When you are being powerbled to death quickly you lose the game.
When you can't do anything for 2 hours, but are forced to sit in the game, than your game (and 2 hours of life in general) is ruined. ...
Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything, least of it in a hobby game. If it's ruining experience, they definately should step out of it. If they know there might be conditions that ruin the situation for them, preparing to prevent that is common sense unless they want to high-roll their changes with certain decks before the players even take their seats. If they wan't to roll the odds with deck building, they should not expect their complaints to be flat out accepted by everyone when the risks eventually manifest. "I had 90% chance to succeed" still leaves that 10%. Did the other players using that 10% "ruin" the game or did the player not preparing for it?
... Situation where you are tilted so much to not want to sit with players at the table happens only on major events like EC. In other situations you sit discuss and watch the game, even swing decisions of others in discussions, Is it so horrible ? ...
This pinpoints the difficulty of "not getting the difference". Some players like myself see the casual games as social events where discussions, watching are accepted and encouraged even after being ousted from the game as long as they're not backseat gaming (for us.) Some people feel each and every game should adhere to strictest form of tournament rules where you can ask a judge to tell other player to stop harassing you with their small talk and communicate with gameplay intents only.
I can see how without any actions to perform the table is turned to just "forced to sit" (somehow one player has torpored all the vampires in the table and everyone is at 1-4 pool, without weenies in crypt, waiting for her to 1 bleed them out while still taking full turns while pondering choices) but it's important to note who is behind that forcing. It's the player deciding that for themself. Or in the tournament the judge that "encourages" them waving the disqualification from event option. In both cases it's the player that has gotten themself to that situation in the first place and they're free to exit as well. What's more if it's tournament only issue, then tournaments already have solutions for it (run different format, seek clarification on judge calls and whether or not they were valid etc.) whereas casual plays are under social contracts and therefore much more free form granted people agree. It's perfectly fine to say one is tired of combat decks ruining their game and choosing not to play with players taking those to table. It's also just as fine for those players to choose to play anyway as they enjoy what they're playing.
I think over a decade back we had the luxury of occassionally 3 tables on weekly games in the city group. One of those was dedicated to tournament level deck testing, one was normal and one was funny table to test whatever, say a Wormwood gehenna event Justine, Elder of Dallas delivering Rastacourere wall deck based around theft and second round burn combat. Horrible deck without any prospects "in the true games", but the table distribution ensured it played in the same leagues and the player was not "forced" to situation where they couldn't get to try their idea out. Now if I took a seat in the funny table, I didn't choose my turbo bleed, or my !ven grinder, or my obf-pre weenie vote, etc. but instead chose a deck to match the table. Or played a good deck to more conservative fashion as opposed to going all out.
Because it was a social event, I was responsible for my own enjoyment as well as others. I knew that when leaving home, it was reinforced when taking a seat in the table. People still would be emotionally invested in the turns and tricks of the game, but it was the community effort that made that. People could make requests and people were free to choose whether or not follow those, I had no trouble in removing Direct Interventions from my decks for casual game to play with a player who loathed that card above all else, I didn't feel it was the right thing to do, but it was neither a game ruining request for me. Neither had that player problem when in tournament it was played against them multiple times. Or well, they had problem and hated it, but they accepted it as they went to the event knowing it might happen.
Responsible bleeding is one of the first things, which should be learned by any VtES player, who is going to upgrade from noob skill level. All you are saying is that EC day one was full of noobs. Which is quite logical - player base is so thin that even for top tournaments there are not enough skilled players.
About my opinion for the game I've answered long time ago - there is a solid core which I love, but there are a lot of crap on top of it, which really takes the game down.
And player base is thin because of this crap.
If new players of all skill levels and gameplay values are not wanted in the circles of certain group of players, those players forfeit their logical right to complain that player base is thin. Playing Closed Session is valid choice but then complaining how the cross table independent title holder cannot help to push the vote through reveals the wisdom and foresight behind such move.
I think player base is thin currently because the game was dropped on printing, people with cards got older gaining more social sinks in form of family, work, responsibilities etc. while new players had no cards to get into. Fatigue of repeating same circles of gameplay without enough variance also is contribution to some and it's natural to grow bored. VTES has no "casual" online presence at this time to draw people in to physical format and new joiners see the game at some local event, heard from it from a friend or stumble to it randomly. Active recruiting in the form of advertised Friday night Magic never existed where I'm from and I suspect it suddenly didn't spring out when I stopped or when the card printing stopped. Neither did I heard of it starting again right after Black Chantry started to print. I suspect the same holds true to other areas as well that are "struggling" with the thin player base. It could be different if the people would have made different choices but blaming aspects in the game outside the core of the game is shifting "blame" away from the people who made those out of gameplay decisions earlier, especially when there has always been differing opinions what the in game core gameplay elements, formats and such are. It's rationalizing the issue away. Areas where proper out of gameplay measures were taken to account still have player bases.
More constructive way is to own the mistake and ponder how to move forward instead. Axing the rationalized culprit away (in this case perhaps the ruining combat or "lot of crap") does not solve the issue and only ensures when things go wrong again something else is at fault instead. That's why I feel it's important to first test extensively and go from bottom up approach as otherwise there's risk of top down mistake. It's safer to test locally with storyline if the "ruining combat" or "lot of crap" is the reason for troubles. It's also why I'm against of tournament or "pro" players having full unchecked access to decide how each and every new card or gameplay aspect/mechanic is created, tweaked or changed, especially when it comes to rules that are teached to new players as well in the form of rulebook. That viewpoint is just one part of the community and I trust they understand the argument of the vast silent majority they're responsible for as well. If people wish to change their local or tournament scene, making tornament rules or changing the setting via storylines is the way to go. Same goes for here, viewpoints are inherintly biased, even mine, hence it's best there are enough of them in the pot and that they're treated based on their merits as opposed to their users.
Combat as a strategy
NC Russia
