Pickled male reproductive organbum Posted:

so if you have any shields at the end you lose?

Has this been answered? Specifically, if you have an active shield, will you lose?

Oh, Orb. Didn’t you get the memo that this is everyone **** about everything week? Log in to see images!

I have to say it was pretty impressive to log in today and see that of the almost 550 scoops I left on the board (most protected by 15+ shields) I had 8 total left. That was pretty damn cool and might well infect some players who don’t normally go for destruction to embrace their inner bumhole. Log in to see images!

Banhammer – I would bumume since an active Shield shows up as a card and counts toward your card limit that an active Shield will in fact disqualify a player.

It sure is different, but why would you even want to bother getting scoops until the last minute of the round? As cheap as cards are, you could take out everybody else’s scoops without even trying very hard.

MC Banhammer Posted:

Has this been answered? Specifically, if you have an active shield, will you lose?

If you have one active shield you will not lose. The check is only on inactive cards.

So if you have one active shield and another waiting to replace it, you will lose.

scullyangel Posted:

While, I think this week was incredibly frustrating to many, I did think it was interesting to see who played it out.

Honestly, I was surprized that there wasn’t more teamwork going on, since pairing up with a klannie (or non-klannie) would be a mega advantage. One player playing for medals, the other there to shoot shields if it was needed.

Cards were obviously far too cheap – see the brackets for a serious amount of clean, winner-free brackets. The only viable strategy was using visits as late as possible, and I think a big bunch of players who thought there would be scoops to use The Thief on were stuck holding their cards just because there were no scoops.

It’ll be interesting to see if this destruct-o round awakened the grief based player in any of the players who normally only play if they have a shot at medaling. More pointedly, it’ll be interesting to see how many players are interested almost exclusively in the destruction based medal when it is released. There were just a ton of players who were utterly gleeful about keeping the brackets scoop free. Log in to see images!

I know I was one of them. Log in to see images!

The main reason for the lack of teamwork is that it wouldn’t have been truly effective. People didn’t buy many Shields this week because 1) they didn’t have any scoops to protect and 2) most of them were aware that anyone with a Peeping Tom could tell everyone in the bracket not to attack them, and force a disqualification. You *could* help teammates, but they’d just be another person with scoops you couldn’t your cards on… and they’d be just another person your enemies would be able to attack to get rid of their cards. Teammates were more of a liability than an advantage, and I think people sensed this.

The vibe I got was that everyone overdid it on cards. Any scoops out in the open were doomed to be destroyed. And the natural reaction of any dom player is to card down when scoops are in danger. But the result of this is that essentially everyone carded down. Everyone was armed to the teeth with a 30 card arsenal of bumholes, Shotguns, and especially Thieves. ...and then… there weren’t enough scoops to destroy, because everyone had carded down. So Wednesday comes and there simply isn’t enough to destroy for anyone to deplete their hoard of cards.

Carding down came too naturally for dom players, and the 1-scoop cost made it even more tempting, but this was the wrong strategy. Ironically, amidst all the rampant destruction, the real way to win was by being zen and doing almost nothing. Acgreat timesulate no scoops and give your enemies no opportunity to get rid of their cards, and get your scoops in the last fifteen seconds… ideally, (as was said early in the week) by completing a pistachio streak at the last minute. Everyone is disqualified, you get two medals.

I enjoyed this round, but ultimately Gambit might just be too different from what domination players are used to. The change in strategy it required to win was so radical in comparison to normal domination tactics that it ended in a huge cluster****. I think if we played this theme again, people would fare much better, but there’d still be more brackets without winners than ones with.

Luna Lovegood edited this message on 08/28/2008 2:47AM

Luna Lovegood Posted:

The main reason for the lack of teamwork is that it wouldn’t have been truly effective…

Certainly it wouldn’t work in the way teamwork has been used thus far in Domination – as a meat shield or as help to destroy enemy scoops. Those things can be done on a different time frame (literally hours before the round ends) and you can go off to play for medals on another character. This format required a different level of commitment, mainly because it absolutely required a sacrifice on the part of the person who took on the role of last minute Shield destroyer.

I found that in that final 5 minutes a decent pile of scoops sitting behind 10+ shields was pretty much ignored. Before then I was getting hammered and having to rebuy shields, but once it got near the end it was like everyone decided it was safer to leave me alone because I was going to be eliminated due to cards. Having someone else shoot through the remaining shields in the last 2 – 3 minutes was a very solid strategy.

Again, not that I think this was a great format, it was seriously limiting and frustrating for many players, I just think there were more possibilities than people were considering. It was especially horrid for those of us who normally play several characters as it was pretty damn impossible to really play more than 2 or 3 at most.

Oh, you’re right it probably wouldn’t have been great in one of the 50 player brackets. I hadn’t thought about that! Serious congrats on pulling medals out of that mess! Log in to see images!

Andy_Dextruss Posted:

The reasons you all hated this are the very reasons this was an awesome dom theme, it makes it interesting for everone, even those who have no idea how to play dom well normally. Anarchy ftw.

Lack of any strategy is not really awesome.

I destroyed entire raids last week just by gambling. This is cool and funny on the first day, but then it becomes boring.

This should be one of the themes that should be announced early, people who started at a low scoop streak were automatically disqualified for medals. Not everyone plays for destruction.

scullyangel Posted:

I don’t think it should be a regular theme at all. This was the lowest participation I’ve ever seen in a Domination week since…I’ve never seen lower participation.

I know, imho they should just eliminate this theme forever. But in case they do it again.

Amasius Posted:

I think the theme would have worked nice if cards had cost two scoops and MIs weren’t removed.

I also think there’s potential for a decent theme in here somewhere, but it needs a radical makeover. To start throwing out ideas – no Peeping Toms, ‘cause once someone is known to have a shield they’re stuck. Maybe pay four scoops to remove a card? Pay eight scoops to give someone else a card of your choosing? I don’t think I have it yet, maybe after sleeping.