Changes in the Game

The biggest changes in the game were the 7/7 rulings that happened when the game was out of print. Now that the game is out of print again, we have the opportunity to discuss some changes that should be made. I don't want to limit the conversation so please put any suggestions as a response to this post

[ quoted text not captured ] I think that Pentex Subversion should have a capacity limit. Pentex(TM) Subversion Type: Master Cost: 2 pool Unique master. Put this card on any ready minion. The minion with this card cannot take actions and cannot block actions. This card may be burned by any other minion as a (D) action. If this minion is a vampire with capacity 8 or greater, then burn 2 additional pool.

[ quoted text not captured ] Yes, that or only deny either blocks or actions.

[ quoted text not captured ] Another possible 'fix' - allow the minion to take only the action to remove Pentex. It still allows it to be used pre-emptively for a lunge, but it lessens the situation of "You bring out your first minion, and I pentex him immediately, thus costing you several turns while you influence out someone capable of removing it and get the action off (assuming nobody will help)." -John Flournoy

> > > I think that Pentex Subversion should have a capacity limit. In fact, I'll add that I'd totally be in favor of seeing Pentex completely banned. Considering that a lot of deckbuilding discussion on the NG includes comments like "well, you should include Pentex, if only to contest it".. and most of the finalist decks at the various EC and NAC tournaments included it.. and 25 of the last 40 TWDs included one or more copies of it.. It's pretty clearly (to me) become a "must include" card into almost every tournament-caliber deck out there, and that's a good sign that it's time to either make a major change or ban it entirely. -John Flournoy

[ quoted text not captured ] I think it might be interesting to come up with more default uses for the Edge. Some examples: You may burn the Edge to prevent 1 damage to a minion you control in combat. You may burn the Edge to add +1 damage to a strike of a minion you control. You may burn the Edge plus 1 pool for 2 votes in any referendum. You may burn the Edge to reduce a bleed against you by 1. Jeff

[ quoted text not captured ] There are a variety of reasons why putting all your pool on one big minion is bad, I don't see why Pentex Subversion is especially bad. Play Sudden Reversal if PS is that big of an impediment to your deck. The single biggest change I would like to see made is to make No Secrets burn when a vampire goes to torpor. Brandon

I think the grouping of the Imbued (and a few other vampires like Angelo for instance) should be changed to "any" just like the Anarch Convert.

Jeff Kuta <jeff...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Dec 21, 12:56 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > The biggest changes in the game were the 7/7 rulings that happened > > when the game was out of print. > > > > Now that the game is out of print again, we have the opportunity to > > discuss some changes that should be made. > > > > I don't want to limit the conversation so please put any suggestions > > as a response to this post > I think it might be interesting to come up with more default uses for > the Edge. What about introducing the designed-but-abandoned "Double Edge" rules? http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/f825fc1b741f743f

[ quoted text not captured ] I like the idea of non-unique vampires being group zero.

[ quoted text not captured ] I'd like to see in the core rules, an inclusion something along the lines of, "when a vampire enters play during your influence phase, you may burn 1 pool to make that vampire an Anarch".

On Dec 21, 12:56 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] The way corruption counters work should be in the rules instead of just card text, that way Nefertiti, Weigh The Heart, et al could be more useful.

Wow. Lots of good suggestions. I especially like the notion of using the edge for a wider variety of purposes, and making Imbued group ANY is a fantastically good idea. Here are some changes I've been mulling over for a while. Most of them involve un-wallpapering cards to allow for greater variety. * Change Assamite Contracts (the base master card): Allow the Methuselah to choose to play it as a trifle for 1 pool. * Change Deflection to be more in line with Telepathic Counter. Maybe: (dom) Reduce a bleed by an ally or younger vampire by 2. (DOM) Redirect the bleed. Tap. * Officially errata Democritus, Appolonius, Crusher, and Angus so they don't suck. Just give them all superior fortitude. * Make Dread Gaze usable: (pre) Gain 3 votes (PRE) Cancel all votes gained by action modifier cards during this referendum. * Have Giant's Blood cost 2 pool. * Have the Corruption action allow the acting Setite to untap for 2 blood. * Make Dartmoor, England free. * Make Pere Lachaise, France, free and start the vampire with 2 blood from the blood bank. * Reduce the cost of Shackles of Enkidu to 1 pool. * Radically alter Soul Stealing -- it's a great card concept. Make it usable when *any* vampire burns, and make it usable at superior by vampires not in the combat. * Alter Superior Eyes of the Serpent: (SER) Strike: Cancel the strike of the opposing ally and inflict 2 damage. Combat ends after strike resolution. * Make Gypsies non-unique. * Institute a rule that every bounce reduces a bleed by 1. That's where I'd start, anyway.

On Dec 21, 2:08 pm, Jozxyqk <jfeue...@eecs.tufts.edu> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] > What about introducing the designed-but-abandoned "Double Edge" rules?http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/f825... Those rules are interesting. Could just make the whole thing cumulative. Maybe burn Edge during untap instead of gaining pool to burn one pool of prey. Or if you control Edge during untap, you may burn it to give another Meth 1 pool. I would like to see vampires with contested titles able to enter combat with each other again. Accelerated influencing: Once per turn you may burn 1 pool to gain a transfer.

On Dec 21, 3:14 pm, Jeff Kuta <jeff.k...@gmail.com> wrote: > I would like to see vampires with contested titles able to enter > combat with each other again. Um... yeah! Me too! (Tries to hide the fact that he didn't realize that rule didn't exist anymore.)

[ quoted text not captured ] Hmmm. Contracts! Any Methuselah who controls a ready Assamite, Samedi, or Black Hand vampire may take a master phase action to burn 1 pool to choose a ready minion controlled by another Methuselah to be chosen as a contract for the ready vampire. This ability may be cancelled (cost is still paid) by the opposing methuselah by burning 1 pool or discarding a master card as an out of turn master phase action. Make Red List marking a trifle. Allow Trophies to be put into play as Discard phase actions. Allow titled vampires inherent +1 stealth political action to burn 1 pool from prey. Vampires may choose to spend 2 blood to go anarch. If they do, they untap during discard phase.

On Dec 21, 3:14 pm, Legendre <glav...@gmail.com> wrote: > Wow. Lots of good suggestions. I especially like the notion of using > the edge for a wider variety of purposes, and making Imbued group ANY > is a fantastically good idea. > > Here are some changes I've been mulling over for a while. Most of > them involve un-wallpapering cards to allow for greater variety. Really? Your focus on changes to the game would be to make a bunch of changes to individual cards? Some rather huge, potentially large, problems with doing that. First, where do you draw the line on changes? You are talking about making a bunch of changes to cards that don't actually cause problems in the game when there are cards that, arguably, do. Second, it would be a nightmare to have a bunch of text changes, like it was when there were a hundred plus errata. The game survived that because a lot of cards were highly problematic/confusing and there were far fewer cards in the game. Changes to the game that would cause the least disruption and that might provide some benefit would be things like removing scarce, removing withdrawal, removing sterile, banning certain promo cards, etc. Touching individual cards will, in all likelihood, never provide any sort of consensus opinion. Maybe a few cards, like Parity Shift, could find enough backers for some particular change. But, just look at the long threads on a card like Voter Captivation. It's not just making a change, it's settling on a specific change. Sure, it would be easy to cap VC at 4, since openended effects are often a problem and it would be consistent with the change to Fifth Tradition, but I never expect it to happen.

On Dec 22, 7:56 am, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Implement Kuta Transfers. Ban Pentex Subversion. Errata Villein to be non-trifle (or ban Giants Blood). Change rules so that no methuselah may ever have more than two master phase actions. Remove the capacity minimum on Baron titles, and/or implement a capacity minimum on prince / archbishop titles. Errata Guard Duty to become usable. Errata Talbot's Chainsaw to become a melee weapon.

On Dec 21, 4:02 pm, Curevei <Cure...@aol.com> wrote: > Touching individual cards will, in all likelihood, never provide any > sort of consensus opinion. Reducing the power of cards does tend to start arguments because some people really like playing, say, Parity Shift and don't want to see it get screwed up. Increasing the power of cards that NO ONE plays, however, isn't going to run into that sort of resistance. It will run into errata-aversion (like yours) but no fights are going to start over whether Dartmoor, England should be cheaper. No one plays it. No one has any investment in it whatsoever: there are no copies in the TWDA, and there aren't even any decks on Secret Library that use it. Add that to the fact that more usable cards means a greater diversity of decks, and you're simply not going to see the sorts of arguments about un-wallpapering that you do about restricting or banning cards that are too powerful.

On Dec 21, 4:02 pm, Curevei <Cure...@aol.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Changing tons of individual cards would be obnoxious even if the individuals would make sense. If cards aren't printed, think of how difficult it will be to explain all of the errata to new players. Contract is sub-par? Too bad. Phobia and Eyes of the Dead are worthless? Don't play them. Some changes, like removing all restrictions regarding going anarch from titled vampires(or at least the basic action) makes old crypt cards better, but it isn't really necessary. The game is barely comprehensible for many new players in the first place because of complicated timing rules and always needing to ask, "DI? Power of All? Sudden? Wash? Vox Domini? Confusion of the Eye? Delaying Tactics? Is that agg? etc," that needing to know this extra errata dissuade people from playing. Brandon

[ quoted text not captured ] A Methuselah may spend four transfers to gain an additonal discard phase action this turn. A Methuselah may spend four transfers to untap a ready minion they control. Contested minions remain in play and may spend 1 blood or life to attempt to act or block. A Methuselah may take a Master phase action to move one blood from their pool to an uncontrolled minion.

brandonsantacruz wrote: > There are a variety of reasons why putting all your pool on one big > minion is bad, I don't see why Pentex Subversion is especially bad. > Play Sudden Reversal if PS is that big of an impediment to your deck. really? that's like saying Return to Innocence isn't bad, just play with DI. That argument's been torn down so many times on here I can't beleive people still trot it out. -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)

On Dec 21, 3:14 pm, Legendre <glav...@gmail.com> wrote: > Wow. Lots of good suggestions. I especially like the notion of using > the edge for a wider variety of purposes, and making Imbued group ANY > is a fantastically good idea. > > > * Change Deflection to be more in line with Telepathic Counter. > Maybe: (dom) Reduce a bleed by an ally or younger vampire by 2. (DOM) > Redirect the bleed. Tap. > > > * Institute a rule that every bounce reduces a bleed by 1. > > That's where I'd start, anyway. I like a lot of your ideas, Legendre, especially regarding Dominate bounce. If you take back some of the power of Dominate bounce, you would go a long way in making it a more balanced discipline. Here is my take: Deflection (1 blood) (dom) tap this vampire to change the target of a bleed action against you. Not usable when being bled by an older vampire. (DOM) as above, but do not tap this vampire. Redirection (dom) reduce a bleed against you by 1. Not usable when being bled by an older vampire. (DOM) tap this vampire to change the target of a bleed action against you. Not usable when being bled by an older vampire. In the RPG, high-generation vampires with Dominate were not great. In VTES, small-cap vampires (in other words, high-generation) with Dominate are great. On an unrelated note, I would like to see a change to the ruling that you can take control of a card you already control. Basically I think that you shouldn't be able to take an action or use an effect to give a card an attribute that it already possesses, such as its controller or anarch status. As an excellent example, using Temptation to untap your own vampire does not seem like a legitimate use of the card.

On Dec 21, 4:04 pm, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Dec 21, 12:58 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > There are a variety of reasons why putting all your pool on one big > minion is bad, I don't see why Pentex Subversion is especially bad. > Play Sudden Reversal if PS is that big of an impediment to your deck. It's bad because it can totally wreck you _without_ your playing 'one big minion'. Example: You go third-to-fifth. Turn one, 3 transfers. Turn 2, you transfer out a 7-cap. Your prey's turn 2: Immediate backwards Pentex. Congrats, you're screwed. Unless you have a small vampire in your uncontrolled region, you are now reliant for someone else's help, or you can try to remove the Pentex on your fifth turn. And most folks aren't chock full of actions to spare unlocking your position, even assuming your prey won't block them (or you.) In most circumstances, your predator now gets his first five turns to just hammer you with very little you can do about it. You might say "well, how likely is it that your prey will Pentex backwards right away", to which my response is "twice to a single player in three rounds for day 1 of the NAC this year" - it may not happen often, but it _can_ happen pretty easily - especially considering just about everyone in a tournament environment is packing Pentex because 'you have to'. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the ability of Pentex to enable lunges and prevent games from stalling out. However, its ability to just cripple people when played at the start of a game can be a real, not-uncommonly-seen problem. > Brandon -John Flournoy

On Dec 21, 12:56 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] In order of preference; I wish the game would use more 'only playable once per game or per player' limitations more. Sudden reversal/Wash and Direct intervention come to mind, I hate golden bullet cards. I wish there was a way to limit weenie/mono discipline decks better...the game still favours those deck archetypes too easily. It also goes against the background of the game, namely the conflict between neonates, ancilla, elders and methuselah jyhad and multi discipline based. Although I know thematically that matters less to others, game balance shouldnt. Im not quite sure how to address that though. I would love to revise some, usually older cards. Input the trifle mechanic for all archeytpes but perfectionist for instance. Rexamine some old cards like the Hunt Club, and make it a tappable master for +1 stealth on diablerie, instead of a master that goes on one minion....card just sounds so damn cool but doesnt make the cut right now, nor does it represent well what it might/should do. In the same vein, perhaps some over the top cards like No secrets could be erratted too, but that is a slippery slope.... And as long as we are thinking outside of the box...what about a sideboard or some other kind of mechanic? There are SO many cards that will never see the light of day as they are way too corner case (clan hosers for example, but they are far from being alone...emergency preparations?) to put in decks. But if a sideboard allowed us to draw from it when replacing a discard, say once per game or for 1 pool...wouldnt that be interesting? Potential for abuse of course, so perhaps the minimum size of the sideboard should be 10, and you draw blind? Would take some testing... Well thats my .02$ for now.

On Dec 21, 12:58 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > I think that Pentex Subversion should have a capacity limit. > > If this minion is a vampire with > capacity 8 or greater, then burn 2 additional pool. Another approach; Only playable if you control a minion of greater capacity than the target.

[ quoted text not captured ] Or, since we're brainstorming: 1) An upkeep: Burn this card during your untap phase unless you pay 1 pool. Theme Bonus: None. Or: 2) A limit on when it can be used: "May only be used when there are at least 7 minions in play." Theme Bonus: Until the Jyhad gets into full swing, the Pentex Board of Directors doesn't care enough to allow themselves to be swayed into the conflict. Or: 3) The cost of this card is paid to the target Methuselah. Theme Bonus: It's "subversion" in the sense that you're extending your influence over into the other side, subverting their minions.

[ quoted text not captured ] The idea of a sideboard is pretty interesting to me. How about something like this: Each Methuselah must have a deck consisting of a library and sideboard. The library must be between 60 and 90 cards and the sideboard is all remaining cards. As a discard phase action, a Methuselah may remove from the game any number of cards from their hand to search their sideboard for the same number of cards then shuffle them into their library. Redraw prior to shuffling. This allows you to tighten up your deck and populate your sideboard with those prayer cards which never get used. This ability is extremely powerful and probably should be limited to once per game. Plus, constant shuffling could waste too much time.

On Dec 21, 12:56 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > The biggest changes in the game were the 7/7 rulings that happened > when the game was out of print. > > Now that the game is out of print again, we have the opportunity to > discuss some changes that should be made. > > I don't want to limit the conversation so please put any suggestions > as a response to this post I like a lot of the ideas already posted. But my favorite idea immediately on my brain is: Errata Lost In Translation to zero blood cost. As it stands, it's a basic Redirection (that can also target allies) for 2 blood -- only usable once per action. And Redirection at basic (or Murmur of the False Will at superior) is not a common play while Deflection exists. It gives a nominal boost to higher capacity non-bounce vampires, who could use the help. It also cleanly fixes a democratization of bounce. Doing this errata is not all I would do to democratize bounce to the game, but it'd be a very good start. Besides, decks are getting pretty boring with such a heavy skew to routinely grafting DOM/AUS bounce defense. (Which is necessary because the game has been getting pretty boring with such weakly available solutions to big bleed issues since the game was first printed). Time to do something about it; might as well use a clean solution that just ignores an already printed card's blood cost. I have plenty of more suggestions, but I think this -- along with banning/errataing Pentex Subversion -- is the most pressing VTES rulings for the community.

I don't understand people whining all the time on Pentex.It's just a good card, like many others. Let's ban Parity Shift, Pentex, all political cards, all stealth cards, all bleed cards etc. cause I play combat only decks !!!!! That's my idea.. Come on, be serious. If Pentex really hurts you, put 2 Washes in your deck. If you don't like ancilla emp. play delaying. Defence is very important part of deckbuliding process, so stop whining and be more creative.

2 rubles from Russia (sorry for accent): No errata’s, for God sake! It's absolutely terrible right now when half of the cards are not played according to their text. We need to simplify rules somehow. My bear Prohor suggests adding some general guidelines, like "all undirected actions are at +1 stealth" instead of "look at the card, dude", "no pointless card plays" instead of lot of bul... about stealth/intercept/bleed mod-s, drop idea of phases, just "one master/ discard/4 transfers" per turn (maibe untap is a must). AoT masters must be put into play until methuselah uses master p action to discard it. Everyb. Forgets about them. Some big idea is to choose 4 (or better 3) initial vamps in a crypt. Randomly lose a game before it really starts suck, and some weird combinations of vamps may be possible. Imbued! Got no idea what to do with them, but additional rules set just for one deck is crazy. Events. We also got special rules just for several generally playable cards, if we didn’t count sucky gehenna decks. Maibe made them just masters instead? “Who controls what” – just “when u r ousted, take all your cars and gtfo”. “counter cards” – just drop them, they are dumb and boring. Got more meat, but after feedback on this :) Elotar

On Dec 22, 3:07 am, Elotar <marketer...@gmail.com> wrote: > “Who controls what” – just “when u r ousted, take all your cars and > gtfo”. > “counter cards” – just drop them, they are dumb and boring. 1. I agree with you: you can't STOP someone from taking their cards back (not in most civilized countries, anyway), and proxies seem silly somehow. On the other hand, corruption/Form of Corruption decks, or dedicated Graverobbing decks then have to decide whose vampires to steal. If they steal their prey's, then as soon as the prey is ousted, their new minions go bye bye. If they choose their grandprey, they're likely handing their prey a VP and the minions they've stolen will be gone in short order. If they choose their predator, they get to keep their minions until ousted most likely, but they're handing their grandpredator a VP. And if they choose their grandpredator, well, they're committing suicide so it doesn't matter how long they get to keep the minions. So while I understand the sentiment, and maybe even agree, I'm at a loss how to address the problems inherent in the solution. 2. What is a "counter card"? Do you mean DI/Sudden? Or do you mean Palla Grande, Goth Band, etc? Or do you mean Telepathic Counter-type cards?

XZealot wrote: > XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: >> The biggest changes in the game were the 7/7 rulings >> that happened when the game was out of print. >> >> Now that the game is out of print again, we have the opportunity >> to discuss some changes that should be made. >> >> I don't want to limit the conversation so please put >> any suggestions as a response to this post > > I think that Pentex Subversion should have a capacity limit. > > Pentex(TM) Subversion > 2 pool > Unique master. > Put this card on any ready minion. The minion with this card cannot > take actions and cannot block actions. This card may be burned by any > other minion as a (D) action. If this minion is a vampire with > capacity 8 or greater, then burn 2 additional pool. When PTO was "fixed" in Veles' Hunt, here is what had to be done to make it playable: 1. political action -> Blood Hunt referendum 2. any clan -> one clan only 3. "normal" PA -> if failed or canceled, then "OPG" 4. blood cost -> pool cost 5. can target a non-Cam vamp below 6, or if IC then any non-Cam vamp -> ally or younger non-titled vamp controlled by your prey 6. AH "rare" or CE pre-constructed -> KoT rare I see similar problems with PS. It's way too undercosted, it's way too (un)common, it's significantly anti-fun and anti-game. It doesn't appear to me that a capacity and/or cost restriction would "fix" it. I've always thought a Once Per Game clause would be a good "fix" for some of these cards before they receive a ban hammer. It seems that Memories of Mortality would have been fine as a OPG, fr.ex. How about making PS once per game, and see how that works? Minimal, easily-remembered, eaily-taught, easily-understood text. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

d31m wrote: > I'd like to see in the core rules, an inclusion something along the > lines of, "when a vampire enters play during your influence phase, > you may burn 1 pool to make that vampire an Anarch". Or, just add an auto-untap to a successful "Go Anarch" action. [ quoted text not captured ]

Curevei wrote: > Changes to the game that would cause the least disruption and that > might provide some benefit would be things like removing scarce, > removing withdrawal, removing sterile, banning certain promo cards, > etc. What promo card(s) should be banned? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 22, 10:13 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > Curevei wrote: > > Changes to the game that would cause the least disruption and that > > might provide some benefit would be things like removing scarce, > > removing withdrawal, removing sterile, banning certain promo cards, > > etc. > > What promo card(s) should be banned? All of them? Eh, I can live with a bunch of them, especially vampires, even Pelletier (if not a player-related card, so gone under my ruthless regime). Anthelios, Lilith's Blessing, The Erciyes Fragments, House of Sorrow, Gran Madre di Dio, The Fourth Cycle should all go. The last wouldn't be necessary if you just banned Events from the game as I'd prefer, but that's rather unlikely. Wall Street I'm a bit more on the fence about as it makes investments more interesting, but it's far too general use for a unique promo, which, you may notice, tends to be the reason I'm choosing the cards above.

> How about making PS once per game, and see how that works? > Minimal, easily-remembered, eaily-taught, easily-understood text. > > Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas > "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 > Please visit VTESville daily!http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ > Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - I could buy making PS once per game per methuselah. Other card changes are most likely being tailored to the commenting players meta and shouldn't be altered :) If you don't like the mechanic, don't play with it. I like the idea of making Imbued "any" and allowing G6 vamps to be integrated with other consecutive groupings (i.e. G1/2 G2/3 etc.) -Jeff

On Dec 22, 4:08 am, Azel <opaop...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Dec 21, 12:56 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > The biggest changes in the game were the 7/7 rulings that happened > > when the game was out of print. > > > Now that the game is out of print again, we have the opportunity to > > discuss some changes that should be made. > > > I don't want to limit the conversation so please put any suggestions > > as a response to this post > > I like a lot of the ideas already posted. But my favorite idea > immediately on my brain is: > > Errata Lost In Translation to zero blood cost. > > As it stands, it's a basic Redirection (that can also target allies) > for 2 blood -- only usable once per action. And Redirection at basic > (or Murmur of the False Will at superior) is not a common play while > Deflection exists. > > It gives a nominal boost to higher capacity non-bounce vampires, who > could use the help. It also cleanly fixes a democratization of > bounce. > I like this. I used to think we needed to nerf dominates bounce, but if its harder to bounce than bleedzooka decks will rule. More disciplines need to be able to bounce and then you'd have to clear the way (tap them out or knock all in torpor) before you could safely bleed out your prey. Later, ~Rehlow

> So while I understand the sentiment, and maybe even agree, I'm at a > loss how to address the problems inherent in the solution. Dedicated temptation decks suck mostly, if it will be left as a supporting strategy, all'll be fine. > 2. What is a "counter card"? Do you mean DI/Sudden? Or do you mean > Palla Grande, Goth Band, etc? Or do you mean Telepathic Counter-type > cards? DI/Sudden for sure. It's just copy of the mtg "counterspell", which forms new unneeded rules grey zone (interrupts/stack there) by just existing, and most of the time is frustrating both for holder (when stack in hand with no targets), and for victum ("OSHE...").

[ quoted text not captured ] > once per game. Plus, constant shuffling could waste too much time.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - What about allowing the research area to start the game with cards in it? Maybe a limit? Then Development becomes a card that might see use and Research isn't completely worthless because you can make a mid- game adjustment to your research area. All of these changes are game rule changes, so no errata needed and if you don't know about this new rule it doesn't really hurt your game (you have to include Development in your deck to even use it). Later, ~Rehlow Research Type: Master Master. Search your library for three cards (shuffle afterward) and place them face down in your research area. You may look at the cards in your research area at any time. A Methuselah may play only one Research in a game. Development Type: Master Master: trifle. When drawing to replace this card, you may take your choice of one of the cards from your research area instead of drawing from your library.

On Dec 22, 6:07 am, Elotar <marketer...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2 rubles from Russia (sorry for accent): > > No errata’s, for God sake! It's absolutely terrible right now when > half of the cards are not played according to their text. > > We need to simplify rules somehow. Rather than focus on specific cards, a discussion about the structure of the game would help. VTES, if it is to continue in any form, will require a simplification. The simplification I think would most benefit the game is with the cards themselves. *No errata, Errata discourages new players and is tedious to deal with. *No previously changed cards where there might be more than one printing or printing errors. *No overpowered cards, including crypt cards (I still think that there is a place for some of the big swing cards in this edit) *No underpowered cards (there is room here to keep some of the wackier ones) If new cards are ever printed, they would fill in the holes left from these edits: new cards with new wording and new names. The game is fun mechanicially, There is not much I would change here. The suggestions about more uses for the edge are good ones. The combat rules need simplification, but I think that this could mostly be accomplished through elimination of certain cards. The tighter the game is, the easier it is to play. New players, and new playgroups will benifit from this. The more information that exists outside of the cards, and the base rules, the harder this becomes. -Marc

On Dec 21, 1:56 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > The biggest changes in the game were the 7/7 rulings that happened > when the game was out of print. > > Now that the game is out of print again, we have the opportunity to > discuss some changes that should be made. > > I don't want to limit the conversation so please put any suggestions > as a response to this post Direct Intervention still needs to be banned. I'd like to see Freak Drive limited to once per minion per turn. It would make Basilia cry, but is it worth it to kill Una Eats The World? Is it acceptable that No Secrets From The Magaji is a hard counter to second-tier Majesty-style tap-and-X decks? This might be a rock-paper- scissors thing but stealth can beat NSFTM and it's already stronger than tapping alone... also, I like hyphens. Tupdog is bullshit. -- John McGlynn going to stop now before this becomes a list of grievances

On Dec 22, 4:40 pm, John McGlynn <john.mcgl...@gmail.com> wrote: > Direct Intervention still needs to be banned. > > I'd like to see Freak Drive limited to once per minion per turn. It > would make Basilia cry, but is it worth it to kill Una Eats The World? Yeah, hopping into this fray late (did this all happen in, like, 12 hours?), and throwing out my feelings on what the game still needs. There are the obvious, still wayyyy over the top cards that I'd like to see get punched in the face: -DI (either one). This/these cards are horrible. They are just simply too utilitarian and make too much of the game random and coin toss based--every single time you attempt to oust someone, you can be foiled by anyone at the table randomly. Which makes lunging for an oust infinitely less worth trying. And slows the game down a huge deal. Direct Intervention was a horrible card when it was invented. It is a horrible card now. Dark Influences is a slightly less horrible card as it is self limiting, but that first one is still just as horrible. -Parity Shift. Yeah, there always has to be a "best card" of any category. But Parity Shift is sooooooo far and away the best vote in the game that is is completely absurd. 98% of all attempts to build a non Camarilla vote deck end with "...or, I could do this exact same thing with a Camarilla clan and have Parity Shift." It is redonkulous. If it topped out at 3 pool (i.e. "X = players in the game, maximum 3"), it would *still* be the best vote in the game, but at least within the bounds of almost reasonable, relative to the other damaging votes in the game. -Pentex Subversion. A lot said on this one already. No need to rehash. It's just too utilitarian and too often reads "Gain 4 pool" and makes too many decks not worth trying to play. -Freak Drive. I'm not real het up about this one in any way, shape, or form. But it should probably be "1 per minion per turn". I mean, yeah, Una could just get tweaked instead in any number of directions, but really, potentially 90 actions in a row for anyone is problematic. > Tupdog is bullshit. Yeah, Tupdog did, in fact, turn out to have been a bad idea. I don't know what a good way to fix Tupdog is, however. I'd still like to see the G6 vampires get someone else to live with. I'm totally ok with just making them retroactively G5 (as it is simple and easy). But anything would do, I'm sure. I think the mechanics are good and sound. I still think if we could go back in time and know what we know now when making the game originally, making it really hard to bleed for more than 3 per action would still have made the game a lot more playable in general (i.e. that a 3 cap minion with an inferior discipline can bleed for 5 always has and always will be a huge problem), but that ship sailed long, long ago. -Peter

On Dec 22, 10:07 pm, Elotar <marketer...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2 rubles from Russia (sorry for accent): > > No errata’s, for God sake! It's absolutely terrible right now when > half of the cards are not played according to their text. I agree here. I would favour modifications to the core rules as opposed to changes to card text. Another suggestion from a while back that I would be interested in seeing included would be the capacity to use transfers to move blood to and from controlled vampires using transfers. I think the costing in the original idea was something like 2 transfers to move 1 blood from your pool to a controlled vampire, and 4 transfers to move 1 back.

> > I'd like to see Freak Drive limited to once per minion per turn. It > would make Basilia cry, but is it worth it to kill Una Eats The World? > The cost of Freak Drive should be X+1, where X is the number of Freak Drives the vampire has already played that turn.

On Dec 23, 5:10 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > d31m wrote: > > I'd like to see in the core rules, an inclusion something along the > > lines of, "when a vampire enters play during your influence phase, > > you may burn 1 pool to make that vampire an Anarch". > > Or, just add an auto-untap to a successful "Go Anarch" action. Part of the original idea was to allow the use of Anarch cards out of the box, for example The Mole, Friend of Mine etc. Also, action modifiers and combat cards that you're unable to use otherwise (eg. when the action to become an Anarch is inevitably blocked). I'm aware of all the cards that you can pack your deck/crypt with that avoid this (just pre-empting, not directed at anyone specifically :) I just think allowing a player to burn 1 pool to make a vampire Anarch as they enter play is a simple improvement to the currently available "go-Anarch" options.

On Dec 22, 1:40 pm, John McGlynn <john.mcgl...@gmail.com> wrote: > Tupdog is bullshit. Tupdog, Jimmy Dunn and Marius Streck all seem comically overpowered. I don't know about banning vampires, just make the table understand how big of a threat players are. If they can't understand that, then the game is over anyway. Brandon

On Dec 23, 8:30 am, Rehlow <newsgr...@rehlow.com> wrote: > > What about allowing the research area to start the game with cards in > it? Maybe a limit? Then Development becomes a card that might see use > and Research isn't completely worthless because you can make a mid- > game adjustment to your research area. All of these changes are game > rule changes, so no errata needed and if you don't know about this new > rule it doesn't really hurt your game (you have to include Development > in your deck to even use it). I like this idea. Makes use of terminology/cards already in the game, to boot.

On 23 joulu, 01:05, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Beatable != acceptably balanced. Really, every time someone suggests that a given card is unbalanced some hit-and-run poster replies with "it's not 100% fool proof so just learn2play".

d31m wrote: > Part of the original idea was to allow the use of Anarch cards > out of the box, for example The Mole, Friend of Mine etc. ??? Where did you hear this? [ quoted text not captured ]

Curevei wrote: > "Kevin M." wrote: >> Curevei wrote: >>> Changes to the game that would cause the least disruption and >>> that might provide some benefit would be things like removing >>> scarce, removing withdrawal, removing sterile, banning certain >>> promo cards, etc. >> >> What promo card(s) should be banned? > > All of them? Eh, I can live with a bunch of them, especially > vampires, even Pelletier (if not a player-related card, so gone > under my ruthless regime). > > Anthelios,Lilith's Blessing,The Erciyes Fragments,House of Sorrow, > Gran Madre di Dio, The Fourth Cycle should all go. The last > wouldn't be necessary if you just banned Events from the game > as I'd prefer, but that's rather unlikely. Wall Street I'm a bit > more on the fence about as it makes investments more interesting, > but it's far too general use for a unique promo, which, you may > notice, tends to be the reason I'm choosing the cards above. I'm reading what you are saying but I'm still confused. Why are "general use" cards acceptable for non-promos but not acceptable for promos (assuming that is your argument)? [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] I don't hit and run. I think many people would agree that I spend way too much time on this newsgroup. Btw, does != mean absolute value? My position is that the cards are, in general, not super over powered. Banning some and not others doesn't seem like a fair way to deal with some imbalance, it may just take the table teaming up or metagaming against things like DI, no secrets, etc. Brandon

John McGlynn wrote: > I'd like to see Freak Drive limited to once per minion per turn. > It would make Basilia cry, but is it worth it to kill Una[...]? Where are all these Una decks winning tournaments, I wonder? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 22, 6:48 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > d31m wrote: > > Part of the original idea was to allow the use of Anarch cards > > out of the box, for example The Mole, Friend of Mine etc. > > ??? > Where did you hear this? He means his original suggestion: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/20e9407dfe5a5cea Obviously, that's not the original idea.

On 23 joulu, 02:14, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Dec 22, 3:45 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > On 23 joulu, 01:05, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> > > wrote: > > > > On Dec 22, 1:40 pm, John McGlynn <john.mcgl...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Tupdog is bullshit. > > > > Tupdog, Jimmy Dunn and Marius Streck all seem comically overpowered. I > > > don't know about banning vampires, just make the table understand how > > > big of a threat players are. If they can't understand that, then the > > > game is over anyway. > > > > Brandon > > > Beatable != acceptably balanced. Really, every time someone suggests > > that a given card is unbalanced some hit-and-run poster replies with > > "it's not 100% fool proof so just learn2play". > > I don't hit and run. I think many people would agree that I spend way > too much time on this newsgroup. It's the time spent on thinking about the specific topic and arguments and counterarguments related to it that count, not so much the overall time spent on the newsgroup. When someone interjects with an argument that has repeatedly and in length been refuted in previous discussions it might give the impression that one is a hit-and-run poster. > Btw, does != mean absolute value? It's one way to say "does not equal". > My > position is that the cards are, in general, not super over powered. Sure. Most cards are fine. But, since intelligent deck designers tend to go for the most powerful cards instead of picking random cards we should be more interested in the outlier than the average. > Banning some and not others doesn't seem like a fair way to deal with > some imbalance, it may just take the table teaming up or metagaming > against things like DI, no secrets, etc. > > Brandon There is a threshold past which teaming up or metagaming against single cards becomes game breaking. In those cases it is better to ban then let the game become unfun. While it may be true that, in general, strong cards are self limiting because of table hate I honestly can't see how someone can make a blanket statement along the lines of "it's beatable so it's fine". According to that logic a card that read "Master. Win the game." would be fine because it would be Washable.

On Dec 22, 1:10 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > Or, just add an auto-untap to a successful "Go Anarch" action. That'd certainly be something. I'm still underwhelmed by Anarch tech and going Anarch solutions. I've been spending a lot of time with a "7 vampires and 5 Anarch Converts" deck in reality and JOL, and in the last two JOL games I played, my initial crypt draw has been, like, 1 guy and 3 Anarch Converts (the most recent game) or 2 guys and then 5 Anarch Converts in a row (the previous game). Which, yeah, is not *that* likely and all, but clearly, it happens. And I always look at stuff like this and I'm like "Huh. This is a ridiculous amount of effort to be going through to have chances of outright failure like this all so I can make a mediocre vote deck. When I could just be using a Camarilla deck with Parity Shift instead..." If Going Anarch the hard way untapped you by default, that would be certainly helpful. -Peter

On Dec 23, 10:48 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > d31m wrote: > > Part of the original idea was to allow the use of Anarch cards > > out of the box, for example The Mole, Friend of Mine etc. > > ??? > Where did you hear this? Not the concept of Anarchs, the original suggestion I made.

[ quoted text not captured ] Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it does break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the problem, it's just Una.

On Dec 22, 7:52 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it does > break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the problem, > it's just Una. Stated another way: it's not Una that's the problem, it's just Freak Drive. (cf. Gabrin, Horrock, Izhim, Jann Berger, Marconius, Meshenka, Miller, Mitru, Omme, Paths, Sajid, and Uta and contrast Forced March, Guruhi Are the Land, and Truth of 1K Lies) http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/7c1d98ac8cc9318e http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/acaa5ed6d31018b6

On 12/21/2010 9:14 PM, Legendre wrote: > On Dec 21, 8:53 pm, talonz<talon...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> On Dec 21, 12:58 pm, XZealot<xzea...@cox.net> wrote: >> >> >> >>> I think that Pentex Subversion should have a capacity limit. >> >>> If this minion is a vampire with >>> capacity 8 or greater, then burn 2 additional pool. >> >> Another approach; >> >> Only playable if you control a minion of greater capacity than the >> target. > > Or, since we're brainstorming: > > 1) An upkeep: Burn this card during your untap phase unless you pay 1 > pool. > Theme Bonus: None. > > It's called spending cash to capture "market share"...

On 23 joulu, 03:30, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > On Dec 22, 7:52 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it does > > break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the problem, > > it's just Una. > > Stated another way: it's not Una that's the problem, it's just Freak > Drive. That's semantically correct. However, when two cards have a problematic relationship it is, IMO, more purposeful, informative and practical to say that x is the problem, not y (where doing something about x is to a subjectively large degree a better solution than doing something about y, perhaps because x has a smaller amount of meaningful relationships with other cards than y and an alteration to x would therefore have less unintended or unwarranted consequences). The difference between your statement and mine is that mine conveys the value judgment that, out of the two cards locked in a possibly problematic relationship, Una is the one that should be altered. > > (cf. Gabrin, Horrock, Izhim, Jann Berger, Marconius, Meshenka, Miller, > Mitru, Omme, Paths, Sajid, and Uta and contrast Forced March, Guruhi > Are the Land, and Truth of 1K Lies) > > http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/7c1d...http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/acaa...

On Dec 22, 8:55 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 23 joulu, 03:30, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > > On Dec 22, 7:52 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it does > > > break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the problem, > > > it's just Una. > > > Stated another way: it's not Una that's the problem, it's just Freak > > Drive. > > That's semantically correct. However, when two cards have a > problematic relationship it is, IMO, more purposeful, informative and > practical to say that x is the problem, not y (where doing something > about x is to a subjectively large degree a better solution than doing > something about y, perhaps because x has a smaller amount of > meaningful relationships with other cards than y and an alteration to > x would therefore have less unintended or unwarranted consequences). > The difference between your statement and mine is that mine conveys > the value judgment that, out of the two cards locked in a possibly > problematic relationship, Una is the one that should be altered. ? Exactly. And see the supporting evidence (still quoted below) that, of the two, the other is. > > (cf. Gabrin, Horrock, Izhim, Jann Berger, Marconius, Meshenka, Miller, > > Mitru, Omme, Paths, Sajid, and Uta and contrast Forced March, Guruhi > > Are the Land, and Truth of 1K Lies) > > >http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/7c1d......

[ quoted text not captured ] I like X+1, where X is the number of FD's in your ash heap. chris

[ quoted text not captured ] > >http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/7c1d...... And to address the argument I believe you're making here: many card interactions have the theoretical potential to create Turbo-Una like behavior. This theoretical potential in itself is not a problem if it doesn't actualize. Turbo-Una is the only one that actually does it in practice to the point that it can be seen as a problem.

On 23 joulu, 04:00, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > On Dec 22, 8:55 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > On 23 joulu, 03:30, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > > > On Dec 22, 7:52 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it does > > > > break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the problem, > > > > it's just Una. > > > > Stated another way: it's not Una that's the problem, it's just Freak > > > Drive. > > > That's semantically correct. However, when two cards have a > > problematic relationship it is, IMO, more purposeful, informative and > > practical to say that x is the problem, not y (where doing something > > about x is to a subjectively large degree a better solution than doing > > something about y, perhaps because x has a smaller amount of > > meaningful relationships with other cards than y and an alteration to > > x would therefore have less unintended or unwarranted consequences). > > The difference between your statement and mine is that mine conveys > > the value judgment that, out of the two cards locked in a possibly > > problematic relationship, Una is the one that should be altered. > > ? Exactly. But it's not the same statement stated in another way if it's the opposite statement, is it? ;)

[ quoted text not captured ] another example LSJ forgot: Ankara Citadel. I actually see that used for free Freak Drives far more often than Una. Una + Freak Drive, Ankara + Freak Drive, there's a common link here.

On Dec 22, 9:07 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 23 joulu, 03:55, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On 23 joulu, 03:30, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > > > (cf. Gabrin, Horrock, Izhim, Jann Berger, Marconius, Meshenka, Miller, > > > Mitru, Omme, Paths, Sajid, and Uta and contrast Forced March, Guruhi > > > Are the Land, and Truth of 1K Lies) > > > >http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/7c1d...... > > And to address the argument I believe you're making here: many card > interactions have the theoretical potential to create Turbo-Una like > behavior. This theoretical potential in itself is not a problem if it > doesn't actualize. The point is that cost reduction is not the problem, Fortitude is not the problem, and untap is not the problem. > Turbo-Una is the only one that actually does it in > practice to the point that it can be seen as a problem. Just a matter of degree. Perhaps it still isn't at the level of a problem. Perhaps other decks have also practiced it enough to show that it is a problem. It just depends on your perception. All things considered, though, Freak is in front of Una in the "may be a problem" race.

On 23 joulu, 04:16, Haze Rever <hazere...@gmail.com> wrote: > > another example LSJ forgot: Ankara Citadel. I actually see that used > for free Freak Drives far more often than Una. > > Una + Freak Drive, Ankara + Freak Drive, there's a common link here. Do you see it in decks with 40+ Freak Drives? My point being, I don't think a Turbo-Muaziz or Turbo-Windham would be a very viable deck. But I could be wrong.

Kevin M. wrote: > XZealot wrote: >> XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: >>> The biggest changes in the game were the 7/7 rulings >>> that happened when the game was out of print. >>> >>> Now that the game is out of print again, we have the opportunity >>> to discuss some changes that should be made. >>> >>> I don't want to limit the conversation so please put >>> any suggestions as a response to this post >> >> I think that Pentex Subversion should have a capacity limit. >> >> Pentex(TM) Subversion >> 2 pool >> Unique master. >> Put this card on any ready minion. The minion with this card cannot >> take actions and cannot block actions. This card may be burned by any >> other minion as a (D) action. If this minion is a vampire with >> capacity 8 or greater, then burn 2 additional pool. > I've always thought a Once Per Game clause would be a good "fix" > for some of these cards before they receive a ban hammer. It seems > that Memories of Mortality would have been fine as a OPG, fr.ex. > > How about making PS once per game, and see how that works? > Minimal, easily-remembered, eaily-taught, easily-understood text. I think I prefer the other suggestion I saw in this thread. "This minion may not act, except to burn this card, and may not block". Also easy to remember, minimal text change. Also agree on Memories being potentially workable as a Once Per Game. Or unique. -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)

d31m wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] I much prefer this than the idea of a sideboard. I actually quite like this idea a lot. I'd limit it to a small number of starting cards though. Like 3. And those three are actually part of your 60-90 card deck. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Sure, I think that goes without saying. "Una is the problem" seemed like the least convoluted way of conveying my personal perception. > All things > considered, though, Freak is in front of Una in the "may be a problem" > race. That hasn't really been my experience. The blood cost and card flow issues seem to limit Freak Drive to a tolerable level in non-Una decks. According to my personal definition of "tolerable", anyway.

On 22 joulu, 23:30, Rehlow <newsgr...@rehlow.com> wrote: > > What about allowing the research area to start the game with cards in > it? Maybe a limit? Then Development becomes a card that might see use > and Research isn't completely worthless because you can make a mid- > game adjustment to your research area. All of these changes are game > rule changes, so no errata needed and if you don't know about this new > rule it doesn't really hurt your game (you have to include Development > in your deck to even use it). The danger is that it becomes a Death Star Depository rather than a sideboard for cornercase cards. Development would be a trifle Sibyl's Tongue with no clan requirement.

Peter D Bakija wrote: > I think the mechanics are good and sound. I still think if we could go > back in time and know what we know now when making the game > originally, making it really hard to bleed for more than 3 per action > would still have made the game a lot more playable in general (i.e. > that a 3 cap minion with an inferior discipline can bleed for 5 always > has and always will be a huge problem), but that ship sailed long, > long ago. and yet, not, we're coming back to port with the hiatus. maybe a simple new rule: "the most pool you can burn on the resolution of an action when another methuselah's minion is acting is the capacity or cost of that minion". ? simple. might not be heavy enough, but there's no "up to 4 cap can do 2, up to 6 can do blah blah got to think too hard.." mathsy aspect to it. just the number in the corner of the card is the amount you lose, tops. Sure, Samson could bleed with a goven and conditioning, and it counts as a 5 bleed, so you could AI the little snot, but if you don't, the most you'll lose is 2. Dimple calls a KRC and allocates 3 to you? only burn 2. there would probably be some issues fall out of it, but I think it'd be ok as a place to start. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 22, 9:46 pm, salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Peter D Bakija wrote: > > I think the mechanics are good and sound. I still think if we could go > > back in time and know what we know now when making the game > > originally, making it really hard to bleed for more than 3 per action > > would still have made the game a lot more playable in general (i.e. > > that a 3 cap minion with an inferior discipline can bleed for 5 always > > has and always will be a huge problem), but that ship sailed long, > > long ago. > > and yet, not, we're coming back to port with the hiatus. > > maybe a simple new rule: "the most pool you can burn on the resolution of an > action when another methuselah's minion is acting is the capacity or cost of > that minion". > > ? > > simple. Need to firm it up vis a vis Ancient Influence, Reins of Power, and probably Anarchist Uprising/Ancilla Empowerment and Can't Take it With You. Political Ally, Infernal Servitor, and Veneficti (and Arcane Appraiser and perhaps Reanimated Corpse) get kneecapped by that rule. Elder Kindred Network perhaps loses a fingernail. Choir (and Harmony) and Revolutionary Council suffer quite a bit more than just kneecaps. And don't forget R2I. :-)

LSJ wrote: > On Dec 22, 9:46 pm, salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> Peter D Bakija wrote: >> > I think the mechanics are good and sound. I still think if we could go >> > back in time and know what we know now when making the game >> > originally, making it really hard to bleed for more than 3 per action >> > would still have made the game a lot more playable in general (i.e. >> > that a 3 cap minion with an inferior discipline can bleed for 5 always >> > has and always will be a huge problem), but that ship sailed long, >> > long ago. >> >> and yet, not, we're coming back to port with the hiatus. >> >> maybe a simple new rule: "the most pool you can burn on the resolution of >> an action when another methuselah's minion is acting is the capacity or >> cost of that minion". >> >> ? >> >> simple. > > Need to firm it up vis a vis Ancient Influence, Reins of Power, and > probably Anarchist Uprising/Ancilla Empowerment and Can't Take it With > You. Net loss, then? I'm happy to have an anarchist uprising called by Smudge to top out at 1 pool for those other methuselahs. It'd still be X for yourself, though....also might need to tweak wording from 'on the resolution' to 'for the resolution' to make sure we only count effects that the action more or less directly causes, not other effects people try and shove into that window. > Political Ally, Infernal Servitor, and Veneficti (and Arcane Appraiser > and perhaps Reanimated Corpse) get kneecapped by that rule. OK, scrap 'minion' and just make the rules 'vampires'. Allies don't tend to cause problems so much. > Elder Kindred Network perhaps loses a fingernail. "YOU can burn... when ANOTHER methuselah's [vampire]". You can lose as much pool as can happen when you're the one acting. :) > Choir (and Harmony) and Revolutionary Council suffer quite a bit more > than just kneecaps. Hmm. They might need added txt. something about the capacity of those other vampires adding in....specific wording i'd leave up to a rules designer ;) > And don't forget R2I. :-) finally, i've balanced it! Well, the pre-errata'd version at least ;) Time to un-ban! [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Mata Hari + Ankara Citadel is pretty nasty. Matt Wedge had a deck that used her to Freak Drive and Guruhi are the Land, do a TON of stuff(in a way that is more difficult to DI, mind you). It was just another Una, only maybe better once she got the citadel. Brandon

[ quoted text not captured ] "Only one PS may be played in a game" is easier to remember than "This minion may not act, except to burn this card, and may not block". Far, far easier. Mine has no qualifiers or multiple commas. ;) Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 [ quoted text not captured ]

suoli wrote: > Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it > does break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the > problem, it's just Una. Freak Drive has been the problem since Jyhad. It always was. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 22, 4:49 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 23 joulu, 02:14, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> > wrote: > > > > > On Dec 22, 3:45 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On 23 joulu, 01:05, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> > > > wrote: > > > > > On Dec 22, 1:40 pm, John McGlynn <john.mcgl...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > Tupdog is bullshit. > > > > > Tupdog, Jimmy Dunn and Marius Streck all seem comically overpowered. I > > > > don't know about banning vampires, just make the table understand how > > > > big of a threat players are. If they can't understand that, then the > > > > game is over anyway. > > > > > Brandon > > > > Beatable != acceptably balanced. Really, every time someone suggests > > > that a given card is unbalanced some hit-and-run poster replies with > > > "it's not 100% fool proof so just learn2play". > > > I don't hit and run. I think many people would agree that I spend way > > too much time on this newsgroup. > > It's the time spent on thinking about the specific topic and arguments > and counterarguments related to it that count, not so much the overall > time spent on the newsgroup. When someone interjects with an argument > that has repeatedly and in length been refuted in previous discussions > it might give the impression that one is a hit-and-run poster. I would never suggest that time spent trolling the newsgroup makes one's opinion more valid. That said, we're talking about opinions. What's fun vs not, what's broken or needs a boost, it's all pretty relative. In our area, people play a LOT of Parity Shift. For this reason, you see a fair amount of Confusion of the Eye and other anti- vote tech, or more blocking. Would it be more fun without Parity Shift? I think we'd just find something else to metagame around. > > Btw, does != mean absolute value? > > It's one way to say "does not equal". > > > My > > position is that the cards are, in general, not super over powered. > > Sure. Most cards are fine. But, since intelligent deck designers tend > to go for the most powerful cards instead of picking random cards we > should be more interested in the outlier than the average. > > > Banning some and not others doesn't seem like a fair way to deal with > > some imbalance, it may just take the table teaming up or metagaming > > against things like DI, no secrets, etc. > > > Brandon > > There is a threshold past which teaming up or metagaming against > single cards becomes game breaking. In those cases it is better to ban > then let the game become unfun. While it may be true that, in general, > strong cards are self limiting because of table hate I honestly can't > see how someone can make a blanket statement along the lines of "it's > beatable so it's fine". According to that logic a card that read > "Master. Win the game." would be fine because it would be Washable. I'm arguing that it is beatable in many ways, so it's acceptable. There can be strong cards out there, I'm OK with that. If I see princes and justicars, I think Parity Shift. If I see Magaji, I think No Secrets. If I see obf dom weenies, I think "shit, I'm dead." Madness of the Bard and seat switching changed the game a LOT if they were introduced. PTO basically read "ruin someone else's game." Things like Sensory Deprivation, Parity Shift, Pentex Subversion, and Freak Drive do things that aren't unique to that card(in a broad sense), but they are strong. I personally see that as manageable. Brandon

[ quoted text not captured ] Yes, yes it is, but I like the other one better.

On 23 joulu, 08:43, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> [ quoted text not captured ] Yeah, who would? All I'm asking is that people don't hash out the same old tired and uninformed arguments every time. > That said, we're talking about opinions. > What's fun vs not, what's broken or needs a boost, it's all pretty > relative. Exactly. That's why you can't make blanket statements like "if it's beatable it's fine". > In our area, people play a LOT of Parity Shift. For this > reason, you see a fair amount of Confusion of the Eye and other anti- > vote tech, or more blocking. Would it be more fun without Parity > Shift? I think we'd just find something else to metagame around. That sounds like just another blanket statement. Banning something doesn't result in something else becoming equally unbalanced. > > > There is a threshold past which teaming up or metagaming against > > single cards becomes game breaking. In those cases it is better to ban > > then let the game become unfun. While it may be true that, in general, > > strong cards are self limiting because of table hate I honestly can't > > see how someone can make a blanket statement along the lines of "it's > > beatable so it's fine". According to that logic a card that read > > "Master. Win the game." would be fine because it would be Washable. > > I'm arguing that it is beatable in many ways, so it's acceptable. > There can be strong cards out there, I'm OK with that. But do you accept that there is a threshold past which cards can be too strong or not beatable in a sufficiently viable way? For example, would a card that reads "Win the game." be too unbalanced? > If I see > princes and justicars, I think Parity Shift. If I see Magaji, I think > No Secrets. If I see obf dom weenies, I think "shit, I'm dead." > > Madness of the Bard and seat switching changed the game a LOT if they > were introduced. PTO basically read "ruin someone else's game." Things > like Sensory Deprivation, Parity Shift, Pentex Subversion, and Freak > Drive do things that aren't unique to that card(in a broad sense), but > they are strong. I personally see that as manageable. > > Brandon I'm not necessarily saying that any specific card that is currently legal should be banned, I'm saying that a card can be theoretically beatable but still broken (like Madness of the Bard, seat changers or PTO).

> I like X+1, where X is the number of FD's in your ash heap. So you get to play, like, 3 in the whole game? Might as well just ban the card then. Una is the problem. Not Freak Drive.

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> schreef in bericht news:ieup9l$djd$1...@news.eternal-september.org... > suoli wrote: >> Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it >> does break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the >> problem, it's just Una. > > Freak Drive has been the problem since Jyhad. It always was. > And yet, we have never seen these silly "I do 50 actions on my third turn" decks before Una made the monstrosity possible. Ankara Citadel has existed since Ancient Hearts and there have been Tremere with fortitude since 1994. Yet, nobody has been breaking tournaments with Cardano doing 45 actions. Una made it all possible, and not just because she plays Freak Drive for free. The gal comes with ANI PRE FOR and is only one of 6 minions with those disciplines, 4 of which got printed after her. The last one is Ezmeralda. Oh and she's Archbishop as well. It's the whole combinations of things that make the decktype so broken. In the end, I'd say that a cost reduction on Freak Drive (ie, Una, Ankara with Mata or Gerald) is the actual issue and not Freak Drive in itself. Rewording Freak Drive to say "this minion may burn 1 blood to untap" would make free Freak Drives impossible without breaking the card under normal circumstances.

Guys, I think this thread will be pointless if we continue it in a “I was beaten with … card, lets ban it”. We need to solve some fundamental issues of a game. Firstly we need to identify such issues. General list, IMHO: 1. Deck diversity 2. Card diversity 3. Power level 4. Rules 5. Accesibility 6. Fun 7. Long term 1. Deck diversity According to TWDA there are no overpowered decks. Period. Una&FD can be easily disrupted/silver bulleted, weenes got SoE/AtI and early pressure is generally not a right strategy, all other strategies also can be generally beaten. 2. Card diversity. I think there are some problems, mostly in the master card department, where GB, DI, Pentex, DotS and maybe Wash are at a “put 1-2 in every deck” level, so great N of other fun cards have no place in a master package. I think such powerful effects must not be generally accessible. 3. Power level Effects that got much bigger power/effort ratio than most other effects. Candidates: Villein+GB, Pentex+havy bleed, PS…? Each of these effects must be considered separately, but all of them needed to be somehow fixed, because it disrupts strategy part of the game. 4. Rules Main problem here, I think, that we got very few general guidelines and great number of “one of” rules. With great number of in-game decisions needed (which is, btw, good), it creates too mentally challenging game for average player. 5. Accesibility - rules are too hard to comprehend for beginners - many “generally needed” cards are costly and hard to get 6. Fun very IMHO: - Being ousted in first 10 minutes is not fun. - SR, Wash, Di are not fun - being rushed to torpor with no ability to make any actions… -… 7. Long term The community must reach a decision about where we want game to be going in the next years. It’ll help us to have some basis to solve other problems. Casual games and EC in Warsaw are good, but it’s not it. he-he Got a little free time at work :)

[ quoted text not captured ] Well, "easier to remember verbatim" or "easier to diagram" is not the same as "easier to remember". And the actual changes are a bit obfuscated above by the abbreviation used and the extra extant text quoted, making a comparison slightly harder. Of the two, adding "Only one Pentex(TM) Subversion may be played in a game" or adding ", except to burn this card,", both seem easy enough to remember, as far as errata goes.

On Dec 21, 5:08 pm, Jozxyqk <jfeue...@eecs.tufts.edu> wrote: > What about introducing the designed-but-abandoned "Double Edge" rules?http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/f825... You could use a card for the edge (trivial to proxy, since it doesn't get shuffled or whatever -- so it doesn't matter how cheaply it's made). The Edge Type: Environmental Text: When any minion successfully bleeds, give this card to his or her controller. Whenever control of this card changes, put one counter on it (remove any other counters on this card). During your untap phase, you gain 1 pool for each counter on this card and your prey burns 1 pool for every two counters on this card. During a referendum, you may burn X counters from this card to gain X votes. During your master phase, add one counter to this card from the bank. (Environmental means "in play, uncontrolled, at the start of the game") You could add "Edge." at the start and "Remove this card from the game when any other Edge enters play." at the end, for future variations.

Pentex is missing 1 sentence. Burn this card at the begining of your untap phase. Villein should not add cost to Minion Tap played on another minion or should add cost only to minion taps played by you not played by other players. Simple reason: Villein is quite rare (especially compared to minion tap). New player cann't get Villein cheap and Minion Tap isn't an alternative in tournament play. Target Vitals - cancel part should cost only 1 combat card. Currently it is way too strong. Maybe rule that you can skip ALL your transfers to move next vampire (not 4) into your uncontroled region so you can move next vampire on your first turn. This will also help agains some very fast wenie decks which use information highway to put 1 vampire every turn in play.

On Dec 23, 5:37 am, "Izaak" <nom...@usenet.plz> wrote: > "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> schreef in berichtnews:ieup9l$djd$1...@news.eternal-september.org... > > > suoli wrote: > >> Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it > >> does break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the > >> problem, it's just Una. > > > Freak Drive has been the problem since Jyhad. It always was. > > And yet, we have never seen these silly "I do 50 actions on my third turn" > decks before Una made the monstrosity possible. Freak also makes it possible. (Again, contrast other untap action modifiers.) By your logic, the novel combo of Mummify and Fame (then prey- affecting) would have to be interpreted as "Mummify is broken", since Fame had the prior claim to existence.

[ quoted text not captured ] Yes, this is precisely the problem. Searching is an extremely powerful ability. Perhaps: Any Methuselah may take a Master phase action to remove the top card of their library from the game to place the next card in their Research area. This ability has an irrevocable random cost and random effect, but is still thematic. Or: Any Methuselah may take a Discard phase action to discard one card from their hand into their Research area. This is retroactive "search" in a way, but one can always learn from the past (cards formerly in your hand which weren't relevant at the time). The actual card Research is still very powerful, but these inherent ways of populating the Research area make the card Development much more useful. Jeff

[ quoted text not captured ] Another thought: Any Methuselah may take a Discard phase action to burn 1 pool to remove a card in their hand from the game and redraw from their Research area. This, coupled with the MPA way of populating the Research area gives Meths more options and useful things to do with all their phases, and doesn't wallpaper the R&D cards. Jeff

On Dec 23, 5:37 am, "Izaak" <nom...@usenet.plz> wrote: > "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> schreef in berichtnews:ieup9l$djd$1...@news.eternal-september.org... > > > suoli wrote: > >> Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it > >> does break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the > >> problem, it's just Una. > > > Freak Drive has been the problem since Jyhad. It always was. > > And yet, we have never seen these silly "I do 50 actions on my third turn" > decks before Una made the monstrosity possible. If nobody saw Cardano do this prior to Una's coming, it's because nobody thought of it (or nobody had enough freak drives), not because it wasn't already possible. -witness1

On Dec 23, 6:35 am, Jeff Kuta <jeff.k...@gmail.com> wrote: > Any Methuselah may take a Discard phase action to discard one card > from their > hand into their Research area. > > This is retroactive "search" in a way, but one can always learn from > the past (cards formerly in your hand which weren't relevant at the > time). > > The actual card Research is still very powerful, but these inherent > ways of populating the Research area make the card Development much > more useful. > > Jeff This is a really, really fantastic idea. Questions: why would anyone other than Necro decks ever discard to their ash heap? Wouldn't it be better to always keep your discards available? Maybe we should use the discard option here AND have the discard phase +pool draw that you describe in your subsequent post. Suddenly the discard phase becomes very, very interesting. And it's always better to make things more interesting. :) Would this make Ulugh Beg the best vampire in the world or what?

[ quoted text not captured ] That's very nifty. Might be worth trying out sometime. - D.J.

[ quoted text not captured ] You DID see the emoticon used in the post, right? I know it's non-standard for our community, but it's useful. [ quoted text not captured ]

Izaak wrote: > "Kevin M." wrote: >> suoli wrote: >>> Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it >>> does break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the >>> problem, it's just Una. >> >> Freak Drive has been the problem since Jyhad. It always was. > > And yet, we have never seen these silly "I do 50 actions on my third > turn" decks before Una made the monstrosity possible. Ankara Citadel > has existed since Ancient Hearts and there have been Tremere with > fortitude since 1994. Yet, nobody has been breaking tournaments with > Cardano doing 45 actions. I will ask again: Where are all these Una & Ankara Citadel tournament winning decks? > It's the whole combinations of things that make the decktype > so broken. When I see these decks you're talking about tearing up the tournament scene, like, oh, I don't know, two dozen other decks I could name, then I'll accept what you're saying. Until then, they aren't near 'broken'. > In the end, I'd say that a cost reduction on Freak Drive (ie, Una, > Ankara with Mata or Gerald) is the actual issue and not Freak Drive > in itself. Rewording Freak Drive to say "this minion may burn > 1 blood to untap" would make free Freak Drives impossible without > breaking the card under normal circumstances. That has been the most suggested fix that I have heard for 15 years. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 23, 10:37 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > On Dec 23, 4:23 am, Robert Scythe <robertscy...@hotmail.com> wrote: > >> On Dec 22, 10:10 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > >>> salem wrote: > >>>> I think I prefer the other suggestion I saw in this thread. > >>>> "This minion may not act, except to burn this card, and may not > >>>> block". > > >>>> Also easy to remember, minimal text change. > > >>> "Only one PS may be played in a game" > > >>> is easier to remember than > > >>> "This minion may not act, except to burn this card, > >>> and may not block". > > >>> Far, far easier. Mine has no qualifiers or multiple commas. ;) > > >> Yes, yes it is, but I like the other one better. > > > Well, "easier to remember verbatim" or "easier to diagram" is not the > > same as "easier to remember". And the actual changes are a bit > > obfuscated above by the abbreviation used and the extra extant text > > quoted, making a comparison slightly harder. > > > Of the two, adding "Only one Pentex(TM) Subversion may be played in a > > game" or adding ", except to burn this card,", both seem easy enough > > to remember, as far as errata goes. > > You DID see the emoticon used in the post, right? > > I know it's non-standard for our community, but it's useful. Um, OK. The initial part ("B is easier" responding to the claim that "A is also easy") seems to be standing apart from the emoticon, which just seems to go with the "far, far" bit. And I didn't realize that emoticon meant "j/k; you're right". Regardless, the content of my post is constructive and is not antagonizing or anything. It's useful, too. ;)

>Freak also makes it possible. (Again, contrast other untap action >modifiers.) Well, not entirely. Temptation can also provide endless untap. >By your logic, the novel combo of Mummify and Fame (then prey- >affecting) would have to be interpreted as "Mummify is broken", since >Fame had the prior claim to existence. Of course not. It's not as if people suddenly started abusing Mummify and Fame when Mummify was printed. People were already abusing Fame way before then. Nobody ever abused endless Freak Drives even though it has been possible since Ancient Hearts. Una gets printed, we suddenly start seeing these decks. I'm not buying nobody thought of the idea or nobody had enough Freak Drives. It's not how things work in CCG. Don't get me wrong, I won't mind Freak Drive getting changed, but I don't think it's the right solution to a very minimal problem. There are more pressing issues in VTES than Una Freak shows ruining tables occasionally.

On Dec 22, 8:07 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 23 joulu, 03:55, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On 23 joulu, 03:30, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > > > (cf. Gabrin, Horrock, Izhim, Jann Berger, Marconius, Meshenka, Miller, > > > Mitru, Omme, Paths, Sajid, and Uta and contrast Forced March, Guruhi > > > Are the Land, and Truth of 1K Lies) > > > >http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/7c1d...... > > And to address the argument I believe you're making here: many card > interactions have the theoretical potential to create Turbo-Una like > behavior. This theoretical potential in itself is not a problem if it > doesn't actualize. Turbo-Una is the only one that actually does it in > practice to the point that it can be seen as a problem. I've seen Turbo Una. It is a pain in the ass. It is still way, way, way, way less competitive on every angle than weenie dom or Concealed SNS with Dragonbreath Rounds. I honestly believe that a real combat deck would kill it dead. YMMV. I don't see anything game breaking about it though.

[ quoted text not captured ] Una Freak Drive requires one crypt card in play. All the others require one library card. Crypt ratios are more reliable.

[ quoted text not captured ] I can agree with that, in theory. I do not see where this threshold is and how it can be defined. Is it "this card changes the game state too much with little effort?" > > If I see > > princes and justicars, I think Parity Shift. If I see Magaji, I think > > No Secrets. If I see obf dom weenies, I think "shit, I'm dead." > > > Madness of the Bard and seat switching changed the game a LOT if they > > were introduced. PTO basically read "ruin someone else's game." Things > > like Sensory Deprivation, Parity Shift, Pentex Subversion, and Freak > > Drive do things that aren't unique to that card(in a broad sense), but > > they are strong. I personally see that as manageable. > > > Brandon > > I'm not necessarily saying that any specific card that is currently > legal should be banned, I'm saying that a card can be theoretically > beatable but still broken (like Madness of the Bard, seat changers or > PTO). Agreed. Brandon

On Dec 22, 11:57 pm, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Dec 22, 6:25 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On 23 joulu, 04:16, Haze Rever <hazere...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > another example LSJ forgot: Ankara Citadel. I actually see that used > > > for free Freak Drives far more often than Una. > > > > Una + Freak Drive, Ankara + Freak Drive, there's a common link here. > > > Do you see it in decks with 40+ Freak Drives? My point being, I don't > > think a Turbo-Muaziz or Turbo-Windham would be a very viable deck. But > > I could be wrong. > > Mata Hari + Ankara Citadel is pretty nasty. Matt Wedge had a deck that > used her to Freak Drive and Guruhi are the Land, do a TON of stuff(in > a way that is more difficult to DI, mind you). It was just another > Una, only maybe better once she got the citadel. One fairly simple fix to Ankara Citadel (at least for Mata Hari and also silly Summon History tricks) is to simply reword it to this *Tremere* (rather than this vampire). So only Tremere get the benefit (like a lot of clan-specific equipment). With Tremere + Ankara + Freak Drive, you still have to spent time (and cards) tooling up. Ideally you'll include at least 2 copies of Ankara (an extra as a backup). Maybe anywhere from 6-10 copies of Magic of the Smith depending on how critical you need it. Those cards do clog up your library (which ultimately limits the crazy Freak Driving you can do on one turn). In contrast, Una comes built-in with her Freak Drive cost reduction so you don't need to devote the library card slots (which could otherwise impede your flow) that the Ankara build needs to.

> Come on, be serious. If Pentex really hurts you, put 2 Washes in your > deck. Unfortunately, that incredibly useless against a Pentex that has already been played on your 11 cap vampire. And if you think that one card which costs two pool should be able to effortlessly incapacitate a minion that costs 1/3 of your pool and 1/4 of you average number of turns is in any way balanced, then you should perhaps check your math. > If you don't like ancilla emp. play delaying. Defence is very > important part of deckbuliding process, so stop whining and be more > creative. Actually Ancilla Empowerment does nothing to your first vampire, and weenie decks cycle enough that Delaying is very much a viable defense.

On Dec 22, 9:46 pm, salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: > maybe a simple new rule: "the most pool you can burn on the resolution of an > action when another methuselah's minion is acting is the capacity or cost of > that minion". LSJ pointed out the obvious flaws with such a plan, but there would certainly be ways to word such a rule to avoid most of the obvious flaws. The problem I see with it is that a 4 cap minion being able to bleed for 4 or a 5 cap minion being able to bleed for 5 still doesn't really fix the problem. If you need 5 caps to play Govern/Conditioning for 5, then you play the 5 caps (or 4 caps and Dom skill cards in a crypt machine...). I don't know that a blanket rule could fix what I'd like to see fixing (which is, primarily, not having cards that provide +2 bleed in and of themselves). It is more of a card pool issue. There have been plenty of discussion revolving around this--I suspect that, if, say, Dominate came with Scouting Mission, Threats, Bonding, and Command the Beast as the basis of their bleed package--you could bleed for 3 with 2 cards at dom, bleed for 3 with one card with DOM, could bleed for 4 or 5 with DOM if you play multiple cards; all other disciplines were scaled similarly (I suspect that, for instance, Spying Mission existing as it does currently would be fine, given the work it takes and the lack of other bleed increasers for Obfuscate). You could still bleed for more than 3, but it would take ramping up with permanent effects. You could still make a deck that had some huge bruiser bleeding for 10 per action after looking at it's prey's hand by playing things like Pulse and Laptop and JS Simmons and whatever. But you couldn't play a couple 2 caps on your first turn and bleed for 10 before your prey has any minions on the table. -Peter

Meej wrote: > On Dec 23, 7:51 am, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >> On Dec 21, 5:08 pm, Jozxyqk <jfeue...@eecs.tufts.edu> wrote: >> >> > What about introducing the designed-but-abandoned "Double Edge" >> > rules?http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading- cards.jyhad/msg/f825... >> >> You could use a card for the edge (trivial to proxy, since it doesn't >> get shuffled or whatever -- so it doesn't matter how cheaply it's >> made). >> >> The Edge >> Type: Environmental >> Text: >> When any minion successfully bleeds, give this card to his or her >> controller. Whenever control of this card changes, put one counter on >> it (remove any other counters on this card). During your untap phase, >> you gain 1 pool for each counter on this card and your prey burns 1 >> pool for every two counters on this card. During a referendum, you may >> burn X counters from this card to gain X votes. During your master >> phase, add one counter to this card from the bank. >> >> (Environmental means "in play, uncontrolled, at the start of the >> game") >> >> You could add "Edge." at the start and "Remove this card from the game >> when any other Edge enters play." at the end, for future variations. > > That's very nifty. Might be worth trying out sometime. > > - D.J. That is kinda cool. and just going off on a (related) tangent...then we could errata "Edge Explosion" to be an Edge Event instead of Gehenna...or something. Maybe like Flux, you put new Edges over the top of previous ones. And you can burn the top edge card with some effects (or, for Edge Explosion, just have 'burn this edge if another methuselah's minion successfully bleeds' added to it's text)...regardless, nifty idea! -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)

Legendre wrote: > On Dec 23, 6:35 am, Jeff Kuta <jeff.k...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Any Methuselah may take a Discard phase action to discard one card >> from their >> hand into their Research area. >> >> This is retroactive "search" in a way, but one can always learn from >> the past (cards formerly in your hand which weren't relevant at the >> time). >> >> The actual card Research is still very powerful, but these inherent >> ways of populating the Research area make the card Development much >> more useful. >> >> Jeff > > This is a really, really fantastic idea. > > Questions: why would anyone other than Necro decks ever discard to > their ash heap? Wouldn't it be better to always keep your discards > available? > > Maybe we should use the discard option here AND have the discard phase > +pool draw that you describe in your subsequent post. Suddenly the > discard phase becomes very, very interesting. And it's always better > to make things more interesting. :) > > Would this make Ulugh Beg the best vampire in the world or what? He already is! :D -- salem (Tremere fanboy since 1993. Ulugh Beg fanboy since 1994.)

Tazar wrote: > Maybe rule that you can skip ALL your transfers to move next vampire > (not 4) into your uncontroled region so you can move next vampire on > your first turn. This will also help agains some very fast wenie decks > which use information highway to put 1 vampire every turn in play. this is worth considering. that, and/or Kuta Transfers (which, if I am not mistaken, is the 'moving a vamp from uncontrolled to controlled costs 1 transfer' rule, possibly with transfers maxing out at 5 per player instead of 4 like now? I can't recall exactly) [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > On Dec 22, 9:46 pm, salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> maybe a simple new rule: "the most pool you can burn on the resolution of >> an action when another methuselah's minion is acting is the capacity or >> cost of that minion". > > LSJ pointed out the obvious flaws with such a plan, but there would > certainly be ways to word such a rule to avoid most of the obvious > flaws. > > The problem I see with it is that a 4 cap minion being able to bleed > for 4 or a 5 cap minion being able to bleed for 5 still doesn't really > fix the problem. If you need 5 caps to play Govern/Conditioning for 5, > then you play the 5 caps (or 4 caps and Dom skill cards in a crypt > machine...). Like I said, it might not be enough to reign in the problem, but I'd say it would be a good first step. I'd rather creep up to the correct threshold than go flying past it and have to come clawing back. > I don't know that a blanket rule could fix what I'd like to see fixing > (which is, primarily, not having cards that provide +2 bleed in and of > themselves). It is more of a card pool issue. I was trying to achieve a similar effect to the 'what if...' land of no stupid good dominate bleed cards, without having to actually ban any cards. So I think the idea has merit, assuming we're ruling out banning cards. Unless of course we don't think 2 caps bleeding for 5 is a problem. ... > But you couldn't play a couple > 2 caps on your first turn and bleed for 10 before your prey has any > minions on the table. Having them bleed for 4 max is a lot better for the prey than 10. I'd say it's worth exploring. If you want to bleed for 5 with 5 caps, that's 2.5 two-caps. which is a pretty significant difference. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > On Dec 23, 10:37 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: >> LSJ wrote: >>> On Dec 23, 4:23 am, Robert Scythe <robertscy...@hotmail.com> wrote: >>>> On Dec 22, 10:10 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: >>>>> salem wrote: >>>>>> I think I prefer the other suggestion I saw in this thread. >>>>>> "This minion may not act, except to burn this card, and may not >>>>>> block". >> >>>>>> Also easy to remember, minimal text change. >> >>>>> "Only one PS may be played in a game" >> >>>>> is easier to remember than >> >>>>> "This minion may not act, except to burn this card, >>>>> and may not block". >> >>>>> Far, far easier. Mine has no qualifiers or multiple commas. ;) >> >>>> Yes, yes it is, but I like the other one better. >> >>> Well, "easier to remember verbatim" or "easier to diagram" is not >>> the same as "easier to remember". And the actual changes are a bit >>> obfuscated above by the abbreviation used and the extra extant text >>> quoted, making a comparison slightly harder. >> >>> Of the two, adding "Only one Pentex(TM) Subversion may be played in >>> a game" or adding ", except to burn this card,", both seem easy >>> enough to remember, as far as errata goes. >> >> You DID see the emoticon used in the post, right? >> >> I know it's non-standard for our community, but it's useful. > > Um, OK. The initial part ("B is easier" responding to the claim that > "A is also easy") seems to be standing apart from the emoticon, which > just seems to go with the "far, far" bit. > > And I didn't realize that emoticon meant "j/k; you're right". > > Regardless, the content of my post is constructive and is not > antagonizing or anything. It's useful, too. > ;) Conceded. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

Izaak wrote: > Nobody ever abused endless Freak Drives even though it has been > possible since Ancient Hearts. Una gets printed, we suddenly start > seeing these decks. I'm not buying nobody thought of the idea or > nobody had enough Freak Drives. It's not how things work in CCG. Did you play in the Jyhad days? Nobody had enough Freak Drive. It was a rare that no one was willing to trade, ever. These were Magic players that understood the value of multi-acting and FD's power. Una comes along in KMW. FD has been singly- or doubly-printed in a starter, and goes from rare in Jyhad/VTES to uncommon in CE. You're not buying it? Do the math. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> schreef in bericht news:if1doo$tot$1...@news.eternal-september.org... > Izaak wrote: >> Nobody ever abused endless Freak Drives even though it has been >> possible since Ancient Hearts. Una gets printed, we suddenly start >> seeing these decks. I'm not buying nobody thought of the idea or >> nobody had enough Freak Drives. It's not how things work in CCG. > > Did you play in the Jyhad days? Nobody had enough Freak Drive. > It was a rare that no one was willing to trade, ever. These were Magic > players that understood the value of multi-acting and FD's power. > > Una comes along in KMW. FD has been singly- or doubly-printed > in a starter, and goes from rare in Jyhad/VTES to uncommon in CE. > > You're not buying it? Do the math. There's nothing to math about it. It's how CCG's work. Back then, when Unlimited was the latest set of Magic, Dual Lands were worth significantly more than Freak Drives were and they were also significantly harder to get than Freak Drives. I knew players that owned 8 of each dual land (of which there are 10). That's 80 cards with a secondary market prize of around $30. Sure, MOST people are like you and me and just owned the few they got from boosters and treasured those few, but there are always players that have seemingly unlimited resources and just get whatever they want. Besides, I owned 11 of them before CE reprinted them and I was hardly a hardcore player back then. If someone would have wanted to make a 50 Freak Drive deck in Jyhad, someone would have made a 50 Freak Drive deck in Jyhad.

On Dec 24, 12:10 am, salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Having them bleed for 4 max is a lot better for the prey than 10. I'd say > it's worth exploring. If you want to bleed for 5 with 5 caps, that's 2.5 > two-caps. which is a pretty significant difference. That is certainly true, and as such, I can see your idea as not at all out of the realm of reason. I mean, it is certainly better than doing nothing. And would be easy to implement (assuming wording was created that made it work well). Without affecting the existing card pool. -Peter

On 21 déc, 21:56, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > The biggest changes in the game were the 7/7 rulings that happened > when the game was out of print. > > Now that the game is out of print again, we have the opportunity to > discuss some changes that should be made. > > I don't want to limit the conversation so please put any suggestions > as a response to this post The only fixes I'd like to see concerns the unfinished work: - a rule to make the research area useful - a rule to make gr6 "bigger"

Izaak wrote: > "Kevin M." wrote: >> Izaak wrote: >>> Nobody ever abused endless Freak Drives even though it has been >>> possible since Ancient Hearts. Una gets printed, we suddenly start >>> seeing these decks. I'm not buying nobody thought of the idea or >>> nobody had enough Freak Drives. It's not how things work in CCG. >> >> Did you play in the Jyhad days? Nobody had enough Freak Drive. >> It was a rare that no one was willing to trade, ever. These were >> Magic players that understood the value of multi-acting and FD's >> power. Una comes along in KMW. FD has been singly- or doubly-printed >> in a starter, and goes from rare in Jyhad/VTES to uncommon in CE. >> >> You're not buying it? Do the math. > > There's nothing to math about it. It's how CCG's work. > > Back then, when Unlimited was the latest set of Magic, Dual Lands > were worth significantly more than Freak Drives were and they were > also significantly harder to get than Freak Drives. I knew players > that owned 8 of each dual land (of which there are 10). That's 80 > cards with a secondary market prize of around $30. Sure, MOST people > are like you and me and just owned the few they got from boosters > and treasured those few, but there are always players that have > seemingly unlimited resources and just get whatever they want. > Besides, I owned 11 of them before CE reprinted them and I was > hardly a hardcore player back then. From Beta through Fallen block, I never paid more than $6 nor sold for more than $8 any dual land, neither as a player nor as part of the Magic card business that I ran at the time. So, I'm unsure where your prices come from. > If someone would have wanted to make a 50 Freak Drive deck in Jyhad, > someone would have made a 50 Freak Drive deck in Jyhad. I'm not saying Una doesn't magnify Freak Drive in a specific way. I'm saying that Una only magnified what was always the problem: the fact that Freak Drive is a highly undercosted, badly written card. [ quoted text not captured ]

I see the motivation for capping weenie bleed, but the problem isn't weenie bleed per se: once someone gets their midcap and fattie defense network up, they can deal with weenie bleed on its own terms. The problem that I see is that people get nailed HARD and EARLY, and that this severely hampers certain otherwise viable deck types (or reduces whether you have a chance to win the game or not to whether or not you manage to draw Zillah's or Info Highway in the first turn or two). My suggestion is this: since the problem is the speed, not the weenies themselves, deal directly with the speed. Enact caps to bleeds not based on capacity, but on the TURN. Here's how the rule would read: X.x.x No bleed action can result in a Methuselah losing more pool than the Bleed Cap indicated on the chart below. This does not reduce the bleed amount, but only limits pool loss. TURN: BLEED CAP: 1.................... n/a (or nominal value of 0) 2.................... 1 3.................... 2 4.................... 3 5.................... 5 6.................... 8 7.................... No limit This might set the ground work for a lot of other rules changes designed to allow the Jyhad to pick up steam, as it were... and maybe I'll work on a variant for this. There might be limits to how many votes a single minion can generate based on turn (maybe using the same chart), a limit to how much damage a minion can inflict on another minion based on turn. All this would give people a chance to build their deck up a little before all hell breaks loose.

On Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:24:29 -0800 (PST), Legendre wrote: > Enact caps to bleeds not >based on capacity, but on the TURN. Each player has a turn. The player who goes second has the second turn and could bleed for more than their predator. There is no concept in the current rules for a complete set of player turns around the table.

On 12/23/2010 6:47 AM, witness1 wrote: > On Dec 23, 5:37 am, "Izaak"<nom...@usenet.plz> wrote: >> "Kevin M."<youw...@imaspammer.org> schreef in berichtnews:ieup9l$djd$1...@news.eternal-september.org... >> >>> suoli wrote: >>>> Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it >>>> does break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the >>>> problem, it's just Una. >> >>> Freak Drive has been the problem since Jyhad. It always was. >> >> And yet, we have never seen these silly "I do 50 actions on my third turn" >> decks before Una made the monstrosity possible. > > If nobody saw Cardano do this prior to Una's coming, it's because > nobody thought of it (or nobody had enough freak drives), not because > it wasn't already possible. > http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#losangelescc I felt like it had more FD's in it. Modern version probably would... Problem with an Ankara FD deck compared to Una FD deck is you would need to devote some 5-10 slots to Ankara/Magic of Smith, which would clog your hand once you had the Ankara on your Cardano/Ulugh/Muaziz. Una is just better than Trem/Ankara. As Wedge said upthread, crypt draws are more controllable/reliable than library draws. chris

On 12/23/2010 7:41 AM, Kevin M. wrote: > Izaak wrote: >> "Kevin M." wrote: >>> suoli wrote: >>>> Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it >>>> does break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the >>>> problem, it's just Una. >>> >>> Freak Drive has been the problem since Jyhad. It always was. >> >> And yet, we have never seen these silly "I do 50 actions on my third >> turn" decks before Una made the monstrosity possible. Ankara Citadel >> has existed since Ancient Hearts and there have been Tremere with >> fortitude since 1994. Yet, nobody has been breaking tournaments with >> Cardano doing 45 actions. > > I will ask again: > Where are all these Una& Ankara Citadel tournament winning decks? > >> It's the whole combinations of things that make the decktype >> so broken. > > When I see these decks you're talking about tearing up the tournament > scene, like, oh, I don't know, two dozen other decks I could name, > then I'll accept what you're saying. Until then, they aren't near 'broken'. > I don't see Una/FD as broken per se, as more like Un-fun. Una player wanks for 30 minutes (even an experienced one can take a good long time on their turn), while everyone else sits and spins. For those looking to ban Una, I'd take that angle, not the "it's broken/unbalanced" angle. Or just drop it, and focus on larger problems, which imo Pentex Sub is the worst. That, and the huge pile of errata/clarifications/rulings. chris

[ quoted text not captured ] I like both of those ideas for areas to work on. I'd like G6 to work with either G5 or G1 (as an adjacent group, just like in some card games, you can go King-Ace-2). I haven't given the research area much thought.. chris

[ quoted text not captured ] If Freak Drive/Una needs a fix, Freak Drive at (FOR) should add the line. A vampire may only play Freak Drive (FOR) once a turn. The change to Pentex Sub, I like is... The minion with Pentex may take no action other then too remove Pentex. I don't know who's idea it was. I agree with Aaron about Tempation. Text should read put this card on a vampire controlled by another Methuselah. As for the Edge.. I like you may burn the edge in your transfer phase to gain one additional transfer ( you still must use your own pool) contesting vampires may (must?) use counters (blood) to pay the contest. Matt

in my opinion the most interesting change in given situation (not completed G6) is to allow G6-G1 This will bring 4 benefits: - it would give more possibilities for G6 - it would balance all groups in the way that each group can be joined with two other groups - it would give more possibilities for G1, which i belive is a bit weaker that other groups - it would simply allow more differsity on the Vtes tables I hope that LSJ will provide his opinion regarding this specific idea.

On Dec 24, 2:06 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: > I don't see Una/FD as broken per se, as more like Un-fun. Una player wanks > for 30 minutes (even an experienced one can take a good long time on their > turn), while everyone else sits and spins. For those looking to ban Una, > I'd take that angle, not the "it's broken/unbalanced" angle. Of course, that angle also suggests banning Freak Drive (as you indicated in your opening sentence).

> Una is just better than Trem/Ankara. As Wedge said upthread, crypt draws > are more controllable/reliable than library draws. And on top of her being a crypt card and thus needing NO library infrastructure to make the trick work, Una can stack animalism retainers, has access to the most different rush actions due the same animalism, can have an Eternal Vigilance for staying power and can use that dementation anti-S:CE to boot. This is pretty much why I think Una is the main problem and not just Freak Drives. As I said, I don't mind a change to Freak Drive, but there are IMO more pressing issues than people making cute decks with 50 Freak Drives.

On Dec 24, 3:19 pm, "Izaak" <nom...@usenet.plz> wrote: > > Una is just better than Trem/Ankara. As Wedge said upthread, crypt draws > > are more controllable/reliable than library draws. > > And on top of her being a crypt card and thus needing NO library > infrastructure to make the trick work, Una can stack animalism retainers, > has access to the most different rush actions due the same animalism, can > have an Eternal Vigilance for staying power and can use that dementation > anti-S:CE to boot. None of these are a problem with out Freak to drive it. There is no other Fortitude card that reducing the cost is a problem and likely no other card of any discipline. Having played both Una and a Mata Hari knockoff of Una, both of which end at about the same place, though Mata's combat is better and one of your preds vamps is Sense Dep'd, Una is a better blocker, bleed is about the same. The real deference Mata can not play Freak Drive (FOR), if she is caught your turn is done. That is why I believe Freak Drive (FOR) should only be playable once a turn per vampire.

On Dec 24, 11:03 am, Legendre <glav...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Dec 24, 10:27 am, The Lasombra <TheLasom...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > On Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:24:29 -0800 (PST), Legendre wrote: > > > Enact caps to bleeds not > > >based on capacity, but on the TURN. > > > > There is no concept in the current rules for a complete set of player > > turns around the table. > > So we make one. Indeed. I like this idea, and its simple enough to implement. the last player to take their first turn tracks the rounds of turns. After X rounds, bleeds are not limited and that player need not do that anymore. I would suggest 5 rounds myself. And as for G6, ive begun experimenting with a simple alternative to standard grouping rules; vampires with HTTB expansion symbols on them can be grouped normally, OR may group with themselves. I hated seeing 3 different groups in one set, and i want to use all the new vamps of a single bloodline together without leaving one behind. T

On Dec 24, 11:03 am, Legendre <glav...@gmail.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] This brings up an important topic; I want to point out here the embarrassing lack of Keywords in VTES. On the Qui Vive itself works around the concept of "complete set of player turns around the table," as do others. However, the only real reason we don't have such a keyword terminology is because of seat switchers and turn order reversers. Considering seat switchers have been banned from VEKN sponsored tournaments (and rightly so), the only card left that I remember getting in the way of this terminology is Reversal of Fortunes. And since RoF only reverses the order of a sequence already established, it would be trivial to create a term for this function. I propose the term: Table Round. There might be unknown benefits/penalties if a Reversal of Fortune decks exploits them, but then how bad could it be than RoF already is. You can already use Malk Madness Network and RoF to lock one player out of the game. But anyway, the main thrust is the lack of Keywords in VTES.

Izaak wrote: > As I said, I don't mind a change to Freak Drive, but there are > IMO more pressing issues than people making cute decks > with 50 Freak Drives. I agree that the VEKN has more pressing issues than to deal with a crypt card that isn't a problem, isn't tearing up the tournament scene, and only magnifies a possible-problem card which hasn't ever been dealt with since the game's creation. [ quoted text not captured ]

librarian wrote: > I don't see Una/FD as broken per se, as more like Un-fun. > Una player wanks for 30 minutes (even an experienced one > can take a good long time on their turn), while everyone else > sits and spins. 'Long turns' has never, in any genre of game that I'm aware of, been a consideration for determining game inbalance. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] A multiplayer game that's a single player game for 30 minutes can be said to be broken.

On Dec 24, 9:00 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > Izaak wrote: > > As I said, I don't mind a change to Freak Drive, but there are > > IMO more pressing issues than people making cute decks > > with 50 Freak Drives. > > I agree that the VEKN has more pressing issues than to deal > with a crypt card that isn't a problem, isn't tearing up the > tournament scene, and only magnifies a possible-problem card > which hasn't ever been dealt with since the game's creation. > > Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas > "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 > Please visit VTESville daily!http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ > Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017 A quick peek at the TWDA shows Conditioning to be more problematic than Freak Drive. Una plus FD is very strong but it has a few things working against it: 1) Not too many people have the cards to make the deck, 2) Of those, only a fraction want to play it (or are willing to loan out the FDs), 3) Then you gotta win, and that's far from certain. Enough ranting though. Neither Una nor Freak Drive will get errata so banning one or the other is the only feasible action, and I just don't see that. How about we get back to changes that might be? Jeff

> On Dec 25, 8:19 am, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > A multiplayer game that's a single player game for 30 minutes can be > said to be broken. Note that neither Freak Drive nor Una prohibit reacting, blocking, or out-of-turn masters.

[ quoted text not captured ] It could be said that the capacity of Una to play cards on her own turn dwarfs the capacity of the average wall deck to play on Una's turn, to the point where she continues playing 30 minutes after other players have spent 2-5 minutes on exhausting their reactive resources for the turn.

suoli wrote: > A multiplayer game that's a single player game for 30 minutes > can be said to be broken. So, if you, me, and LSJ are playing Monopoly, you each have, say, 3 properties, and I have, say, 15, my very long turn and your incredibly small turn indicates that Monopoly is broken? I think you have a problem with your definitions. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 [ quoted text not captured ]

On 25 joulu, 21:10, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > suoli wrote: > > A multiplayer game that's a single player game for 30 minutes > > can be said to be broken. > > So, if you, me, and LSJ are playing Monopoly, you each have, > say, 3 properties, and I have, say, 15, my very long turn and your > incredibly small turn indicates that Monopoly is broken? Is this a common and predictable occurrence in the same way that Una commonly leads to one player having incredibly long turns? If it is, then yes, Monopoly is broken. But it's a pretty crappy game either way. :) > > I think you have a problem with your definitions. My definition of broken includes mechanisms that promote an unenjoyable gaming experience. I don't see the problem you see. > > Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas > "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 [ quoted text not captured ]

ideas: - use 4 transfers & remove a copy of vampire from crypt to burn a card on him. (boost for star-vampire decks, fix pentex, sensory deprivation and other killing cards) - research area / sideboard at game start and some sort of default master phase action to take cards from there (boost tricky cards combos) - bounce cards for other non-DOM and non-AUS disciplines - counter S:CE cards for other disciplines - variation edge card - fine idea, like "Motivation" cards in recent storyline. and something like "gain edge" is to burn all counters from Edge cards and put one counter to an Edge card you control. and various Edge cards for different deck styles. - imbueds as "any"-group crypt (i just like this idea) or something like that. and also i'd like to see Forearm Block errated so it could be played under grapple cards

On Dec 25, 3:34 pm, Mi Ho Ban <thesun.l...@gmail.com> wrote: > - use 4 transfers & remove a copy of vampire from crypt to burn a card > on him. (boost for star-vampire decks, fix pentex, sensory deprivation > and other killing cards) Probably a bit too good in general. But having more ways to remove cards from other cards would probably be good. > - research area / sideboard at game start and some sort of default > master phase action to take cards from there (boost tricky cards > combos) I'm not a big fan of "sideboard" kind of rules for VTES. The various clan hoser cards (well, ok, some of them) are really devastating and if you could just use them 'cause you knew your prey was a Malkavian or whatever, that would be problematic. > - bounce cards for other non-DOM and non-AUS disciplines We got Lost in Translation, which isn't that good. I'd still like to see more, good, flexible bleed reduction (i.e. obf: +1 stealth. OBF: Reduce a bleed by 2.). We got a little more of this in the last expansion. But now it's done. > - counter S:CE cards for other disciplines There is already plenty. Without adding more cards, I'm also still in favor of the "save me from contesting this huge minion" rule that came up last summer-- something like "if you have a minion in your inactive region that would contest a minion in play, you may [spend transfers?] to burn that inactive minion and move all the blood counters on it to your pool." kinda deal. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] Sorry to ask what many be a well know question, but how many actions does this Una Freak Drive deck do a turn, just using Una?

[ quoted text not captured ] Some legends say 45. I call bullshit but accept the premise for the sake of the discussion.

On Dec 22, 7:52 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 23 joulu, 02:18, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > > > John McGlynn wrote: > > > I'd like to see Freak Drive limited to once per minion per turn. > > > It would make Basilia cry, but is it worth it to kill Una[...]? > > > Where are all these Una decks winning tournaments, I wonder? > > > Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas > > "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 > > Please visit VTESville daily!http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ > > Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017 > > Even if Turbo-Una doesn't regularly win you have to admit that it does > break games in it's own way. That said, Freak Drive isn't the problem, > it's just Una. Why is it just Una that is the problem? How is Una so much different than: a minion with advanced Fort and with either Aaron's Feeding Razor, a Sabbat vampire with Hungry Coyote in play, etc. and twice the number of freak drives; or a vampire with adv Fort and Ankara Citadel, Turkey? Is the one extra moving part what prevents these other situations from being a problem, in your opinion?

On 26 joulu, 00:11, James Cass <tjamesc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Is the one extra moving part what prevents these other situations from > being a problem, in your opinion? That and lack of Eternal Vigilance.

[ quoted text not captured ] Someone has to do this with Rico Loco, Eternal Vigilance be damned. Merry Christmas all, Brandon

>Some legends say 45. I call bullshit but accept the premise for the >sake of the discussion. I've played againt plenty of Una decks and on the turn they can act, the do as much actions as they have Freak Drives plus 1. Barring some rare jam where they have 7 non-freak drive cards on hand, these decks deplete their deck the turn they can act. Depending on the flavor, Una decks play between 40 and 50 Freak Drives. So they do 41-51 actions.

Mi Ho Ban wrote: > - variation edge card - fine idea, like "Motivation" cards in recent > storyline. and something like "gain edge" is to burn all counters from > Edge cards and put one counter to an Edge card you control. and > various Edge cards for different deck styles. Hmm, combining this with the new edge card rule proposed... Have Motivations be a card that starts in play. When you get the edge, you put it on your motivation. The current motivation cards should say "When the edge is on this card, ..." One new (default) motivation is called The Eternal Struggle. It says: "When the edge is on this card, you may: gain one pool during your untap phase; burn the edge for a vote during a referendum". So the motivations from that storyline have their effects _instead_ of the default edge effects. Which might balance them a bit more (or a few might still need errata). You can provite motivation cards as image files for download as they're not cards that get shuffled in to your deck, so it doesn't matter that they're not on official card stock. -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)

On Dec 25, 4:40 pm, James Cass <tjamesc...@gmail.com> wrote: > Sorry to ask what many be a well know question, but how many actions > does this Una Freak Drive deck do a turn, just using Una? All of them. If Una gets going, and isn't outright killed by being blocked and ag damage/rotschrecked or something (or has her first Freak Drive DI'ed), she takes every action available to her--assuming, like, half the deck is Freak Drives, Una is going to equip/recruit more than a dozen times, rush a number of times, and bleed. And possibly a hunt a few times to cycle out extra Freak Drives. Sometimes, due to a weird shuffle, she'll get hand jammed on things that aren't Freak Drives. Sometimes she'll get shut down by someone DI'ing her first Freak Drive or trumpily killing her by blocking her (or rushing her before she acts). But if she gets going, she tends to really go. -Peter

On Dec 25, 5:11 pm, James Cass <tjamesc...@gmail.com> wrote: > Why is it just Una that is the problem? 'Cause she works out of the box. Without needing extra stuff. Mind you, I'm not convinced that Una/Freak Drive is such a problem that something specifically needs to be done to fix it (although I'm still completely in favor in Freak Drive getting fixed to be once per turn per minion), but when she goes off, she really goes off and tends to make everyone else just sit around doing nothing while Una kills the whole table. > How is Una so much different than: > a minion with advanced Fort and with either Aaron's Feeding Razor, a > Sabbat vampire with Hungry Coyote in play, etc. and twice the number > of freak drives; or > a vampire with adv Fort and Ankara Citadel, Turkey? 'Cause you have to get that extra bit of equipment on the minion--if you really need that Aaron's Feeding Razor or Ankara Citadel, how do you make sure you have it immediately, and that it isn't blocked when equipping it? With Una, she immediately works and can't get foiled by having the clinch equipment (or whatever) blocked. Una just goes by showing up. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] First Tradition: The Masquerade and Last Stand are additional cards that mess with the idea of a "Table Round" (besides Reversal of Fortunes and the old Dramatic Upheaval / Kindred Restructure). Interesting that all of them except Last Stand were around since Jyhad.

On Dec 24, 1:06 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: > I don't see Una/FD as broken per se, as more like Un-fun. Una player wanks > for 30 minutes (even an experienced one can take a good long time on their > turn), while everyone else sits and spins. For those looking to ban Una, > I'd take that angle, not the "it's broken/unbalanced" angle. Or just drop > it, and focus on larger problems, which imo Pentex Sub is the worst. Yeah, the reason I hate Una decks is the near-complete lack of interaction from the other players. The same thing applies to many other Turbo decks (including The Baron) and especially with Imbued decks (my turn takes 30 minutes) and Harbinger/Slaughterhouse/ Brinksmanship (I'm playing a different game). Several other players (especially Ian Lee) have brought in helpful anecdotes from other CCG's. In many cases, people playing such decks often seem like they're playing a completely different game (and in the case of Brinksmanship, they actually are). Magic has had Millstone decks and weird winning condition cards (have A life, or B cards in your library, or control C creatures of different colors). And it's also had their share of boring Stasis or Time Walk decks where you just sit around while your opponent plays with himself. Although most of L5R's alternate win condition cards are much harder to achieve, there have historically been a few troublesome ones. And previous editions of Enlightenment resulted in mastabutory play (it's a little bit better when you require more interaction with the mechanics to achieve the needed conditions). Una and the Imbued are particularly bad because VTES is already a really long game (for a CCG) and with a typical limit of "only" 2 hours, having one player who takes a disproportionate amount of the time is a big problem.

On 26 Dez., 03:10, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Dec 25, 4:40 pm, James Cass <tjamesc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Sorry to ask what many be a well know question, but how many actions > > does this Una Freak Drive deck do a turn, just using Una? > > All of them. > > If Una gets going, and isn't outright killed by being blocked and ag > damage/rotschrecked or something (or has her first Freak Drive DI'ed), > she takes every action available to her--assuming, like, half the deck > is Freak Drives, Una is going to equip/recruit more than a dozen > times, rush a number of times, and bleed. And possibly a hunt a few > times to cycle out extra Freak Drives. And how does the deck make the GW? I mean, you can only bleed once in your turn. So, how does it make the necessary VPs for the GW?

On Dec 26, 8:00 am, Amenophobis <preache...@gmx.at> wrote: > And how does the deck make the GW? I mean, you can only bleed once in > your turn. So, how does it make the necessary VPs for the GW? It kills everyone at the table. Have you not seen one of these decks in action or at least theoretical action? Una gets into play. Una starts acting. She might get blocked a few times, but unless she gets killed when blocked (when she has access to SCE or fortitude), she untaps with a free Freak Drive and keeps rolling. She gets herself the Ivory Bow, Flak Jacket, IR Goggles, Murder of Crows, Owl Companion, Heart of the City, Eternal Vigilance, Raven Spy, Mr. Winthrop, Carelton Van Wyk, Mylan Horseed, etc. etc. Once she is tooled up, she starts rushing (playing Bum's Rush, Harass, Ambush, Big Game, Rumble, War Party, whatever) with permanents, kills folks, and bleeds for 3. Eventually, everyone is dead and Una runs the table. It is hard to pull off--which is Kevin's point; yeah, Una decks are incredibly annoying and time consuming and kind of make the game suck for everyone but Una, but they are hard to make win. And enough people realize what Una does such that as soon as someone puts Una into play, everyone at the table goes "AAHGH! Una! Kill her!" and she gets cross table Pentexed or rushed and killed before she starts acting (which isn't a legitimate balance point, mind you, just something that happens). -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] Yeah agreed. My last word on the Una deck is that it can impinge on the "fun-ness" factor, because one player plays for a very long time. chris

On 12/24/2010 9:02 PM, Kevin M. wrote: > librarian wrote: >> I don't see Una/FD as broken per se, as more like Un-fun. >> Una player wanks for 30 minutes (even an experienced one >> can take a good long time on their turn), while everyone else >> sits and spins. > > 'Long turns' has never, in any genre of game that I'm aware of, > been a consideration for determining game inbalance. > > I don't argue that U/FD creates game imbalance. I argue for un-fun-ness. Which may have never been criterion. chris

[ quoted text not captured ] Still probably more fun to play against than the "I vomit out Gehennah events that in no way help me win the game" deck.

[ quoted text not captured ] You could say it, but it wouldn't be true.

> My definition of broken includes mechanisms that promote an > unenjoyable gaming experience. I don't see the problem you s "unenjoyable" is subjective and undefinable. As such, it will never be the basis for the definition of "broken".

[ quoted text not captured ] If the game is 2 hours long in total? It would be totally reasonable to say that the game isn't fun when one player takes 30 minutes for a single turn.

[ quoted text not captured ] Subjective is not the same as undefinable. If 5 players on a table of 5 subjectively find the game unenjoyable then, for all practical purposes, the game can be defined broken in the context of that 5 player table.

For petes sake, can we can all the semantic arguments in favour of some creative game change proposals please?

On Dec 26, 11:36 pm, talonz <talon...@hotmail.com> wrote: > For petes sake, can we can all the semantic arguments in favour of > some creative game change proposals please? No way :)

suoli wrote: > XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: >>> My definition of broken includes mechanisms that promote an >>> unenjoyable gaming experience. I don't see the problem you see >> >> "unenjoyable" is subjective and undefinable. As such, it will >> never be the basis for the definition of "broken". > > Subjective is not the same as undefinable. If 5 players on a table > of 5 subjectively find the game unenjoyable then, for all practical > purposes, the game can be defined broken in the context of that > 5 player table. Assuming that the players' definition of "game" includes "enjoyable". I played Bridge and Mahjong for years with bitter old people who I'm positive had no more enjoyment of either game left in them. [ quoted text not captured ]

talonz wrote: > For petes sake, can we can all the semantic arguments > in favour of some creative game change proposals please? Please explain how our discussions are affecting your ability to discuss game change proposals? I'd really like to know. I'd like to see you start posting instead of bitching, but that's probably too much to hope for. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 27, 8:49 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > talonz wrote: > > For petes sake, can we can all the semantic arguments > > in favour of some creative game change proposals please? > > Please explain how our discussions are affecting your ability > to discuss game change proposals? I'd really like to know. > > I'd like to see you start posting instead of bitching, but that's > probably too much to hope for. > > Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas > "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 > Please visit VTESville daily!http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ > Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017 And yet again, you succumb to your base instincts of boorish contrariness rather than rise to the occasion Kevin. You also forget (or simply failed to notice) that I was one of the first to provide a lengthy post on this topic on the first page. Im interested in seeing what everyone else might have for ideas instead of the usual white noise of pedantism and hair splitting.

talonz wrote: > "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: >> talonz wrote: >>> For petes sake, can we can all the semantic arguments >>> in favour of some creative game change proposals please? >> >> Please explain how our discussions are affecting your ability >> to discuss game change proposals? I'd really like to know. >> >> I'd like to see you start posting instead of bitching, but that's >> probably too much to hope for. > > And yet again, you succumb to your base instincts of boorish > contrariness rather than rise to the occasion Kevin. You are misdefining 'instincts'. Learn to use a dictionary. When people not involved in the conversation tell me (and others) to quit conversing, they are being whiny little bitches. That's on you, not me. Learn to use a newsreader and mark conversations as read. > You also forget (or simply failed to notice) that I was one of the > first to provide a lengthy post on this topic on the first page. Nope, wrong as usual. > I'm interested in seeing what everyone else might have for ideas > instead of the usual white noise of pedantism and hair splitting. Then leave me the hell alone and keep posting about your ideas. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "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 [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 23, 6:57 pm, Stephanie Iwanciow Haas <steph.i.h...@gmail.com> wrote: > I can agree with that, in theory. I do not see where this threshold is > and how it can be defined. Is it "this card changes the game state too > much with little effort?" > Agreed. > > Brandon Not sure what exactly you are revering to, please clip text that is not directly relevant to your response for improved readability. Thank you

On Dec 25, 7:16 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > On Dec 25, 8:19 am, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > A multiplayer game that's a single player game for 30 minutes can be > > said to be broken. > > Note that neither Freak Drive nor Una prohibit reacting, blocking, or > out-of-turn masters. DI2 apparently fucks Una up, Big Time.... and before i forget :)

[ quoted text not captured ] But their reasons may be completely different since it is subjective. Those 5 players should take a break and play something else.

[ quoted text not captured ] I believe that this is an exaggeration, but even if it isn't that still is not the basis for broken that is the basis for boring.

[ quoted text not captured ] So to you broken is the same as overpowered. I have no objections to how you use those words. I use them differently.

On Dec 28, 7:35 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > talonz wrote: > > "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > >> talonz wrote: > >>> For petes sake, can we can all the semantic arguments > >>> in favour of some creative game change proposals please? > > >> Please explain how our discussions are affecting your ability > >> to discuss game change proposals? I'd really like to know. > > >> I'd like to see you start posting instead of bitching, but that's > >> probably too much to hope for. > > > And yet again, you succumb to your base instincts of boorish > > contrariness rather than rise to the occasion Kevin. > > You are misdefining 'instincts'. Learn to use a dictionary. Instinct a natural and apparently innate aptitude As you natural aptitude seems to be to respond to any kind of reasonable request to stop derailing the thread with your hair splitting by launching some personal attacks, he is actually using the word perfectly correctly. Perhaps "boorish" and "contrariness" are words you are having the difficulties with? here, lemme help you boorish adj. Resembling or characteristic of a boor; rude and clumsy in behavior. contrary adj. 1. Opposed, as in character or purpose: contrary opinions; acts that are contrary to our code of ethics. 2. Opposite in direction or position: Our boat took a course contrary to theirs. See Synonyms at opposite. 3. Music Moving in the opposite direction at a fixed interval: playing scales in contrary motion. 4. Adverse; unfavorable: a contrary wind. 5. also (kn-trâr) Given to recalcitrant behavior; willful or perverse. I would say 5, specifically, is quite apt. > > When people not involved in the conversation tell me (and others) > to quit conversing, they are being whiny little bitches. That's on you, > not me. Learn to use a newsreader and mark conversations as read. He is not telling you to stop conversing, he was asking you, rather nicely too, to please stop getting into arguments regarding semantics and return to the original point. Which you failed to do, and instead chose to respond with your usual string of ad hominem attacks. Which is pretty much par for the course for you. Every time someone points out something you dont like, you feel the need to defend yourself by insulting them. Grow up. > > > You also forget (or simply failed to notice) that I was one of the > > first to provide a lengthy post on this topic on the first page. > > Nope, wrong as usual. Yup. First page, post number 25. Wrong as usual. > > > I'm interested in seeing what everyone else might have for ideas > > instead of the usual white noise of pedantism and hair splitting. > > Then leave me the hell alone and keep posting about your ideas. Kevin, you ARE splitting hairs, and you are being pedantic. And now you are making it worse by being an ass. How do you possibly argue that people play games not for the purposes of having fun? Sure, there might be one or two weird bitter freaks out there who dont, but the VAST majority of people play games because they are fun, not the other way around. Please stop derailing arguments with semantic hair splitting, and try to be constructive? you dont ALWAYS have to be a jerk

[ quoted text not captured ] This discussion is getting on a crash course with long diatribes about postmodernism, social contracts and the nature of language. I'm bailing out.

On Dec 22, 2:40 pm, John McGlynn <john.mcgl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Dec 21, 1:56 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > The biggest changes in the game were the 7/7 rulings that happened > > when the game was out of print. > > > Now that the game is out of print again, we have the opportunity to > > discuss some changes that should be made. > > > I don't want to limit the conversation so please put any suggestions > > as a response to this post > > Direct Intervention still needs to be banned. > > I'd like to see Freak Drive limited to once per minion per turn. It > would make Basilia cry, but is it worth it to kill Una Eats The World? > > Is it acceptable that No Secrets From The Magaji is a hard counter to > second-tier Majesty-style tap-and-X decks? This might be a rock-paper- > scissors thing but stealth can beat NSFTM and it's already stronger > than tapping alone... also, I like hyphens. > > Tupdog is bullshit. > -- > John McGlynn > going to stop now before this becomes a list of grievances To clarify my position on Freak Drive: its cost is the only thing that balances it. Making it free shatters the careful mechanics put in place to restrict actions per turn. Therefore I also like the suggestion to make the cost not reducible. I feel this way about just about any open-ended effect. But I *do* like vampires with the resources (blood, superior disciplines) to get multiple actions. It's an obvious way to fight the weenie advantage. As for the "3 caps bleed for 5" problem: Dementation is doing just fine with just "Bonding" and "Threats." What are the other differences and similarities? I can't think of a solution that doesn't cull a lot of cards or start from scratch. Parity Shift is crazy-good, but we've seen other great cards come out for e.g. Barons, Magaji (okay NSFTM is bullshit but the point stands), etc. The only suggestion I have is to tone it down by locking it in at a non-ridiculous number, like 2 pool. -- John McGlynn to all of you turning a good discussion into petty arguing on the internet: fuck you very much.

[ quoted text not captured ] > 5. also (kn-trār) Given to recalcitrant behavior; willful or perverse. [ quoted text not captured ] Wrong on Every. Single. Count. As usual for you and talonz. Bye. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 28, 7:46 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > Wrong on Every. Single. Count. As usual for you and talonz. Bye. Care to actually make a meaningful comment? or just your usual escapist rubbish? Dunno why i expect something sensible from you, but there's always hope. My points were clearly spelt out, and actually were supported by some evidence. You, however, just respond with your usual immature reaction. Try to make an actual argument. Dunno why i am suddenly lumped into a category with Talonz. Who did actually make quite a few comments uin this thread. But then i suppose all i am doing now is feeding the troll. So much for intelligent conversation regarding VtES when kevin is around.

On Dec 28, 1:32 pm, John McGlynn <john.mcgl...@gmail.com> wrote: > As for the "3 caps bleed for 5" problem: Dementation is doing just > fine with just "Bonding" and "Threats." What are the other > differences and similarities? Well, what Dementation has going for it is that you bleed for 4 and gain a pool with 2 cards. And Dementation is really easy to get at superior on small guys, and comes with stealth (i.e. you can generate +1 stealth with dem and +3 stealth with DEM). Which is incredibly strong. But for my money, making it so that you needed more to be able to bleed for 4 or more, just like Dominate, would be good too. If the basic paradigm of bleeding was you could bleed for 3 with an inferior discipline and 2 cards and bleed for 4 with a superior discipline and 2 cards and could bleed for more than 4 with superior disciplines, extra cards and more set up, they game would work better across the board. Being able to bleed for 2 with some bonus with 1 card with a superior discipline (like Kindred Spirits or Social Charm) is also totally reasonable. > I can't think of a solution that > doesn't cull a lot of cards or start from scratch. I'm perfectly happy, for my money, with culling a lot of cards--if Dominate lost Govern and Conditioning, for example, that would be a great start. I'm on the fence with Forshadowing. And the cards that cost 2 blood for +2 bleed at dom. But if the basic Dominate bleed arsenal was Scouting Mission, Threats, Bonding, and Command the Beast, that would be a great start. Wheedle down the other disciplines-- remove Legal Manipulations (and the like) from Presence; get rid of Eyes of Chaos (?the +1/+2 bleed one) from Dementation. Slow bleeding down some. > Parity Shift is crazy-good, but we've seen other great cards come out > for e.g. Barons, Magaji (okay NSFTM is bullshit but the point stands), > etc. The only suggestion I have is to tone it down by locking it in > at a non-ridiculous number, like 2 pool. I think at X, where X is the number of players in the game and a maximum of 3, would make Parity Shift mostly reasonable. It'd still be the best vote in the game. But at least almost reasonable. -Peter

Blooded Sand wrote: > On Dec 28, 7:46 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > >> Wrong on Every. Single. Count. As usual for you and talonz. Bye. > > Care to actually make a meaningful comment? or just your usual > escapist rubbish? How about: Fuck off, asshole?

On Dec 28, 12:00 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > I'm perfectly happy, for my money, with culling a lot of cards--if > Dominate lost Govern and Conditioning, for example, that would be a > great start. I'm on the fence with Forshadowing. And the cards that > cost 2 blood for +2 bleed at dom. But if the basic Dominate bleed > arsenal was Scouting Mission, Threats, Bonding, and Command the Beast, > that would be a great start. Wheedle down the other disciplines-- > remove Legal Manipulations (and the like) from Presence; get rid of > Eyes of Chaos (?the +1/+2 bleed one) from Dementation. Slow bleeding > down some. > > > -Peter I agree with your point that the game allows bleeds that are too strong, especially at basic discipline levels. However, I think that unless there are strong bleed cards available, including Legal Manipulations, ousting becomes too hard, especially with a 2-hour time limit. I think that too many games would time out, unless you gave all vampires an inherent rush or something. Conditioning seems like the biggest problem to me, followed by Deflection. I think you should consider changing your paradigm for a superior bleed discipline to a bleed of 5 using 2 cards.

On Dec 28, 7:43 pm, Aaron Clark <aamacl...@gmail.com> wrote: > I agree with your point that the game allows bleeds that are too > strong, especially at basic discipline levels. However, I think that > unless there are strong bleed cards available, including Legal > Manipulations, ousting becomes too hard, especially with a 2-hour time > limit. I don't know that that is true. I generally build decks to bleed at 3 per action as the general maximum ('cause around here, people use AI all the time). If you have multiple small minions bleeding for 3 per action, you are still going to oust someone right quick if they don't have a ton of bounce, and if they have a ton of bounce, whether you bleed for 3 or 6 doesn't really matter in terms of ousting speed. I've never seen a game where reliably bleeding for 3 per action wasn't sufficient for ousting someone in a reasonable amount of time. I mean, yeah, bleeding for 5 per action ousts faster than 3 per action, but either case is enough bleed to oust someone or someones in a timed game. Given the idea I have been pitching for years (i.e. this one :-), you could still bleed for 4 with, say, DOM (Scounting and Threats) or more if you play Command the Beast for 5 (making Command the Beast a good card, instead of a wildly fringe card). Or bleed for 8 if you wanted by ramping up a bit (get a Pulse and JS Simmons). > I think that too many games would time out, unless you gave > all vampires an inherent rush or something. Conditioning seems like > the biggest problem to me, followed by Deflection. Maybe? In my experience, however, what makes games time out isn't not being able to bleed for 5, it is people just talking too much. I see plenty of games where no one bleeds for that much that end in 2 hours or less (most of them, really). What slowing down bleeds to a level that I suggest will generally do is mean that the bleedzooka's first prey gets some time to set up a bit before they get completely demolished. -Peter

Aaron Clark wrote: > On Dec 28, 12:00 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: >> >> I'm perfectly happy, for my money, with culling a lot of cards-- ... > > I agree with your point that the game allows bleeds that are too > strong, especially at basic discipline levels. However, I think that > unless there are strong bleed cards available, including Legal > Manipulations, ousting becomes too hard, especially with a 2-hour time > limit. I agree with this. We need big bleeds to be possible for the right minions. Just not too easy. > I think that too many games would time out, unless you gave > all vampires an inherent rush or something. Conditioning seems like > the biggest problem to me, followed by Deflection. > > I think you should consider changing your paradigm for a superior > bleed discipline to a bleed of 5 using 2 cards. Either paradigm would have been a great design framework for the start of Jyhad, but it's probably going to cause too much of a fuss to change things now, cards wise. So some rule about maxing out bleeds would be better. Having said that, I am also a fan of less rules in the rulebook and more on the cards, so I am a bit torn as to what is the best way forward... -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)

[ quoted text not captured ] I would not want to see bounce nerfed at all. If anything, bounce needs to be more widely available. If Lost in Translation was free it might go a long way towards dealing with the weenie bleed bomb issue. Brandon

On Dec 28, 5:50 pm, salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Well, since no new cards are on the horizon, it seems game rules are the best fix, IMO. Best solution to the "bleed problem" was proposed by Ian Lee many moons ago. Cap the bleed resolution at the capacity of the vampire. I did come up with a variant on this which isn't as restrictive: If a vampire's bleed resolves for an amount greater than (or equal to?) its capacity, the vampire burns an additional blood after the action resolves. Weenie bleedzookas can still exist, but they need to expend a bit more effort to succeed. Jeff

[ quoted text not captured ] Congrats Kevin, you've done it again.

On Dec 29, 8:21 am, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] I would weigh in whole heartedly on the side of this. LiT already has so many limitiations that making it free would go a long way to making it playable as opposed to wallpaper. I would even go so far as to add a line making LiT not targetable by DI. But thats a problem with DI. Also, get rid of Sens Dep, and nerf Pentex, badly.

[ quoted text not captured ] How about: Fuck off, asshole?

>To clarify my position on Freak Drive: its cost is the only thing that >balances it. Making it free shatters the careful mechanics put in >place to restrict actions per turn. Therefore I also like the >suggestion to make the cost not reducible. I feel this way about just >about any open-ended effect. But I *do* like vampires with the >resources (blood, superior disciplines) to get multiple actions. It's >an obvious way to fight the weenie advantage. Also worth considering is that vampires, especially in later sets, have been designed around the existence of Freak Drive. Making it a burn blood effect instead of a cost (see also Majesty Jyhad vs Majesty now for a similar change) would not break the balance of the mechanics as they exist while getting rid of free Freak Drives, which I think everyone agrees on is breaking the game. >Parity Shift is crazy-good, but we've seen other great cards come out >for e.g. Barons, Magaji (okay NSFTM is bullshit but the point stands), >etc. The only suggestion I have is to tone it down by locking it in >at a non-ridiculous number, like 2 pool. I've always been an opponent of changing Parity Shift, but since Villein got printed it's now so easy to regain the pool spent on big vampires that maybe a change is justified. The thing is, I would hate to see the card go as it's always been such a presence in the game and unlike popular opinion, it does require some setup. It's very easy to hit your prey for 5 without requiring conditions, titles or referendums and this is not resticted to dominate weenies. Sure, some tables you just bring out Volker on turn 2, drop a Parity Shift and collect 5 pool, but is the card overpowered because people just refuse to play intercept in decks not dedicated to blocking these days? As for No Secrets, what makes the card so bullshit is that it tends to either completely lock someone down or do not much at all. I think either effect (the block or the interept) should have a blood cost (see also 2nd Tradition Jyhad vs 2nd Tradion now).

>I would weigh in whole heartedly on the side of this. LiT already has >so many limitiations that making it free would go a long way to making >it playable as opposed to wallpaper. I would even go so far as to add >a line making LiT not targetable by DI. But thats a problem with DI. >Also, get rid of Sens Dep, and nerf Pentex, badly. As much as I hate Pentex, the game does need a card to get past superstar blockers that doesn't require obfuscate, necromancy or daimonion. Cesawayo and Cailean walls are irritating enough to play against as it is. Removing Pentex will just make these decks un-oustable by 95% of the decks out there.

[ quoted text not captured ] Like play Dominate or Presence masters, making it easier to use Govern and Enchant Kindred at superior, bringing out more minions who bleed for 3-4? I don't see a fix here. -- John McGlynn bleeds for 5, like, all the time

[ quoted text not captured ] If your "bleeds for 5" comment isn't just cheeky, you should have enough experience to posit a solution to the problem you perpetuate. Your ideas? Crypt machines are all fine and dandy, but if you spend too much time doing it, the rest of the table gets set up and can crush you. I also proposed what some call the Kuta Transfer rules a while back. Basic idea is you go up to five transfers max instead of four, but it costs one transfer to move a minion from inactive to active. Slows down weenies a lot and speeds up fatties slightly. Jeff

[ quoted text not captured ] I don't need my own ideas to shoot holes in yours. Sorry if I wounded your pride. :P You know I like a secondary effect of your transfer rule. You can pile blood on a minion via govern or whatever above their capacity and have time to transfer it off. It would even prevent a crafty player from employing the Bakija gambit. -- John McGlynn maybe it's not all bad, discipline masters tend to be weak as it is

On Dec 29, 8:41 am, "Izaak" <nom...@usenet.plz> wrote: > > As much as I hate Pentex, the game does need a card to get past superstar > blockers that doesn't require obfuscate, necromancy or daimonion. > Blind spot. Seduction. A host of other cannot block cards that admittedly do require an action to setup. The options are there. Pentex is just one of the better ones. I still like a capacity cost/restriction on it so that it doesnt favour weenie decks to run over the wall decks you mention. Death to the weenies!