Nosferatu - Give them some love...

LivesByProxy wrote:

Hijack!
+1 stealth.
Cost 1
Steal (and equip) a vehicle controlled by any minion, with +1 strength in combat if any occurs.
As above, and if combat does occur, this acting minion may Strike: Steal (and equip) a vehicle controlled by the opposing minion once each round this combat.

How this should really look like:
Action: acting vampire gots +1 strength during this action.

bleed with +1 bleed
steal and equip vehicle

All such corner case effects should be at superior and have generally useful basic effect.

My thinking is, if the inferior effect is a basic bleed (+1), then the sort of decks that would be encouraged would be potence bleeds. I can already see the brujah/!brujah and nos/!nos decks trying to stack +bleed modifiers. And I fear the effective outcome is more of the same stealth-bleed gameplay.

I think, but have little evidence to support this notion, that Garfield and co. thought players would be doing more stealing of minions, equipment, locations, etc. And that, through this activity, gradually wear down their pools as resources (in the form of cards on the table" were lost. But the game presently, to me, seems to have put all the emphasis on bleeding, which is attacking an opponents primary resource - the one through which they play cards. (Edit: This resource, like lands in Magic, if destroyed too quickly, results in a negative play experience. It is not just because the player feels like they lost, but feels like they never really played.)

And I don't think that's appropriate for the Nosferatu. I don't think they should get +bleed bonuses, because then that just makes them like the other 7 or 8 clans who have access to +bleed actions/modifiers. The Nosferatu should, thematically, use stuff like Army of Rats, Victim of Habit, Arson (if it were good), etc. to attack your opponents pool indirectly.

But as stuff like stealing or burning or corrupting weapons and vehicles, havens or sanctuarys, locations, mortals, allies, and retainers and such, is not the primary gameplay of VTES - as you said, many such card effects are "cornercase", or the conditions arise too sporadically, or the "opportunity cost" to including it in the deck is too high - these are all ways of saying that VTES's gameplay isn't primarily about that stuff.

Because VTES seems to have fixated on the abstract "bleed" action as the core gameplay loop.

I have to imagine that Garfield and co. looked at Cryptic Mission and Arson and Far Mastery and thought these actions would be core to the play experience. But you are not really playing VTES if you are using those cards. Real VTES is Govern Conditioning bleed, right?

LivesByProxy wrote:

I have to imagine that Garfield and co. looked at Cryptic Mission and Arson and Far Mastery and thought these actions would be core to the play experience. But you are not really playing VTES if you are using those cards. Real VTES is Govern Conditioning bleed, right?

You are imagining phantoms. Removing of prey's pool is really a core VtES gameplay loop. "Cool stuff" is a way to get there. The problem with most of cool stuff now is that it's either to weak in comparison with govern-conditioning so is useless, or comparable (tupdogs) so it breaks the core loop (the game).

elotar wrote:

LivesByProxy wrote:

I have to imagine that Garfield and co. looked at Cryptic Mission and Arson and Far Mastery and thought these actions would be core to the play experience. But you are not really playing VTES if you are using those cards. Real VTES is Govern Conditioning bleed, right?

You are imagining phantoms. Removing of prey's pool is really a core VtES gameplay loop. "Cool stuff" is a way to get there. The problem with most of cool stuff now is that it's either to weak in comparison with govern-conditioning so is useless, or comparable (tupdogs) so it breaks the core loop (the game).

The "cool stuff" is what I meant. I think Garfield and co. imagined more "cool stuff" cards being played over the course of the game. More non-bleed actions that indirectly remove an opponent's pool (by stealing, burning, etc.)

This dove-tails with the conversation about VTES players. I think prospective players will want to do "cool stuff" and that while "bleed for 3 w/ +3stealth" is exciting, like you said, the "cool stuff" presently in the game doesn't win games (is too weak).

LivesByProxy wrote:

This dove-tails with the conversation about VTES players. I think prospective players will want to do "cool stuff" and that while "bleed for 3 w/ +3stealth" is exciting, like you said, the "cool stuff" presently in the game doesn't win games (is too weak).

"Cool stuff" should just be more in line with other stuff. So current overpowered strategies should be nerfed (see my dominate example) and current weak stuff should be buffed. For example if leather jacket can be burned to prevent just 1 damage but was giving an untap immediately it may be much more useful.

Cool stuff that you cannot play because there is no valid target gives you -1 hand size. Play too much of it and all your deck can do is jam. People prefer Entrancement to Far Mastery for a reason. It is not that a bleed at +1 is that strong, but at least you always get it out of your hand.