combat rebalancing

Ankha wrote:

Apparently, nobody uses Hall of Mirror in Chimestry, Death Seeker in !Salubri and Evil Eye in Maleficia (not to mention Mind of the Wilds in ani/aus).

Too bad, they counter S:CE very well too.

You forgot The Jones

Yeah cause that:
- almost clan exclusive discipline
- bloodline clan exclusive
- daimoinon + cards
- card that wasn't exactly in abundance at any point in time
options have been tearing up the scene in the same sort of abundance as Majesty and Earth Meld for years!

I'm can't think why people aren't really playing those cards Ankha. But the JONES! Everyone plays The Jones!!

Ankha wrote:

As for talking about "abundance of Majesty", there are no more of them than decks with Presence, since S:CE is your only combat option in that discipline. Say you nerf S:CE, what would the Presence deck play against combat? Fake out?

I for one was NOT advocating for a nerf to S:CE, just painted a picture And Elotar's suggestion was actually a boost to S:CE. Any discussion against IG/Psyche can easily turn around into a discussion against S:CE. It might just be that combat is fine the way it is...

There's just a problem with ousting power when playing pure combat decks and people WILL play pure combat decks, it's an option, a fun and challenging one. However it does not measure up to stealth bleed or votes, it turns out to be only disruptive. Easily fixed though.

Example Rush .1
Requires a vampire with capacity 6 or more.
Enter combat with a minion or bleed at +1 bleed.

The capacity restriction should make sure weenie combat doesn't get too powerful. +1 bleed isn't much, however card management wise it's huge, now you don't have to stack 8 computer hackings with your 8 rush cards.

Example Rush .2
Requires a vampire with capacity 6 or more.
Enter combat with a minion, if that minion is burned or sent to torpor in this combat, it's controller burns 2 pool.

This example is equal to the previous one. It now takes 1 action to rush and burn pool, but the added effect is easily blocked. I'd say the first one is better when taking both predator and prey into account (you don't really want to burn pool from your predator).

Example Rush .3
Requires a vampire with capacity 6 or more.
Enter combat with a minion, if that minion is sent to torpor; put this card on that minion. While this minion is in torpor, it's controller burns 1 pool during the untap phase.

To me this seems like a fun rush card, it stacks so you can actually build a deck around it.

The rush cards above are not more efficient than bleed or vote cards, but add maybe enough ousting power to prevent non-ousting combat decks. It should not matter if you're bled/voted/bashed to death in 5 turns, all three options should be viable

I've been thinking of how, when and why V:tES could be modernized.

After some thinking, I came to realize that V:tES should not be modernized - although many of the different phases can be clarified in the rules or cards can be phrased to be more easy to understand. V:tES works fine as it is, even if there are lots of "crappy" choices for cards (you don't need to use them).

What I'd like to see is perhaps a new game, where you could use some of the old V:tES cards with new rules set. Specific V:tES cards allowed could be defined explicitly or by some other means (for example non-blood costing cards only). This game could be sort of a light-weight format from V:tES, which you can learn more easily.

The most important thing in V:tES to me has always been the social aspect alongside with genius creativity of people in deck building. The social aspect needs to be maintained, and creativity enabled. In my opinion, these two things do not require complicated rules set. Or maybe complicated rules with different phases are truly what makes the social aspect and deck building shine.

Back to topic:
If combat in the V:tES game was to be changed, the whole combat rules set would require re-design. As a dedicated combat player I have always felt that there are too many poor choices for combat decks and only couple of viable ones. Maybe re-design would help here, but in the end lots of cards might be removed from card pool or would need re-wording.

Messing with existing keywords is dangerous, especially if you remove some options or make some options work differently - how we can be sure if the result is as balanced as current combat system is?

Every deck in the V:tES needs to trade off something to gain something. If you wan't to play a power bleed, you just can't afford may cards that do not support bleeding function. Instead, you try to overcome the library shortcomings by other means - usually with means that actually support the deck theme. Since goal of the game is to oust your prey, even good combat decks should trade off some combat in favor of direct pool damage.

As an example, in your ordinary Ventrue law-firm deck you have cards that can be used to do pool damage and to gain pool. Usually a Ventrue law-firm has around four majesties. Then, a Ventrue grinder has perhaps twelve to fifteen combat cards. Three or four times that in the law firm. Both have good chances to win compared to each other - but when considering only combat, the grinder deck will best four Majesties since the grinder loses relatively less cards if the opponent plays majesty. Same goes other way around, if you play Torn Signpost, IG, Pursuit and Taste of Vitae, your opponent still has that majesty. Of course, in V:tES everything is more complicated than that.

Sorry for the long post, but I needed to get it out.