file Recruitment Exercise - Good for the Black Hand?

02 Dec 2013 21:49 #57413 by jamesatzephyr

The VEKN is actually using the Inquisitor excuse as a crutch. The trope has become that we couldn't handle the internal criticism of our cards and then left the team in response. Go ahead and believe that. It's a great talking point for the VEKN to explain away why it took the Design Team two years to put together a small fan set, 18 months of which was spent after Carl and Eric were gone!


You know that time period when - as was publicly stated - nothing could be done because negotiations were proceeding with several third parties about PoD, DriveThruCCG etc?

And again, given that many of your cards are terrible, your design process is re-introducing problems that are solved, and your lawyering means that no-one with any brains will adopt your cards into any official system, the fact that you can create dozens of cards in six months is nothing to boast about. Quite the reverse. Your playtesting process is so good, and yet your cards just don't work? How embarrassing.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Lönkka, Ashur

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03 Dec 2013 00:10 #57418 by KevinM

If I were a psychologist...

I'm glad you're not a psychologist. If I were one, I'd say you're projecting a bit too much.

What am I projecting about, Jeff? Do you even know what the term means, since you're using it incorrectly?

This reminds me of the scene in Return Of The Jedi where Jeff Kuta says, "You don't know the power of PCK! I *must* obey my PCK master!"

I've come part of the way and said that some of your cards were good. Why don't you come part of the way and say that Inquisitors weren't liked? (true) Or that you didn't quit, you were fired? (true) Or that the reason that you were fired is because you threatened that "bad things would happen"? (true) Or that you burned years worth of friendship-bridges with dozens of people who actually LIKED you for your two co-conspirators and permanent ostracision? (true)

Why keep lying about all of this that everyone knows to be true?

Other than a couple of people in your local playgroup, you have absolutely zero defenders, none whatsoever. Trading truth and friendship for falsehoods and egotism appears to be a very lonely choice.

Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
"Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
"Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier
Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/
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03 Dec 2013 08:40 #57428 by Brum

BtW, could you explain projection for the players that are not from English speaking countries?


bit.ly/1eIA0za

;)


My bad. I wanted Jeff to explain in what way does that word relate to what Kevin said.

BTW, Black Hand needs help the same way Gangrel need help.
The problem is that some of them have Dominate, so you end up helping Dominate instead of the clans in question.

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03 Dec 2013 12:47 #57432 by jamesatzephyr

BTW, Black Hand needs help the same way Gangrel need help.
The problem is that some of them have Dominate, so you end up helping Dominate instead of the clans in question.


There are some ways round that.

For example, cards like Choir and Inside Dirt are interesting in their different ways of giving a viable ousting strategy where stacking with Dominate isn't the first thing that comes to mind. Obviously, you can still play cards like Seduction on them, but you're not thinking about it as the first option because it doesn't just trivially stack with Conditioning. Similarly, they provide a minor way of avoiding bounce. (Yes, you can potentially multi-act and do them both, but that's a somewhat different issue to just "Dominate is good".)

Similarly, you can go for annoying restrictions. LSJ experimented with that sort of thing a couple of times, notably on Eldest Command Undeath, there principally to stop Voter Captivation being a panacea to all blood cost issues. It's not impossible to imagine a card that says something like "Dominate cards cost an additional blood for the duration of this action" - which would affect someone else's bounce, but also discourage your use of Conditioning or Seduction or whatever.

The obvious other alternative is to implement additions in ways that don't stack. Instead, encourage diversity of strategy. For example, if you added a Black Hand[0] Bounce card (for example) that was strictly worse than Deflection but still decent, you probably wouldn't find the Black Hand Dominate users clawing for it - why bother, they have Deflection? But it might encourage that Black Hand dude with cel/vic/SAN to play it, because it's good enough to use. So the guy currently not playing that deck can try it, because its viability rises.

Now, obviously, one way of doing this is picking an existing ability, cloning it, tweaking it a bit and going from there. That's totally fine, totally obvious, and has been going on probably since games were invented - certainly CCGs. The more subtle one is to invalidate the existing strategy you don't want to help, for the purposes of this card. Make the play of one card prevent the play of the other card, but not in a "You cannot play this card" card text way. For example, you don't want to stack with Dominate bleed, make the card trigger off "If this bleed resolves for 1..." If you don't want it to improve bounce, then make it share a timing window with bounce and have the one invalidate the other, or make it only playable when a bleed resolves against you so you don't want to bounce. And, of course, make it Good Enough so that people think about switching to it. For example... perhaps when a bleed resolves against you, you can play a reaction that disables the minion (temporarily) in a gruesome fashion that means maybe you don't have to defend against the action next turn. Or maybe a reverse Crocodile's Tongue that makes the action more expensive, making the minion unable to pay for it, unable to play another one next turn (empty), or decide to back out of it (offered by card text, say). That sort of thing.





[0] It doesn't have to be Black Hand, obviously. You can try similar things with more or less any clan or trait - the !Gangrel bleed modifier, the Baron vote-push, the Magaji bounce, or whatever. Clearly, specifics will vary based on the availability of the trait and the power of the card.

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08 Dec 2013 07:32 #57552 by Haze
on the original discussion, I do agree with Kuta that it's a boring and cheesy card. the entire black hand concept is one of the most uninteresting concepts ever added to the game, one tier above the nigh useless redlists and trophies. they have a few strong cards, but they don't do anything especially cool or unique to form an identity. woo it's just like Mesu Bedshet without the Spell of Life to follow up.

but I disagree that it's anything earth-shattering or revolutionary. Reunion Kamut already existed, crypt-drawing already existed. this one popped up a few times in tournaments, probably because of a combination of 1) new and shiny cards, and 2) people tend to underestimate unusual decks until they suddenly remember an expansion added new tech to it (well, sorta new)


now, as for the MORE INTERESTING DISCUSSION GOING ON

hey everyone, appoint me for the next design team. i plan to put ponies on all the cards.
i can't promise that my cards will be unpopular with the playtesters, but i do promise to cause drama one way or another.
at least things won't get boring, right?

BtW, could you explain projection for the players that are not from English speaking countries?


bit.ly/1eIA0za

;)


My bad. I wanted Jeff to explain in what way does that word relate to what Kevin said.


the original definition doesn't matter; on the internet it means "I know you are, but what am I?"

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08 Dec 2013 10:29 #57555 by Amenophobis

the original definition doesn't matter; on the internet it means "I know you are, but what am I?"


You lost me here (sorry, non-native speaker). Can you elaborate a bit?

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