What about Pantheons? Currently it's possible to make a fairly good deck that plays e.g. both Pine Ents and Flame Ents without going to 3rd domain, thanks to pantheons. This would become a bad strategy, because pantheons can't be relied on to draw.

Could the non basic domain cards at least get their cap raised from 3 to 5 if this happens? And mahal would need to be shuffled to deck instead of going to bottom. Even so, I'm not sure if there would any longer be much point in using any non basic domain cards, which IMHO would be sad.

You already know my suggestion in this thread.

will we still autodraw other domain cards?

I definitely am against this ..

Just imagine 2 decks - both have Throne in deck, somewhere. Then the whole game will pretty much be just about who draws it first wins - good bye tactic, welcome pure luck

This system is special TFW, I don't think we should give it up..

I think autodraw is a fun and novel feature. I would prefer to just have the rule that:

"Free basic buildings only autodraw if there is no other legal autodraw target in the deck or in your hand"

This prevents the problems people have had where:

1) They are getting drawn over Pantheons

and

2) They will autodraw into your starting hand if you were planning on using diplomats later

Note that the meaning of a legal target if your deck vs hand differs slightly (as they do now). A target is legal in the deck only if it can be cast while it is legal in your hand even if it can't (for example a diplomat).


Two other autodraw related things:

1) It might make sense to be able to turn autodraw off. This prevents certain kinds of locks that can be established.

2) The autodraw seems to be at a weird point in the turn (before domain cleanup I think is the problem). This is most notable with Mahals, where you will autodraw as if you still have the domain from the mahal on the turn it kills itself, but it also can happen any time a domain source dies of damage.

I'm still trying to figure out what I think about this proposal. On the one hand, it does solve a lot of the issues coming up - domain acceleration being a key one (one of the problems with the previous approach is it lets you plan out your domain entirely, eg: hall, throne, diplo -> turn 3, 3 domain 100% of the time if you only pack one throne). On the other hand, it completely changes how the game is played on a strategic level - the ramifications of which might take a while to sort out.

Overall, I think this proposal's probably going to end up being the most robust/easiest solution. I do think the autodraw system was novel and interesting, but I also thought it was a large drawback too - especially once you get into multidomain decks and your hand is clogged with cards.

If this goes through, I think putting the pantheon as one of the default buildings might be a good idea.

As for Zurken's concern about this making the game into a 'whoever draws the throne first wins': the other domain cards would simply become minor bonuses and wouldn't be game-deciders. If you draw a throne, that's only 3 flux less than a default building, something that say an ord stone/gathered spirits/etc could easily provide as well.

Personally, my main concern is that alternative domain buildings become much less valuable given this change. One solution to that may be to make it so that you can buy copies of any default building for 1 flux at any time. But I think the necessity/utility of that would be borne out with a bit of playtesting.

I almost like this change. However, this change impacts the way that domain providing cards are priced, and this needs to be taken care of.

Basic buildings will become more useful, and therefore more valuable. The availability of them in-game will infinitely increase, and they will also provide their controller with a pseudo-card advantage.

In contrast, other domain providing cards will become less useful and less valuable. Their availability in-game will greatly decrease, while the opportunity cost of playing these cards versus basic buildings will increase.

Changes would be needed.

Now, I'm not against changing every domain providing card, but the changes would have to be pretty drastic in order to be effective. As doiron pointed out, Hardarck's Throne becomes nothing more than a less versatile Gathered Spirits.

My suggested tweaks:

Have the basic buildings always available, but as an additional cost to play one, have the player discard a card. Playing a building needs to cost the player a card. I think this is what would cause the biggest problems with the proposed change, as flux acceleration would be much better than cheap domain buildings, and the drawback of Sinkhole would be minimized. However, I can see new players not liking this, as discarding isn't very fun. Maybe choose a card to be shuffled into your deck or put on top of your deck instead.

Change the nonbasic domain cards. Losing Autodraw makes these cards worse, sometimes significantly so. Some changes would be needed.
- I think that Great Oak, Bone Fortress, and Alabaster Pantheon could all easily go from 7 flux to 6 flux, as losing Autodraw hurts these cards pretty badly.
- Vapor Mahal would be the card hurt the worst. I think that headshot's suggestion of being shuffled into the deck is a good one. In addition to that, Vapor Mahal could probably be reduced to 4 flux. This is a big change, but without it's ability to reliably recur, Vapor Mahal is seriously hampered.
- Altar of Ix shouldn't be reduced a flux. However, it still becomes weaker with the change, and some compensation is needed. I think a simple +1 Health would be appropriate. This would value it's ability approximately equivalent to Great Oak's Vision of 2. I think that's fair.
- Weather Vane also shouldn't be reduced a flux. However, it would need a slight boost of some kind. Maybe the enchanted building could have +2 Health? I dunno...
- I think Hadarck's Throne should stay as it is, as it would still be pretty strong. I think the same is true with Astridian Diplomat. I also think that Heart of the Mountain could remain unchanged, as Autodraw was often a drawback for it, clogging up the player's hand when there are no mountains in sight.
- While it doesn't have Autodraw, I just thought of something cool for Treetop Dominion: "Provides S domain. At the end of the round sacrifice Treetop Dominion if you don't control more than 5 forests." This way you can accelerate into a Naturescaping or Silviculture while at 1 domain level, giving Sylvan a cheaper domain provider. Sorry for getting sidetracked, but I just thought of it and I thought it was neat.

Overall, I think that you are headed in the right direction with the changes to Autodraw, but you're not quite there.

The main - if not only - function of domain cards is to provide domain (duh). There usually isn't much sense in casting a domain card if you don't need more of that domain. Thus the domain cards would just clogg your hand most of the time, since you would often be forced to get your domains from basic buildings, if this new system was implemented. On the other hand, a powerful domain card drawn luckily at the right moment (for example throne or Ix) would give a huge advantage. Making the non-basic domain cards cheaper or better would make them worthwile to have in deck, but it would do nothing for the clogging and it would only make the advantage from drawing them at the right moment even bigger.

The currently betatested autodraw from outside of deck is just fine I think, if it's made to work with diplomat and pantheon. But if it's adapted, fissure doesn't probably need nerfing, because it's only "overpowered" when used on domain cards. Wasn't fissure a large part of the reason why a new system was needed in the first place?

EDIT: I agree with kash that these things could be looked into:

I've made some typographical changes to the quote. This is, as has been pointed out above, indeed a great change to TFW if it was implented as it stands. I think it is very difficult to see what it would do to the game and I think it probably needs to be tested on a proper beta server should it ever be tried out. However, I am not entirely sure whether I understand the motivation behind this proposed change. So I want just to say something about the reasons given by Jed.

As far as [3] goes, it is hard not to agree with a change that makes things easier to understand for new players. But I am not so sure that the autodraw rule is that hard to understand and even if it can be a bit difficult to comprehend in its entirety, I think that a more detailed description in the 'How to play' section would be enough. What I am driving at here is that I don't think that the alleged difficulty of understanding the autodraw rule should be enough on it own to merit a change to the rule.


As far as [1] goes, I am again not sure whether a change to the autodraw rule is the way to go. Many people have voiced their opinion that Hadarck's Throne needs a change. The reason seems to be two-fold: (a) that it is the only viable option to get to two (and then three) levels of domain in a fast way, and (b) that with the Throne, such dreaded cards as Negate, Training and Fissure inevitably comes along. If the Throne is the root of all evil, why not retire it? I mean, don't just change it but take it out. I am quite surprised that this has not been suggested before (or if it has, I am sorry for having missed it). After all, it would make those MF cards lose their strength in the early game where it is arguably overpowered anyway.

As far as [2] goes, I think that taking out the Throne would be good for a start. I am not entirely sure what kind of domain denial we are talking about. I would like to know much more about what people have in mind here and why, exactly, the problem is so vast and serious as to merit a complete change to the autodrawrule. If, say, Fissure is the big problem, then I say, change it rathe than the rule.

I think what I am driving at in this post is that the current autodraw rule is good and it is certainly, as I see it, a part of the game that I enjoy. I do not think that the reasons found in [1], [2] and [3] are strong or good enough to merit this kind of radical change. This does not mean that I think everything is fine. I think many cards needs to be changed, including, for instance, Fissure, Training and Negate. (But MANY other too, if those are changed.)

I think the autodraw rule that is in Beta now is interesting. It is not that drastic but I am not sure what it would do to the overall game. I mean, it does change how decks are built and it has some bearing on domain denial decks. But then again, are there really good enough reasons to change to even this version of the autodraw rule? I am not so sure...

Sorry for a long post. Just want to end with what I started with, i.e., that the proposed change by Jed in the original post really is a big change and that it is hard to see what would happen if it was implemented. I have expressed some doubts as to whether there are good reasons for changed in the first place. I would be happy to change my mind if I am persuaded otherwise.

Cheers!

I think this is a huge and potentially positive change, but I have some reservations. My constructed deck, (3 color building deck - based on pantheons and the ability to manipulate autodraw) would basically become unplayable. Limited deck building also becomes much more versatile for the uninitiated, but also requires less skill & imagination.

These aren't necessarily bad things to attract more players and narrow the gap between top and beginning players, but it may take out some of the long term intrigue from TFW.

I would be almost completely on board if pantheons were included in the infinite option pool. Of course, I'd rather see autodraw become a selectable option (and be set to off at the start of the game).