Assamites with presence

brettscho wrote:

Just commenting to point that out doesn't really seem to accomplish anything other than alienating the player who posted.

Try to control how other folks post doesn't accomplish anything w/r/t generating conversation about this deck, either. If you have a problem with someone else's post, the "Report to Moderator" button is right there for you to use.

brettscho wrote:

I also think that the comment regarding very dominant archetypes is a fair one. To my mind, it's a shame that card like Immortal Grapple shut down deck ideas (oh melee weapons other than WWS, how I miss you). And vampire stealing has no place in our game. Protect Thine Own was also banned because one action shouldn't deprive a player of that much pool along with their ability to act / defend. Vampire stealing is directly analogous. But I suppose I'm wandering off topic now.

Not especially. You weren't on topic.

FWIW, I'll repost my earlier post with some emphasis added so that it's hopefully made more clear how I was trying to foment conversation about the deck. And maybe that emphasis will even result in a direct response to its points.

I don't mean to be rude, and maybe I'm missing something here. But isn't this a star vampire bruise/bleed deck with very little defense? I think that IG and Salubri aren't the only things that are going to ruin its day, so blaming them specifically seems odd.

Responding to brettscho:

At this point, the game has no official designers. I guess Ben Peal and the others should just give up and stop being the armchair admirals that they are. Maybe they should just go design their own game rather than continue to produce card for us to enjoy. Did you ever fault LSJ for continuing a project started by Richard Garfield (and others) rather than making his own game?

No, I’m not faulting any current or past game designers here. I’m faulting you and your insistence that IG and minion stealing are problems that current or future designers must address.

Also, VTES is 20+ years old. If you gave me a 20 year old computer, would you really expect that I wouldn't suggest changes? Would you really be insulted when I hinted that it could be improved by a new CPU? That's how I view the game - a well built core that has some fantastic and unique ideas, but some rotted branches that may have made sense 20 years ago, but don't (to my mind) anymore. This is particularly germane given the possibility that VTES will be picked up by a publisher or even relaunched.

20-year-old cards (ie, the Jyhad set) make up a large portion of the cards that see play today. In my view, those old cards are the backbone that this game is built on. Your comparison insinuates that the Jyhad set is as obsolete as my dad’s Compaq desktop computer from 1994, which is long gone. I don’t really get your comparison of VTES to obsolete technology.

Even if the ideas come to naught, it keeps people thinking about the game, which I consider to be rather important at the moment. So I would personally encourage people to toy with the game mentally as a way to keep invested in the game and to keep their flagging interest in the game alive.

This is a fine point. I just disagree that trumps (eg, IG and minion stealing) are such huge problems that they need to be removed from the game. I remind you that this is a card game, and it was designed to have trumps. For lots of people, this style of card game is fun.

Responding to brandonsantacruz

@Tworazor
"Immortal Grapple and minion stealing have been in the game since 1994."

Yes, and Temptation of Greater Power, one of the original minion stealing cards was just banned. Why?

Because a current member of the rules team had an issue with this card, so it got banned from tournament play. Seeds of Corruption was banned because a member of the design team had an issue with that card. You can read their opinions in past posts on this forum.

Minion stealing is very swingy and this card was determined to be overpowered. Spirit Mirionnette wouldn't be a problem if Heidelberg didn't exist or was errated to only work on vampires you permanently control. Heck, Spirit Marionnette could just change the stolen minion into the acting minion in that action. However it is done I would like to see something happen.

The Spirit Marionette + Heidelberg combo is not really the scourge you are making it out to be, but I can understand your reasoning why the combo should get some scrutiny.

"V:TES was designed to have trump cards and deck archetypes that tend to fare better than others."

Rather than chase our tail all day and play rock-scissors-paper with hosers I would like the balance of existing cards be altered.

Then you should play a board game, or a card game without trumps. VTES is a card game that has trumps. Those trumps provide balance. Lots of players don’t have an issue with this "rock-paper-scissors" balance.

If "combat ends" means "skip to the press step" or "ignore any damage and effects from the opposing minion's strike," then combat gets more interesting with presses, maneuvers, prevent, etc being more useful in general.

This would homogenize decks at the tournament level, making all decks devote half their card slots to combat, effectively reducing the number of viable non-combat archetypes and increasing the number of combat archetypes. Your proposed changes are not the panacea you think they are.

Combats that involve a lot of back and forth are the most interesting in my experience. Altering Combat Ends and banning IG does not remove archetypes from the game, it only changes how cards work for them.

IG Potence Rush is just one major archetype that would be removed under your proposed change. So it definitely would remove viable archetypes at the tournament level. As for Ventrue Lawfirm:

If Ventrue Lawfirm plays Majesty with the proposed change, then unless the opponent presses, uses an additional strike or environmental damage it works the same as before, untap and do some other nasty action. Now the Ventrue lawfirm has more incentive to play presses, prevent, even additional strikes. Immortal Grapple prevents players from doing all of the interesting things that you can do with strikes, which can vary greatly from Crows, Soak, Blur, and Psyche.

The Ventrue Lawfirm archetype would disappear as we know it at the tournament level because the 12 card slots devoted to S:CE would now be 12 card slots devoted to ineffective-against-presses S:CE. The card ratios in that archetype would shift toward an increase in combat cards, thus rendering the archetype in its current form ineffective.

"It is what it is."

I mostly agree. I don't think VTES will see major rules changes. Some future game that may or may not be compatible with VTES might address these problems. VTES is what it is: often disappointing.

And yet you keep playing. And whining. Why?

"I find it funny that V:TES attracts the arm-chair game designer type who wants to “fix” everything. What is the point of playing a game only to complain about its faults? Just go design your own game already."

It isn't only VTES that attracts critical attention. VTES is a complex game that has lots of things, many of which could use tweaking. 22 years ago was probably the time to make some changes, it is much harder now. The criticism you seem to be offering it is "if you don't like it shut up or stop playing." That's not constructive. There have been many rules changes over the years and design decisions, all of which have involved seeing the game a little differently.

You get the gist of what I am saying, yes. Another way of saying it is: “If you don’t like the trumps this game was designed to have, then stop whining about it and play another game.” Whining about how combat works in VTES is not constructive in my opinion.

I like the World of Darkness setting and have purchased and enjoyed their computer games, card games and RPGs. I would be interested to see what else people can come up with as far as new games.

You just said the card game is “often disappointing.” It doesn’t seem like you enjoy the card game a whole lot.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

Stuff

Well, thank you for your thoughts. Sorry we don't agree.

I would ask that you don't insinuate or outright tell people that they'd be better off leaving the game. We have few enough players as is. Of course, this is merely a request, do with it as you will. Thanks.

Whining about what's "wrong" with a CCG is almost as old as the CCG. Thing about CCGs is that their audiences, even when small, can be quite diverse when it comes to player interests.

Now, not every CCG has an audience like Magic, where diversity of interests may be greater and the types of players in the smaller groups are still relatively large groups, but there is no one way to play a CCG, and broadening appeal can be through providing different card effects for different players.

Preventing someone from playing the game - SensDep, swarm rush, winnie bleed or vote that is too fast to respond to, immediate removal (e.g. Chameleon), etc. - is something some people enjoy and others aren't bothered by.

The difficult thing is where to make the game more fun for more players while also allowing for minority interests. Magic made counterspells less powerful, made creatures better, and other changes to try to push what was more fun to people and deemphasize what most players found less fun.

I do take issue with the idea that anything printed is sacred. It's not a bad thing that cards from Jyhad are playable, of course. But, I find that often there's a mentality with niche CCGs that a game is bound by what it has already printed. To an extent, because you want to retain players, there must have been something about what was already printed that was worthwhile. On the other hand, what do we actually know about what interests new players, what makes existing players happy, and what drives away players?

WotC has the resources to poll players and the Magic playerbase is large enough that one can look for polls on favorite and least favorite cards, mechanics, colors, sets, whatever. I was looking, actually, at people's opinions on best/worst mechanics in Magic not that long ago.

What would be interesting and maybe even valuable is to find out what mechanics (cards, sets, deck archetypes, clans, disciplines, etc.) are actually people's most favorite and least favorite, so that the game can adapt to what is more fun and leave fewer options that tend to be less effective to minority interests. Some players don't care about these things, having the mentality along the lines of "Whatever is available is what I try to build the best deck out of." or whatever and may feel that removing something is "dumbing down the game", but you can't avoid criticism.

As it's rather ambitious to try to find out for all of those things at once, can maybe start with something not too complicated, like favorite sets and least favorite sets. This is not the thread for that, but anyone want to start those two polls (given the forum limitations that you probably can't include every set)?

Brett, if I don't blog about my list for some of these things when my trip is over, remind me that it's good fodder for a number of blog posts. I have talked about sets I've liked and haven't liked with people, but I know I haven't gone to the point of really thinking about every single set in comparison to each other at one time nor have I blogged much about this sort of thing (you would think I would have).

ICL wrote:

Brett, if I don't blog about my list for some of these things when my trip is over, remind me that it's good fodder for a number of blog posts. I have talked about sets I've liked and haven't liked with people, but I know I haven't gone to the point of really thinking about every single set in comparison to each other at one time nor have I blogged much about this sort of thing (you would think I would have).

Can do - I'd very much enjoy reading about your thoughts on individual sets. I really liked your post which discussed the 10th anniversary article by LSJ regarding the best and most overlooked cards from each set, and what cards you'd pick (I usually agreed with you, but both of us have a lot more hindsight than LSJ did when the article was written). Others should check out that article here. Hope you'll be around next weekend, I'm itching to play again!

brettscho wrote:

TwoRazorReign wrote:

Stuff

Well, thank you for your thoughts. Sorry we don't agree.

I would ask that you don't insinuate or outright tell people that they'd be better off leaving the game. We have few enough players as is. Of course, this is merely a request, do with it as you will. Thanks.

I was merely wondering why someone continues to play a game they don't seem to enjoy playing. I just find it odd is all.

I enjoy reading your blog and everything, but can you try to be a little more open to the thoughts and ideas of others you don't agree with and have a discussion? If you find what other people are posting is simply too preposterous to discuss, then just don't reply. Telling people what and what not to post on this forum is not a good look for you. Frankly, it's controlling and weird.