Errata Discipline-less cards to have Disciplines? (where applicable)

LivesByProxy wrote:

@James, @Timo: You both say that making Discipline-less cards (most wakes in this example) would decrease deck diversity, and make some decks unable to exist.

But my thinking is that having Discipline-less cards actually decreases deck diversity.

The game currently has a variety of decks that are competitive. Some of them would not be heavily affected by your change. Some of them would be reasonably affected. Some of them would be nuked from orbit. However, many of the powerful archetypes and mechanics are still well represented in the subset of decks that are only slightly affected by your change. Not every deck - some get killed by not having access to the right disciplines - but many of the big deck styles. For example:

- Ventrue have and use a lot of Fortitude (for Freak Drive, amongst other things) in Ventrue Law Firm, and Obfuscate Ventrue (Arika, Queen Anne, Catherine du Bois, maybe Suhailah depending on your feelings) can do stealth vote and stealth bleed

- Lasombra can do breed boon

- !Ventrue, with lots of incidental Aus and For, bring along intercept walls and grinder combat. Somewhat similar for the !Salubri.

- Ravnos, with Fortitude (and a decent clutch of Domi-Ravnos), can do sneaky lockdown decks.

- Gun wall decks have lots of Auspex (usually), but still doing brutal combat. Tzimisce Walls have lots of Auspex too.

You probably lose out a bit on Temptation, but you still get minion stealing strategies from things like Mind Rape (the Ventrue and Lasombra can go great guns on those), Domi-Protean (since Stanislava and Ingrid have a bunch of Fortitude too - more Mind Rape, more Graverobbing), Spirit Marionette (lots of Aus/For with Salubri).


What loses out? All sorts of stuff - a variety of Brujah decks lack solid access to the disciplines. Group 2 Assamites come out reasonably well, although other groups not so much. Giovanni do fairly badly on the Aus/For/Tha front. Howler walls aren't doing so great.


But you're still seeing a lot of options for stealth bleed, vote, stealth vote, intercept, low key combat/grinders, a variety of aggressive combat, minion theft etc. that come out of it relatively unscathed. Those decks will will still be played.

Decks that can't stand up to those decks now still won't be able to stand up to them in a future where they need disciplines for Wakes. So you've knocked out a variety of decks that are currently playable, but the environment is still full of powerful decks that currently non-viable decks don't get any advantage over. Sure, they may not face a EuroBrujah deck throwing out Second Tradition with abandon (that lacks good Auspex, outside of Theo Bell, for example), but they're still going to face Tzimisce blockers, Aus/Cel gun decks etc. They may not get a Giovanni power-bleed deck breathing down their throat that was relying on Wakes and Deflections, but they get weenie Dem, Malk 94, Obt/Dom bleed, Ventrue Obf stealth bleed etc.

LivesByProxy wrote:

When I asked that question, I was referring to what was directly above: "VTES would be improved if certain effects were only capable via certain disciplines. This is, in fact, the way most of VTES works. You get the biggest bleeds out of Dominate. You find the most +stealth effects in Obfuscate. The most +intercept is via Auspex. Etc. Etc "

And what immediately followed to emphasize my point: "So I want to ask, how is the above a bad thing for the game?

Because it easily promotes inequality between different clans who have access to different disciplines. The game balance may suffer if you restrict who can perform what. Just recently the dev team buffed (or tried to buff) clans like Samedi and harbingers with new card releases, because the clans had been suffering from precisely this issue and were underplayed.

Reacting (and by extension blocking) is a core mechanic of the game and it is only just that everyone can do it. This is not a thing that needs to be restricted.

Bloodartist wrote:

Reacting (and by extension blocking) is a core mechanic of the game and it is only just that everyone can do it. This is not a thing that needs to be restricted.

Furthermore, the suggested changes in the OP already push the power level of those wake cards higher. If new discipline wakes are wanted, making new ones instead of replacing old ones (thus taking away from the card pool) will only broaden the options.

Eyes of Argus wallpapered many other wakes in decks, but if it replaced Forced Awakening in the pool, a lot of auspexless crypts would suffer. On the Qui Vive almost single handedly wallpapered all other disciplineless wakes, but Evening's Freshness and others still keep popping up. Having options is good. People will still always use the best options to them though.

What I'm saying is we'll lose out if we errata away cards. We gain options if we introduce new, more powerful and different versions as new cards. VtES does not have a limited (much) card pool, and that is one of the game's core strengths. Making an wake effect that's better than OtQV in that discipline will effectively push out non-disc wakes from those crypts that can use them. It's a player choice and natural evolution of decks. There is no need to force the evolution.

You have a cool proposition, ruled by the rule of cool, as always. Just think about it though: making something new so that people can choose to use those better cards in the deck of their choice effectively does what you'd want here, as they'll replace the previous cards where applicable. Removing options is not needed for the effect.

By the way LBP, how is that game of yours coming along? As said before, I'd love to read a blog or forum or anything and chime in.

Kraus wrote:

Furthermore, the suggested changes in the OP already push the power level of those wake cards higher. If new discipline wakes are wanted, making new ones instead of replacing old ones (thus taking away from the card pool) will only broaden the options.

I'd personally be quite interested in some cards for weaker/less exciting disciplines that were two levels, where one level was a wake, and the other level was something different. Sort of like Eyes of Argus, but potentially more varied 'other' things - so a Thanatosis deck can have some sort of creepy voodoo-related card that gives them a new thing to use, but can be easily cycled as a Wake too. Obviously needs some thought and careful balancing, but Wakes aren't generally a bad thing to have on hand.

Kraus wrote:

On the Qui Vive almost single handedly wallpapered all other disciplineless wakes, but Evening's Freshness and others still keep popping up. Having options is good. People will still always use the best options to them though.

While I personally wouldn't have made OTQV as good as it is, the fact that it has issues when used repeatedly with the same minion makes it not entirely wallpaper WWEF, for a deck that wants to Wake and bounce a lot with the same minion. (Or Wake and anything a lot, with the same minion.) There's definitely a strong case that the first few Wake cards in your deck should be OTQV over WWEF, though.