Coming back to the game

Bloodartist wrote:

I think you got this entirely backwards. No card limit actually allows more cards to be used than implementing a card limit.

Think of very common cards that have basically no monetary value on their own: cards like torn signpost, conditioning, blood doll etc. If a card limit X was implemented, you could only put up to X cards into your deck. This would mean that every other such card you own would be useless. In a TCG-model with randomized boosters, this would mean that when you open booster you would have very high chance of opening garbage that has no use and no monetary value. In VTES, those cards can still find use since they can be used in large numbers in some decks.

In a Living Card Game-model (fixed contents), you only buy bundles that you need, ensuring you most likely won't end up with useless card you have no use for. On the other hand, having a no card limit along with LCG-style boosters is a great boon for the manufacturer since it instills a need to buy more bundles than you would with a card limit if you want to build certain decks. If there was a limit, you would only buy the minimum amount of bundles necessary to get that card limit X amount.

About the card copy limits: If there was a limit of X per each unique card, you would have to use more unique game components (i.e. different cards) from your collection. What VTES has currently is that the majority of your collection - your unique game components - goes unused.

I guess you would have to make a value judgement. Which would you prefer? That more of your unique game components are relevant? Or that more of the same game components are relevant because there is no arbitrary card limit?

If you're building a 80 card deck - that's 80 game pieces being used, but when 10 of those 80 are the same card, you're necessarily seeing less unique game pieces than if there were only 4 of those, and 4 of another, and 2 of another.

Just look through your own collection. How many copies of TSP do you have? Now how many other Potence cards do you have that are sitting in a binder or shoe-box or are glued to walls because it's better to just play 10 TSP?

If we agree that in any card game there are going to be better and worse cards, then it should stand to reason that the 'worse cards' will not get played when players can take infinity copies of the 'better cards' and use those. An arbitrary card limit forces players to use more of their unique game pieces from their collection. That's why card limits where introduced in Magic way back when - because without them every Red deck had 30+ Lightning Bolts and every other card like it was simply out-classed and not used.

And regarding Living Card Games, the general consensus is that 'forcing' the consumers to buy 3 Core Sets just to get the actual game is a dick move on the part of FFG. Not that it isn't lucrative or a smart business practice from a profit perspective, but that it is lame that a 'Core Set' is basically incomplete and upon getting 3 copies you're left with a bunch of game pieces you can't use and have no need for. It also goes against the ethos of the LCG model - low monetary barrier to entry i.e. this isn't a money pit like Magic.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

It boils down to this: library cards were deliberately designed without a card limit in mind to keep the design space for library cards wide open.

How? I don't understand how card-copy limits relates to keeping design space open.

The design space of a game is a limited by the game's mechanics and terms. If what you're saying was true, or at least executed in practice, I would think we would have more cards that do a wider variety of things and more cards that do similar things with interesting differences. But if we look at Potence for example, or Auspex, or Obfuscate especially, we see so many cards doing the exact same thing with very little variation or consequence. Despite all of this open design space supposedly allowed by the lack of card-copy limits, 80% of most Potence cards aren't used because they're a worse version of TSP.

Sorry, I don't see how the lack of card-copy limits keeps design space open.

LivesByProxy wrote:

TwoRazorReign wrote:

It boils down to this: library cards were deliberately designed without a card limit in mind to keep the design space for library cards wide open.

How? I don't understand how card-copy limits relates to keeping design space open.

Without card limits, only one card that limits to hand strikes (immortal grapple) and one card that restarts combat (psyche) was needed in Jyhad to make combat a difinitive archetype separate from other archetypes. With card limits, multiple cards limiting to hand strikes/restarting combat would have been needed for the combat archetype to exist. This would have introduced “design lag,” where design space is taken up by analogous cards. In the days of Jyhad, this means that Cat Burglary, Distraction, Thrown Gate, and Rampage would not have had the design space available if 4 other Immortal Grapple/Psyche analogues needed to be included in the set. Therefore, card limits would have sacrificed design space in potence and celerity. This is why card limits were not hard coded into VTES.

The design space of a game is a limited by the game's mechanics and terms. If what you're saying was true, or at least executed in practice, I would think we would have more cards that do a wider variety of things and more cards that do similar things with interesting differences. But if we look at Potence for example, or Auspex, or Obfuscate especially, we see so many cards doing the exact same thing with very little variation or consequence. Despite all of this open design space supposedly allowed by the lack of card-copy limits, 80% of most Potence cards aren't used because they're a worse version of TSP.

This may be true at the highest level of VTES, where people know that Torn Signpost + Immortal Grapple is a strong combination. This is not true in the vaccum in which people green to the game find themselves in. These people are free to start a play group and make a Cat Burglary deck and see what happens. They could not if Cat Burglary did not exist but for the need of Psyche analogues in Celerity to buttress the combat archetype in the context of card limits.

Also,

Potence does very little other that red cards and cards that give standing +strength, if you're using cards that are even somewhat efficient.

You could say Potence as a primary component will rely on either TSP or supplant it in part with PS/HM or innate strength on minions and combo it with Immortal Grapple, probably spicing it up with Disarms, Slams, and Lids.

Potence could use the ability to maybe vote, but it's good at hitting hard and grappling.

In short, there have been suboptimal cards printed quite liberally in the past, but a handful are playable, and while another grapple could've been printed and that design space essentially duplicated, it wasn't. It doesn't fit the business model, isn't great for the current game compared to other things that could be done, and such things would add nothing to the game but getting around an arbitrarily extant rule that 25 years of (what is implied to be insubstantial) the games evolution have made not relevant as an option.

I don't think the OP was asking about what parts of the rulebook one person didn't like, but I hope their questions have been answered as to ways to show how arbitrary card limits are.

I have said before, and say again, if your playgroup is dead set on 4 card limit, just make a Malk 94 deck and sweep every table until they admit that card limits are bad. (with malk 94 you have access 5 different bleed modifiers, at least 4 different bleed actions without having to look at outferiors of bloodlien discplines or discipleneless cards, 5 different bounce cards and 4 different wakes, and more different stealth cards than you really need).

Klaital wrote:

I have said before, and say again, if your playgroup is dead set on 4 card limit, just make a Malk 94 deck and sweep every table until they admit that card limits are bad. (with malk 94 you have access 5 different bleed modifiers, at least 4 different bleed actions without having to look at outferiors of bloodlien discplines or discipleneless cards, 5 different bounce cards and 4 different wakes, and more different stealth cards than you really need).

Also leverage. Not all disciplineless are useless, leverage and Command 'O Beast throw off math.
Malk '94 and lawfirm can eat tables alive with that sort of limit.