Poll: Merge Antitribbu into base Clans?

TwoRazorReign wrote:

DJHedgehog wrote:

Quite simply, we need someone to make cards that make sense. We have a lot of LSJ worshipers, but he made a lot of really bad cards and a lot of cards that are poorly templated and inconsistent, as well as made bad inconsistent rulings about the game based on what was on his mind and not what is in the rule book or printed on the card.

All of what you state above is what happens when someone with a scientific/mathematical mind acts as a game designer without any help. You also get rules like "impulse," wherein if the game was played to the letter of that mechanic, it would be such a bad idea that it is not really codified anywhere in the rules. "Start Combat. I don't have a card, you don't have a card. [Repeat 30 times]. Hands for 1, hands for 1. End combat."

VTES functions too much like a computer program, right down to the lead designer acting as the creator of the program and being the only person who really knows how it all should function, while everyone else looks on and goes "uh, what is this person thinking?" I read the rulebook, detailed play summary, card text, and rulings and think to myself, "whoever wrote this probably had a brilliant scientific mind, but they really, really needed an editor to clarify and communicate their ideas better."

Anyway, I agree that how rules and rulings were historically vetted in VTES definitely should change.

I strongly disagree with this notion of a 'scientific mind' at the core of this game. This game shows the hand of an absent minded lawyer. Cards get printed with random words (i.e. no templating) and after the fact it is determined what they do based on these words when this should have been determined before printing them. The rules are a mess to accommodate the random words, allowing odd timing windows to make some cards work and removing timing windows due to accidental words in others. As players we have to pore through years of unaccesable legal precedant to figure out how carfs work and when the legal code is revised we are hard pressed to find any sort of history or change log.

It isn't uncommon to look up a ruling and find lsj make a ruling then reverse his own ruling and wonder if there aren't further positional shifts you don't know about. If this is how effective science was practiced we would still be arguing over how to burn a log.

Tldr... Garfield is a mathematician and lsj an addled lawyer

Have you ever talked to a scientist? "Addled" is often an apt description.

Anyway, I think you're being a little unfair to the previous designer (and a little too complementary to "effective science," which has more in common with your "addled lawyer reversing rulings due to personal shifts" description than you seem to think it does). If I had to guess, I'd say the previous designer was a computer programmer. Nobody else can understand how this program is supposed to function, even other programmers. It would completely make sense to me why VTES is the way it is if it was overseen by someone in that field.

Back to the point at hand, though: merging antitrbu into regular clans just isn't going to work unless there is a reboot, and a reboot doesn't seem likely to happen. The "addled lawyer" way of managing VTES is likely to continue.

elotar wrote:

As we can see, some time pass and there are only 30 people who really care about this question.

Maybe it's not so important one?

In a thread full of opinions, this statement is an impossible to ignore fact......

TwoRazorReign wrote:

All of what you state above is what happens when someone with a scientific/mathematical mind acts as a game designer without any help.

Absolutely not. Opposite is true.

You also get rules like "impulse,"

Impulse isn't a rule. Its something created by the community to help understand the rules. Technically it doesn't exist since its not defined in the rulebook.

VTES functions too much like a computer program

Completely false. Laughable. If it worked like a computer program it would be clearly defined. VTES is not clearly defined. There are tons of cards that have no rule supporting them except their own text. For example immortal grapple is played at a timing window that that doesn't exist as per the rules. After maneuvers and before strikes. Rulebook doesn't recognize any timing step there.

, right down to the lead designer acting as the creator of the program and being the only person who really knows how it all should function, while everyone else looks on and goes "uh, what is this person thinking?" I read the rulebook, detailed play summary, card text, and rulings and think to myself, "whoever wrote this probably had a brilliant scientific mind, but they really, really needed an editor to clarify and communicate their ideas better."

Anyway, I agree that how rules and rulings were historically vetted in VTES definitely should change.

While the criticism about VTES rules is well-founded, I don't think you have much experience of computer programs or scientific approach for that matter. The LACK of scientific approach is what is at fault with VTES rules, and why I am constantly at odds with the pile of manure that is VTES rulebook.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

Have you ever talked to a scientist? "Addled" is often an apt description.

It definitely doesn't sound like you are one.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

Have you ever talked to a scientist? "Addled" is often an apt description.

Anyway, I think you're being a little unfair to the previous designer (and a little too complementary to "effective science," which has more in common with your "addled lawyer reversing rulings due to personal shifts" description than you seem to think it does). If I had to guess, I'd say the previous designer was a computer programmer. Nobody else can understand how this program is supposed to function, even other programmers. It would completely make sense to me why VTES is the way it is if it was overseen by someone in that field.

Back to the point at hand, though: merging antitrbu into regular clans just isn't going to work unless there is a reboot, and a reboot doesn't seem likely to happen. The "addled lawyer" way of managing VTES is likely to continue.

I have spoken to many scientists and mathematicians in the lofty towers of academia. There is a premium on 'elegant solutions' sometimes even at the expense of data. A scientist wants a very simple concept that can have ass piles of math with it, but still a simple concept.

On of the most hilarious things I read was from a physical scientist discussing how 50% of scientific publications are wrong and 40% are correct but useless. This is part the nature of the scientific method and part the structure of academia. I am well aware of these limitations.

Vtes rules is just memorizing a bunch of unrelated factoids and the exact opposite.

The creator of vtes was, in fact, a mathematician. His doctorate was in combinatorial mathematics. Most of the current state of vtes is due to lsj and I have no idea what his training is in.

As far as the programmer analogy, code that is constantly altered and added to eventually becomes so bloated that it is easier to just rewrite the entire thing than try to figure out what each line of code from dozens of previous contributors does. Let's call this a code reboot for fun.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Palla grande is strong enough to need it, Art Museum is already in the hands of the more wall-oriented side of the clan.

You're focusing on details.
I used those two cards just as examples how the idea I proposed would be executed.

Instead of these examples it could've been any Tor or !Tor card. Or just card X and !X.

No need to start pondering if these certain cards need something done to them or whatever...