not to repeat myself but in Melee playing the deck perfectly includes the player interactions and manipulating aggression.

You cannot design a melee deck and forget to include the aspects of interaction, manipulation and perception. If you played a melee deck perfectly, it would have been built to withstand the very things you seem so angry about. Playing the game is playing the deck because you designed the deck for melee and melee includes social interactions. you can't seperate the two

it would be like me saying i played my hand in poker perfectly but lost because of people bluffing, bluffing is part of the game so playing a hand perfectly would have to include all aspects of the game

jack merridew said:

Actually in high end competitive poker, you often hear announcers (is this the correct term?) saying something like "You know he played that hand perfectly, but just got unlucky."

Staton said:

not if he gets bluffed out, they say he played that hand perfectly if he loses on the river, not if he folds because someone made a large bet

Right, so there is still the possibility if he plays the hand perfectly he could still lose. So if I play my deck perfectly I could still lose.

This is especially true in a game or process where there is an element of randomness.

nahhhhh if you play your deck really well you can still lose. If you play your melee deck perfectly you win ^^

But there is a level of randomness to the cards you are given in a game. You could play the cards you get perfectly but not have the cards to win the game.

Penfold said:

Blah blah blah social manipulation. If your opponent wants to second guess their plays because someone suggests something, sure. But if me and my friend or two are in a game against someone we don't want to win and are agreed on that, good luck to them. But you're right: if two or three players are directing all their aggro to one player, I'm sure they can manipulate their way out of that. Furthermore, your example of convincing someone to take a draw or loss isn't the same as it determines the outcome and scoring but not who won the game through the cards which is exactly my comparison and criticism of melee.

Regardless, your comment of being equally skilled in social manipulation doesn't address my opinion of melee because I clearly mentioned that social play is exactly the reason I have no use for melee since I prefer pure card mechanic and tactical play. I don't disagree that you need social skill to talk your way into position, but what I'm arguing is that because of that, melee play loses deck relevance to table talk.

To put it another way, the crappiest deck piloted by any player has a better chance at winning a melee game than it would joust because there are factors that will allow it. I can appreciate and applaud a player who is skilled at table talk, having been a long-time VTES player among other games, but for myself, as far as AGoT is concerned, I prefer the mechanical interactions of the cards in joust over the kingmaking potential of melee.

jack merridew said:

These are decisions that place less emphasis on the deck itself, and more on the social play. That's exactly what we're criticizing here so thank you for listing some.

Ultimately melee provides a game format where you have more opponents who might make "play" mistakes, but those mistakes can be just as likely to benefit someone else. Worse, it's a game format where players can collude to determine the winner, in some cases out of spite or friendship, or where mistakes can be made on purpose to allow opportunity, and whether or not you're the one with the master plan and pull it off, doesn't change the fact that you just beat your opponents by running your mouth or flashing your smiles and not because your deck is a well-oiled machine.

Again, if that's your game, great. Some of us prefer a more decisive style of play where you have the most control over your victory or loss, and not putting it in the hands of buddy and his sidekick or angry guy who doesn't care if he wins as long as you lose (this last archetype is also known as me).

Davy Back Fight said:

Social interactions aside, many cards have different mechanical usage in melee vs joust.

Field of Fire for example is a reasonably good joust card. In melee it allows you to fry the characters of two opponents.

In a Joust, you'll likely face a reset. In a melee, you'll likely face more than one. Your deck choices should reflect the need for greater survivability.

Gylbert Farwynd is irritating in Joust. He'll likely piss off all 3 of your opponents in melee thus drawing you additional hate than you would prefer. Even if your opponents are not colluding, they soon will be if you give them sufficient reason.

Joust is really only half a game. GoT without title manipulation is missing something. Maybe if FFG added a Joust titles, it would be better but till then, its only half a game.

Lastly, even a Joust is subject to social manipulation. Just ask Bobby Fischer.

playgroundpsychotic said:

I don't get it. The cards still have the same mechanical usage, they just create social ramifications which are manifested through increased focus of technical play towards you as an instigator. I'm not going to get into the idea that cards without a global effect are less useful because of their impact on the percentage of the field, or that someone is more likely to have an answer to whatever you play, but there's things that lessen the importance of a deck as the determining factor of a round.

Also joust is really a full game. Melee is also a full game, but instead of a retiarius and a secutor going at it, it's more of a Royal Rumble but where some of the wrestlers might have been told to make sure a specific person wins or doesn't. Joust titles would be terrible by the way because there's no way they would be remotely balanced and whoever chooses second would usually get the short end, unless their opponent was colluding to let them win.

Lastly, I wouldn't ask Bobby Fischer because I don't care much for what my opponent has to say while I'm playing, unless he or she is declaring their action.

Any game that involves imperfect knowledge, randomness, and has another live opponent has social play and you can lose even if you play your deck perfectly, and collusion by players can ensure you don't move on in a tournament.

I get, and understand every point you've made, I'm just saying that each of those is present in joust as well, it is just a step or two removed. Which is precisely why many people prefer it to melee... but it is precisely why so many people like it over joust. I've heard more than one employee at FFG comment on melee being the most popular format (admittedly it was in the context of social/casual play), so discussing what elements you prefer to be highlighted makes sense. Saying you don't like a thing because of X, Y, and Z, when x, y, and z are present in the things you say you do like, is a bit more problematic.

Penfold said:

Yeah for sure, and I allow that I should state then that yes, in my criticism of melee, it is because those X, Y, and Z elements are pushed to the forefront of the format. So while they may exist to a degree in joust, they are more subdued. Even then, I can control the influence my opponent has more, but choosing not to make small talk, suggest plays, and to dismiss such talk as soon as it happens. Yes, the element has been introduced and creates a tone impacting mindset from then on, but no outside influence or decisions will further impact what is a balanced one vs. one conflict, players and resources. This is, along with scouting, one of the reasons I hate when players finish rounds early and watch other games; they can't keep comments to themselves sometimes.

Even then, imperfect knowledge and randomness? I don't see how those are characteristics would coincide with social play. Just as a thought, I can play the LotR deckbuilding game solo and that includes both.

I don't really think any of us are on here arguing anything other than why we prefer one format or the other. I agree completely with most of the points made as well in favor of melee... it's just we're all debating why one format is liked, while proponents of the other are saying that's the reason why they don't like it, so an argument that isn't going to resolve because it's not an argument, it's opinion. This whole deviation of the thread occurred after I made a comment on melee being like figureskating. I don't doubt that melee is popular, I'm not even opposed to multiplayer social games in general, I'm just cynical of melee as a balanced format because of the variables other than card design. It's a game I never seriously try to win, but when we play it around here, sometimes I do. I don't get it.

Davy Back Fight said:

What if that's the problem? That too often people playing in melee aren't really seriously looking to win for themselves, which leads to things like king-making and focusing hate. I think the absolute worst part of melee is that moment where you yourself realize that winning is no longer a possibility. The nice thing in joust is that when you realize that, you can concede the game and say it was only a matter of his cards being better than your cards. With melee, you have to sit for another round or two in futility while you watch someone else win. And in the mean time all that can be done is either become a complete nuisance to either one person or the whole board, king-make, or keep trying to win. And this is only exacerbated by the rules (in some tourneys) that coming in second is an acceptable goal. Personally I prefer to keep trying to win if put in a corner, hoping something magical will occur to propel me from 0 power to 15 in enough time to stop the guy at 12 from winning (I've seen it happen, once).

But I'll agree with Davy in that the imbalance in melee comes from the fact that if you have lost a joust game, then afterwards you think it over in your head, it either comes down to having misplayed or bad draw/poor deckbuilding. With melee, if you lose and look back on a game then besides poor playing or a bad deck, it also could have been that the player to your left got a crap setup and decided to make your day a living hell while he lost. So yes, no matter how "perfect" your melee deck is, were there such a thing, it can be ruined by a 4 player game that suddenly becomes a 3v1.

That being said, I would pick a solid 1v1v1v1 melee game with sportsman-like players over a joust any day of the week.

Since we have had poker talk here already I'll go with one saying that is well known in poker and fits for melee aswell. If the thing is all that random then why do we see familiar faces in the final tables often?

Ire said:

No one's denying that there's a skillset involved with being good at melee. No one's denying that the deck does play a part as well. Just that there are a lot of us who don't care for the social maneuvering skillset involved because we prefer a game based as solely as possible on the play of card mechanics. Does anyone think joust is unbalanced as a competitive format or there is controversy deciding you won a joust match? I non-sarcastically want to hear any opinions on this because I haven't considered that. Compare it to melee please.

However, again, if you rematch the same table of four players with the same decks (assuming no collusion), how many times out of ten would the same player win? Substantially, or am I the only one who hypothesizes that based on the showing of the first match (first match being the only one in a tourney round), the other players would be more likely to direct aggro and become skeptical of table talk from that player? We're presuming that melee players who don't win consistently are slow? Who buys someone's BS twice in a row? Tourneys won't show that but maybe in your casual play group you keep letting the same player(s) win at melee despite having an inkling of what they're doing at the table. I don't know. Here, when we do play consecutive melee rounds (and we only have a regular sixish players), the first round winner is the most supressed player in the next game.

But it's like Incuus said. Sometimes other player's attitudes or striving for second determine the outcome. Sometimes things happen in the game that you're not even a part of that determine the winner and all you can do is watch in futility as someone allows an opponent to do three unopposed challenges for the win. There's never a point in joust where you're not involved in the deciding of the match.

Davy Back Fight said:

I don't see anything wrong in either format currently.

I think you could say that from joust perspective aswell. Depends really on the deck you are playing, if there are several joust rounds against same opponent you are aware of all the tricks their deck has that is different from the usual build of the deck (say seductive promise stole one of your key nonuniq so in second game you will be more looking out for it). For melee I cannot say as I haven't played melee tables with all the same opponents with same decks :/ with few yes I knew the thing their deck was capable of so I could prepare for it and warn the others (or just blantantly lie to others to gain advantage myself). Joust on the other hand I have played many times same deck and driver against same deck repeatably. The deck that first lost will usually do a lot better with the knowledge of what your opponent is playing and the bigger surprises wont work (and most of the time suprises can lead to game wins). It's really hard to think in melee angle since even when we play with same metaguys in melee we usually switch decks between every game or someone does, but I can imagine it would happen more in melee than in joust.

But it isn't imbalanced. And when you lose in melee it is because you weren't a good enough player or your deck was not built correctly, or some degree of both. I've broken up alliances in melee, I've "forced" players to direct attacks at allies where the end result was that one player was no longer able to put forward any meaningful help towards the alliance. I've done it through solid play and a deck built for that sort of thing, not through table talk.

IT is fine that you don't prefer melee, and actively dislike competitive melee, but even in a situation where players are colluding it is possible to win games. I've done it and seen it done by others. I've seen players play multiple melee games in a row with the same person winning at least twice in a row despite all the hate being directed at them.

The ability to play melee is every bit as much a skill as joust, and when you and your deck are better you will win more often than not, even when people are trying to pull you down. IT is when the skill and deck level is about even that you have swings, just like when people play a second game of joust and the other player wins. They recognize how the deck works, don't fall for the same tricks or bluffs, are better prepared for the plot deck, etc.

I believe what we are seeing here is anagolous to social anthropology observation that was later proven untrue, bear with me as I put on the pedantic hat...

SA's were observing numerous tribal cultures in parts of the mid east and africa. They noticed in multiple places that that the drummers seemed to ignore the use of repetitive rhythms in favor of rhythmic complexity. They recorded pieces of songs and took them back to study. Later Ethnomusicologists went and studied the same tribes and the same songs, and what they discovered was that there was a repeating pattern. It was just much longer and much more complex than the social anthropologists were trained to recognize. There were in fact multiple patterns that repeated in 16, 32, and 48 beat segments layering on top of each other so the full pattern only repeated every couple of minutes.

The top players of melee see the complexity and recognize it for what it is, a connected web of cross-influencing joust games, that requires the exact same skills to do well in as joust, but require a completely different method of applying them, and even analyzing what is going on.

That was what I was referring to when I mentioned imperfect knowledge and randomness, that our ability to hold and process the information and how we respond psychologically to stimuli, whether it is from the AI of LotR, the single opponent in joust, or the other three (or more) opponents in melee. In LotR you can completely dismiss it if you choose, and you do not ever develop the skill to bluff, (even none verbally) because the AI takes no notice. In joust leaving two influence untapped, or a card in your hand with gold in the gold pool, must be calculated for, and encourages opponents to take that information and extrapolate, potentially reaching the wrong conclusions.In melee, you have this taken to the Nth degree as each player with cards, through gameplay, and table talk, is trying to influence other players to making decisions that best benefit their own position.

That it is enhanced this much, and so much more important to make the right choices when it comes to it in melee, is a perfectly valid reason to dislike and even hate melee. I just want to make sure that people recognize that these things are always present, and being good at handling them is a player skill than can be learned and developed, and will lead to success, and are required skills in melee. The idea that you can't do anything about it is simply false, because there is always a way of influencing another player, either through this sort of interaction or by influencing the board which leads them to other choices.

Davy Back Fight said:

How about getting shut out of playoff rounds due to collusion? You could not face an opponent once in joust and yet get beat by them in the standings because a couple buddies threw a some games his way. In a melee, you can at least manage your standings somewhat more since you're not required to win and other players may hold back colluding groups (or alternatively, different colluding groups face each other).

I'll bring up Bobby Fischer again. He is still likely the greatest chess player ever yet he practiced and accused others of manipulation during tournaments. Back in the 60's its highly likely the Russian players practiced collusion amongst themselves and he leveled that accusation. On the other hand, his own behaviour during tournaments was often irrational and delibrately done to unnerve opponents.

Also again, a card can have no additional modification for melee and yet perform differently.

Consider Deadly Khalasar. Whilst always useful when its your turn to challenge, its still stronger in melee. Since it responds off of any opponents claim, you can use it to stand your characters for additional defense or to counter malicious kneeling effects. The latter effect you're less able to counter in a joust since you're solely responsible for your own military challenges. There is no additional social manipulation. This is pure card mechanics. Its in fact stronger with social manipulation since it can also be used as a bargaining chip.

Plots by nature operate differently in melee vs joust. Counting Favors is tricky to play in Joust depending on your opponent. In a melee, its less problematic since you're more likely to have an opponent with strong established draw. There's less of a downside to playing it if an opponent already has a Cache or two in play. Again, pure card mechanics. It can be used as well for social manipulation since its a good bargaining chip.

There are plently of cards that are more global in scope or play better if they have more trigger points due to multiple players. Similarily, malicious cards with limited trigger opportunities might work better in Joust but may not hurt you (or others) directly since you have a convenient (or not) meat shield seated beside you.

Penfold said:

Well I can't relate then, but respect that your experiences are different. No one here is a good enough player to take on multiple players if actively teamed. Personally if I'm determined to make someone lose, I don't turn on anyone else so my "alliances" are solid.

I totally agree though on the joust angle: playing the same match a second time can and often leads to different results, but I will say that once both opponents have played a couple rounds as such, over the long run, hideous draws aside, one of us tends to win noticeably more consistently with the same deck and player matchup. And then deck modding occurs.

Penfold said:

Well put, and I agree with most of it. Also that's an interesting bit of sociology. I've never heard that study before. Honestly, I'm still unsure how you can suggest that you can dismiss the "AI" in LoTR since the game is still presenting stimuli which you must respond to, and know that the deck will be playing out said stimuli you must react to each turn. The elements of randomness and imperfect knowledge are still there and you still have to hold and process the same information. There is no opponent bluffing you because the "bluff" is a random play but sure, single play like that doesn't force you to develop bluffing skills of your own.

Regarding the idea that there is always a way of influencing another player, I disagree. If I sit down at a melee game and my modus operandi is to direct all pro-active and hostile actions towards a certain player, and I stick to my game plan, regardless of game state, regardless of what any opponent may or may not play or what is said, then how would that be influencing me? I'm not trying to be difficult, but I do play this way. I don't make deals for instance nor do I entertain complaints and I don't play to win, I play to make someone lose and I have yet to give up a win to someone I didn't want so you'll pardon me if I can't relate to that notion.

I agree that all those skills you mention are essential to melee. But that's my issue with it. That four players are exercising those skills to varying degrees and the card combinations, deck design, and plays are less the direct deciders of the round. There are times when the deciding play of the game occurs without any input from two of the players at the table. But again yes, those skills are always relevant and a good player will definitely be able to utilize them to success. That's not something we're debating here.

playgroundpsychotic said:

Excellent point that I had completely forgotten. That is definitely an issue in competitive joust, or ccgs of any nature. So I have to change my opinion admittedly and agree that yes, joust competition is subject to that as well. I maintain however that individual rounds of joust still have a less controversial outcome than melee since even with concessions, only one player scores points for advancement and you either win or lose your round based on your play and one opponent's; your match is never determined by odds worse than 1v1 or because the game state was decided through mistakes, events, and decisions of which you were not a part.

Those card examples are also much better. Obviously the melee oriented cards of the latest CP are a great example as well since they have abilities which don't function at all in joust. Now, if I could play a melee game where the four players were concealed from one another, and everyone played to win, with no table talk, I would have a melee game I could enjoy and even try to win in keeping form. But as mentioned it's the social aspect which is the biggest draw for players who prefer melee. I think I got sick of table talk playing VTES because most players made completely one-sided offers that some idiots took, totally handing them wins. Personally now, I just prefer the balance, the odds, and the consistency of joust play. I just feel like your deck has a bigger impact on the game since there are less players who may be holding meta, less players who will overwhelm you with challenges, and less players to drain your actions when you realize you're fighting against a team. I feel like a get a more "fair" game and more mileage out of my deck.

In any case, I'm not convinced of the merit of melee, but I respect that some people think it's awesome. However many posts aren't going to change what apparently is a "hot topic" in the community though and I feel crazier for having been on here acting like this for the last couple days. So good points to everyone, and I'll argue with you on a different thread. =)

Not to derail the current discussion much, but I think many of the Melee positives and Joust positives could be combined into the 2VS2 format. It would also most likely eliminate several of the negatives of Melee since the entire point is to use teamwork with another player.

Does anyone think a 2VS2 format would be a great fit for a tournament? You could take advantage of a lot of those Melee centric cards.

2 vs 2 is something different again. The titles aren't used, which makes the format quite different from melee (and makes the cards mentioning titles useless). I haven't tried it yet (it'd certainly be interesting).

Khudzlin said:

I agree that the titles in Melee are an important part of Melee deck building and overall strategy. That would be something I'd sorely miss.