[Fairyworld] Examining combat cards and strategies and how they should work

TwoRazorReign wrote:

These unwritten rules contribute to the social part of VTES that a lot of people find charming.

When you are playing in the environment, where this rules are followed. When you are out of it then the game became unbearable for many. And when crostable bleed is bearable, crosstable combat is a cancer.

All rules should be written.

elotar wrote:

Lech wrote:

Arguably, it's preventing people from playing greedy decks with no combat cards whatsoever. It's important aspect of the game, and if someone choose to not play any combat at all, he should suffer horrible death.

So you goal is to prevent people to play the decks they like, your means to reach it is to make them suffer until they submit.

Can't share any of it.

Mewcat wrote:

Combat is effectively not a part of the game competitively.

From which competitions do you getting this crazy ideas?

There was some time ago metagame statistics from one of the EC, combat was present in absolute majority of the decks.

Modedit\\ Please keep consecutive quotes within a single post. No double-posting.

The notion that combat prevents people from playing the decks they like in some disparate manner is patently false. It is more punishing to be bled for 6 than to have a 6 cap put into torpor. Rescues and hunts are built into the game with the former capable by another player. Pool is the meta resource.

The crazy fact comes from the actual decks people play. Look on the home page of this site. Combat is like the imbued, shows up once in a while and is annoying.

Brum wrote:

skimflux wrote:

I would argue that the popularity of Pentex Subversion and Banishment shows that combat is not really 'too far away from the win condition' but rather that it is not as efficient as those more popular cards.

(...)
If 80% to 90% of a deck is just combat, instead of stealth N bleed or a solid politics module, you're fardest from the win condition than the other 2 counterparts.

That just goes back to the efficiency point - an 80% to 90% stealth deck would have the same issue, yet I doubt anyone would say that stealth is innefficient - about 45% of all winning decks use stealth cards.

The difference (IMO) is that often 1-2 stealth cards are enough to make an action successful, yet with combat you will need 3-4 cards for a 'successful' combat, and then you still need a second minion to get your action through.

So a stealth module can be made with as little as 4-8 cards (average in the TWDA is 11), but few decks will be able to use combat aggressively with less than 12 cards.

Meow wrote:

Combat is effectively not a part of the game competitively. Decks routinely running around with a few red cards is curious as an acceptable meta end game. About 20% of the cards in game are combat cards and deck representation is far below that.

The TWDA disproves that: over 90% of the TWDA decks have combat cards, with an average count of 17 cards/deck, just below 20% - about on par with all action modifiers! Admitedly, a large part of those cards are SCE, dodge, and maneuver cards used as defense, but this only goes to show that combat is a huge part of VtES, even if it can't really stand alone on its own feet.

Meow wrote:

The notion that combat prevents people from playing the decks they like in some disparate manner is patently false. It is more punishing to be bled for 6 than to have a 6 cap put into torpor. Rescues and hunts are built into the game with the former capable by another player. Pool is the meta resource.

I agree - being brainwashed and bled out by turn 4 is worse than having a pure combat deck killing your minions.

What powers are you using to extract this data? I just see a list of decks.

skimflux wrote:

The difference (IMO) is that often 1-2 stealth cards are enough to make an action successful, yet with combat you will need 3-4 cards for a 'successful' combat, and then you still need a second minion to get your action through.

That depends on what you consider successful. Personally, I prefer the short-chain combat definition. The goal is to come out ahead, not necessarily "own" the enemy minion.

skimflux wrote:

So a stealth module can be made with as little as 4-8 cards (average in the TWDA is 11), but few decks will be able to use combat aggressively with less than 12 cards.

Does that take into consideration the default action of the deck? Politics is already +1 stealth, so is Gremlins, for instance. I think you'd need to factor that into the average. Also stealth permanents: Jost, Opium Den, etc. equal 1 stealth card per turn. Did you factor in those as well?

It get's all rough around the edges when you do that. So, my guess is that the "real" average is higher.

Let us redesign stealth to resemble combat. We now break stealth into 3 categories: high stealth where you jump on building, low stealth where you go in sewers and subways, and side stealth that is more about disguises and sneaking. If you play side stealth and I play high intercept you get -1 stealth from the card but if you play low stealth and I play high intercept you get +1. This is obvious because I have a birds eye view from my high perch but cant see you in the sewers.

Now if you play 3 side stealth cards that is like a matching set in risk and all your stealth is doubled BUT I can counter it with 1 side, 1 high, and 1 low - I am monitoring everything!

To make things even more fun and interactive the action itself has a flavor: can be grape, apple, or banana. If my intercept card has the appropriate color your action ends unsuccessfully. You do have the option of changing the action flavor with some stealth cards and this is key to the meta game. Skilled players will realize that all the good stealth cards are grape and play heavy grape intercept.

Hopefully we can get this added in the next set.