VTES balance, discussion

The columbus ohio play group has had a brief discussion about the balance of the card game we're here to discuss... In general, there was some off topic remarks and then some digression about specific cards being more powerful than others, and some disciplines being better than others, and that some vampires were costed better than others. I would like to hear this forum's thoughts on this issue. With in your post, please remark if you find VTES to be balanced or not, and give some reasons why you think it has balance, and I would also like you to comment on a statement I've typed below. Here is my stance. VTES is a card game based off of a RPG. Balance is not neccesarily an issue in RPGs, as there are storytellers that can tweak balances. CCGs have similar balance controllers known as game designers. Storytellers can scrap certain story lines, or characters, if their effect on the game world is too severe. Game designers (specifically white wolf) can not do so. This is my first point. With in this RPG there are clans of vampires that use 3 different disciplines more than other disciplines. The same has been done for the CCG. Each discipline has certain things it can do. Some vampires were released for this game, after developing a majority of the cards they can use (discipline related cards). Who decides if these vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, there is a lack of balance. VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game, which creates its own sort of (im)balances. Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and wasn't a "you win" card. Flame on. ~SV

>The columbus ohio play group has had a brief discussion about the >balance of the card game we're here to discuss... In general, there >was some off topic remarks and then some digression about specific >cards being more powerful than others, and some disciplines being >better than others, and that some vampires were costed better than >others. Details are relevant. Though, I could see where you'd never get back to the main point without face-to-face discussion or something. >I would like to hear this forum's thoughts on this issue. With in your >post, please remark if you find VTES to be balanced or not, and give >some reasons why you think it has balance, and I would also like you >to comment on a statement I've typed below. No CCG is in perfect balance. Some quite popular ones are horrendously unbalanced. Because you mention multiplayer later, I'll save some comments, but I think V:TES has the best structure of any multiplayer CCG and is relatively well balanced in general. >Here is my stance. > >VTES is a card game based off of a RPG. Balance is not neccesarily an >issue in RPGs, as there are storytellers that can tweak balances. CCGs >have similar balance controllers known as game designers. Storytellers >can scrap certain story lines, or characters, if their effect on the >game world is too severe. Game designers (specifically white wolf) can >not do so. This is my first point. > >With in this RPG there are clans of vampires that use 3 different >disciplines more than other disciplines. The same has been done for >the CCG. Each discipline has certain things it can do. Some vampires >were released for this game, after developing a majority of the cards >they can use (discipline related cards). Who decides if these >vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. >What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, >there is a lack of balance. Ideally, the CCG finds a way to make every discipline or at least the primary combinations of disciplines balanced. A bitch to do, but there's a tremendous amount of room for adapting thematics, so it's possible. >VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are >set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game, which creates its >own sort of (im)balances. Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only >appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. With respect to balancing who wins and loses, it helps tremendously for a CCG to be multiplayer - everyone gangs up on the leader(s) to the ability they are able. The best thing about V:TES, possibly ironically, is that it limits the incentives and ability to take down the leader which results in *gasp* good play and good deck design sort of mattering (though, a relatively high number of recent discussions about the game have been about how little deck design has mattered and how much good play comes down to convincing people you aren't as strong as you are). My problem with the game balance is that, on the individual action level, the game is highly unbalanced. Bleed for 6? Send your main vamp to torpor? Bad stuff. But, because of the multiplayer dynamic and maybe something else, the high level game balance is far superior to the individual action balance. In terms of aspects of the game, I believe that there's numerous imbalances between disciplines, discipline combinations, vampires, and clans. This is solvable to some degree. Clans that can't put together good discipline combos as easily can get better clan cards or better vampires. And, so forth. While I've seen elevation of weaker clans (see Final Nights) to respectable levels, I believe there's more room for trying to balance clans and other aspects. It looks like one of my concerns - improving weaker disciplines (via 3-ways) - could be addressed with Anarchs. Yet, for instance, while a number of weaker clans have gotten better, I haven't seen much effort put into bringing the elite clans down a peg either by making other clans as good or better or by doing something that actually weakens a top clan significantly (the former being a better way to go). If what I'm talking about isn't clear, there's never, ever been a time when Malks weren't one of the best clans in the game; this makes the game staler than it needs to be. >Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as >you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and >wasn't a "you win" card. Um, no. Make a game less fun, and it eventually will bite you on the ass. So, there's a strong incentive to minimize mistakes.

> I would like to hear this forum's thoughts on this issue. > With in your post, please remark if you find VTES to be balanced or > not, and give some reasons why you think it has balance, and I would > also like you to comment on a statement I've typed below. > Depends on your definition of balanced. All players have an equal chance of winning? No. All decks have an equal chance of winning? No. All players with comparably powered decks have an equal chance of winning? No. All players with comparable card collections have an equal chance of winning? No. All clans have an equal chance of winning? No. All discipline mixes have an equal chance of winning? No. All comparably powered decks have an equal chance of winning? No. All comparably powered decks played by comparably powered players have an equal chance of winning? Yes. Real world likelihood of that happening: nil. All of which raises more question than it answers. > Here is my stance. > > VTES is a card game based off of a RPG. Balance is not neccesarily an > issue in RPGs, as there are storytellers that can tweak > balances. CCGs have similar balance controllers known as game > designers. Storytellers can scrap certain story lines, or characters, > if their effect on the game world is too severe. Up to the point that it impacts future releases from the source and leads to too much diverance and the players complain, yes. > Game designers (specifically white wolf) can not do so. This is my > first point. > Check out the Errata on The Return to Innocence. Game designers can change cards that have a severe impact on the game retrospectively, altering game balance. > With in this RPG there are clans of vampires that use 3 different > disciplines more than other disciplines. The same has been done for > the CCG. Each discipline has certain things it can do. Some vampires > were released for this game, after developing a majority of the cards > they can use (discipline related cards). Who decides if these > vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. And the playtesters. Who are not necessarily the game designers. > What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, > there is a lack of balance. > In as much as not all clans have an equal chance on winning, you are correct. The RPG has no winner. There is nothing much to gain by brutally abusing the rules in the RPG, other than losing friends when they decide you are about as much fun as dysentry. Unfortunately, in the CCG you can be as obnoxious as you like with discipline abuse as it increases the number of booster packs you get to take home after a tournament. V:TES playtests the mechanics of the world of darkness many strenously than the RPG (given an otherwise equal set of criteria). Does this matter though? The game does not necessariliy become unbalanced because certain vampires have certain skills. Would a five point vampire with QUI MEL DAI VAL be unbalanced? No? Does the fact that it isn't mean the game is unbalanced No. Why? Because we can only see the game in it's current state. If the Anarchs set contains a DAI MEL card (Mesmerising Opus of Satan's Butt-Trumpet, or something similar) that generates a super powerful affect then the balance swings. Only the most boring of games are balanced: Chess: the equipment is identical, so when player skill is the same there are lots of draws Tic-tac-toe: player skill is so low that draws become commonplace quickly Who wants a balanced game? Not me. I want to stay on top of the game to notice where the CURRENT imbalances are and exploit them before they get errata'd out of the game by the rules team: Temptation of Greater Power Return to Innocence No repeat actions ...to name but three examples of imbalance in reverse chronological order of them being fixed. > VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are > set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game, which creates its > own sort of (im)balances. Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only > appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. But are you asking the right question here? Do you care that it's not balanced, or do you care that other people see the imbalances and exploit them before you do? > Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > wasn't a "you win" card. > I would give the designers more credit than that. I think that (for example) a powerful discipline like Dominate is more likely to see weaker interpretations of RPG based powers in the CCG than, say, Thaumaturgy (which needs all the help it can get). I think there is more flexibility in the design brief than you give the card designers credit for. > Flame on. consider it done ;) mattgreen > ~SV -- Direct access to this group with http://web2news.com http://web2news.com/?rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad

vermillian wrote: > Who decides if these > vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. > What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, > there is a lack of balance. There is a lack of balance in terms of the general utility amongst the clan discipline sets, yes. Certain clans have discipline sets that work really well together in the CCG, in terms of actually winning games (like the Malkavians, Ventrue, and Brujah) where others don't (like the Nosferatu, Gangrel, and Tremere). This being said, there is nothing saying that you have to use all three disciplines, and two or one discipline strategies work just fine, and as such, this tends to minimize the disparity between the clans. For instance, yeah, the Ventrue can use all three disciplines they have together effectively and make game winning decks, where the Gangrel can't so much. On the other hand, the Gangrel can do just fine using nothing but Protean, and gain advantage from only having to focus on one discipline (in terms of average vampire size and card flow). So yeah, if people were *required* to use a solitary clan and were *required* to use all three disciplines in a given deck, your argument would be sound. As this isn't the case, the game tends to self balance. > > VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are > set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game, which creates its > own sort of (im)balances. Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only > appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. The multi-player aspect of the game has much less of an effect on the game environment than most folks seem to believe. When the game works, people focus on their prey, and the multi-player dynamic becomes minimized. When people ignore this (like by randomly attacking folks across the table or refusing to oust their prey), they generally don't win, so this is also self balancing. > Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > wasn't a "you win" card. But see, they don't do that. They make balanced cards (generally speaking) that work well in relation to what already exists. Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "You were right, Roger. That's a big-ass worm." -Hellboy

> With in this RPG there are clans of vampires that use 3 different > disciplines more than other disciplines. The same has been done for > the CCG. Each discipline has certain things it can do. Some vampires > were released for this game, after developing a majority of the cards > they can use (discipline related cards). Who decides if these > vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. > What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, > there is a lack of balance. > Actually some disciplines (like I dunno... Animalism!) suck in the RPG compared to levels of other disciplines. V:TES on the other hand has made animalism into a pretty damn usefull discipline! Some disciplines are overly strong in the CCG (dominate and protean come to mind) but as the expansions come out the badassness of these disciplines is slowly being diluted. I certainly think that a political deck, a combat deck or a bleed deck can win any game or indeed any tournament, which seems to me to be a good balance. I personally would like to see Intercept strengthened just a tad to counterbalance the vast amounts of stealth available. IMHO.

> >Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > >you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > >wasn't a "you win" card. > > Um, no. Make a game less fun, and it eventually will bite you on the ass. So, > there's a strong incentive to minimize mistakes. Gotta agree here. I have a seven year old son who has, to my chagrin, convinced me to purchase him Yu-Gi-Oh cards recently. After looking through the cards and learning how to play, I realized that THERE is a game where very little thought is put into balance, design, or gameplay. I strongly suspect that in two years time, the game will go to CCG heaven (or hell more appropriately, for being such a bad cliche of CCG's) replaced by another pokedigojapanime fad, whereas, barring a significant life emergency, I still plan to continue playing VTES for long after two years. Plus, if you feel like VTES is a game designed by hacks, why are you playing it? Is your time and money so worthless? -Matt

Ped Xing <ped_...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> >Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as >> >you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and >> >wasn't a "you win" card. >> >> Um, no. Make a game less fun, and it eventually will bite you on >> the ass. So, there's a strong incentive to minimize mistakes. > > Gotta agree here. I have a seven year old son who has, to my chagrin, > convinced me to purchase him Yu-Gi-Oh cards recently. After looking > through the cards and learning how to play, I realized that THERE is a > game where very little thought is put into balance, design, or > gameplay. Yu-Gi-Oh is a modern con job. It would make P.T. Barnum and those 3-card-Monte guys proud. It was created by teenagers to win cards and money from little kids who can't yet count in the thousands. It's like M:TG except that you add several zeroes to every number on the card. ;) > > -Matt Kevin M., Prince of Henderson, NV (USA) "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

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) mumbled something about: >I would like to hear this forum's thoughts on this issue. With in your >post, please remark if you find VTES to be balanced or not, and give >some reasons why you think it has balance, and I would also like you >to comment on a statement I've typed below. It is significantly more balanced than any other CCG out there, especially considering the handicaps it suffers under (multiplayer, HUGE variety of discipline and clan combinations). >VTES is a card game based off of a RPG. Balance is not neccesarily an >issue in RPGs, as there are storytellers that can tweak balances. CCGs >have similar balance controllers known as game designers. Storytellers >can scrap certain story lines, or characters, if their effect on the >game world is too severe. Game designers (specifically white wolf) can >not do so. This is my first point. Not true. Someone else has mentioned Return to Innocence as a prime example, and I will mention the new Form of Mist as another example. Just because a power is unbelievably strong in the RPG does not mean that it has to translate that way in the CCG. For example, if the RPG concept of Majesty were carried over, then the card would read a lot more like Obedience -- combat simply doesn't happen, sit, stay. But it doesn't, because such an effect on the game world would be ridiculously severe. Also, designers can choose not to implement certain features of the RPG. Game designers have a lot more leeway than you think. >With in this RPG there are clans of vampires that use 3 different >disciplines more than other disciplines. The same has been done for >the CCG. Each discipline has certain things it can do. Some vampires >were released for this game, after developing a majority of the cards >they can use (discipline related cards). Who decides if these >vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. >What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, >there is a lack of balance. What's your point? Are you seeking perfection or something? Again, as someone else has pointed out, only games like Chess are even CLOSE to truly balanced -- and even that one has an inherent imbalance, in that White gets the first move. That imbalance is large enough that it has been traditional for as long as we've all known the game to swap colors after each game. >Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as >you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and >wasn't a "you win" card. What a bunch of horseshit. As if you could do any better. -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

In article <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermil...@yahoo.com says... > I would like to hear this forum's thoughts on this issue. With in your > post, please remark if you find VTES to be balanced or not, and give > some reasons why you think it has balance, and I would also like you > to comment on a statement I've typed below. It's certainly the most balanced ccg I've ever played. It has a lot of diversity, no one dominant deck archetype, metagame is constantly shifting, no "type" breakdowns necessary in the tournament scene. > VTES is a card game based off of a RPG. Balance is not neccesarily an > issue in RPGs, as there are storytellers that can tweak balances. CCGs > have similar balance controllers known as game designers. Storytellers > can scrap certain story lines, or characters, if their effect on the > game world is too severe. Game designers (specifically white wolf) can > not do so. This is my first point. So far, so good. > With in this RPG there are clans of vampires that use 3 different > disciplines more than other disciplines. The same has been done for > the CCG. Each discipline has certain things it can do. Some vampires > were released for this game, after developing a majority of the cards > they can use (discipline related cards). Who decides if these > vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. > What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, > there is a lack of balance. Not so. The only thing that would have to be balanced is the tri- combinations of disciplines. As long as each set of 3 disciplines was balanced with each other set of 3 (within a reasonable margin), then we have balance. Which puts the control back in the hands of the designers. This also ignores the vampire special abilities, disciplineless cards, clan-requirement cards the masters. All of these can help level the playing field. > VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are > set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game You're going to have to more/some/*ANY* proof here... > which creates its own sort of (im)balances. ...and here. > Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only > appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. You just restated your premise; you really can't use it as a conclusion with nothing in between. > Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > wasn't a "you win" card. Were this true, we would not have the (overly long) discussions about how a card doesn't fit the "rpg feel" because of game balance. Do you have any examples of "posh hack job" or are you just bashing the game designers here? -- -Snapcase

swcru...@email.com (Mike McDonald) wrote in message news:<b504c5f0.03050...@posting.google.com>... [snip] > I > personally would like to see Intercept strengthened just a tad to > counterbalance the vast amounts of stealth available. IMHO. oooooh i don't think i like this at all. to win this game, you should really be doing things. you know, actions of some sort. Stopping Stuff is all well and good, but you should really be Doing Stuff to actually pick up vps. and besides, there are already vast amounts of intercept available, in addition to chimerstry's quasi-intercept. just because obfuscate and obtenebrate can both get stealth, doesn't mean people are going to be using them both at once.... just my 2c, salem.

In message <293af2cc.03050...@posting.google.com>, salem_ch...@yahoo.com (salem) mumbled something about: >swcru...@email.com (Mike McDonald) wrote in message news:<b504c5f0.03050...@posting.google.com>... >[snip] >> I >> personally would like to see Intercept strengthened just a tad to >> counterbalance the vast amounts of stealth available. IMHO. > >oooooh i don't think i like this at all. > >to win this game, you should really be doing things. you know, actions >of some sort. Stopping Stuff is all well and good, but you should >really be Doing Stuff to actually pick up vps. i feel compelled to chime in here. in any game in which the concepts apply, offense should always be stronger than defense. that way the game actually ends. these marathon four-hour games to which some readers aspire, clearly the result of multiple do-nothing-live-forever decks and excessively talkative players, are not a real solution and are simply unworthy of consideration. those of us with lives outside of V:TES have no interest in playing four hours' worth of final; we would much rather play for two, have it finish if nobody was sufficiently competent to win, and then go drink beer for another two. with friends. it's bad enough that a 3R+F burns an entire day, much less if it has to drag on forever as well. don't get me wrong, it's certainly a quite enjoyable day. but again, i will restate that one of the prime reasons this game does not have as large a following as Some Other Card Games(tm) is because it takes well over an hour, frequently as many as two, to play. this is too much of a time investment for most gamers. making it worse by strengthening intercept, or by randomly extending finals to unheard of times, ...well, that leads to just what you think it does. more people leaving, fewer people starting. [ quoted text not captured ]

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message news:<f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>... > VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are > set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game, which creates its > own sort of (im)balances. Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only > appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. > Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > wasn't a "you win" card. > > Flame on. > ~SV I don't know. I've always found V:TES to be quite well balanced. Sure, some disciplines and discipline combos (darn Malks) are easier to use at a surface glance, but with experience, other discipline combos reveal themselves to be just as viable, if not more so in a general setting, than those that appear so as a beginner. Even if VTES appears to be balanced only in a multiplayer setting, I think that in and of itself makes VTES balanced. The game, at least in my opinion, was designed to be played in a multiplayer setting, and if the game is balanced in that setting, then it's balanced. On another note, maybe I'm extraordinarily naive or perhaps a little too spiritual for my own good (no comments on this please, this is probably gonna sound like the anti-me), but I've always been of the opinion that a large part of VTES is the bond, so to speak, between the player and his deck. The deck must suite the player's style, and the player must know everything about his deck, and if that is achieved then winning with any decently built deck is possible. If a player knows his deck that well, then he knows how much pressure to apply to his prey in order to win, or how much pressure to apply to his predator to help his deck get going. If the deck suites the player's style, or any of the player's styles as the case may be, then the player isn't forced to try to play anything foreign to his system. Thus harmony is achieved and the game may be won. Having really said not much in this post, I leave all of you with one final comment. I don't know what this VTES game y'all are playing is, but I play good ol' fashioned Jyhad. Al

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message news:<f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>... > The columbus ohio play group has had a brief discussion about the > balance of the card game we're here to discuss... In general, there > was some off topic remarks and then some digression about specific > cards being more powerful than others, and some disciplines being > better than others, and that some vampires were costed better than > others. > > I would like to hear this forum's thoughts on this issue. With in your > post, please remark if you find VTES to be balanced or not, and give > some reasons why you think it has balance, Overall, i find VTES to be a balanced game. i think there are three or perhaps four levels at which balance is built into the game. [1] The predator-prey dynamic balances the game because you have to oust your prey[s] to win, whilst balancing this with defence against your predator. All this involves balancing your use of resources. [2] The multi-player nature of the game means that you have to pay attention to the actions of the rest of the table, aiming for balance which is ideally only upset in YOUR favour. [3] Whilst some cards and clans are stronger than others, none is grossly over/underpowered: and even relatively weak clans and cards almost all have a use as the rock against which a particular set of scissors will inexorably smash [eg Tremere are designed to do in Ventrue, eg clan hosers]. [4] The unique nature of most vampires combined with the contesting rule means that even if someone DID come up with a hideous game-breaking deck it would fall to contesting, so there is an ultimate balancing mechanism for almost any conceivable abuse. Related to this [actually, because of it] there is a phenomenon in VTES similar to balancing/frequency-dependent selection in genetics, ie it pays to be different. As in genetics, this creates balance. and I would also like you > to comment on a statement I've typed below. > > Here is my stance. > > VTES is a card game based off of a RPG. Balance is not neccesarily an > issue in RPGs, as there are storytellers that can tweak balances. CCGs > have similar balance controllers known as game designers. Storytellers > can scrap certain story lines, or characters, if their effect on the > game world is too severe. Game designers (specifically white wolf) can > not do so. This is my first point. Well, i suspect that i disagree with this first paragraph in three ways. [1] VTES is based in the same world as an RPG, but it isn't really like the VtM RPG, which focusses on the doings of individual neonate [near enough] vampires. It is more like a board game. [2] When imbalanced cards/rules slip through, they can be, and are, nuked by the rules team. eg Return to Innocence, Thoughts Betrayed, vote-pushing, repeat actions, Temptation of Greater Power. [3] i do not think balance is the main desideratum in a game. Having fun is. i think if we aimed for complete balance in VTES, it would be less fun. This would be bad. > > With in this RPG there are clans of vampires that use 3 different > disciplines more than other disciplines. The same has been done for > the CCG. Each discipline has certain things it can do. Some vampires > were released for this game, after developing a majority of the cards > they can use (discipline related cards). Who decides if these > vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. > What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, > there is a lack of balance. Actually i find that the RPG is heading for a rather vanilla-ish all-clans/disciplines-can-do-everything destination. i find this undesirable, especially to the extent that it feeds through into the card game. Better to achieve rough balance through a multi-dimensional rock-paper-scissors mechanism, in my view. > > VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are > set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game, which creates its > own sort of (im)balances. Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only > appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. To reiterate, i find that VTES IS a balanced game. Absolutely balanced? No. Desirable that it should be? Also no. YMMV. > Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > wasn't a "you win" card. <boggles> i can't subscribe to the view that the VTES designers perform any kind of posh hack job. To be honest, i don't know what a posh hack job is .... but i'm guessing a hack job is churning out stuff for the sake of it, and that the posh version of this is turning out posh stuff for the sake of it. VTES is not a hack job, but a very fine original product which has with rare interruptions been maintained with care and integrity by talented people, not just designers of course, playtesters must take some of the credit. > > Flame on. > ~SV Thinking about it, i'm REALLY not sure that i see the point of your last paragraph. If i've just fallen for a troll i am NOT pleased ;-[

"mgreen02" <mgreen02.n...@web2news.net> wrote in message news:<2875...@web2news.com>... In short, I would like to see closer games. Too many VTES games are predictable from turn three or four. When something unexpected happens, is it beacause a.) I drew into that card that saved my butt b.) Someone had amazing insight and game play c.) Someone wasn't thinking, or was being spiteful and torped two of their predators minions. Usually its point c.) that turns the tides of the games in my central ohio environment. This leaves a certain bad taste in the back of my mouth, and I only instinctually attribute that to bad balance of the CCG. It might be something else... ~SV

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) mumbled something about: >"mgreen02" <mgreen02.n...@web2news.net> wrote in message news:<2875...@web2news.com>... > >In short, I would like to see closer games. Too many VTES games are >predictable from turn three or four. When something unexpected >happens, is it beacause a) more than one person played a quality deck? I also cannot agree with this. On turn three or four, we've seen only the slightest bits of what each person's deck can do. Play and timing are still going to decide everyone's fate. It's generally easier to see which one person at the table is screwed by seating position than it is to see who's going to win. There's usually one person who's just hosed and will be "off" quickly. Other than that, though, there isn't ANY predictability. >This leaves a certain bad taste in the back of my mouth, and I only >instinctually attribute that to bad balance of the CCG. It might be >something else... Tendency of everyone to play extremely predictable decks that do one thing, one thing only, and if their one thing is countered, explode? [ quoted text not captured ]

To all the discussion about "balanced" or "not balanced" I want to add that the game is so dependend of the meta-game (or playing style) in your area / playgroup / tournament. Some combinations may seem to be better than others in a given meta-game but in other areas they fail horribly.

On 6 May 2003, vermillian wrote: > In short, I would like to see closer games. Too many VTES games are > predictable from turn three or four. When something unexpected > happens, is it beacause Newsgroup time is limited these days, so I'll keep this short. MMV. There is a turning point past which the winner of the game starts to look likely, but nowhere near as early as you portray it. Perhaps it is an artifact of your metagame (i.e. if there's little combat, or most of your players don't put three DI's in every deck, etc). David Cherryholmes Duke Radiology P.E.T. Facility (919) 684-7714 david.che...@duke.edu

Snapcase <shotgu...@optonline.net> wrote in message news:<MPG.1920f1783...@news.optonline.net>... > In article <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, > vermil...@yahoo.com says... > > > I would like to hear this forum's thoughts on this issue. With in your > > post, please remark if you find VTES to be balanced or not, and give > > some reasons why you think it has balance, and I would also like you > > to comment on a statement I've typed below. > > It's certainly the most balanced ccg I've ever played. It has a lot of > diversity, no one dominant deck archetype, metagame is constantly > shifting, no "type" breakdowns necessary in the tournament scene. No "type" breakdowns? Explain. I say: Bruise and bleed, S&B, vote, bloat, combat are your only different types of decks with emphasis on the last one and second and third ones. > > VTES is a card game based off of a RPG. Balance is not neccesarily an > > issue in RPGs, as there are storytellers that can tweak balances. CCGs > > have similar balance controllers known as game designers. Storytellers > > can scrap certain story lines, or characters, if their effect on the > > game world is too severe. Game designers (specifically white wolf) can > > not do so. This is my first point. > > So far, so good. > > > With in this RPG there are clans of vampires that use 3 different > > disciplines more than other disciplines. The same has been done for > > the CCG. Each discipline has certain things it can do. Some vampires > > were released for this game, after developing a majority of the cards > > they can use (discipline related cards). Who decides if these > > vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. > > What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, > > there is a lack of balance. > > Not so. The only thing that would have to be balanced is the tri- > combinations of disciplines. As long as each set of 3 disciplines was > balanced with each other set of 3 (within a reasonable margin), then we > have balance. Which puts the control back in the hands of the > designers. This also ignores the vampire special abilities, > disciplineless cards, clan-requirement cards the masters. All of these > can help level the playing field. Help, but can not acheive it alone. Imagine a clan that has Obfuscate, Dominate, Presence. It would be huge. They COULD cripple each and every one of the vampires with some huge unspecial, but have they? Not in the past no, and as a matter of fact they've given disadvantages to those that need specials (read: Assamite and blood curse). More on the clan bit: When they made Auspex and Fortitude cards in the initial Jyhad set, was WotC thinking about the Harbringers of Skulls when they released Necromancy cards in Dark S.? My guess was no. Hence, a lack of balance built into the game in the very first get go. Yes, WW can balance HoS a bit, but think about Tzimisce also, Lasombra, Ahrimines, etc... Makes for a headache, and to me, makes for an unavoidable balance issue, that will be nigh impossible to settle. And furthermore, read beyond my clan analogy then. Look at some of the 'canon' vampires recently released. They've been giving them the similar discipline spreads as they have in the RPG. Does that mean they should have the same spread in the CCG? Probably not, as what one discipline does in the RPG isn't the same as it can do in the RPG. > > VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are > > set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game > > You're going to have to more/some/*ANY* proof here... You're sitting at a table with good player (with good cards) preying on GP preying on Bad Player (with bad deck) Preying on person who hates his grandpredator personally, preying on a good player. Who wins? Potentially the Bad player, depending on how people gang up on one another. I've seen it happen more than once. > > which creates its own sort of (im)balances. > > ...and here. See above. I'm referring to table dynamics, personal relationships and ganging up. > > Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only > > appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. > > You just restated your premise; you really can't use it as a conclusion > with nothing in between. Actually, premises are to be restated, hopefully having been proved somewhat in the main body, at the end... or maybe thats just me... > > Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > > you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > > wasn't a "you win" card. > > Were this true, we would not have the (overly long) discussions about > how a card doesn't fit the "rpg feel" because of game balance. Actually, we still would. We'd just come to the 'real' conclusion that its a hack posh job, instead of my "I don't really mean this" comment. > Do you have any examples of "posh hack job" or are you just bashing the > game designers here? university jobs. Jobs where, what you do really doesn't matter in the long run, but you're required to do it anyhow? And it was a bit of a prod against game designers. Its a tough job, especially if you've the task of balancing WotC's lack of foresight and botchery. ~SV

On 6 May 2003, vermillian wrote: > > Do you have any examples of "posh hack job" or are you just bashing the > > game designers here? > > university jobs. Jobs where, what you do really doesn't matter in the > long run, but you're required to do it anyhow? And it was a bit of a > prod against game designers. Its a tough job, especially if you've the > task of balancing WotC's lack of foresight and botchery. I should flame you for that, but I'm too damn busy. ;) [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<slifbv8h98rncfion...@4ax.com>... > In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, > vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) mumbled something about: > > >"mgreen02" <mgreen02.n...@web2news.net> wrote in message news:<2875...@web2news.com>... > Tendency of everyone to play extremely predictable decks that do one > thing, one thing only, and if their one thing is countered, explode? No, MOST of these people are playing tool box decks, and they fail mostly to the highly focused decks, usually weilding dominate. ~SV

David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.21.030506...@petsparc.mc.duke.edu>... > On 6 May 2003, vermillian wrote: > > > In short, I would like to see closer games. Too many VTES games are > > predictable from turn three or four. When something unexpected > > happens, is it beacause > > Newsgroup time is limited these days, so I'll keep this > short. MMV. There is a turning point past which the winner of the game > starts to look likely, but nowhere near as early as you portray > it. Perhaps it is an artifact of your metagame (i.e. if there's little > combat, or most of your players don't put three DI's in every deck, etc). 3 or 4 turns was an over exhaggeration. Man, you people want exact statistics ALL the frickin' time... How about 5-7 turns into the game? Still, it gets predictable and boring, and the only amazing things that happen to shake up the game is someone does something risky... and usually that doesn't result in them winning (more likely they tap out and get hurt next turn). The other times things get shaken up is when a newbie decides to block his grandpredators deflected bleed and torp him. Stuff like that. ~SV

Legb...@mailandnews.com (legbiter) wrote in message news:<22fea992.03050...@posting.google.com>... > vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message news:<f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>... > [1] The predator-prey dynamic balances the game because you have to > oust your prey[s] to win, whilst balancing this with defence against > your predator. All this involves balancing your use of resources. What about cross table enemies (who just hate you personally). > [2] The multi-player nature of the game means that you have to pay > attention to the actions of the rest of the table, aiming for balance > which is ideally only upset in YOUR favour. This is the balanced that over rides the imbalances of the cards themselves. It is not real balance, it is players deciding to dick over other players. The same could be acheived with Yu-Gi-Oh if you were to somehow tweak it and make it multiplayer. Besides, even if you were to let it count for a balancing point, it goes the other way too. What about Mr. Newbie who rushes cross table "cause it'd be fun"? > [3] Whilst some cards and clans are stronger than others, none is > grossly over/underpowered: and even relatively weak clans and cards > almost all have a use as the rock against which a particular set of > scissors will inexorably smash [eg Tremere are designed to do in > Ventrue, eg clan hosers]. Ye, but some cards were initially designed to be used primarily by X clan and later Y clan comes out that can use half of X clans cards, and combine those with the awesome sweet cards from Z clan. (where X, Z are clans initially released by WotC and Y clan is something new, based on WW literature, that WW has released for the CCG). > [4] The unique nature of most vampires combined with the contesting > rule means that even if someone DID come up with a hideous > game-breaking deck it would fall to contesting, so there is an > ultimate balancing mechanism for almost any conceivable abuse. Related > to this [actually, because of it] there is a phenomenon in VTES > similar to balancing/frequency-dependent selection in genetics, ie it > pays to be different. As in genetics, this creates balance. Contesting is a reason why it isn't balanced. You spend 7 on a vampire, and your predator gets the same guy... wow, I suck, my game has been ruined, I might as well pick up all my cards and leave... That's not balanced IMO. > [2] When imbalanced cards/rules slip through, they can be, and are, > nuked by the rules team. eg Return to Innocence, Thoughts Betrayed, > vote-pushing, repeat actions, Temptation of Greater Power. There is this, but you can't go and change the fact that dominate has the best bleed and best bleed defense in the game. Its these abilities, or mechanics if you will that they can't change. > [3] i do not think balance is the main desideratum in a game. Having > fun is. i think if we aimed for complete balance in VTES, it would be > less fun. This would be bad. You've a huge point here. Then you lead to huge bogged down games where you know it'll time out, or the gaming store will close before you can finish it... > To reiterate, i find that VTES IS a balanced game. Absolutely > balanced? No. Desirable that it should be? Also no. YMMV. I just want more games that are closer. I see too many games where one guy dominates the table. See other responses to posts I've given. > > Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > > you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > > wasn't a "you win" card. > > <boggles> i can't subscribe to the view that the VTES designers > perform any kind of posh hack job. To be honest, i don't know what a > posh hack job is .... but i'm guessing a hack job is churning out > stuff for the sake of it, and that the posh version of this is turning > out posh stuff for the sake of it. VTES is not a hack job, but a very > fine original product which has with rare interruptions been > maintained with care and integrity by talented people, not just > designers of course, playtesters must take some of the credit. Actually I meant Posh as in easy, and hack job meaning that regardless of what you release it really won't have too much effect on whatever it is you do. Like a student job at a university, or PotUS (he really doesn't do anything himself, that's what his advisors are for). Really its posh because its a hack job. And furthermore, I wasn't totally serious about my statement. It was a bit of a jab, but I am impressed by some of the work released by WW game designer dude... the game's still not balanced in my opinion. Read some of my responses to other people's responses for more reasons. > Thinking about it, i'm REALLY not sure that i see the point of your > last paragraph. If i've just fallen for a troll i am NOT pleased ;-[ All of my posts are about 50% troll, 25% rant, 25% ideas (not necesarily well formulated ones). Also 86% of all statistics are made up on the spot. ~SV

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >3 or 4 turns was an over exhaggeration. Man, you people want exact >statistics ALL the frickin' time... When making an argument, it is often best to make an argument that makes coherent sense, rather than one that doesn't. Making the latter tends to get you regarded as a kook. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Lucky that my breasts are small and humble, EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 So you don't confuse them with mountains. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D

> "mgreen02" <mgreen02.n...@web2news.net> wrote > in message news:<2875...@web2news.com>... > > In short, I would like to see closer games. Too many VTES games are > predictable from turn three or four. [snip] > This leaves a certain bad taste in the back of my mouth, and I only > instinctually attribute that to bad balance of the CCG. It might be > something else... Hmm. It sounds like your playgroup needs to play with more Dramatic Upheavals. DU is one of the most powerful cards in the game. Period. It's also one of the hardest to predict when it gets played and deal with if it is known to be coming. Delaying Tactics won't save you forever. Initially, games get predictable after the upheaval is played (the upheaving player should win) and then the metagame adapts and politics gets more important. Play decks with 4/5 Dramatic Upheavals in for a while and watch the playgroup dynamic change. Games certainly become less predictable. Matt [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] The higher you go with your the number the more palatable I'm going to find it, but then you begin to lose your point. I just don't find the game that predictable. That's not to say that someone can't be in a clearly strong position at any given point in the game, but lots of things can (and do) happen to change that. I mean, do you just not see Kindred Restructure in your games? [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >What about cross table enemies (who just hate you personally). True of any multiplayer game that allows for some element of interaction. However, in V:TES, this is first of all mitigated against by limiting the forms of interaction available. They can't just block any old action, without some effort. Additionally, in extreme cases, the judge has latitude to intervene. >What about Mr. Newbie who rushes cross table "cause it'd be fun"? (Assuming a grand-prey rush) "Hey, look guys, he's cross-rushing me for fun. That gives my predator an easy ride. So, Mr Grand Predator, you really want your prey to be able to walk all over me? Mr Predator, I'm not going to be able to put any pressure on my Prey, so when you get to him, his defences will all be super-tight. And Mr Grand Prey, look, you're not getting any Victory Points this way." Jyhad is inherently *designed* as a game that involves an element of diplomacy. You get to make deals. If someone is being an idiot, show other players why it's in their interests to stop him. This is similarly a facet of any multi-player game, however. Anyone can make a stupid decision, to spite you, if they want. This does not mean that all multi-player games are inherently unbalanced, however. >Ye, but some cards were initially designed to be used primarily by X >clan and later Y clan comes out that can use half of X clans cards, >and combine those with the awesome sweet cards from Z clan. (where X, >Z are clans initially released by WotC and Y clan is something new, >based on WW literature, that WW has released for the CCG). This works on the assumption that later cards haven't been designed knowing this. Putting in super-hosing restrictions on a vampire is not the only option to follow. One option includes giving a clan a really screwy set of vampires. Sure, they might get DIS DIS DIS (insert the three disciplines you feel would be strongest) but they only get 8 and 9 caps. Or the out of clan disciplines they get are particularly screwy. One further option involves paying attention to what disciplines you give them at which levels. You don't have to give them all OBF DOM PRE. Careful use of inferiors and out of clan disciplines allows for great subtlety. So, DIS1 DIS2 DIS3 on a 6 cap, like a Cookie Cutter Sabbat vampire. Maybe. But how about DIS1 dis2 dis3 pro and a special instead? That still works out to 6 points of ability, roughly, but you get a very different vampire, functionally. Then you get the subtlety of working out which disciplines are 'stronger'. A vampire with: 6 cap DOM for pre pro Primogen, for example, would play differently to FOR dom pre pro Primogen. Similarly, they'd play very differently to DOM FOR PRE. Then, there is nothing saying that you *HAVE* to introduce the Harbingers of Skulls. You can be guided by the RPG canon without being ruled by it. If a combination looks particularly abusive, you can side- step it. There are a great number of things that could be implemented. Further, canon is hugely diverse. Any named vampire, for a start, often has several disciplines in the RPG which they don't have in the CCG. (The oft-debated 'How would you implement....?' questions.) So you get a wide range of possibilities in terms of implementation. They also progress through story-lines, so you get to implement them at a point you feel comfortable with. Perhaps earlier on, they're more of a neonate. So implement them then. Or later on, they've been cursed. Implement them then. Then vampires within canon are numerous. Implement the vampires you want. So, Moncada might be difficult to implement, if we were looking at the Sabbat. You could implement someone else instead. Or you can make up your own. There's nothing that means that *EVERY* vampire has to come from canon. So you get considerable latitude to mess with a clan. Introduce a curve-ball, who's too kooky for the straight-forward aspect. For instance, Lisette Vizquel is a fantastic vampire from my point of view - but she's odd for the Lasombra, so you can do interesting things by scuppering individual vampires. Provide vampires who are useful for cross-discipline decks, whilst being slightly less key for clan-based decks. Then there's the option of rebalancing other aspects of the game. If there is a discipline combination that means you Just Win, it might be worth looking at it and examining why. Provide extra options to other strategies. Indeed, it would be hard for any given 3 discipline combination to cover *all* bases. If you're sat next to a rush deck, do you have combat defence? If you're sat next to a vote deck, do you have vote defence? If you're sat next to a bleed deck, do you have bleed defence? Can you get your own actions through? Will that need stealth? Vote pushing? What else? The Ventrue, for instance, get good combat defence, but can't hit back easily. Once they run out of combat defence, the vampires can come back again and hit them. They get good bleed options, and good bleed defence options (bounce). But they get relatively poor options at getting their actions through. Those vampires who do get Obfuscate are either expensive or lack titles. Catherine DuBois is a nice weenie, but lacks the title. The next cheapest vampire is Suhailah - an excellent example of the above forces at work. She is a Prince with Obfuscate and Fortitude, but lacks Dominate or Presence, making her a clever but difficult option. Which discipline options are going to suddenly cover all the bases anyway? Most of the Bloodlines disciplines are hampered by their relative scarcity. They have some very nice powers, but are buggered by only being found on four or five vampires. If your have a clan that requires one of those disciplines that's going to cause a huge problem in the game, you can always not implement them. Which discipline combination, though, is going to suddenly overpower a clan that careful design considerations can't mitigate against? Something with DOM, probably. Well, we all know that the non-neo Malkavians and the Lasombra are often regarded (and with good reason) as being the best offensive bleeders with regards such. But they have problems. They can't get all their bleeds through how they want - they're still vulnerable to bleed bounce, or rush. Well, there's not so much we can do about bleed bounce. So how about combat? Well, we might then say, hmm, combat defence. Fortitude is a good option, as is Presence. Combining it with some pro-combat might be an option. Maybe Potence. DOM POT PRE. Nice combination. Or DOM ANI FOR, providing some bleed, some intercept, some random combat goodness and some combat defence. DOM PRO <something> might perturb people. Again, you can simply not implement that. There's plenty of stuff to do. Or you can provide the clan with large, costly vampires and few ways to recoup pool. Deny them titles and any political power, making them vulnerable to any vote decks. Add a clan disadvantage - Scarce-ity, Sterility, that sort of thing. Only make a few vampires. Screw up the discipline spread on the vampires. Then there's the very simple fact that LSJ has repeatedly stated that the costing 'formula' is not a simple pick and choose menu. If the vampires are good, make people pay for them. Just because you've given them DOM OBF PRO (which for the sake of argument, we'll regard as the uber discipline spread - though it lacks coherent intercept, or much pro-combat that can't be foiled with a minimum of combat defence or isn't rather expensive) doesn't mean that the dom/obf/pro vampire has to be a 4 cap. Hmm... that's our nastiest combination. *Make it more expensive*. A 5 cap dom/obf/pro is not entirely unfeasible. If the discipline spread is worth it, you'll still get a viable clan. (If it isn't, what's the problem in the first place?) You can fiddle subtly, of course, so that a vampire ends up balanced. Then, of course, you *playtest* the vampires. (And, of course, many decks and any clan-toys you give them.) This is not something to be forgotten. Get people to abuse the hell out of any vampires you create. Get them to build the BEST DECK EVER. Now re-write the vampires as necessary. Of course, I guess these points never happen. And no careful design has ever gone into any vampire. Oh yes. >Contesting is a reason why it isn't balanced. You spend 7 on a >vampire, and your predator gets the same guy... wow, I suck, my game >has been ruined, I might as well pick up all my cards and leave... >That's not balanced IMO. If your predator brings out the same guy, he can hurt himself as much as you. If your deck can be absolutely ruined by having one vampire contested, then you built a poor deck. Well, not necessarily poor per se, but you built in your own problems. By having a 7 capacity vampire who, if contested, will ruin your game, you've built a deck with no redundancy. You might get lucky, you might not. You might be able to reap rewards, you might not. Bear in mind that if losing your 7 cap vampire ruins your game, it could just as easily be a pre-emptive rush. Your weenie combat predator rushes you and destroys it. Just as ruined. Your prey Banishes it (an early well-timed use of Zillah's Valley, perhaps, and you were last on the table to go, so when you bring out your 7 cap, he's also had two goes, and 9 pool has moved - 1 Zillah's Valley, 1 influence, 4 influence. Or 2 extra transfers from Info Highway, twice. That sort of thing.) Or someone Pentex Subverts you. Or... there are many ways of hurting a single vampire. Any strategy which can be ruined by losing control of one vampire needs to be re-thought. Or should accept that it was a potentially poor choice to start with, and that was the chance it took. >> [2] When imbalanced cards/rules slip through, they can be, and are, >> nuked by the rules team. eg Return to Innocence, Thoughts Betrayed, >> vote-pushing, repeat actions, Temptation of Greater Power. > >There is this, but you can't go and change the fact that dominate has >the best bleed and best bleed defense in the game. Sure you can. Write new cards. Give some other discipline some fantastic bleed defence. Or some usable bleed defence, if not the best, and it's still got other abilities anyway so it'll work out differently anyway. I get some usable bleed defence, and a great array of vote intimidation, for instance. Or some offensive bleed, along with some screw-ball antics too. Or make it less of an issue. Sure, there might be great bleed defence but Enticement will screw with it. Choir will screw with it. Individual actions which facilitate different deck designs allow for great inroads to be made. This is very much the point of politics. It's there and it side-steps any bleed defence (other than the strategy of Intercept as Bleed Defence, which is perfectly valid, but also hard) by virtue of going a different way. Hosers are also possible. So, Dominate is the best Discipline for bleed defence, right? Hmm... so I'll write a card that makes my bleed harder to defend against with Dominate. I'll call it Perfect Clarity. Or I'll screw up Dominate's bleed offence with a card I'll call Blessing of Chaos. >Its these >abilities, or mechanics if you will that they can't change. Can't? Clearly not true. Carefully targeted errata and carefully targeted bans have CLEARLY altered the 'mechanics' of the game. (I would tend to use 'mechanics' to refer to the facilities established by rules interaction, rather than what cards and abilities a discipline has access to already.) Dominate had one of the best combat cards in the game - Thoughts Betrayed. It now has a fairly interesting combat card, but not a show-stopper. It still sees use - Xian is a testament to this, even if no-one else uses it ;-p - but it doesn't completely outrank all other combat defence in the game. So that ability/'mechanic' has been altered. Careful rules re-writes have also prevented certain abusive deck-styles. For instance, No Repeat Actions has limited a number of deck styles - a similar rule is part of the base set. Various re-writes of the Vote Pushing rule have been incorporated into the rules. These mechanics have been altered also. Grouping also provides for some really careful and subtle changes. Group [1/2] excels at various things. What will [2/3] excel at? You can make them the perfect foils of [1/2] with some careful thought. The obvious example goes back to the Ventrue - group 1 has great titles, little stealth. Group 2 and 3 have good stealth, but more expensive titles. And the problem 'mechanic' of Fifth Tradition/Minion Tap as a way of neutering the increased cost has been addressed, without neutering it. >> To reiterate, i find that VTES IS a balanced game. Absolutely >> balanced? No. Desirable that it should be? Also no. YMMV. > >I just want more games that are closer. I see too many games where one >guy dominates the table. See other responses to posts I've given. Perhaps you should play better? If one person is dominating the table, turning up with a better deck, a more flexible deck, a longer lasting deck, a more defensive deck, a faster deck, a more offensive deck, a stronger deck, a harder deck - whatever you want - is always possible. If you want a better chance at winning a game, play better. If a player has the best deck on a given table and plays best, he *should* win. (Barring randomness really causing grief, which can happen, even with large amounts of mitigation - all your votes shuffle to the top, none of you vote push does, and all your cycling cards are in the bottom 20 cards of the deck.) If the game is so much closer that the outcome is still very much in flux, despite him having the best deck and the best play on the table, what's desirable about that? You might as well roll dice. If you can tell at half a dozen turns in who definitely is going to win, look to your own deck. If you're playing competitive snakes and ladders (that is, any game where it is essentially one player doing things, with little interaction), expand your deck. If you can't outplay him, why not? Why did you not build a deck that's capable of letting you win? Why did you not put in the cards that let you control the table, not him? If a game doesn't allow a player to win when he plays better than you, why should he play? If you want a game where you can win, despite having a deck that isn't as good as his and not playing as well, why should anyone play? [ quoted text not captured ]

vermillian wrote: > In short, I would like to see closer games. Too many VTES games are > predictable from turn three or four. Probably 'cause everyone keeps playing the same decks. > Usually its point c.) that turns the tides of the games in my central > ohio environment. See, but this isn't people playing to win. This is playing for spite, which isn't the game's fault. If people play dumb, like playing random kingmaker, or making themselves lose just to make someone else lose, they aren't playing the game as intended, and if you don't play the game as intended, it doesn't work as intended. If people play to win, i.e. try their darndest to oust their prey, and don't do stupid stuff for spite's sake that costs them, the game works quite well. > This leaves a certain bad taste in the back of my mouth, and I only > instinctually attribute that to bad balance of the CCG. It might be > something else... It's something else. [ quoted text not captured ]

vermillian wrote: > No, MOST of these people are playing tool box decks, and they fail > mostly to the highly focused decks, usually weilding dominate. So why doesn't everyone build decks that are focused and can kill highly focused dominate decks? [ quoted text not captured ]

vermillian wrote: > What about cross table enemies (who just hate you personally). Don't play with people like that. > This is the balanced that over rides the imbalances of the cards > themselves. It is not real balance, it is players deciding to dick > over other players. Yeah, see, once again, the problem here does not seem to be the game, but the players of the game. When folks dick each other over, they aren't playing the game, they are playing each other. Dicking over other players isn't trying to win, which is what makes the game work. Dicking over other players is sitting around a table and being an asshole with cards in front of you. You could very well be doing this just as much without cards sitting in front of you. > What about Mr. Newbie who rushes cross table "cause it'd be fun"? You explain to him how that is counterproductive to both his own position and the game as a whole. Explain how the game only works if everyone tries to win, which means, generally speaking, going forward. Explain to him how it is really only acceptable to attack folks across the table if you end up winning the game. And if he keeps doing it, stop playing with him. You seem to be playing with a rather surly and unplesant crowd, which certainly would affect how one views any game. But again, this isn't the game's fault. > Contesting is a reason why it isn't balanced. You spend 7 on a > vampire, and your predator gets the same guy... wow, I suck, my game > has been ruined, I might as well pick up all my cards and leave... > That's not balanced IMO. By defenition, as everyone has the same chance of contesting something, it is balanced. No one has a greater chance of contesting something than anyone else. > I just want more games that are closer. I see too many games where one > guy dominates the table. See other responses to posts I've given. Then use different decks. Or play with smarter people. [ quoted text not captured ]

> university jobs. Jobs where, what you do really doesn't matter in the > long run, but you're required to do it anyhow? And it was a bit of a > prod against game designers. Its a tough job, especially if you've the > task of balancing WotC's lack of foresight and botchery. > > ~SV Okay, decribe to me how exactly university jobs don't matter in the long run?

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<MTKmIFe46$t+E...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian > <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: > >3 or 4 turns was an over exhaggeration. Man, you people want exact > >statistics ALL the frickin' time... > > When making an argument, it is often best to make an argument that makes > coherent sense, rather than one that doesn't. Making the latter tends > to get you regarded as a kook. You're right, I've commited a terribel crime against the laws of formulating an arguement. Never again shall I use exageration (spelling) to make a point or express my own frustrations. ~SV

David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.21.030506...@petsparc.mc.duke.edu>... > On 6 May 2003, vermillian wrote: > > > > Do you have any examples of "posh hack job" or are you just bashing the > > > game designers here? > > > > university jobs. Jobs where, what you do really doesn't matter in the > > long run, but you're required to do it anyhow? And it was a bit of a > > prod against game designers. Its a tough job, especially if you've the > > task of balancing WotC's lack of foresight and botchery. > > I should flame you for that, but I'm too damn busy. ;) ! LOL I didn't even notice you had a university job. You're probably something important, like a teach or some shit. I was refering to sitting at the front desk of the art gallary, or reading text books into a tape recorder for people with disabilities (more than half of whom never use the material they request... I know from current experience). ~SV

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >You're right, I've commited a terribel crime against the laws of >formulating an arguement. Never again shall I use exageration >(spelling) to make a point or express my own frustrations. Exaggerating in a fashion that portrays your playgroup as stupidly fucked up with stupid players who play stupid decks that they can tell on turn three or four who is going to win is unlikely to help any argument. Unless you think a corner case statistical anomaly is going to get any changes made to the game. (It isn't.) Exaggeration is one thing - potentially helpful. However, being pointlessly stupid with it certainly isn't. Making a coherent argument with real facts and real experiences, as opposed to blatant unconvincing nonsense, might stand a chance of changing something. The choice is yours. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >I was refering to [...] >reading text books into a tape recorder for people with disabilities We should, of course, have known that providing equal facilities for people with disabilities was an example of a job that doesn't matter. [ quoted text not captured ]

[vermillian] > What about cross table enemies (who just hate you personally). That's nothing to do with the game. It wouldn't matter what game you were playing if this is the case. Anyway, why do you/they play with each other if you hate each other? [legbiter] > > [2] The multi-player nature of the game [balances]. [vermillian] > This is the balanced that over rides the imbalances of the cards > themselves. It is not real balance, it is players deciding to dick > over other players. The same could be acheived with Yu-Gi-Oh if you > were to somehow tweak it and make it multiplayer. The point is that such a system is not implemented in Yu-Gi-Oh (apparently, I have no idea what the rules to Yu-Gi-Oh are myself). [vermillian] > What about Mr. Newbie who rushes cross table "cause it'd be fun"? Are they winning by doing this? I take it that your complaint is rather that it prevents you from winning. Well, someone has to lose. The game is balanced if someone can prevent your (I assume what you think is strong) deck from winning. And as legbiter says the point of the game is fun. [vermillian] > Ye, but some cards were initially designed to be used primarily by X > clan and later Y clan comes out that can use half of X clans cards, > and combine those with the awesome sweet cards from Z clan. (where X, > Z are clans initially released by WotC and Y clan is something new, > based on WW literature, that WW has released for the CCG). Maybe, but the WW game designers are not dumb machines translating RPG content. They appear to think a bit (a lot even) about what they are doing and if the combination of X, Y and Z would drastically unbalance the game then they don't make Y. Do you have some examples (as in card names) of recent releases that have totally unbalanced the game? [vermillian] > Contesting is a reason why it isn't balanced. You spend 7 on a > vampire, and your predator gets the same guy... wow, I suck, my game > has been ruined, I might as well pick up all my cards and leave... > That's not balanced IMO. Just because you played crap doesn't mean the game is unbalanced. Play a different deck if you are concerned about contesting. Or, possibly, attempt to makes deals with other players who appear as if they might have contesting minions in their uncontrolled region. It's your own fault if you are screwed by contesting. [vermillian] > ...but you can't go and change the fact that dominate has > the best bleed and best bleed defense in the game. Its these > abilities, or mechanics if you will that they can't change. Nothing is unchangable. LSJ could, in a fit of madness, errata all dominate cards to read "strike: make a hand strike with + 1 strength". Anyway, so what if dominate has the best bleed and best bleed defense (arguable, possibly). Not all vampires have dominate. And there are plenty of strong strategies that don't involve either bleeding or defending against bleeds. That is, the game is balanced enough to prevent one discipline/strategy from, well, dominating. * lehrbuch

In article <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermil...@yahoo.com says... > No "type" breakdowns? Explain. Type 1, Type 2, Type 1.5, Extended. The M:tG tournament fragmentations. They were created as a bandaid to a wretchedly unbalanced game, and created a "forced-shift" metagame. Lucrative, but really crappy for the players who don't want to have to completely rotate their collections and strategies on a yearly basis. > Help, but can not acheive it alone. Imagine a clan that has Obfuscate, > Dominate, Presence. It would be huge. Does such a clan exist? No. While you can hypothesize that such a clan could be imbalanced, I can counter-hypothesize that dominate/presence/obfuscate could have been toned down as a trio through card design. > More on the clan bit: When they made Auspex and Fortitude cards in the > initial Jyhad set, was WotC thinking about the Harbringers of Skulls > when they released Necromancy cards in Dark S.? My guess was no. > Hence, a lack of balance built into the game in the very first get go. When WotC made the original Auspex and Fortitude cards, HoS weren't even a clan in the rpg. Nonissue. > Yes, WW can balance HoS a bit, but think about Tzimisce also, > Lasombra, Ahrimines, etc... Makes for a headache, and to me, makes for > an unavoidable balance issue, that will be nigh impossible to settle. And while the rpg dictates the discipline trio that the clan receives as a default, the actual cards that these discipline trios enable a vampire to use are created by the designers. You keep stating that the discipline trios are imbalanced but ignore the fact that the cards that belong to those disciplines are completely under the control of the designers. > And furthermore, read beyond my clan analogy then. Look at some of the > 'canon' vampires recently released. They've been giving them the > similar discipline spreads as they have in the RPG. Does that mean > they should have the same spread in the CCG? Probably not, as what one > discipline does in the RPG isn't the same as it can do in the RPG. But they have _not_ given the canon vamps direct translations. Dr. Douglas Netchurch has Fortitude from what I recall in another post, which did not make the translation (presumably for balance reasons). I don't play the rpg so I can't comment on other canon vamps. > > > VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are > > > set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game > > > > You're going to have to show more/some/*ANY* proof here... > > You're sitting at a table with good player (with good cards) preying > on GP preying on Bad Player (with bad deck) Preying on person who > hates his grandpredator personally, preying on a good player. Who > wins? Potentially the Bad player, depending on how people gang up on > one another. I've seen it happen more than once. I think it's been said that any player has a 20% chance of winning when sitting down at the table. Just because there's randomness involved in a game, doesn't mean it's imbalanced (see also: poker, blackjack, monopoly). A bad player still has a chance to win, yes. By _luck_, not because the game's imbalanced. I've seen many 2 player games be won by luck, so it's not a multiplayer-only aspect. > See above. I'm referring to table dynamics, personal relationships and > ganging up. Personal relationships are not a multiplayer-only aspect. If someone wants to be a dick, it can affect two player games as well. Picture playing chess against a player who isn't attempting to win, while you are. And I think that there are tournament rules a judge can enforce against a player who's not attempting to win. Table dynamics/ganging up are a method of balance, not imbalance. If weenie player X is hosing his prey, then the table can try to reach in and bail him out. Hence bringing the balance back towards the center. > Actually, premises are to be restated, hopefully having been proved > somewhat in the main body, at the end... or maybe thats just me... The premise of the multiplayer portion of your points. You basically just stated the same sentence twice in a row; the 2nd one with a more conclusive tone. Examples are helpful. > > > Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > > > you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > > > wasn't a "you win" card. > > > > Were this true, we would not have the (overly long) discussions about > > how a card doesn't fit the "rpg feel" because of game balance. > > Actually, we still would. We'd just come to the 'real' conclusion that > its a hack posh job, instead of my "I don't really mean this" comment. I guess if you think they're doing a hack job of it, that's your opinion. I've held the recent sets in fairly high regard, balancewise. I think a lot of other people do as well. > university jobs. Jobs where, what you do really doesn't matter in the > long run, but you're required to do it anyhow? And it was a bit of a > prod against game designers. Its a tough job, especially if you've the > task of balancing WotC's lack of foresight and botchery. I guess I was looking more for examples of "hack job" within the context of VtES. I think the current designers have certainly "mattered" in the long run of the game. -- -Snapcase

I'm going to agree with lots of the points made her, particularly by legbiter and lehrbuch. I especially like legbiter's comparison to genetics, because I think that's a very important analogy to remember. I'll make my brief comment, which is somewhat a summary and somewhat a clarification of what many have already said, and then explain it: You cannot win a V:TES game without the cooperation of other people. Let me back up to how I came up with that statement. Let's think of the "ideal" table - everyone has a reasonably balanced deck and is pursuing their prey in one way or another while attempting to defend somewhat against their predator. No deals are made, no votes are called that benefit or harm more than one person, and no one goes wholly backwards or cross-table. Eventually this situation will end up with the strongest decks on top as the whole table collapses and cascades down to the final player. This is, in a sense, the pure form of cooperation. Your prey is cooperating with you by not walling up. Your grand-predator is cooperating with you by applying pressure to your predator. And so on. This, I think, is the scenario in which you are looking for balance (and for the most part it is there), and then you are complaining that this scenario doesn't happen, so you think the game is unbalanced. But there are other forms of cooperation. There are cross-table deals, agreements by the whole table to shut down one deck, votes, rush, Boons, bounce, Folderol (or Ignis Fatuus) and so on. There are a wide variety of possibilities for engendering cooperation between players all over the table. The player who maximizes this cooperation for their own benefit will win almost every time. Ultimately it is the combination of card variety and this multiplayer cooperation that balances the game. It doesn't matter that X card or X vampire or X clan is "out of balance". What matters is that there is a massive (and growing) variety of options for playing the game on an individual level, and this leads to an increasingly complex multiplayer environment. This complexity is how the "self-balance" mentioned by other people comes about. And this is why I like the genetics comparison so much - increasing the complexity and variety of the game leads to an increased number of viable species (decks). -Volya42

James wrote: > We should, of course, have known that providing equal facilities for > people with disabilities was an example of a job that doesn't matter. Controversial. Rob [ quoted text not captured ]

> You're sitting at a table with good player (with good cards) preying > on GP preying on Bad Player (with bad deck) Preying on person who > hates his grandpredator personally, preying on a good player. Who > wins? Potentially the Bad player, depending on how people gang up on > one another. I've seen it happen more than once. We call this Gaiba's Law (Gaiba is a player of our group), similar to Murphy's Law: "No matter how you're playing, another player makes a mistake but YOU die. If by any chance you manage to survive, than you win the game" :-)

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<SAsRssnu...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian > <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: > >I was refering to > [...] > >reading text books into a tape recorder for people with disabilities > > We should, of course, have known that providing equal facilities for > people with disabilities was an example of a job that doesn't matter. Thank you for misquoting me. Prick. To clarify: Providing serviecs to those with disabilities is important... working on material that people request us to work on is our job... there is an assumption that they're going to actually USE the material they work on, though. When this doesn't happen the 30 hours a week I put into this job is wasted (course I'm still get my wages, but...). ~SV

na...@hotmail.com (Al) wrote in message news:<649ee5dc.0305...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] *sigh* University jobs like being a art gallary sitter... those people that sit and watch art gallaries to make sure people don't steal things? There's another job around here, Office of Information Technology. A friend of mine fixes a bunch of things that really should (and would be cheaper) to replace. THESE jobs are useless, of course its my general opinion now a days that the buisiness of college is also useless, and a wrong on some complicated aspect I've yet to discover, but that's another topic altogether. ~SV

Snapcase <shotgu...@optonline.net> wrote in message news:<MPG.192205548...@news.optonline.net>... > In article <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, > vermil...@yahoo.com says... Never mind, I don't care anymore. All I have to say is that in normal CCGs, if you're playing on a table with a bad player, you win. In this CCG if you're playing on a table with a bad player, you probably won't. Furthermore: Did WotC know that WW was going to releae HoS? No. Hence, how can you say that the game designers were able to MAKE the cards for that clans trio? They've ALREADY BEEN MADE (most of them)! THIS is where the imbalance may come from. ~SV

ri...@yahoo.com (lehrbuch) wrote in message news:<5fee5473.03050...@posting.google.com>... Just really quick, no it is NOT always my fault there's cross table contestion. I was playing with !Tremere, and my grandpredator transfers out Cardano. I THINK I'm safe with Kij, but NOOOOO... he pulls her out too. And I also can't just "stop playing with certain people". Do you guys do that? How rude! Keep playing with them. You're supposed to TEACH them the game too, not just whoop on them. More: People crosstable rushing for no reason does not mean that they're rushing for a reason (well, they have reasons, but the unbalancing or the table remains). Also, something like someone torping two of their predators minions when its now clear that their granpredator will sweep... stuff like that. Once again I say In most CCGs if you're sitting at a table with a bad player you win. In VTES you probably won't, and you probably won't have a good time either. ~SV

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote: >Snapcase <shotgu...@optonline.net> wrote in message > news:<MPG.192205548...@news.optonline.net>... >> In article <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, >> vermil...@yahoo.com says... > >Never mind, I don't care anymore. All I have to say is that in normal >CCGs, if you're playing on a table with a bad player, you win. In this >CCG if you're playing on a table with a bad player, you probably >won't. In two-player games (CCG, card, board, parlor, etc.), if you play with a bad player (and no one cheats), you win. In multi-player games (CCG, card, board, parlor, etc.), if you play with a bad player (and no one cheats), you might still lose. Unavoidable property of multi-player games (it could be avoided by removing all player interaction or decision-making, I suppose). -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<6gkbk+lM...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian > <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: > >You're right, I've commited a terribel crime against the laws of > >formulating an arguement. Never again shall I use exageration > >(spelling) to make a point or express my own frustrations. > > Exaggerating in a fashion that portrays your playgroup as stupidly > fucked up with stupid players who play stupid decks that they can tell > on turn three or four who is going to win is unlikely to help any > argument. > > Unless you think a corner case statistical anomaly is going to get any > changes made to the game. (It isn't.) Exaggeration is one thing - > potentially helpful. However, being pointlessly stupid with it > certainly isn't. > > > Making a coherent argument with real facts and real experiences, as > opposed to blatant unconvincing nonsense, might stand a chance of > changing something. Mmmm, girl... Why you gotta' be so bitter? Or in other words "son I don't like your tone". SO sorry. I've insulted your game. Listen, mate. I've been VERY unhappy with VTES lately, and I'm thinking it might be because of balance within the game being over riden by the multiplayer aspect of the game. I used to like this game, love it really, and now its faded... is my playgroup bad? I don't know, ask Jay (who, BTW transfered out at last weekends final rounds cause he transfered out a vampire he already had, on accident). Perhaps I'M taking the game too seriously, but it still stands that I think this game over all is unbalanced, what aspect of the game is the unbalancing factor, I know not... I'll REiterate. In most CCGs if you're on a table with a bad player you win. In VTES, this is not the case. More: I'm not responsible to baby sit the table, and no one on the table should help me win. More: VTES is like a huge game of rock paper scissors. One deck CAN'T beat another deck (barring player skills or random shit, like seating and newbies screwing up your game just because they don't know how to play the game). ~SV

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BADD8DFF.E4D5%PD...@bigplanet.com>... > vermillian wrote: > > > No, MOST of these people are playing tool box decks, and they fail > > mostly to the highly focused decks, usually weilding dominate. > > So why doesn't everyone build decks that are focused and can kill highly > focused dominate decks? Then people will start building decks that beat these decks that beat dominate, and then so on. Whatever. Rock paper scissors. So then people make decks that can maybe beat each of rock paper and scissors, but when a bunch of really good rocks come along, they can't, etc... makes my head hurt. This isn't balance, this is boring. More: Some discipline related cards were made prior to realizing they were going to release clans to use them... HOW can this be balanced? WHen alls said and done, you're going to say "Oh but it is. Name me a card that's rocked the world of VTES" and then I'll say, "ah but the mutilplayer aspects hide the fact that the game is unbalances, and create their own imbalances" and we'll start this whole arguement over again. Anything new to say? I don't really... ~SV

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >> >I was refering to >> [...] >> >reading text books into a tape recorder for people with disabilities >> >> We should, of course, have known that providing equal facilities for >> people with disabilities was an example of a job that doesn't matter. > >Thank you for misquoting me. Prick. university jobs. Jobs where, what you do really doesn't matter in the long run, but you're required to do it anyhow? You're probably something important, like a teach or some shit. I was refering to sitting at the front desk of the art gallary, or reading text books into a tape recorder for people with disabilities Yeah, so he's referring to something important like teaching, whereas you were referring to unimportant jobs like sitting at the front desk of an art gallery or reading text books into tape recorders. You may find reading what you wrote is more instructive than accusing other people of being pricks. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >*sigh* University jobs like being a art gallary sitter... those people >that sit and watch art gallaries to make sure people don't steal >things? Would you prefer people stole the things then? [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) mumbled something about: >ri...@yahoo.com (lehrbuch) wrote in message news:<5fee5473.03050...@posting.google.com>... > >Just really quick, no it is NOT always my fault there's cross table >contestion. I was playing with !Tremere, and my grandpredator >transfers out Cardano. I THINK I'm safe with Kij, but NOOOOO... he >pulls her out too. Is he blind? Does he not see that you already have her in play? >And I also can't just "stop playing with certain people". Do you guys >do that? How rude! Keep playing with them. You're supposed to TEACH >them the game too, not just whoop on them. Then learn to teach, boy. I know that personally, I've never had difficulty explaining to people the following: 1) the point of the game is to win by getting the most VPs 2) you only get VPs by ousting the person to your left 3) killing other people only helps someone else get VPs It would be very easy to teach the mentioned grandpredator that "hey, you know that just helps your prey get a VP, because now I can't play my deck and he's going to oust me, right?" If he isn't willing to learn that, then YES, STOP PLAYING WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE. Some people are just fuckups. >More: People crosstable rushing for no reason does not mean that >they're rushing for a reason (well, they have reasons, but the >unbalancing or the table remains). Also, something like someone >torping two of their predators minions when its now clear that their >granpredator will sweep... stuff like that. Learn to teach. >Once again I say In most CCGs if you're sitting at a table with a bad >player you win. In VTES you probably won't, and you probably won't >have a good time either. You probably won't win if you're sitting at a table with a bunch of good players either. 20% expectation of winning if everyone is equal. If you're sitting with a bad player, yes, it changes the table dynamic. Feel free to Google on one of my !Brujah newsletters from awhile back on the word "momo", and how to deal with a bad player at the table. If you can't manage THAT, well, there's a saying in poker... if you sit down at a table, and in fifteen minutes you don't know who the fish is: it's YOU. Find another game before you lose all your money. -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message news:<f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>... > game world is too severe. Game designers (specifically white wolf) can > not do so. This is my first point. Game designers and Rules Teams (don't forget about them) specifically can do so, via errata, reprintings, clarifications, etc., that change gameplay. The most recent V:TES example would be the 'migrations' topic from Anarchs preview. > With in this RPG there are clans of vampires that use 3 different > disciplines more than other disciplines. The same has been done for > the CCG. Each discipline has certain things it can do. Some vampires > were released for this game, after developing a majority of the cards > they can use (discipline related cards). Who decides if these > vampires, with X Y and Z disciplines are balanced? The game designer. > What desides what skills certain vampires will have? The RPG. Hence, > there is a lack of balance. <snip left-turn> It looks like you're trying to make two or three different points here (all of which I agree with): 1) If White Wolf attempts to hammer the CCG peg into the RPG hole, they'll end up with Gothemon, or Gothe-Poke-Digi-Yu-Gi-mon, or similarly-styled marketing spoo. 2) The same attribute set (Disciplines, clan, special abilities, title, and age) has CCG impact that varies from the RPG. 3) Point (1) can be achieved by driving the CCG design directly from an independent RPG design. I'll fill in the 4th point, which you seem to skip or assume: 4) Since the scope of new V:TES cards is limited to the RPG canon, the CCG is designed directly from the RPG, and is thrown out of kilter. Point (4) is not necessarily true, because limited scope does not always imply derived design. And since I haven't gone on a good wandering ramble in a while, here are some musings on balance... [ramble] It would help if you post your definition of 'balance.' For lack of a common definition, I'll define 'balance' as the marginal probability, given a table of players who posess identical skills in construction and play, that one player/deck combination has a better chance of winning, over the others. Consider a CCG as a game whose cards modify the base rules. Each player has a fixed number of cards, a deck(s), with which to change the rules. Card order within a deck is random, so each instance of a game will (effectively) deviate from the base rules in its own, practically unique fashion. V:TES has the added twist of a 'controller' deck (crypt) which puts limits (via skills, clans, titles, etc.) on the scope of playable variance. Hence, the cards, and their rules changes, can be lumped into deck types [insert reams of past deck type discussion here], usually supported by several clan/skill combinations, which focus the rules deviance in different ways. A deck could be composed of one or more types (Bruise and Bleed, for example), implemented with differing clan/skill combos (pot/dom vs. ani/vic). Varying shuffles and game events would alter the prominence of those types in a game, so the balance question splits into two: balance of a single game, and balance of a series of games. Single-game balance is based more on the specific seating arrangements and shuffles at hand for the particular game, while series-balance is based more on a track record over several (if not many) games, and the tendencies of deck types and their implementations. For basing cards from an RPG, an RPG feature (vampire, story event, ability, etc.) provides, at least, the color, flavor, and/or requirements for a card. The feature's effect could and should be loosely translated into CCG terms, possibly picked from one of several of the feature's effects. For a game like V:TES, which should still peg its success on gameplay instead of cross-marketing potential, it's incumbent on the CCG designer(s) to ensure that the translation is handled in such a way as to preserve gameplay. For V:TES, I think the translation has been handled very well. [/ramble]

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >SO sorry. I've insulted your game. Listen, mate. I've been VERY >unhappy with VTES lately, Actually, you appear to be very unhappy with a great many things. I suggest going and finding out why this might be, rather than venting any more of your spleen over Usenet. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >> So why doesn't everyone build decks that are focused and can kill highly >> focused dominate decks? > >Then people will start building decks that beat these decks that beat >dominate, and then so on. This is part of what is referred to as the metagame. Indeed, any game that has the ability for players to start with different pieces will develop this. I can't think of a single card game which hasn't. [ quoted text not captured ]

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message news:<f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>... > No "type" breakdowns? Explain. I say: Bruise and bleed, S&B, vote, > bloat, combat are your only different types of decks with emphasis on > the last one and second and third ones. That's too narrow. A deck can borrow one or more of: Bruise, Bleed, Sneak, Vote, Bloat, Offensive Combat, Defensive Combat, Intercept, Library Attrittion, Minion Attrition, Table Damage, and probably a few more aspects. <snip> > You're sitting at a table with good player (with good cards) preying > on GP preying on Bad Player (with bad deck) Preying on person who > hates his grandpredator personally, preying on a good player. Who > wins? Potentially the Bad player, depending on how people gang up on > one another. I've seen it happen more than once. All you're saying here, is that your metagame sucks because of bent players that lack the discipline to not shoot their wad crosstable. Fair enough. I don't see such scenarios as game imbalance, I see them as metagame/playgroup. You should counter this metagame aspect by playing decks that penalize cross-table idiocy. See: Rush, Votes, Dementation, etc. And if it means ousting someone cross table because they're screwing up the table flow and balance, then wah.

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote: >>I was refering to sitting at the front desk of the art gallary,>> Yeah. God forbid someone gets paid, like, six bucks an hour to make sure that folks don't break into a museum. Or steal stuff. Let's fire them all for being useless. >>or reading text books into a tape recorder for people with disabilities>> Good lord. You just keep digging and digging yourself into a deeper hole. >>(more than half of whom never use the material they request... I know from current experience).>> What was that about how 86% of all statistics are made up on the spot? -Peter

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<9fVq7uQK...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian > <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: > >*sigh* University jobs like being a art gallary sitter... those people > >that sit and watch art gallaries to make sure people don't steal > >things? > > Would you prefer people stole the things then? Well, even if they did want to steal the things, these second year art majors aren't going to put up much of a fight... ~SV

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<qfkvryRO...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian > <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: > >> >I was refering to > [...] > >> >reading text books into a tape recorder for people with disabilities > >> > >> We should, of course, have known that providing equal facilities for > >> people with disabilities was an example of a job that doesn't matter. > > > >Thank you for misquoting me. Prick. > > university jobs. Jobs where, what you do really doesn't matter > in the long run, but you're required to do it anyhow? > > > You're probably something important, like a teach or some shit. > I was refering to sitting at the front desk of the art gallary, > or reading text books into a tape recorder for people with > disabilities > > > Yeah, so he's referring to something important like teaching, whereas > you were referring to unimportant jobs like sitting at the front desk of > an art gallery or reading text books into tape recorders. > > You may find reading what you wrote is more instructive than accusing > other people of being pricks. Hmm... amazing... I coulda' sworn I added "that aren't used" at the end of that. Well, now, look who's the prick. What, I can make a mistake, can't I? Or are we not that forgiving? And don't take words like "prick" for granted. They're called words of insulting endearment or some shit. You're not really a prick (even if you had misquoted me). ~SV

In message <3273413.03050...@posting.google.com>, Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> writes: >>>or reading text books into a tape recorder for people with >disabilities>> > >Good lord. You just keep digging and digging yourself into a deeper >hole. Don't worry, you're misquoting him so you're a prick. Honest. [ quoted text not captured ]

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message news:<f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>... > *sigh* University jobs like being a art gallary sitter... those people > that sit and watch art gallaries to make sure people don't steal > things? There's another job around here, Office of Information > Technology. A friend of mine fixes a bunch of things that really > should (and would be cheaper) to replace. THESE jobs are useless, of > course its my general opinion now a days that the buisiness of college > is also useless, and a wrong on some complicated aspect I've yet to > discover, but that's another topic altogether. > > ~SV The business of college is wrong and useless? So let me get this straight...investing money in research that industry is not willing to gamble on is useless? Not to mention educating people to contribute something more to society, I suppose that's useless too.

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<9fVq7uQKhQu+Ew >W...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... >> In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian >> <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >> >*sigh* University jobs like being a art gallary sitter... those people >> >that sit and watch art gallaries to make sure people don't steal >> >things? >> >> Would you prefer people stole the things then? > >Well, even if they did want to steal the things, these second year art >majors aren't going to put up much of a fight... Do you think that's the only purpose of people sitting on a front desk? For a start, they can provide useful information - even something simple like "Where's the toilet, please?" And they act as a deterrent. How much extra stuff do you think would go wandering off without anyone sitting there? Have you even *tried* to think before posting? [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>, vermillian <vermil...@yahoo.com> writes: >Hmm... amazing... I coulda' sworn I added "that aren't used" at the >end of that. Well, now, look who's the prick. Wrong again: "(more than half of whom never use the material they request... I know from current experience)." And, of course, each recording is done personally and then thrown away once someone uses it, so it's impossible for such material to be ever used by someone else who does use it. And even the ones which are used are being criticised. >What, I can make a mistake, can't I? Or are we not that forgiving? Ah, so you weren't being wildly offensive, prejudiced and narrow-minded? And you've suddenly converted to the path of tolerance from your previous bigotry? Yes, we forgive people who are bolshy, small-minded bigots who think stomping around, making random wild offensive statements about anything he cares and then asks for forgiveness without even apologising. Out of interest, what colour is the sky on your planet? >And >don't take words like "prick" for granted. They're called words of >insulting endearment or some shit. Yeah, yeah. You're still being insulting, however "endearing" you think you are, by your own admission. About as endearing as a puppy crapping all over your lap, I think. Hole, dig, stop. [ quoted text not captured ]

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message news:<f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>... > All I have to say is that in normal > CCGs, if you're playing on a table with a bad player, you win. In 2 player games, sure. Not always, but the chances are higher. > In this CCG if you're playing on a table with a bad player, you probably > won't. So? If you sit down with 4 good players, you still have a good chance of not winning. What's the difference? Have you ever actually played Magic multiplayer? > Furthermore: Did WotC know that WW was going to releae HoS? No. Hence, > how can you say that the game designers were able to MAKE the cards > for that clans trio? They've ALREADY BEEN MADE (most of them)! THIS is > where the imbalance may come from. Except that WW didn't have to release the HoS at all. They could have looked at the discipline trio, looked at the cards out for it, and said, "This clan will be too powerful, we can't put them in." Problem averted. -- -Snapcase

vermillian wrote: > And I also can't just "stop playing with certain people". Do you guys > do that? How rude! Keep playing with them. You're supposed to TEACH > them the game too, not just whoop on them. I don't know what to tell you, man. I have a play group around here that fluctuates between 4 and 12 people, depending on the week. And none of us hate each other. And we all get along and have a good time. And no one goes out of the way to dick anyone over. And no one, generally speaking, does stupid crap from across the table "just because". And our games are generally fun, balanced, and entertaining. I don't know what kind of group you are playing with, but it doesn't sound much fun. > > More: People crosstable rushing for no reason does not mean that > they're rushing for a reason (well, they have reasons, but the > unbalancing or the table remains). Also, something like someone > torping two of their predators minions when its now clear that their > granpredator will sweep... stuff like that. Then they are being idiots. I have managed to help establish a playgroup full of not idiots. I don't know what to tell you. Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "You were right, Roger. That's a big-ass worm." -Hellboy

vermillian wrote: > Then people will start building decks that beat these decks that beat > dominate, and then so on. Exactly. Then lots and lots of different decks get played. And there is a swinging metagame. And people become less predictable. And games become less predictable. How is this bad? > Whatever. Rock paper scissors. So then > people make decks that can maybe beat each of rock paper and scissors, > but when a bunch of really good rocks come along, they can't, etc... > makes my head hurt. This isn't balance, this is boring. Umm, ok then. Paper, Scisor, Rock is a balanced game. So your problem isn't with *balance* or the lacktherof. Your problem is with boring. > More: Some discipline related cards were made prior to realizing they > were going to release clans to use them... HOW can this be balanced? They released the clans full well knowing what cards were out there. The built the clans knowing what their capabilities would be. Yes, it is unlikely that, say, The Harbingers of Skulls would exist when Freak Drive was designed. But the harbingers of Skulls were designed knowing that Freak Drive existed, and designed accordingly. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > Don't worry, you're misquoting him so you're a prick. Honest. Yeah, I was worried about that. Thanks, though. :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

vermillian wrote: > Well, even if they did want to steal the things, these second year art > majors aren't going to put up much of a fight... Should they put up much of a fight for minimum wage? That's what they have phones for. [ quoted text not captured ]

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message Snip introduction !! > VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are > set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game, which creates its > own sort of (im)balances. Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only > appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. Well, couldn't agree more !! VTES is an unbalanced game but mostly in terms of who plays power-gaming (and who doesn't) We all know that it's easy to make that Malk or !Malk bleed deck, but if you're playing against other decks of same caliber (We all remember the European Final: 3 bleeders, 1 Warghoul-deck & 1 antibleed-deck) the game becomes very open (no-one's bound to win), and your diplomatic skills (and of course your playing skill) suddenly becomes very important factors. In such a game situation I would say that VTES is a very balanced game, and would remain balanced if players weren't allowed to interact, and everybody concentrated on ousting their prey. Actually, in this situation it's the fact that it's a multiplayer game that creates an imbalance. you would never convince another player to harm your prey in a 2-player game: he's the only other player & your 'prey'. But this is actually what I've experienced time and time again in well-balanced multiplayer games. A convinces C to concentrate on B instead of D, and suddenly A gains total control of the table !! And, yes, some deck types are just easier to win with or are simply more powerful than others. But I have never experienced a deck that wasn't vulnerable to some other type of deck, so there are no (or rather really few) cards that are too powerful compared to others. Sure, minion tap is far better than ascendance or deal with the devil but those are all cards from the early years of Jyhad (don't think that game developpers at this point knew exactly how the game was going to be), and I can't really think of cards in the latest expansions that are totally useless, so I prefer to think of 'less good cards' (except for the early 'mistakes' like Ascendance) as cards that are just waiting to show their full potential in the right combination with other cards !! Sure, cards & clans are more or less powerful (who said Lasombra or Ventrue ??) but I don't mind a game that can be played at different levels !! I wouldn't prefer any of these two comments to the other: "Oh, heck, why are you blocking with the one with owl companion, you saw my hand last turn ??" OR "Dammit, you had that Voter Captivation, then I should have tried to bleed you for 7 !!" Well, nobody likes a game where one man plays all the top-notch vamps and the rest of the table try out funny ideas, so why not just agree on the level of play in friendly games before you start the game (powergaming or not). Or if you're playing at a tournament, give it your best shot and accept the fact that every one else is going to powergame, so you might as well do the same, or try to invent your own deck-idea with a huge risk of being trashed and run over !! I don't think it's that hard to achieve a well-balanced game, and VTES would really suck IMO if all cards&clans where more or less equally powered. Like I said with the 'less' good cards before: I see it as a challenge to construct competitive decks with cards/vamps that are considered no good or misplaced, and I wouldn't have that option if all clans/ clan-disciplines were more equal than they are now !!! > Furthermore, being a VTES game designer would be a posh hack job as > you could print nearly anything as long as it fit the RPG feel and > wasn't a "you win" card. Well, It might just be because of the RPG that VTES has such a diversity ??? Have to admit I just love it !! But don't we all ??? DjMik

[vermillian] > Just really quick, no it is NOT always my fault there's > cross table contestion. I was playing with !Tremere, > and my grandpredator transfers out Cardano. I THINK > I'm safe with Kij, but NOOOOO... he pulls her out too. But it is your fault. You did it to yourself. If you didn't transfer out Kij you wouldn't be contesting. You chose to put Kij in your deck and you chose to transfer her out. You should have attempted to make a deal with your grand-predator. At the very least you should have waved your hands about and made sure that your grand-predator knew that there was a possibility of contestion. That way they couldn't do so accidentally. And if that doesn't work then you should have played another deck. [vermillian] > And I also can't just "stop playing with certain people". Do you guys > do that? How rude! Keep playing with them. You're supposed to TEACH > them the game too, not just whoop on them. Well, maybe. But you did say that these people "personally hate you". Certainly I try to teach and correct the idiotic and misdirected gameplay of my *friends* (even as they foolishly attempt to tell me how to play), but I wouldn't be playing any sort of game with people who *hate* me. [vermillian] > More: People crosstable rushing for no reason does not mean that > they're rushing for a reason (well, they have reasons, but the > unbalancing or the table remains). Also, something like someone > torping two of their predators minions when its now clear that their > granpredator will sweep... stuff like that. > > Once again I say In most CCGs if you're sitting at a table with a bad > player you win. In VTES you probably won't, and you probably won't > have a good time either. The point is that the bad player didn't win either, and if they did then they are evidently a *good* player. I think your real problem is one of ego. You think you are a good player (and maybe you are), and you think that being a good player (possibly even the best at the table) should be enough to allow you to win the game, hence you get pissed off when the inept bumbling of some newbie screws your game and throws it to someone else. I understand this feeling. I used to get totally frustrated by fucking morons who rushed me from cross-table. But then I realised that the game is not just about knowing how to assemble combos and attempting to pick the optimum number of cards for a deck and remembering when to play immortal grapple. The game is also about interacting with the other players. If someone is cross-table rushing try and make them do cross-table rushes that are to *your* advantage, either by "advising" the player or by using game mechanics like "Brujah Frenzy". Talk to the other players. Remind them to take pool for the edge, and remind them that they can (D) action the Army of Rats, or the Acquired Ventrue Assets. Finally if you and your deck cannot deal with a cross-table idiot, then it probably couldn't deal with your prey or predator doing similar things. And it definitely couldn't cope with someone smart cross-table who is doing these things as a strategy. That is your deck might not be as good as you think it is. * lehrbuch

>I've been VERY >unhappy with VTES lately, and I'm thinking it might be because of >balance within the game being over riden by the multiplayer aspect of >the game. I used to like this game, love it really, and now its >faded... is my playgroup bad? I don't see why you'd choose balance as the cause of increased unhappiness with the game. For that to be the case, the game would have to be less balanced than it used to be. Would be an interesting argument, but IMO, it would be a challenging one. I'd think increased unhappiness would more likely have to do with the game getting stale, too complicated, or something outside of game play. Seems to me that to look for the cause should look at what's changed either in the game or in the player base unless the problem is that nothing has changed and the irritation with certain things has kept increasing as the source of irritation fails to be dealt with.

evilp...@yahoo.com (evil_poot_cat) wrote in message news:<cf597231.03050...@posting.google.com>... > Fair enough. I don't see such scenarios as game imbalance, I see them > as metagame/playgroup. You should counter this metagame aspect by That should have been "...metagame/playgroup imbalance."

"lehrbuch" <ri...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:5fee5473.03050...@posting.google.com... > I used to get totally frustrated by fucking morons who > rushed me from cross-table. But then I realised that the game is > not just about knowing how to > assemble combos and attempting to pick the optimum number of cards for > a deck and remembering when to play immortal grapple. The game is > also about interacting with the other players. Well said! I've observed a number of really smart new players who quickly pick out the best combos and gimmicks for their decks. We have a term for them here..."Childmonkey". They are like a kid or a monkey with a loaded gun. Sure, bullets shot from the childmonkey's gun will hurt as much as those shot by a skilled marksman and oftentimes they'll shoot the wrong person or themselves. But an experienced player knows how and when to wield such lethal force. Point being that the assembling of cards comes quickly but learning how to read a table takes much longer. -Robert

djmi...@hotmail.com (DJ.Mik) wrote in message news:<81800800.03050...@posting.google.com>... > vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message > > Snip introduction !! > > > VTES may SEEM balanced, as the factors that make VTES unbalanced are > > set off by the fact that it is a multiplayer game, which creates its > > own sort of (im)balances. Hence, VTES is NOT balanced, but only > > appears to be so, due to the multiplayer aspect of the game. > > Well, couldn't agree more !! VTES is an unbalanced game but mostly in > terms of who plays power-gaming (and who doesn't) Do I know you? Your DJ name makes me suspect so... please email in private for identity of your SN if so. I generally agree with everything you've said as well... ~SV

On Thu, 8 May 2003, Robert Goudie wrote: > Well said! I've observed a number of really smart new players who quickly > pick out the best combos and gimmicks for their decks. We have a term for > them here..."Childmonkey". They are like a kid or a monkey with a loaded gun. > Sure, bullets shot from the childmonkey's gun will hurt as much as those shot > by a skilled marksman and oftentimes they'll shoot the wrong person or > themselves. But an experienced player knows how and when to wield such lethal > force. Point being that the assembling of cards comes quickly but learning > how to read a table takes much longer. Hey Rob! Looking forward to seeing you at this year's WoN! Got any thoughts, or just good links, on how, exactly, one "reads the table"? I agree that it can be done, but I think we'd disagree on how far in the future one can predict the game state. David Cherryholmes Duke Radiology P.E.T. Facility (919) 684-7714 david.che...@duke.edu

"David Cherryholmes" <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:Pine.GSO.4.21.030508...@petsparc.mc.duke.edu... > On Thu, 8 May 2003, Robert Goudie wrote: > > > Well said! I've observed a number of really smart new players who quickly > > pick out the best combos and gimmicks for their decks. We have a term for > > them here..."Childmonkey". They are like a kid or a monkey with a loaded gun. > > Sure, bullets shot from the childmonkey's gun will hurt as much as those shot > > by a skilled marksman and oftentimes they'll shoot the wrong person or > > themselves. But an experienced player knows how and when to wield such lethal > > force. Point being that the assembling of cards comes quickly but learning > > how to read a table takes much longer. > > Hey Rob! Looking forward to seeing you at this year's WoN! Don't say "WoN" around me. Gives me the chills. :) I'm not sure I'm showing-up and if I do it'll have to be later in the week. But, I'd sure like to make it. Maybe we'll even have time to share a drink or five. > Got any thoughts, or just good links, on how, exactly, one "reads the > table"? I agree that it can be done, but I think we'd disagree on how far > in the future one can predict the game state. No links. It is a very complex topic. Off the top of my head I'd say you are continuously comparing the current game state (the decks, players, and status of the current game) against every game you've ever played to get an idea of each player's chance of winning at that moment. When someone's lead crosses some touchy-feely threshold, you exert some pressure on the current leader. Not to say to rush cross table and kill their main vamp. But, if they are only slightly ahead, maybe splitting your votes 2-2 instead of 3-1 might be appropriate or even more subtle pressure like voting against their votes to reduce the amount of pool gained by Voter Cap. As to how far you can see ahead, I don't know. I have a rep for nearly always killing my first prey so I think I'm more of the straightforward pound it home variety. :) -Robert

In message <Pine.GSO.4.21.030508...@petsparc.mc.duke.ed u>, David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> writes: >Got any thoughts, or just good links, on how, exactly, one "reads the >table"? I agree that it can be done, but I think we'd disagree on how far >in the future one can predict the game state. I don't think 'reading the table' just involves the future - though certainly, that's a good part of it. Can you guess what other people can drag out of their arses to foil you completely? Assume I decide I want to hop in with my Dramatic Upheaval, and get your prey. Based on what's gone before, will the rest of the table be able to pull enough intercept out to stop me? How about votes? Well, I've seen him play a few votes but he's been discarding them and it's a mixed deck... Then there's the question of how players will react - not just in terms of what they'll play, but how it will influence their future actions. That's not quite predicting the future game state, if I can draw the distinction. Childmonkey puts in Govern the Unaligned, Conditioning, Shadow Play and Pentex Loves you in his deck, expecting to use them all for the same bleed. And proceeds to do that at the first possible opportunity. How is childmonkey's prey going to react? Will he view childmonkey as the uber-threat and rush backwards to kill childmonkey? Will he wall up so that the childmonkey can be got rid off and he'll survive? Will the rest of the table go "Oh, shit!" and gang up on the childmonkey? Is that reading players, or the table? Well, I'd tend to conflate the two into one, for purposes of "reading the table". A lot of that sort of thing is going to get down to how well you can read a poker face, though. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <Cxtua.61489$ey1.5...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> mumbled something about: >No links. It is a very complex topic. Off the top of my head I'd say you are >continuously comparing the current game state (the decks, players, and status >of the current game) against every game you've ever played to get an idea of >each player's chance of winning at that moment. When someone's lead crosses >some touchy-feely threshold, you exert some pressure on the current leader. >Not to say to rush cross table and kill their main vamp. But, if they are >only slightly ahead, maybe splitting your votes 2-2 instead of 3-1 might be >appropriate or even more subtle pressure like voting against their votes to >reduce the amount of pool gained by Voter Cap. Alternatively, rushing cross-table and killing their dingus. A lot of decks have the Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear, Dingus syndrome; they'll bring out a main vamp, a backup main vamp, a reasonably good vamp, and The Dingus. frex: Emerson, Sir Walter, Ranjan Rishi, and Rufina Soledad. Papa and Mama do most of the work; they have everything the deck needs. Baby Bear can do some things, but as in the above example, he lacks a title and so tends to do a lot of the grunt work. The Dingus gets all the shit jobs. Bleeding for 1 ahead of the pack to take one for the team, diablerizing to burn in the bloodhunt, blocking Beast's rush... you get the idea. Anything that you don't want to risk a "real" vampire to do, who gets to do it? You guessed it: the Dingus. Removing a deck's dingus is a largely non-obnoxious action, as seen in cross-table terms. Nobody is likely to think you're a raving lunatic, or think that Pressure Must Be Put On You, or even feel they need to retaliate -- after all, it was just the Dingus. But it sure makes things a lot harder for the deck in the long run. They lose that free bleed for 1 they've been picking up out of fear of Ranjan's Conditioning. The first Rush gets to a vamp that matters. And they might waste two actions and two blood getting the Dingus back out of torpor, of all things. Subtlety works. =) -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

"Al" <na...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:649ee5dc.03050...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] About as useless as a little project we had going here a few years back at the U of Illinois called Mosaic. You know...the predecessor to Netscape and Internet Explorer. I think we all know how useless that turned out to be...

"Snapcase" <shotgu...@optonline.net> wrote in message news:3150b71e.03050...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Is someone really complaining that the Harbingers are too powerful?

On Thu, 8 May 2003, Robert Goudie wrote: > Don't say "WoN" around me. Gives me the chills. :) I'm not sure I'm > showing-up and if I do it'll have to be later in the week. But, I'd sure like > to make it. Maybe we'll even have time to share a drink or five. "Chills"? What for you mean, "chills"? I don't think anybody is showing up for an actual week, so do you mean you may be even later (which basically means "the weekend"), or did you just mean you're only coming for the scheduled Mini Me of Nightmares? I'm down with the drinking, though. I hear there'll be Brits there this year and I've got a mind to avenge myself upon them for the beating I took from a crusty old British Master Chief, back in the submarine days. <snip how it's complicated> I agree. That's basically what I was driving at, that it's complicated. > As to how far you can see ahead, I don't know. I have a rep for nearly always > killing my first prey so I think I'm more of the straightforward pound it home > variety. :) I don't know either, but I suspect the answer is "not very", though I can also see that answer varying from playgroup to playgroup. David C. ain't got no sig

On Thu, 8 May 2003, James Coupe wrote: > I don't think 'reading the table' just involves the future - though > certainly, that's a good part of it. I don't, either, but it's the aspect that I find many people overestimate their ability to assess. The game state unwinds somewhat like a recursive function, where the output of the previous turn becomes the input for the next. Most of us know how very simple rules, when applied recursively, can give rise to staggering complexity. I think many players view the game as more of a linear function, or at least overemphasize the role inertia will play in the games final resting state. <ka-snip> The rest of your post consists of very good questions, and would serve well as a sort of primer for reading the table. However, the main point is that these are very difficult questions to answer. It's good to keep them in mind, but don't overestimate the certainty with which you can answer them. David C.

On Thu, 8 May 2003, Derek Ray wrote: > Alternatively, rushing cross-table and killing their dingus. So, Rob observes the complexity of the problem, James expounds Socratically, and you suggest beating something up. It's good to know at least some things in the world are reliable. See ya next weekend, and have someplace suitably lewd picked out for Saturday night. David C.

In message <Pine.LNX.4.44.03050...@davetop.mc.duke.edu>, David Cherryholmes <d...@davetop.mc.duke.edu> mumbled something about: >On Thu, 8 May 2003, Derek Ray wrote: > >> Alternatively, rushing cross-table and killing their dingus. > >So, Rob observes the complexity of the problem, James expounds >Socratically, and you suggest beating something up. It's good to >know at least some things in the world are reliable. I object! I wasn't playing a combat deck at ALL two weekends ago! Wait... shit. I lie. I had nine Vitae Blocks in. My bad. >See ya next weekend, and have someplace suitably lewd picked out for >Saturday night. We're having a definite long think about that one, judging from the mob scene that's going to descend on us. Daaayum. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <Pine.LNX.4.44.03050...@davetop.mc.duke.edu> , David Cherryholmes <d...@davetop.mc.duke.edu> writes: >It's good to keep >them in mind, but don't overestimate the certainty with which you can >answer them. I don't. I'm pretty crap at them. I remember a game involving a certain well-known UK V:TES player, which I was judging. I was certain that he was about to go down, and was negotiating his ass off to save himself. Wander round table. 3 cards, which included 2 2nd Tradition and 1 Obedience, I think. Possibly the other way round. And a copy of Anneke. I believe one spectator's words to me, privately, were "I'll remember that for the future." (Or to that effect.) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 8 May 2003, James Coupe wrote: > I don't. I'm pretty crap at them. Right. I was using "you" in a general sense, in case that wasn't clear. [ quoted text not captured ]

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote: > *sigh* University jobs like being a art gallary sitter... those people > that sit and watch art gallaries to make sure people don't steal > things? There's another job around here, Office of Information > Technology. A friend of mine fixes a bunch of things that really > should (and would be cheaper) to replace. THESE jobs are useless, of > course its my general opinion now a days that the buisiness of college > is also useless, and a wrong on some complicated aspect I've yet to > discover, but that's another topic altogether. I can't beleive I have to explain this, especially with a background in literature, but the basic economic theories of capitalism dictate that jobs like this are necessary in order to perpetuate the economy. There has to be museum guards and burger flippers and trash collectors, so that there can be software developers and investment bankers. Indeed, this is one of the classic criticisms of capitalism, this imbalance of job income that creates a class system, and the fact that built into this system is a self-perpetuation of the class system, ie: with noted exceptions, the argument is, "the rich get richer while the poor stay poor." Not that I necessarily agree with this, but such is the basic theory. So the question is not whether or not the jobs are useless, they by definition cannot be useless because they perform a necessary function in their respective economic niche. That makes the real question one of the employee, not the employment. SO, given this, you must mean useless in a more philosophical sense. I can bite that line of reasoning too: useless to whom? If you or your friend are dissatisfied with your career choices, is that the fault of the career? What if I personally found the job of museum security guard truly fulfilling? (and with a fecking lit degree, that's probably where I'll end up anyhow!) What if my personality was distinctly suited to fixing things that might otherwise be more cheaply replaced? Still useless? Only to you and your friend. And this argument is stunningly applicable to V:TES: Card utility is defined by environment. What makes a card useful is literally the deck and game in which it appears. Freak drive is useless in a mono-obfuscate deck, fer crissake. Ok, then, let's take this line of reasoning further and apply it to your reason for starting this thread... your personal dissatisfaction with V:TES of late, and the possibility that this may relate somehow to game balance. If you are bored with V:TES, perhaps, like your career dissatisfaction, this is a personal problem, not something intrinsic to the game design or balance... There is a saying here that was very effective up until the point some pop band co-opted it for their cheese-ass song lyrics, but I think despite it's cultural dillution it remains true: "you're only bored if you're boring." The nice thing about V:TES is that given the 500+ crypt cards and 1000+ library cards, YOU have the tools to change this boredom. You need not be bored, you need not feel the game is flawed or imbalanced, and you sure as hell don't have to wait for the game designers to create a new set every 9 months or for LSJ to "fix" things that are allegedly broken. If, as you note, the problem is such that you cannot win games even when playing with amateur or unskilled opponents, then the problem is probably the decks you are playing. To win, to really sweep tables and maximize victory points, you need a deck that controls the table, not just a stack of cards that focus on ousting prey and foiling predator. The above suggestion to include Dramatic Upheavals is an excellent one. Or, maybe a review of the tournament winning deck archive is in order. Basically, OWN YOUR FEELINGS, big guy. You don't have to be bored, dissatisfied, or disgusted with V:TES, it's *YOUR* choice. Not a single game designer, nor any posters on this newsgroup are responsible for your unhappiness. Only you get to chose that. That's my $11.98 cents worth. -Matt

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message news:<f987c6cd.03050...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Glad to hear that you agree !! Really there's no secret to this name. The DJ are initials of my middle & surname and the Mik is short for Mikkel my first name. So maybe I should go change to something more fanzy like Godzilla the Goofball !! I don't know might do it some day, and then again, maybe not !! DjMik > > ~SV

"David Cherryholmes" <d...@davetop.mc.duke.edu> wrote in message news:Pine.LNX.4.44.03050...@davetop.mc.duke.edu... > On Thu, 8 May 2003, Robert Goudie wrote: > > > Don't say "WoN" around me. Gives me the chills. :) I'm not sure I'm > > showing-up and if I do it'll have to be later in the week. But, I'd sure like > > to make it. Maybe we'll even have time to share a drink or five. > > "Chills"? What for you mean, "chills"? I don't think anybody is showing > up for an actual week, so do you mean you may be even later (which > basically means "the weekend"), or did you just mean you're only coming > for the scheduled Mini Me of Nightmares? Last year's WoN covered 8 days. This years', I believe, is 5. I may show for the weekend. It's gonna be tough for me to get there this year. > I'm down with the drinking, > though. I hear there'll be Brits there this year and I've got a mind to > avenge myself upon them for the beating I took from a crusty old British > Master Chief, back in the submarine days. LOL. What sub? Were you a nuke, a coner, or what? -Robert

On Fri, 9 May 2003, Robert Goudie wrote: > LOL. What sub? Were you a nuke, a coner, or what? A nuke. Same as Paul. That's why I can kid him about amine eating his brain. You've obviously been subjected to one too many sea stories from Paul if you know what a "coner" is (or does Clancy get that detailed)? See you soon, hopefully. [ quoted text not captured ]

"David Cherryholmes" <d...@davetop.mc.duke.edu> wrote in message news:Pine.LNX.4.44.03050...@davetop.mc.duke.edu... > The game state unwinds somewhat like a recursive function, where the > output of the previous turn becomes the input for the next. Most of us > know how very simple rules, when applied recursively, can give rise to > staggering complexity. I think many players view the game as more of a > linear function, or at least overemphasize the role inertia will play in > the games final resting state. LOL, you're soooooooo deep!

On 5 May 2003 10:23:24 -0700, vermillian wrote: >I would like to hear this forum's thoughts on this issue. With in your >post, please remark if you find VTES to be balanced or not, and give >some reasons why you think it has balance, and I would also like you >to comment on a statement I've typed below. In an absolute sense the game is clearly not balanced because it contains at least one card - Return to Innocence - which is banned from tournament play for that reason. Most other comparable CCGs are not flawed in this way. Folk here will tend to dismiss that because they only play the game using tournament rules. But that's not really a fair test because tournament rules are not the game as designed and sold. One fundamental flaw in VTES' balance is that it is generally agreed to be unsatisfactory when played with just two players. Shadowfist is similar but better in this respect because it also has 2-player tournaments and players who prefer playing the game in that mode. Other multi-player CCGs like L5R and LotR tend to be better in 2-player form. The only CCG in my experience which is satisfactory with any number of players is Doomtown - I have as much fun playing it with 10 players as with 2. Of course, these are all fairly good CCGs. There are plenty of CCGs which are quite lacking in balance. A good recent example is the Buffy CCG. This had huge potential but its early execution was bungled and now its demise has been announced. With lots of errata and revision, one might make something of it - I recently opened some pre-constructed starters for The Wish and was quite impressed at how improved the game looked. But it's not going to happen - I just don't think it has enough of a fanbase to keep going. But games don't need to be balanced to survive - Magic seems to manage it with a dynamic equilibrium. Other games survive on the strength of their marketing or licence, e.g. Dragonball-Z. TANJ... Andrew

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:<tmd1cvkm8fink4gi8...@4ax.com>... > On 5 May 2003 10:23:24 -0700, vermillian wrote: > > >I would like to hear this forum's thoughts on this issue. With in your > >post, please remark if you find VTES to be balanced or not, and give > >some reasons why you think it has balance, and I would also like you > >to comment on a statement I've typed below. > > In an absolute sense the game is clearly not balanced because it > contains at least one card - Return to Innocence - which is banned > from tournament play for that reason. Most other comparable CCGs are > not flawed in this way. Well, i'm not sure if i agree with that. For example, amn't i right in thinking there is a problem with It Was A Mountain Lion in Doomtown? And isn't VTES the only CCG with NO card limits? Isn't it, in this sense, not comparable to ANY other CCG? > > Folk here will tend to dismiss that because they only play the game > using tournament rules. But that's not really a fair test because > tournament rules are not the game as designed and sold. > > One fundamental flaw in VTES' balance is that it is generally agreed > to be unsatisfactory when played with just two players. Shadowfist is > similar but better in this respect because it also has 2-player > tournaments and players who prefer playing the game in that mode. > Other multi-player CCGs like L5R and LotR tend to be better in > 2-player form. The only CCG in my experience which is satisfactory > with any number of players is Doomtown - I have as much fun playing it > with 10 players as with 2. Not to diss other good card games, but i think VTES CAN be good fun played as two-player. You just need to agree to design decks that work in the two-player format and/or use special rules to simulate the end-of-game duel - the interesting ones i mean, not those where it's obvious that one player is going to win. > > Of course, these are all fairly good CCGs. There are plenty of CCGs > which are quite lacking in balance. A good recent example is the > Buffy CCG. This had huge potential but its early execution was > bungled and now its demise has been announced. With lots of errata > and revision, one might make something of it - I recently opened some > pre-constructed starters for The Wish and was quite impressed at how > improved the game looked. But it's not going to happen - I just don't > think it has enough of a fanbase to keep going. > > But games don't need to be balanced to survive - Magic seems to manage > it with a dynamic equilibrium. Other games survive on the strength of > their marketing or licence, e.g. Dragonball-Z. TANJ... > > Andrew i agree with most of that, and would add that the quest for balance is something i personally have put a lot of time into, for the simple reason that it used to be the case that i built all the decks for our little family/friends play-group, and so's to keep my friends and not be compelled to sleep in the bath i used to do this in such a way that all the decks were sorta balanced vis-a-vis one another. i think your point about how the game is sold is a particularly good one, because i think it emphasises the fact that we've rather lost touch with the original idea of CCGs, namely that people would play with LIMITED pools of cards. Garfield simply didn't realise that the punters would be STUPID enough to fork out THOUSANDS of negotiable bills for little bits of pasteboard. Now he is wiser, and richer; and all of those involved in CC game design are playing catch-up with that original error. Personally i still prefer the form of the game in which one builds decks from limited pools of cards. In that format i would argue that RtI is not a problem. But i like both forms, really.

legb...@mailandnews.com (legbiter) wrote: >Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message >> In an absolute sense the game is clearly not balanced because it >> contains at least one card - Return to Innocence - which is banned >> from tournament play for that reason. Most other comparable CCGs are >> not flawed in this way. > >Well, i'm not sure if i agree with that. For example, amn't i right in >thinking there is a problem with It Was A Mountain Lion in Doomtown? >And isn't VTES the only CCG with NO card limits? Isn't it, in this >sense, not comparable to ANY other CCG? Equivalent assertion for random TCG with card limits (RTCGWCL): In an absolute sense, RTCGWCL is clearly not balanced because the vast majority of available cards have their quantity is restricted in tournaments for balance reasons. V:TES is not flawed in this way. -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson

On 13 May 2003 07:21:08 -0700, legbiter wrote: >Well, i'm not sure if i agree with that. For example, amn't i right in >thinking there is a problem with It Was A Mountain Lion in Doomtown? There was but the card got errata. And the game got a rule change which limited events generally after I won the world championship with a deck which used lots of them. But I can still play Mountain Lions in tournaments. You can't play Return to Innocence in VTES tournaments even though it has official errata. I see this as an admission of failure though it's only one card, of course. >And isn't VTES the only CCG with NO card limits? Isn't it, in this >sense, not comparable to ANY other CCG? It has different card limits. There's a deck minimum and maximum unlike, Shadowfist say, in which your deck can be as large or small as you like. There's a uniqueness rule. And there are quite tough limits on repeat play of cards which serve much the same function as the card-multiple limit in other games. The game was clearly broken when it didn't have these, e.g. vote pushing. >Personally i still prefer the form of the game in which one builds >decks from limited pools of cards. In that format i would argue that >RtI is not a problem. But i like both forms, really. It's interesting that the HeroClix World Championships are going to be sealed box events. I suppose that's because they haven't yet got to grips with imbalances in that game and don't want to risk being embarrassed by a surfeit of Firelords as at the last two UK Championships. Part of the trouble is that that game doesn't have the equivalent of a card limit - you can put as many Firelords or Con Artists on your team as you can afford. Many venues have a "no-dupes" rule which is like a card limit of 1 and you often get protracted debates about this which resemble the CL threads here. Plus ça change... Andrew

sjoh...@math.sc.edu (L. Scott Johnson) wrote in message news:<b9r0ln$lsqim$1...@ID-99714.news.dfncis.de>... [ quoted text not captured ] Actually, don't most RTCGWCLs have their CL built right into their rule book? I know A game of thrones does. Such RTCGWCL (I guess they're not so random anymore though) have said CL in mind when creating cards for their game... ~SV

Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > On 13 May 2003 07:21:08 -0700, legbiter wrote: > > >>Well, i'm not sure if i agree with that. For example, amn't i right in >>thinking there is a problem with It Was A Mountain Lion in Doomtown? > > > There was but the card got errata. And the game got a rule change > which limited events generally after I won the world championship with > a deck which used lots of them. But I can still play Mountain Lions > in tournaments. You can't play Return to Innocence in VTES > tournaments even though it has official errata. I see this as an > admission of failure though it's only one card, of course. AS does RTI, however one reason for banning this card is the huge amount of errata text correcting it. Its wordy, counter intuitive and disrupts the flow of the game. Banning is mearly a sensible course of action. R.

>In an absolute sense the game is clearly not balanced because it >contains at least one card - Return to Innocence - which is banned >from tournament play for that reason. Most other comparable CCGs are >not flawed in this way. So, games that don't ban their stupid cards are somehow better balanced? This is a nonsensical argument to me. CCGs become better balanced when they ban problem cards. >One fundamental flaw in VTES' balance is that it is generally agreed >to be unsatisfactory when played with just two players. Shadowfist is >similar but better in this respect because it also has 2-player >tournaments and players who prefer playing the game in that mode. Multiplayer CCGs as a rule don't work well two player. I don't recall hearing from any Shadowfist player (and, there are a lot about) that he preferred two player. >Other multi-player CCGs like L5R and LotR tend to be better in >2-player form. Maybe because they are two player CCGs that happen to have multiplayer rules. It's certainly possible as I don't follow them that closely, but I don't recall any multiplayer tournaments for these two CCGs. >The only CCG in my experience which is satisfactory >with any number of players is Doomtown - I have as much fun playing it >with 10 players as with 2. I hated Doomtown, but this isn't much of an argument for anything. >Of course, these are all fairly good CCGs. There are plenty of CCGs >which are quite lacking in balance. A good recent example is the >Buffy CCG. This had huge potential but its early execution was >bungled and now its demise has been announced. With lots of errata >and revision, one might make something of it - I recently opened some >pre-constructed starters for The Wish and was quite impressed at how >improved the game looked. But it's not going to happen - I just don't >think it has enough of a fanbase to keep going. I was persuaded by the argument that Buffy was way too complicated for its target audience. I never found it fun, either. But, then, I was always borrowing decks so I couldn't appreciate having a deck do what it was supposed to. >But games don't need to be balanced to survive - Magic seems to manage >it with a dynamic equilibrium. Other games survive on the strength of >their marketing or licence, e.g. Dragonball-Z. I'm quite happy I sold off my DBZ collection. It was obvious they had no clue how to manage a game from a play standpoint (gotta like those sales, though, if you are Score). Let's errata a card that does triple!!! damage ... by making it better. No problem, it's not actually good enough to play currently AFAICT. I *was* surprised that I enjoyed sealed play in a major I somehow ended up playing in.

>Personally i still prefer the form of the game in which one builds >decks from limited pools of cards. In that format i would argue that >RtI is not a problem. But i like both forms, really. It came too late, as I got too used to the idea that I should be able to build any deck I could conceivable want to build, but I realized at some point that I had more *fun* with a CCG when I had less cards. Though, if I'm the only one with a limited collection in a play group, might not be so fun.

Curevei wrote: > Multiplayer CCGs as a rule don't work well two player. I don't recall hearing > from any Shadowfist player (and, there are a lot about) that he preferred two > player. I dunno--I actually like 2 player Fist better than multi-player. Fist is a fantastic game, but it suffers completely from the problems of all free form multi-player games--king making, random dealing, weak players simply making strong players win, etc. While multi fist (i.e. 3 or 4 player) is certainly a good time, I'd often much rather play a string of duels rather than one long multi player game. Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "You were right, Roger. That's a big-ass worm." -Hellboy