VtES by numbers - an argument for better combat in VtES

Hello everyone. I've been thinking about the whole combat/S:CE situation lately, and one argument for S:CE sort of stuck out among the rest: that combat is just a tactic, and therefore should not be allowed to dominate VtES strategies. I believe LSJ himself has invoked this principle a few times, and certainly the recent new cards seem to bear this out. Of course, us combat fans counter that combat should be an important part of the game, and point to (among other things) the complexity of combat and the large amount of rules attached to it, but complexity does not mean it should rule the game, not even that it is an important part of it. However, there is one thing that should be a reasonable indication of how important this mechanic should be to the game: the number of cards dedicated to this tactic, and the potential number of decks that can use it. So today I started up ELDB [with the new updated database - BTW, I want to thank David Anderson-Dávila for this very usefull piece of software :-) ] and started counting cards. I counted how many cards there are of each type and I also classified each discipline according to it's general use (bleed/stealth/etc.), and then counted the number of clans and vampires capable of using that discipline, and therefore that strategy. It's all rather generalized, and numbers can be deceiving, but if there are large differences between strategies, then they should become clear. Before printing the results, I want to remind everyone that bleed and voting are the two (supposed) main strategies in VtES, and certainly tournament results bear this out. So, let's see the numbers: By card type: -Action 147 -Action Modifier 63+9+2 -Ally 50 -Combat 177+9+2 -Equipment 71 -Master 248 -Political 109 -Reaction 59+2+2 -Retainer 29 It's pretty clear that combat is the dominant minion card type. Only Master cards have more variety. They usually consist of at least 10% of most decks, and the main reason they're not more common is due to deck size and card cycling limitations. Political cards are also quite numerous, considering they can be mostly used by any vampire, unlike other cards that often have discipline requirements. But let's look at discipline distribution then: Crypt Stats by discipline: /* Type: -Discipline (clan nº)*(type ratio) inf nº sup nº ... Total: total inf. sup. disc. points */ Combat: -Animalism 5*1/2 59 50 -Potence 6 87 57 -Celerity 6 83 66 -Protean 2 37 24 -Quietus 1 11 16 -Fortitude 4 75 46 -Vicissitude 1 18 9 -Thaumaturgy 2 40 30 -Obtenebration 1*1/2 17 12 -Chimerstry 1*1/4 12 13 Total: 25.25 439 323 1085 Stealth: -Obfuscate 7 66 73 -Obtenebration 1*1/4 17 12 Total: 7.25 83 85 253 Intercept: -Auspex 8 91 83 -Animalism 5*1/2 59 50 -Chimerstry 1*1/4 12 13 -Obtenebration 1*1/4 17 12 Total: 11 179 158 495 Voting: -Presence 6*1/2 71 73 -Titles - 126 - Total: 3 71 73 363 Bleed: -Dominate 7 89 70 -Presence 6*1/2 71 73 -Dementation 1*1/2 9 11 Total: 10.5 169 154 477 Other: -Dementation 1*1/2 9 11 -Serpentis 1 15 16 -Chimerstry 1*2/4 12 13 -Necromancy 1 13 13 Total: 2.5 49 53 155 Wow! Combat _is_ quite abundant. Many disciplines are almost exclusively dedicated to combat, and the number of discipline points dedicated to combat-worthy disciplines is more than double the number dedicated to any other tactic! That is, potentially, a lot more vampires can inflict substantial damage in combat than increase bleeds, play stealth or intercept. Voting is a little harder to quantify, but most vote decks depend on either titled vampires or presence to gain votes, yet the numbers for both of these are still far from those of combat or even bleed. This also explains why so many players think that combat is exciting, and bleeding is boring: there is a lot more potential variety for combat than for bleeding. I already stated my positions in relation to S:CE and combat in general in other recent posts, so I'll spare you from reading them again here, though I will point a couple of things that should be obvious based on this evidence: - we need more bleed disciplines. In fact, we need more variety for all of the base tactics. Some things have improved (intercept, for example), but largely all has remained the same since Jyhad. - combat needs to be more efficient. It is the most varied tactic in VtES, yet it remains the less effective. Thank you for your time. Flux

Your analysis is not easy to understand.... I'm still trying ! i just wanted to point this when you say >"Many disciplines are almost exclusively >dedicated to combat, and the number of discipline points dedicated to combat-worthy disciplines > is more than double the number dedicated to any other tactic! " mmm... this statement is strange... Of course, every discipline provides support in combat, but there are combat only disciplines : that is, one or two action, one or two reaction cards set aside, they are clearly combat oriented. We have Seventeen vampiric disciplines in v:tes. The ones we can clearly identify as "offensive" combat disc. are : Potence, Quietus, Celerity, Vicissitude, Thaumaturgy and Protean. But what about fortitude ? Providing Kiss of Ra, Daring the Dawn and Rapid healing are nice additions (and often "key cards") to a lot of non-combat deck, where does the "combat disciplien concept" starts, where does end ? One may also argue that there is passive combat and preventive combat ! Another case: Celerity alone is crap ! if you play celerity combat cards without using another, you'll (almost) never torporize vampires. Celerity is a combat support discipline. and what about the values of those combat cards ? hey ,actually presence has 3 combat cards while Serpentis have 4 ! but does it make Serpentis superior to presence during a fight ? I think not ! i just wanted to point that relying on numbers to judge v:tes cards efficiency is *impossible*. you also add that : > - we need more bleed disciplines. In fact, we need more variety for all of > the base tactics. Some things have improved (intercept, for example), but > largely all has remained the same since Jyhad. Do we really need more bleed disciplines ? or do we need more bounce disciplines ? Horatio with a computer hacking and a Changeling can already bleed you for three. I agree with you, the two main disciplines are presence and dominate, sepaking of "Bleed actions". But if you want bleed modifiers, there are plenty of vampires capable of using them. I hate to toy with numbers, but look : we have 423 Vampires in jyhad. 158 vampires possess dominate, 144 possess presence, 20 possess dementation, 25 possess chimerstry, 27 possess vicissitude. Again, i shouldn't invoke numbers : obfuscate has "spying mission". Does it count as a normal bleed modifier ? Basically, almost all vampires can play +1 Bleed after bleeding. You can also toss some Sabbat inquisitor, Laptops and Legendary vampires if you really need those bleed bonuses. Also note that bleeding is strong when paired with the correct discipline : Obfuscate, obtenebration... Celerity bleed will not help you. We might say that Bleed is a powerful tactics if you dedicate your deck to bleeding. Same thing for combat. > - combat needs to be more efficient. It is the most varied tactic in VtES, > yet it remains the less effective. combat is efficient. combat can shutdown an entire deck, no matter what the concept, no matter what the cards. In the hand of skilled players, well buit combat decks kill non-combat decks. No need to change this aspect of the game only because some people use numbers to measure things that cannot be measured by numbers. hey ! nothing personnal =) just my two corruption counters ! reyda

On Fri, 6 Jul 2001 15:18:02 +0100, "Flux" <fl...@netc.pt> wrote: >Hello everyone. > >I've been thinking about the whole combat/S:CE situation lately, and one >argument for S:CE sort of stuck out among the rest: that combat is just a >tactic, and therefore should not be allowed to dominate VtES strategies. I >believe LSJ himself has invoked this principle a few times, and certainly >the recent new cards seem to bear this out. Well, it's not so much an argument for S:CE as it is an argument against tipping the balance by changing -that- mechanic. The basic strategy of the game: reduce your prey's pool to zero. Everything about the game should be, in some fashion, related to that strategy, and the cards that will see the most use will be the ones most closely related. >Of course, us combat fans counter that combat should be an important part of >the game, and point to (among other things) the complexity of combat and the >large amount of rules attached to it, but complexity does not mean it should >rule the game, not even that it is an important part of it. Us combat fans have also long ago done the analysis you did below, so don't be surprised when I skim over it lightly. ;) >However, there is one thing that should be a reasonable indication of how >important this mechanic should be to the game: the number of cards dedicated >to this tactic, and the potential number of decks that can use it. ...and the number of cards that can be PLAYED, related to the mechanic itself. More below. >So, let's see the numbers: > >By card type: >-Action 147 >-Action Modifier 63+9+2 >-Ally 50 >-Combat 177+9+2 >-Equipment 71 >-Master 248 >-Political 109 >-Reaction 59+2+2 >-Retainer 29 > >It's pretty clear that combat is the dominant minion card type. Only Master Somewhat misleading. "Actions" are right behind them, at 147. And you can only play one action card per action, while you can play multiple cards per combat. This indicates that there is a significantly greater amount of variety in the actions themselves, ... which is a good thing! There is only so much variety in bleed. The mechanic is "reduce prey's pool", and the only variety after that comes from "how much". The side effects, such as Propaganda, are amusing, but you notice that Propaganda doesn't hit the table very often? The primary concern is the -amount- of the bleed. =) >But let's look at discipline distribution then: > >Crypt Stats by discipline: (snipped) Tabdamaged, unfortunately =/ This doesn't line up properly in either variable- or fixed-width fonts. >Wow! Combat _is_ quite abundant. Many disciplines are almost exclusively >dedicated to combat, and the number of discipline points dedicated to >combat-worthy disciplines is more than double the number dedicated to any >other tactic! That is, potentially, a lot more vampires can inflict >substantial damage in combat than increase bleeds, play stealth or >intercept. Voting is a little harder to quantify, but most vote decks depend >on either titled vampires or presence to gain votes, yet the numbers for >both of these are still far from those of combat or even bleed. This also >explains why so many players think that combat is exciting, and bleeding is >boring: there is a lot more potential variety for combat than for bleeding. Correct. But this isn't due to numbers of cards -- this is simply because bleeding is a purely-numerical strategy. Combat has cards which touch upon many more facets of the game than bleeding does (witness Fleshcraft; the strike for 1 damage is almost totally irrelevant to the usefulness of the card). >I already stated my positions in relation to S:CE and combat in general in >other recent posts, so I'll spare you from reading them again here, though I >will point a couple of things that should be obvious based on this evidence: Hmmmmm... I dunno. :) >- we need more bleed disciplines. In fact, we need more variety for all of >the base tactics. Some things have improved (intercept, for example), but >largely all has remained the same since Jyhad. I disagree. There is plenty of bleed in the game right now, and as I mentioned above, all you can do with bleed is... well... bleed. Tacking on a +2 bleed card to Animalism, for example, provides variety, but does it actually improve the game? It gives the Gangrel easy bruise-and-bleed ability, right? Or does it just further marginalize combat as the Nosferatu begin to run wild with the new stealth-bleed creation? >- combat needs to be more efficient. It is the most varied tactic in VtES, >yet it remains the less effective. Except that it does almost nothing to further the basic idea of the game, which is "reduce prey's pool". If you torporize ALL your prey's minions, they must spend pool to bring more out; but pure-combat decks, in general, do not actually have a problem torporizing a bunch of their prey's minions. The problem comes in when they are unable to defend against their predator AS WELL as hose down their prey. Potence Rush decks can often manage both, but this is a direct testament to both the effectiveness of Potence as a combat discipline, and to the number of distinct small vampires with pot/POT available. Comparing Potence to some other disciplines, we find some interesting numbers as well. (I'm ignoring Quietus deliberately, as FN hasn't shaken itself out completely yet.) POTENCE: found on 144 out of 423 vampires, or 34%. PROTEAN: found on 61 out of 423, or 14%. CELERITY: found on 149 out of 423: 34% again. FORTITUDE: found on 121 out of 423: 29%. THAUMATURGY: found on 70 out of 423: 15%. ...Moving on and splitting down the disciplines into "type" of cards: POTENCE has 1 action card and 21 combat cards. PROTEAN has 3 actions, 3 action modifiers, 1 "combo" (Rapid Change), 15 combat cards, and 1 retainer. CELERITY has 3 actions, 1 action modifier, and 18 combat cards. FORTITUDE has 6 actions, 5 action modifiers, and 11 combat cards. THAUMATURGY has 4 actions, 1 action modifier, 1 retainer, and 15 combat cards. ...So really, only Potence and Celerity are TRULY pure-combat disciplines. Breaking it down even further for each: POTENCE only has four combat cards that are not either (a) damaging strikes, or (b) direct support for damaging strikes (Torn Signpost, IG). Fractured Armament and Shattering Blow are equipment-related. Relentless Pursuit is a press. And Disarm isn't "damage" in and of itself; you have to have done damage in some other way. This makes 17 cards that all read, in some form or other, "I hit you." What this means is that almost the ENTIRE discipline of Potence is designed around one thing: hitting people for lots. This makes for a very effective mono-discipline deck, even if Immortal Grapple were NOT included! Don't believe me? Get all the POT weenies, include a bunch of Increased Strengths, Thrown Gates, and POT skill cards. Season with Computer Hacking, Blood Dolls, Wakes, and intercept locations to taste. Mix well and serve. PROTEAN, by comparison, has only 7 "damaging" combat cards. It has 4 maneuver/press cards, 2 prevent cards, and 3 S:CE cards(!). It makes an excellent discipline in its own right, but is it so surprising anymore that pure-Protean combat has its troubles? CELERITY is really a combat -support- discipline, as the vast majority of its cards are either maneuvers, presses, or additional strikes. There are also not a few cards in there whose purpose is actually -defensive- (Dodge, S:CE). FORTITUDE is much more focused, which should come as no surprise since it IS one of the premier ways to defeat combat; all 11 of its combat cards read "prevent X damage", again in varying flavors. THAUMATURGY comes with its own problems; many of its combat cards have heavy restrictions on them. Number of first-round damaging combat cards: 8. Number of SECOND-round damaging combat cards: 5. And there are 2 utility maneuver/press cards in there, as well. No wonder the Tremere were screwed - it's hard enough just to get to a second round with them, much less get all the cards you need to make them kill things... and that's without even including S:CE in the picture. ...So as it turns out, the discipline that is best held up as a "counter" to S:CE also turns out to be the overall best combat discipline anyway. Is this indicating a problem with S:CE, or a problem with people's approach to combat? From what I can see, combat seems to have been designed as an ADJUNCT to bleeding or voting; something that should be a part of everyone's deck, but not their primary strategy. If it was intended to be a primary strategy, I think Protean and Thaumaturgy might look a bit different. Are people approaching combat wrong? Yeah, I think so. But I've made this one long enough - a bit more later. (gotta swap laundry!) -- Derek Maintenance: Keep the balls dry and clean and prevent them from violent collisions. Disclaimer: We make no claim that use of these balls will improve health.

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:l8mbktomo10rs592h...@4ax.com... > On Fri, 6 Jul 2001 15:18:02 +0100, "Flux" <fl...@netc.pt> wrote: > > >Hello everyone. > > > >I've been thinking about the whole combat/S:CE situation lately, and one > >argument for S:CE sort of stuck out among the rest: that combat is just a > >tactic, and therefore should not be allowed to dominate VtES strategies. I > >believe LSJ himself has invoked this principle a few times, and certainly > >the recent new cards seem to bear this out. > > Well, it's not so much an argument for S:CE as it is an argument > against tipping the balance by changing -that- mechanic. It becomes an argument for S:CE when it's noted that S:CE is the main counter to combat. Logically, if S:CE were less efficient combat would become easier to use in a tactical sense (but not strategically: playing pure rush decks has it's own set of mousetraps, as you are surely well aware of). > The basic strategy of the game: reduce your prey's pool to zero. > > Everything about the game should be, in some fashion, related to that > strategy, and the cards that will see the most use will be the ones > most closely related. Agreed. But then again, why can't combat be a more useful strategy? For example, more cards like (current) Fame. > Us combat fans have also long ago done the analysis you did below, so > don't be surprised when I skim over it lightly. ;) I certainly expect most combat players to have done such an analysis, I had done so before, but not in much detail. I wanted to bring some hard evidence to this discussion. > >However, there is one thing that should be a reasonable indication of how > >important this mechanic should be to the game: the number of cards dedicated > >to this tactic, and the potential number of decks that can use it. > > ...and the number of cards that can be PLAYED, related to the mechanic > itself. More below. This might be misleading. Obviously, all cards should be playable, but many end up as wallpaper because of other better options, or because there is a strong and common counter. This is exactly what I wanted to make more evident by posting these numbers: there are lots of combat cards, but not that many are played. That means that something is wrong. > >So, let's see the numbers: > > > >By card type: > >-Action 147 > >-Action Modifier 63+9+2 > >-Ally 50 > >-Combat 177+9+2 > >-Equipment 71 > >-Master 248 > >-Political 109 > >-Reaction 59+2+2 > >-Retainer 29 > > > >It's pretty clear that combat is the dominant minion card type. Only Master > > Somewhat misleading. "Actions" are right behind them, at 147. And > you can only play one action card per action, while you can play > multiple cards per combat. > > This indicates that there is a significantly greater amount of variety > in the actions themselves, ... which is a good thing! There is only > so much variety in bleed. The mechanic is "reduce prey's pool", and > the only variety after that comes from "how much". The side effects, > such as Propaganda, are amusing, but you notice that Propaganda > doesn't hit the table very often? The primary concern is the -amount- > of the bleed. =) OTOH, that is another worrying fact: so many different actions to take, yet all you see beeing played is Govern the Unaligned and Legal Manipulations... :-/ I am mainly concerned with combat for now though. > >But let's look at discipline distribution then: > > > >Crypt Stats by discipline: > > (snipped) > > >Wow! Combat _is_ quite abundant. Many disciplines are almost exclusively > >dedicated to combat, and the number of discipline points dedicated to > >combat-worthy disciplines is more than double the number dedicated to any > >other tactic! That is, potentially, a lot more vampires can inflict > >substantial damage in combat than increase bleeds, play stealth or > >intercept. Voting is a little harder to quantify, but most vote decks depend > >on either titled vampires or presence to gain votes, yet the numbers for > >both of these are still far from those of combat or even bleed. This also > >explains why so many players think that combat is exciting, and bleeding is > >boring: there is a lot more potential variety for combat than for bleeding. > > Correct. But this isn't due to numbers of cards -- this is simply > because bleeding is a purely-numerical strategy. Combat has cards > which touch upon many more facets of the game than bleeding does > (witness Fleshcraft; the strike for 1 damage is almost totally > irrelevant to the usefulness of the card). Again, why not make combat cards able to have a bigger pool impact, and vice-versa? > >I already stated my positions in relation to S:CE and combat in general in > >other recent posts, so I'll spare you from reading them again here, though I > >will point a couple of things that should be obvious based on this evidence: > > Hmmmmm... I dunno. :) > > >- we need more bleed disciplines. In fact, we need more variety for all of > >the base tactics. Some things have improved (intercept, for example), but > >largely all has remained the same since Jyhad. > > I disagree. There is plenty of bleed in the game right now, and as I > mentioned above, all you can do with bleed is... well... bleed. > Tacking on a +2 bleed card to Animalism, for example, provides > variety, but does it actually improve the game? It gives the Gangrel > easy bruise-and-bleed ability, right? Or does it just further > marginalize combat as the Nosferatu begin to run wild with the new > stealth-bleed creation? Apparently I lost a comment I had made regarding Enticement. Other pool-loss mechanics could be made apart from bleeding, and bleed cards could be tied to other effects. I wouldn't want all disciplines to have bleed cards, but surely many clans could use a pool-damaging card without becoming bleed maniacs? Propaganda is hardly ever used, but if the card's effect didn't limit itself to titled vampires, don't you think it could see far more use? What if that Animalism bleed card had a rush effect? 'Enter combat with a ready minion controlled by your prey. If this action is not blocked, your prey burns one pool.' > >- combat needs to be more efficient. It is the most varied tactic in VtES, > >yet it remains the less effective. > > Except that it does almost nothing to further the basic idea of the > game, which is "reduce prey's pool". If you torporize ALL your prey's > minions, they must spend pool to bring more out; but pure-combat > decks, in general, do not actually have a problem torporizing a bunch > of their prey's minions. The problem comes in when they are unable to > defend against their predator AS WELL as hose down their prey. > Potence Rush decks can often manage both, but this is a direct > testament to both the effectiveness of Potence as a combat discipline, > and to the number of distinct small vampires with pot/POT available. > Comparing Potence to some other disciplines, we find some interesting > numbers as well. (I'm ignoring Quietus deliberately, as FN hasn't > shaken itself out completely yet.) <snip nice breakdown of combat disciplines> > ...So as it turns out, the discipline that is best held up as a > "counter" to S:CE also turns out to be the overall best combat > discipline anyway. Is this indicating a problem with S:CE, or a > problem with people's approach to combat? From what I can see, combat > seems to have been designed as an ADJUNCT to bleeding or voting; > something that should be a part of everyone's deck, but not their > primary strategy. If it was intended to be a primary strategy, I > think Protean and Thaumaturgy might look a bit different. Yes, but then why don't Gangrel and Assamites have other options? You can't claim that combat should be a support tactic when some clans can do nothing else. You can still claim that it was not the initial design, since Gangrel do have a few other options (Animalism intercept/Army of Rats), and Assamites were not part of the initial release, but the game has evolved to support combat as a stand-alone strategy, and Potence combat was part of Jyhad, so it's always been a possibility anyway. > Are people approaching combat wrong? Yeah, I think so. But I've made > this one long enough - a bit more later. (gotta swap laundry!) Agreed, but it's the only sensible thing to do given the current set of cards: you either dedicate your whole deck to combat as a strategy, or you avoid it and do something else. The middle ground doesn't pay off often enough. Flux

Alternatively, the fact that combat enables more card-playing opportunities could easily be seen as the reason that there are more "combat" cards than other "icons". One could alternatively look at "cards played during the resolution of an action (incl. combat)" vs. "cards played before the resolution of an action". Or break it down into "strike cards", "press cards", etc. Or explain it by the fact that combat is a varied affair whereas bleeding, for example, permits fewer variations on the theme. This could even be seen as combat's purpose - to break up the "routine" that is the rest of the game. Or spin the numbers in many other ways. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/