Elegant coinflip and mulligan tweaks

[MaroonJack]

Elegant coinflip and mulligan tweaks

I just had an "Eureka" moment and I feel like I have to share. It's a solution to the two RNG problems people keep complaining about.

COINFLIP
There are solutions on reddit, suggesting extra points, special cards, tokens or betting for coinflip, but I'm not a fan of them, because they introduce unnecessary complication to an elegant game. I like simple solutions and I think I have one. No additional tricks, phantom points, tokens or betting.

Step 1. Reduce coinflip randomness, as it has an ugly habit of placing some players on the unlucky end of the Gaussian curve. In order to do that, make Gwent check the coinflip statistics for both players.

1. The player who lost more coinflips in the last three games, wins this one.
2. In case of a draw, compare the coinflips from their last game.
3. If we still have a draw, compare their penultimate games.
4. If we still don't have a result, generate coinflip randomly.

It doesn't change a bit from player's perspective, but the results are more evenly distributed and it diminishes a possibility of a coinflip losing streak.

Step 2. Coinflip is also about the advantage, so the player who lost the coinflip could mulligan an extra card, knowing that he will play the defense. Again it's simple and seamless. It doesn't equal a card advantage. Half a card, maybe, and that's what we're aiming for.

EDIT: After reading the comments I got another idea regarding the coinflip issue. Your first mulligan is guaranteed to draw a gold or silver card from your deck. Maybe a combination of both would be too strong (4th mulligan and guaranteed gold/silver), but that's for the developers to determine.

MULLIGAN
This in my opinion is a bit bigger problem, as you can draw the same card, round after round, even if you blacklisted it before. At the same time a lucky player can avoid this phenomenon entirely. Some people call it a "mulligan bug", which isn't a bug at all, but nonetheless it is random factor which can heavily disadvantage an unlucky player.

Solution? Deck is shuffled randomly, so we can just draw cards from the top. Discarded cards should be put at the bottom of the deck, not shuffled back in. If a player blacklists a card and it happens to be on top of the deck, it should also be moved to the bottom. Pretty simple and I believe it would provide another level of planning and managing your mulligans which is good for a skill based game.

Let me know what you think.

 

[4RM3D]

Both the coin flip and the mulligan are being looked at by CDPR.

The challenge with fixing the mulligan is that it shouldn't enable muster/thinning cards too much, otherwise it will cause an unfair bias towards deck thinning.

As for giving the player who lost the coin flip an extra mulligan, it's okay but (still) not worth it. Selecting a card from the deck (Francesca style) is more acceptable, though not always necessary depending on your draws.

Fixing the coin flip across games should already be a given in the same way the drop-rate for legendaries work, with a pity timer. I would go further than that, also giving players 1 extra win towards the daily progression or, when playing ranked, reduce the penalty for losing by 50%.

 

[Pounc3e]

I would go further than that, also giving players 1 extra win towards the daily progression or, when playing ranked, reduce the penalty for losing by 50%.
This looks fair to me, reducing the penalty for losing by 50% or more in either Ranked, Pro or Both is quite reasonable, and an easy task to create, something simple is what Gwent really need, nothing complicated.

Though, too, an extra increase towards the daily progression is as well nice, as a whole.

Note: You will find the response made highlighted in Purple.

Regards,
byExeplar

:faith:

 

[SrdjanB]

If they go though all that trouble of preserving coinflip data they could make it even more elegant and integrate it directly into matchmaking. Every match would be between player who lost the previous coinflip and the one who has won it, so it would basically be alternating thing.

I agree with 4RM3D having 50% MMR loss reduction is great idea to make coinflip acceptable thing, also excellent idea is the ability to pick any card from your deck during you mulligan, it won't always mean much, but if you have such a hand that you don't want to add any single card from your deck instead of any single card from your hand, you have no right to complain about RNG

 

[lemonsplitter]

Fixing the coin flip across games should already be a given in the same way the drop-rate for legendaries work, with a pity timer. I would go further than that, also giving players 1 extra win towards the daily progression or, when playing ranked, reduce the penalty for losing by 50%.

I love this idea so much. If only it could apply to dropped connections too. Nothing more frustrating than dropped connections taking ranked points when I didn't even lose the game, yet earned the ranked points. Anything that fixes that to any degree is needed.

 

[4RM3D]

If only it could apply to dropped connections too.

That wouldn't be possible because the game cannot distinguish a connection loss from an intentional disconnect to reduce the penalty.

 

[nemirni]

I like the idea with matchmaking taking into an account recent coin flips. The 4th mulligan sounds ok, but choosing a mulligan would be a bit too much as far as i am concerned. On a related note, mulligan phase should be moved after the coinflip (unlike now) for this to work and of course coinflip tracking should be for each game mode separately so people don't start getting clever and choose to play casual when they expect it is their turn to "lose" the coinflip.

Since few people mentioned just adding a 4th mulligan would be too little of a compensation, perhaps adding a "win in case of a draw" would be an option. I haven't given it much though, but in order to reduce the pressure that player one has maybe it could be done that in case of the same amount of points, it is the player who played first who wins the round. Applicable only if the player two passes first.

 

[SrdjanB]

That wouldn't be possible because the game cannot distinguish a connection loss from an intentional disconnect to reduce the penalty.

Yeah, it would be abused and it is too much to ask, but I really would like generous reconnection period, like 30 seconds or even a minute, maybe limit them to 2-3 per match, to prevent abuse. If your internet goes down, one match is not that big of the problem, but when connection has a bad day it can cost player multiple matches.

 

[MaroonJack]

I honestly think that 4th mulligan would be enough. Remember that you also get to blacklist one more card during this phase, which is an added benefit in most cases. This seems fair, seamless, and about a half card value, which is exactly the disadvantage you suffer by going second.

If you want to make it more powerful, I have another idea: your first mulligan is guaranteed to draw a gold or silver card from your deck. Maybe a combination of both would be too strong (4th mulligan and guaranteed gold/silver), but that's for the developers to determine.

In any case, being able to pick exactly the card you want is a huge boost and I honestly think that it would be advantageous to go first in this situation and that's not the point. I would also like it to be seamless. Picking a card Francesca style is an additional action performed by a player, which might confuse newcomers (one time he gets to choose, another time he's denied the choice). It just isn't an elegant solution and feels more asymmetric, if you know what I mean.

Reducing the penalty for losing seems tempting, but when they fix the issues with coinflip advantage, there will be no need for it.

 

[4RM3D]

If you want to make it more powerful, I have another idea: your first mulligan is guaranteed to draw a gold or silver card from your deck.

That's an interesting alternative. However, I would change it to your 4th mulligan or, if that's too strong, the 3rd one. This allows you to mulligan better without the risk of drawing a dead card in the last mulligan.

 

[MaroonJack]

That's an interesting alternative. However, I would change it to your 4th mulligan or, if that's too strong, the 3rd one. This allows you to mulligan better without the risk of drawing a dead card in the last mulligan.

I see what you mean, but I proposed first card precisely because I think that the risk of drawing a bad card should always be a part of mulligan phase as a whole.

Moving it to the last card means that there is no risk at all. If you draw a bad card with your first two or three mulligans, no harm done, you swap it for a silver or gold at the end. I think that imbalance is too strong. One player has only 3 draws, and it's risky, he often faces the dilemma of ending mulligan early. The other has 3 or 4 draws, guaranteed gold or silver, and basically no risk. In this scenario I'd always prefer to "lose" the coinflip and that's not the point.

 

[Eliadann]

Since few people mentioned just adding a 4th mulligan would be too little of a compensation, perhaps adding a "win in case of a draw" would be an option. I haven't given it much though, but in order to reduce the pressure that player one has maybe it could be done that in case of the same amount of points, it is the player who played first who wins the round. Applicable only if the player two passes first.

I think this an excellent approach. I am against a "selective mulligan", as it can lead to a deck building linked to coin flip mechanics. An extra mulligan might be too little of a compensation for losing the coin flip? I see no problem with that. I am fine with the coin flip being "slightly" unfair, it adds spice to the game, having a random small advantage on 50/50 whoever you are playing against. The problem we are trying to fix is this mechanic being too deterministic for the outcome of the game. An extra mulligan and winning round draws is perfect for me.

 

[MaroonJack]

I am against a "selective mulligan", as it can lead to a deck building linked to coin flip mechanics. An extra mulligan might be too little of a compensation for losing the coin flip? I see no problem with that.

Amen to that. I think the Reds have all the data, so personally I'd just start with 4th mulligan and leave it like that for one season. See what the data shows. If that's enough, great, no need for more tweaks. If not, we can try another thing. I'm not in favor of big changes, because all we need is a tweak, we don't want to go 180 on this.

I'm intuitively against allowing one player to win a draw, but it might be just me. It's such a rare occurrence, that I doubt it would have much impact and for some reason it doesn't seem right. Call me conservative, but for me a draw is a draw.