I love playing KeyForge and especially love events at my LGS (local gaming store) but I have found so far (after 6 events or so) that at the events where it is best 2 out of 3, we almost never have enough time.
Is anyone else running into this issue?
Is this issue related only to the game being so new?
What can FFG or the community do to solve the problem? (if it is in fact a wider issue than just my local scene)
Change the format to best of 1 and you'll finish more games.
Best of 3 is a pretty big time commitment, because you're looking at 90 minute rounds. If you've got more than 8 players, you're looking at a 6 hour play session.
Unless there's a good reason to do best of three, Swiss best of 1 (35 minutes Archon, 45 minute Sealed) is a much better format for a big field of players.
Or best of 2 : total number of keys forged as tie breaker... 3 points for a win, 2 points for a breaker win, 1 point for a draw.
There are many other options for tournys besides best of 3 Archon. I really enjoyed Diminishing Returns at PAX. Either Sealed or Archon. You bring 3 decks and play in Swiss rounds of at least 4 rounds. When you win with a deck it is out and can't be used again. When you are down to 1 deck, you must play it out. There was also a Sealed 3 deck elimination. If you lost with a deck it was out. They only did 3 rounds in that one, but you could easily play it as a Swiss or last man standing tourny.
The best of 3 is a very fair way to play. But you are going to be playing a LOT of games in that format. These other formats mean you can play more people in less time and still have a pretty balanced play field.
Unless you are doing elimination rounds the need for Bo3 isn't all that great, so I would avoid it in the interest of time.
16 hours ago, Dantastic24 said:I love playing KeyForge and especially love events at my LGS (local gaming store) but I have found so far (after 6 events or so) that at the events where it is best 2 out of 3, we almost never have enough time.
Is anyone else running into this issue?
Is this issue related only to the game being so new?
What can FFG or the community do to solve the problem? (if it is in fact a wider issue than just my local scene)
Get better at playing cards quickly? If I can finish a game of hearthstone in 15 minutes I can easily do the same for KeyForge.
2 hours ago, Derrault said:Get better at playing cards quickly? If I can finish a game of hearthstone in 15 minutes I can easily do the same for KeyForge.
Hearthstone plays much faster than Keyforge. And some Keyforge decks are largely build for Aember denial. Playing Hearthstone the computer does all the mechanics for you, in analog play you must manually tap cards, distribute damage, shuffle decks, stun creatures, apply power bonuses, etc.. I'm not saying a 15 minute Keyforge game has never or will never happen. But there is no way you are consistently playing games in 15 min.
So ease off on the elitist 'learn 2 play' crap.
I would not be opposed to some kind of timer for tourney play which limits you to 1 min per turn or something though. I have played people who can take 5 min + to do stuff. It is infuriating.
2 hours ago, Derrault said:Get better at playing cards quickly? If I can finish a game of hearthstone in 15 minutes I can easily do the same for KeyForge.
That's not really a valid comparison. That is like comparing riding a big wheels trike to learning to ride a 10speed. HS requires less skill than every other card game out there. Its meant to pull people in that normally would not be interested in a card game (Blizzard like to dumb their games down to accommodate soccer moms who think facebook phone apps are games and 11 teen yearolds).
Magic players use a lot of widely accepted shorthand, so much that new players are likely to find themselves playing an entirely different game than more advanced players even in casual games and events. KeyForge doesn't currently suffer from that problem; it suffers from a lack of shorthand. The game shouldn't really take as long as it does. There is no player interaction off turn. This will resolve organically.
Beyond that, inexperience, lack of familiarity with decks and the card pool, and lack of transferable heuristics are likely culprits.
Most of all, there is a lot of ambiguity in the ruleset and card text, and there is nowhere to go to find official rulings. I doubt we'll see much of anything until after the holidays.
So, I don't think it's just you experiencing this problem.
5 hours ago, xbeaker said:So ease off on the elitist 'learn 2 play' crap.
This really detracts from an otherwise constructive response.
Thank you everyone for the advice and insight! This has really helped and I think many of you are correct, it would be best to turn down to Swiss style.
I do think there is a learning curve that everyone is going through so that doesn't help when topped with having best 2 of 3 events. This thread and advice will surely help our local KeyForge events and encourage people to come play!
Thank you all!
Sealed deck and games with players who are not familiar with a deck and it what cards are strong can take a bit longer since there is a lot of extra "decision making" going on
When playing with my friends who we now know most of each other's decks and are getting better at taking a glance at the checklist of a new deck and properly evaluating it, we can easilr finish 3 games in under an hour
8 hours ago, xbeaker said:But there is no way you are consistently playing games in 15 min.
We have 35/45 minutes to play a single game, and I think that most people will get to that sort of time frame with suitable thinking time and just time to run through some crazy board states that can develop. I think too you could add 10-15 minutes to that and over a period of time wind it down so that a slower player doesn't impact too much on the games. I think the aim should be to get into the 20-30 minute range for most games and then the blow outs are not that troublesome.
There are a few ways you can speed up the game:
It usually takes me 50-60 minutes to finish a game, I'm not sure if that's "too long". I'm very familiar with card games and we play pretty fast, so I don't think our games can go faster than 50.
Edited by SupertoeI have found that the people in my group who play the longest games tend to play more creature combat and less reaping. Since combat does not directly help you win (like magic), you can fall into the trap of both players clearing the board every couple of turns through combat, and very little amber generation happening. Its an easy trap for people who play more combat driven games to fall into if they are not careful.
2 hours ago, ornithologist said:I have found that the people in my group who play the longest games tend to play more creature combat and less reaping. Since combat does not directly help you win (like magic), you can fall into the trap of both players clearing the board every couple of turns through combat, and very little amber generation happening. Its an easy trap for people who play more combat driven games to fall into if they are not careful.
Hi
LOL This is what I was going to type. Some decks are just Bruisers and they have to spend time fighting to clear the board or else they lose ultimately leading to a trickle of 1-2 amber every couple of turns, those decks tend to average 40-60 min, well more combo-centric decks average 30-45 minutes due to quickly creating amber in short bursts. These times as the game progresses and people get more comfortable with their decks will probably only go down to probably 30-40 mins but watching those Covenant games on youtube they average to about that aforementioned time frame of 30-40 mins and they seem pretty comfortable with gameplay yet still make mistakes. We are only Human.
Cheers
I will blame this on tokens. When you have to stop to ask someone how much amber they have and they have to count, instead of having it clearly displayed on dice. Don't all FFG games seem a bit slower than they need to be? But..but...tokens! Tokens are slooooooooooow. Dice for the win.
I want black dice (damage), blue or grey dice (shields), orange dice (amber), red dice (power up), and yellow dice (stuns), I have tokens, but I like the readability of dice.
As for chains, Jesus, who would use such a thing to track card disadvantage. Chain dice should go on top of your deck and change once you draw.
2 minutes ago, debiant said:I will blame this on tokens. When you have to stop to ask someone how much amber they have and they have to count, instead of having it clearly displayed on dice. Don't all FFG games seem a bit slower than they need to be? But..but...tokens! Tokens are slooooooooooow. Dice for the win.
I want black dice (damage), blue or grey dice (shields), orange dice (amber), red dice (power up), and yellow dice (stuns), I have tokens, but I like the readability of dice.
As for chains, Jesus, who would use such a thing to track card disadvantage. Chain dice should go on top of your deck and change once you draw.
If you have trouble counting to 6, you have larger problems than tokens making your game slow.
Hey now, I take grate pride in my math skills.
I think a big factor in game speed is the decks involved. The game is a race. If you are both racing with slow horses, it's going to take longer. If the slower horse keeps shooting red shells at the faster one so it falls behind, but then is still too slow to quickly get to the finish line, it's going to take longer. If both horses chase each other around the field rather than heading to the finish line, the game may never end!
I'm pretty sure theoretically there is a deck matchup out there that literally cannot finish a game without someone calling it.
1 hour ago, debiant said:I will blame this on tokens. When you have to stop to ask someone how much amber they have and they have to count, instead of having it clearly displayed on dice. Don't all FFG games seem a bit slower than they need to be? But..but...tokens! Tokens are slooooooooooow. Dice for the win.
I want black dice (damage), blue or grey dice (shields), orange dice (amber), red dice (power up), and yellow dice (stuns), I have tokens, but I like the readability of dice.
As for chains, Jesus, who would use such a thing to track card disadvantage. Chain dice should go on top of your deck and change once you draw.
When I see slow players, there are a host of slow things that come up before you get to tokens. Tokens are fine.
Here's what I see as the big three, in order of severity
1. Choosing a house - this is sloooow. You have to mentally order the play actions of each of the 3 options according to a sometimes medium-large board state. Experience helps cut down on the heuristics here, especially once you learn "most of the time just play your biggest house", but before then there is a lot to think about. This step is fun, and most of the strategy is here, but it does slow the game down. Fortunately, you are really only picking 1 out of 3 options, and can leave some of the complex ordering for later. Usually. But that brings us to...
2. Play order matters a ton. Most misplays - caught or not - are in playing/using the cards in the chosen house in the wrong order. If there is leniency (and most of the time, I feel like the game is better if there is) then you may be undoing some number of actions over the course of the game to correct minor misplays. In more competitive environments correcting these mistakes won't be allowed. But if you aren't making mistakes, you may be planning your ordering longer. So it could be a wash.
3. Reading. Most players don't have all 370 cards memorized. There is going to be a ton of "what does that do? Is that creature elusive? How much power is this thing boosted to?" I've played across from dice users and token users. I think the tokens in most cases are easier to read than dice are, but there are times when there is a pile that takes some time to count. Remembering which targets have armor, remembering which artifact has a constant ability that affects everyone - board state is pretty chaotic and the game will slow down as players remind themselves what's going on.
All of these will get better with experience. Unless I get a tough decision in my hand for house choice I feel I'm pretty fast.
I've consistently found my games to be about 40 minutes long, or between 35 and 45 minutes. Also, a lot of games end when both players are close to emptying their deck for the first time. I feel that the design team must have playtested the game to work that way, because I keep seeing that happen.
5 hours ago, debiant said:I will blame this on tokens.
I have started to put my amber on my keys and once the key has 6 put the overflow on the next key. It isn't that hard and my opponents understand better what is happening.
On 12/7/2018 at 4:58 PM, saluk64007 said:I think a big factor in game speed is the decks involved. The game is a race. If you are both racing with slow horses, it's going to take longer. If the slower horse keeps shooting red shells at the faster one so it falls behind, but then is still too slow to quickly get to the finish line, it's going to take longer. If both horses chase each other around the field rather than heading to the finish line, the game may never end!
I'm pretty sure theoretically there is a deck matchup out there that literally cannot finish a game without someone calling it.
When I see slow players, there are a host of slow things that come up before you get to tokens. Tokens are fine.
Here's what I see as the big three, in order of severity
1. Choosing a house - this is sloooow. You have to mentally order the play actions of each of the 3 options according to a sometimes medium-large board state. Experience helps cut down on the heuristics here, especially once you learn "most of the time just play your biggest house", but before then there is a lot to think about. This step is fun, and most of the strategy is here, but it does slow the game down. Fortunately, you are really only picking 1 out of 3 options, and can leave some of the complex ordering for later. Usually. But that brings us to...
2. Play order matters a ton. Most misplays - caught or not - are in playing/using the cards in the chosen house in the wrong order. If there is leniency (and most of the time, I feel like the game is better if there is) then you may be undoing some number of actions over the course of the game to correct minor misplays. In more competitive environments correcting these mistakes won't be allowed. But if you aren't making mistakes, you may be planning your ordering longer. So it could be a wash.
3. Reading. Most players don't have all 370 cards memorized. There is going to be a ton of "what does that do? Is that creature elusive? How much power is this thing boosted to?" I've played across from dice users and token users. I think the tokens in most cases are easier to read than dice are, but there are times when there is a pile that takes some time to count. Remembering which targets have armor, remembering which artifact has a constant ability that affects everyone - board state is pretty chaotic and the game will slow down as players remind themselves what's going on.
All of these will get better with experience. Unless I get a tough decision in my hand for house choice I feel I'm pretty fast.
I was mostly being facetious. I'm one of those rabble rousing dice users. But I think you're correct about these three being major issues at this point.