2013 Coaster Draft - Coming Soon

[hyyyper]

Hi everbody,

it's summer again which means it is also time for the Coaster Draft.

The Coaster Draft itself will not start for a few weeks, but I'd to hear you guys about some ideas I want to try out.

First of all, the picking of the coasters. Last year was a try-out that let 4 players pick simultaneously and we'll use that system again this year.

Since the speed of the draft has increased dramatically, it also means we have no real time constraint. We can use this to increase the amount of players or the number of rounds. More players might be more fun because more people can join but it would also mean that we might need more than one voting round. Increasing the number of rounds might be nice for some, as they can have more coasters in their park, but it also removes the difficulty of really having to think about what coaster you need and which ones you don't need in your park.

As a comparison, last years draft lasted 28 days, 14 players finished after 8 rounds (24 started) with a total of 107 coasters picked.

Please let me know how many players and rounds you would like to see this year.

The second matter is concerning the first round. Each year, the four coasters that are picked almost immediately are Boulder Dash, El Toro, Expedition GeForce and Bizzaro. While players are supposed to vote for the best overall park, having one of those coasters in a park will boost it immensely.

One idea that came to mind is to have a neutralization round before the actual draft. Players can pick one coaster each that will be neutralized during the draft, meaning the big shots I mentioned before cannot be picked and will not give the first few players an advantage. In that way it will come down to the best combination of coasters instead of having just one extremely good coaster. Please let me know if you think this is fair or if it is the worst idea ever.


I'd love to hear your opinions, and please keep an eye on the boards as the draft will most likely start early July.

I'm still not exactly sure what Coaster Draft is, but it doesn't sound like anything I would participate in.

[hyyyper]

It's a turn-based game where players pick coasters and try to fill their own park with the best overall selection of coasters.

If any of you want more info, here are the topics of previous years:
http://www.coastercrazy.com/forum/topic ... C_ID=27635
http://www.coastercrazy.com/forum/topic ... C_ID=26482

You could add two extra rounds and then have the contestants eliminate the best and worst rides each user chose. Based on majority rules or something like it.

I like the idea of neutralization. Instead of everybody having one coaster to eliminate, people could opt for the option to eliminate somebody's pick at the end of the draft. This would be an alternative to a pick. Like in the 7th round if I wanted to get rid of Boulder Dash because I have El Toro, I could do so if I sacrifice a pick.

Originally posted by jdmi012

I like the idea of neutralization. Instead of everybody having one coaster to eliminate, people could opt for the option to eliminate somebody's pick at the end of the draft. This would be an alternative to a pick. Like in the 7th round if I wanted to get rid of Boulder Dash because I have El Toro, I could do so if I sacrifice a pick.

Or a better idea which would force people to think tactically and competitively; Each round you have a choice: pick a coaster or eliminate someone's pick from the previous round. But if you choose the latter, you don't get a pick for the current round.

I understand the reasoning behind this possible rule, but a draft without the top coasters just doesn't seem right, so my question would be would the become available after a certain point or would they like not be availble the whole game?

[mkingy]

I'm with CKidd on it not seeming right. Could we potentially have a penalty for choosing a top 10 ride? like skip a turn or remain last pick for 2 turns or something?

I think there should be a vote to eliminate one of each player's best coasters at the end of the draft but allow a trade round after that where you can trade rides that you already have for something that nobody has picked yet or trade two or three of your coasters (dependent on their size or ranking) for a ride that was eliminated. I would probably stick the number of rounds of picking to 10 with said rule, but lower the number of rounds if there are a ton of players.

[bockzilla]

How about in the first round let everyone pick 1 of the top 4 coasters. After that round the top 4 coaster are no longer available.

There a lot more excellent coasters on that level out there. I say let it be. I have won without any of those (3 years in a row?)

[yoshifreak]

^I thought Hyyyper won last year? I agree, I don't think any coasters should be excluded. There's no guarantee that a park with one of those coasters will win, plus picking at the lower end of the next few rounds as the order cycles is designed to even out such an issue. I think another work around to this would be to increase the rounds. A "popular" coaster is less likely to stand out in a park of 12 coasters vs. a park of 8.

Edit: I have one other idea which may be interesting. Players vote on a number of top coasters which would be set up in a pool. These coasters would then be randomly dealt out to the competitors and then they would have to build a park around that coaster. Sure, it'd still be random and some people would get more popular coasters than others, but it wouldn't be as much of a choice.

^^I didn't say it was last year.

^That idea is dumb too. Let all coasters be available. Smartest person will come out no matter what.

If we really wanted to make it difficult, no park can really be a dream park. Every park in the world has restrictions. Maybe each competitor's park has a restriction that makes some coasters unavailable to him. Examples could be like a height ordinance, or landlocked. Or maybe your park doesn't deal with a certain manufacturer. This would make it more difficult to create a great park and the top 4 probably couldn't be picked in the 1st go.

I actually kind of like that idea, it'll make it different, but all coasters would still be available. it would have to be done at random though like drawing numbers to see who goes first

The simple way to do this is how any other type of Fantasy Draft is done. Rather than bumping people up one spot in the order like in previous years (which is really dumb), you just reverse the order in the next round, so if 15 people are playing, the person who picks first doesn't pick again until 30. They get a #1 ride but then other people get picks of two lesser rides before they get a second.

^This.

That is probably the easiest way to fix it. The idea of having restrictions just sounds more intriguing and adds a bit of a twist that we don see here anymore

^I'm glad you appreciate the idea! The biggest flaw I see is coming up with balanced restrictions and a large amount of them.

I don't think it would be so hard, though. If, for example, 15 people are playing, you come up with 15 different restrictions for the park. So we could have one park with "height restriction of 200 feet" And then "No B&M" or "No Intamin" etc, etc. And then a page with a "password" value is temporarily set up, all the restrictions randomized and assigned to a number inside the page. When a player is given a number, they go to that page, enter their number, and they have their restriction. Post a screen cap or something that shows your restriction and then on to the draft!

[hyyyper]

Hey guys, thanks for your responses!

I've seen some good (and bad) suggestions.

I'm leave this topic open for another week or two, so you can all have a say in this.

As for now, I haven't heard many people who are happy with neutralizing coasters, and I agree with that. Other ideas were posted, but I don't think they'll work as the Coaster Draft itself is already complex enough.

I also liked the suggestion to flip the picking order each round. I've heard of it before and nobody had any complaints about the 'bumping up' system. But it's a great idea and I think I'll test it out this year.