Archeology: Jyhad combat as it can be reconstructed from present time

LivesByProxy wrote:

I want to know why some cards like Concealed Weapon had a Discipline requirement but then that requirement was dropped. Other cards, which clearly should've had a Discipline requirement, don't, e.g. Aura of Invincibility should've been .

The people at WotC say that the 5-Color mana system Richard Garfield made for Magic was brilliant and one of the greatest innovations that could've happened, etc, etc. I think the Discipline requirements for cards was just as, if not even more interesting and cooler than Magic's 5-Color system, but there are so many cards in VTES that are basically "colorless" (requiring no Discipline.) There is in Magic's 5-Color system certain effects specific to each color (just like VTES' Disciplines) but then Magic has a certain amount of overlap between the colors. VTES has less of this it appears, I'm still counting the number of different types of effects per Discipline, but I think it would be good for the game if certain disciplines (like Potence and Fortitude ) branched out a little for unique and cool effects.

Also, this game should've adopted the multiple Discipline model from the start, had 3 levels / tiers per Discipline, and split Dominate into Dominate

and Seduction

, and not be so tightly wed to the VTM lore and mechanics.

Obviously concealed weapon was initially a disciplinless card and obf was added as either a misprint or in vein of the wave of stupidity, which gave as the rest of the strange combat cards. Can say nothing about AoI - other era of development.

As I've written at SCE thread - to be close to WoD lore was one of the key goals, so no changes to the disciplines.

What may be gained by splitting disciplines into 3 levels I don't know - even two levels system is still mostly unexplored, as we have crap load of "as above" and +1.

Idea of discipline pie was obviously sort of design intent, but... (this worth additional thread)

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Brum wrote:

Has anyone read the book written about the R&D phase of VtES?

The two forewords in the Jyhad/V:TES books, yes.

Can you link to these or link to where you've quoted from them in the past? I would be interested in reading them. I can't find the PDFs online.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

The two forewords in the Jyhad/V:TES books, yes.

They have written there, how it was a professional game design to make 75% of combat cards useless and not in anyway fix it in the reprint (or actually make it worse with new agg rules and hand damage additions)?

elotar wrote:

They have written there, how it was a professional game design to make 75% of combat cards useless and not in anyway fix it in the reprint (or actually make it worse with new agg rules and hand damage additions)?

That you dislike the rules changes doesn't mean that they were made in an unprofessional manner, by throwing rules into the air and snatching them however they fell.

You are woefully confused about the difference between "professional" and "omniscient". Jyhad in its original implementation, and V:TES after that, made some mistakes. Mistakes do not mean that people are unprofessional, it means that they made a decision which turned out - in the fullness of time - to not be the best one for the game.

Please, please, please for the love of God, stop conflating 'wrong' and 'unprofessional'. They are not the same thing.

LivesByProxy wrote:

Can you link to these or link to where you've quoted from them in the past? I would be interested in reading them. I can't find the PDFs online.

To the best of my knowledge, there aren't PDFs of them.

In www.vekn.net/forum/card-balance-strategy-discussion/76627-sce?start=6#87172 , I allude to some of the information that's presented in them. For example, the fact that their combat decks in Jyhad playtest were not like any sort of rush deck that was put together on the release of Jyhad seems pretty clear. Intimidating people into not blocking is one of the things that marks out combat decks, in the text. There's also, from memory, a mention of the fact that they found that Gangrel were the best combat decks, because of the Brujah's Presence (i.e. the Brujah had a wasted discipline) - which impliedly suggests that large amounts of S:CE was never or rarely playtested, because the Gangrel don't have a good answer to that, whereas the Brujah at least have two different answers to it in Jyhad (Psyche! and IG).

elotar wrote:

What may be gained by splitting disciplines into 3 levels I don't know - even two levels system is still mostly unexplored, as we have crap load of "as above" and +1.

They could print more variety of Discipline combinations (one of the reasons the grouping rule was necessary was to avoid reprinted the same discipline combos over and over.) With Basic, Advanced, and Expert levels to each Discipline, the effects could be more easily balanced. With the Inferior / Superior levels, effects get concentrated into one or the other. With 3 tiers they could have stronger effects (S:CE for example) as Advanced / Expert level discipline effect. And as a general rule Low-caps get Basic, Mid-caps get Advanced, and High-caps get Expert. I imagine that because of this, you could print more weenies with more total disciplines (of 128 3-caps, only 8 have 3 disciplines!) and those weenies could be printed with actual neat and relevant abilities. (Most weenies either have no special or a drawback.)