Is anyone elso just a little annoyed about the way white wolf is reprinting
(or completely changing?!) some of the cards from the old sets. I mean Tomb
of Rameses III was bad (HORRIBLE?!?) enough now they completely changed The
Fifth Tradition card in Camarilla and some others too.
I mean I'm all for keeping the balance in the game, but come on is there one
card in and of its self in VTES that really can win the game and is so
powerful that it has to be changed that much. This isn't Magic the Gathering
(THANK GOD!!). Cripes some of the cards are almost totally different from
there counterparts.
Don't get me wrong I think it's great to reprint, if the purpose is to get
some of the older cards into the hands of newer players and such. But why
reprint if it's a totally different card that's being reprinted? It seems
pointless to me. If they are going to reprint they should either keep the
same card as the older sets and reprint it or change the card and still make
the older text cards legal.
Speaking on the balance of the game, I think you have to have some of the
cards be on the sicker side to keep the game interesting and to stop
blandness. But it seems that VTES is heading down the same road as Magic in
that you have to read a 500,000 page rule book to understand the game and
the rules thanks to all the changes. And even then you sit around drazed and
confused. Inspite of the reprinting woes, I think Vampire is one (if not
THE) best card game going, I just hope it stays that way.
Any Thoughs?
smith wrote:
>
> Is anyone elso just a little annoyed about the way white wolf is reprinting
> (or completely changing?!) some of the cards from the old sets. I mean Tomb
> of Rameses III was bad (HORRIBLE?!?) enough now they completely changed The
> Fifth Tradition card in Camarilla and some others too.
Tomb of Rameses had to be changed or banned, no question. As for the some of
other things, I agree that it's a lot more arguable whether it was worthwhile
or not. Any time change happens, confusion results and it's pretty annoying
that printed cards don't do what they say. I think it's important to make
distinctions though:
1) For cards like Tomb of Rameses and Mind Rape, changes need to be made so the
game doesn't simply revolve around who has the power cards. In most cases,
these were rare cards anyway so at least there weren't too many copies of such
cards in their old, obsolete forms out in the world. (Not much comfort in the
case of Wake with Evening's Freshness, though.)
2) For cards like Majesty, Fifth Tradition, and Second Tradition, I have much
more mixed feelings. The newer versions are definitately better ones, probably
the way they should have been issued in the first place. The modifications are
minimal enough, however, that it's really questionable whether it's worth the
bad consequences of changing cards in order to improve the game balance. In
the case of Second Tradition, the modification really doesn't even do that
much - so I thought that was really kind of an unfortunate decision. Not that
Second Tradition was well-balanced but if you're going to bother to change it,
then *change* the stupid thing. Don't just tweak it in a way that will cause
confusion but not really fix whatever problem is perceived. Or if you don't
think it needs more of a change than that to balance it, don't bother because
it's not worth the confusion caused. Hostile Takeover may fall under this
category, too.
3) Certain card changes kind of piss me off because there wasn't a problem
in the first place that I ever noticed. Granted, which card is causing balance
problems and which aren't is often a matter of taste. But in the case of, say,
The Embrace, no one was complaining about it, it wasn't sweeping tournaments all
over the place, and I was generally confused where the need to "fix" it popped
up from. I think this is cousin of the card-tweaks-too-minor-to-bother-with
category because I can't believe the designers' judgement differs from mine
that much. That is, if I see no problem at all, others might see a problem
but never one so major that it's worth bothering to fix.
4) Some cards have been improved, apparently with a mind toward allowing them
to get played at all. Some of these (e.g. Acquired Ventrue Assets) are making
appearances in decks and I guess such fixes are welcome enough for my purposes.
It causes more confusion to alter an overpowered card that people would otherwise
play with all time (and still might) than a card that people never would play
unless they knew it had been fixed. There is still confusion caused in the
latter case however, and some of these also fall in the too-minor-to-bother area,
too. I'm sorry, reducing the cost of Blood Puppy by one is just not going to
make it a useful card.
Also, a few of the tweaks were annoying in terms of overkill. Legacy of
Pander (technically not changed for balance reasons but many took it as a
good thing nonetheless) went from an important tournament card to being near
useless. I'm guessing The Embrace won't see much play, either. Tomb of
Ramses I've seen in tournaments from time to time, though I'm at a loss for
why - it just doesn't seem worth bothering with. (Especially now that Zillah's
Valley seems to perform the same function better.)
> Don't get me wrong I think it's great to reprint, if the purpose is to get
> some of the older cards into the hands of newer players and such. But why
> reprint if it's a totally different card that's being reprinted? It seems
> pointless to me. If they are going to reprint they should either keep the
> same card as the older sets and reprint it or change the card and still make
> the older text cards legal.
In the former case, you have effectively eliminate any chance of fixing any
design mistakes in the game once they've been printed. You may like that,
but most people want mistakes to be fixed if they're bad enough.
In the latter case, why would you even bother to change newer copies of the
card. The point of changing a card is to fix mistakes - so if you allow the
older cards to still be played as printed, the mistakes are still there. You
haven't fixed anything. See the paragraph above.
> Speaking on the balance of the game, I think you have to have some of the
> cards be on the sicker side to keep the game interesting and to stop
> blandness.
Unfortunately, then you have no game balance. Most people by now understand
that game balance is extremely important if you don't. (You may wish to consider
how "sicker cards" in a game prevent "non-sick" cards from being played due to
uselessness. So you've effectively "banned" the non-sick cards because you allow
the bad ones.)
Fred
>Is anyone elso just a little annoyed about the way white wolf is reprinting
>(or completely changing?!) some of the cards from the old sets. I mean Tomb
>of Rameses III was bad (HORRIBLE?!?) enough now they completely changed The
>Fifth Tradition card in Camarilla and some others too.
Changing text is always a "little" annoying.
>I mean I'm all for keeping the balance in the game, but come on is there one
>card in and of its self in VTES that really can win the game and is so
>powerful that it has to be changed that much. This isn't Magic the Gathering
>(THANK GOD!!). Cripes some of the cards are almost totally different from
>there counterparts.
I've heard the argument for banning cards that would completely change
functionality and print a new card that does what is desired rather than change
a card to the point that no one would ever figure out what the card did based
on original card text.
Problem with this is that all of those cards in people's hands become useless.
>Don't get me wrong I think it's great to reprint, if the purpose is to get
>some of the older cards into the hands of newer players and such. But why
>reprint if it's a totally different card that's being reprinted? It seems
>pointless to me. If they are going to reprint they should either keep the
>same card as the older sets and reprint it or change the card and still make
>the older text cards legal.
This makes sense, how?
>Speaking on the balance of the game, I think you have to have some of the
>cards be on the sicker side to keep the game interesting and to stop
>blandness.
Power cards produce blandness by effectively banning numerous other cards and
reducing the number of viable strategies.
>But it seems that VTES is heading down the same road as Magic in
>that you have to read a 500,000 page rule book to understand the game and
>the rules thanks to all the changes. And even then you sit around drazed and
>confused.
You didn't consider it this way already? Hundreds of errata at one time if not
now including one of my all time favorite errata "play as written", key rules
changes of basic mechanics such as agg. damage and voting, etc.
New players and old players getting back into the game have had it tough for
quite some time.
>Inspite of the reprinting woes, I think Vampire is one (if not
>THE) best card game going, I just hope it stays that way.
For a CCG to continue to play well, problems found need to be addressed.
>Any Thoughs?
sometimes I don't really understand the way things get more 'balanced', esp.
regarding the change made to 'Majesty' if you keep in mind that is was
already more expensive to play than 'Earth Meld'. why weaken it more?
Anatol.
[ quoted text not captured ]
You're saying that, even before the change, you saw more Earth Meld
played than Majesty?
--
L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu)
http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson
hehe....true ;-)
still our playing group couldn't agree to play it the 'new' way, but I guess
that's the only thing we didn't appreciate about all the changed cards...
cur...@aol.commetal (Curevei) wrote in message news:<20021017141623...@mb-fi.aol.com>...
> >I mean I'm all for keeping the balance in the game, but come on is there one
> >card in and of its self in VTES that really can win the game and is so
> >powerful that it has to be changed that much. This isn't Magic the Gathering
> >(THANK GOD!!). Cripes some of the cards are almost totally different from
> >there counterparts.
>
> I've heard the argument for banning cards that would completely change
> functionality and print a new card that does what is desired rather than change
> a card to the point that no one would ever figure out what the card did based
> on original card text.
>
> Problem with this is that all of those cards in people's hands become useless.
This is a good point. While it can be very irritating to have a card
in your hand that doesn't do what it says it does, changing the text
instead of banning the card gives a "new" card for free to everyone
that has a copy of the old card, if they're willing to put up with
having to have a print out of what it really does from White Wolf's
website whenever they play.
When we play, I usually keep a copy of Elder Library running on my
laptop or palmtop, just so we can check to see what the current text
of everything is. Most of us have older cards, so this happens a lot.
Personally, I find changed text so irritating I've just stopped
playing with most of the cards that have been significantly changed
unless I have a new copy with correct text. Since I don't have any
interest in buying Cam cards, and some of the changed cards can only
be found in Final Nights starters I don't intend to buy, that cuts me
off from playing a lot of popular archetypes. But it's been
interesting, because I've played a lot of stuff I wouldn't have
bothered with before.
JSpektr
"L. Scott Johnson" <sjoh...@math.sc.edu> wrote in message
news:aon1u3$oaqn6$1...@ID-99714.news.dfncis.de...
> "Anatol Sendker" <ana...@fangg.com> wrote:
> >sometimes I don't really understand the way things get more 'balanced',
esp.
> >regarding the change made to 'Majesty' if you keep in mind that is was
> >already more expensive to play than 'Earth Meld'. why weaken it more?
> >Anatol.
>
> You're saying that, even before the change, you saw more Earth Meld
> played than Majesty?
Well IMHO that's not such a simple question to answer. In our playgroup,
before the change Majesty was *the* favourite anti-combat card found in
pretty much all Presence-based decks. Similarly, Earth Meld continues to be
the favourite anti-combat card found in pretty much all Protean-based
decks.
However, to say whether one was used predominanatly more than the other is
tricky - I guess if pushed I would have to say Majesty, as pretty much all
Presence-based decks tend to avoid combat. In contrast, many Protean-based
decks are aggressively combatitive, and on that basis they drop the
anti-combat cards like Earth Meld. However, our playgroup goes through
phases where some types of decks are used more than others, and at one point
most of us were playing Protean and *not* Presence.
Having said all this, it is clear anyway that Earth Meld always was the
stronger card of the two, and is even more so now given the change recently
made to Majesty. Who wants to bet that we see an increased cost on Earth
Meld when it is eventually reprinted in the Anarch set? :)
Regards,
Mike Nudd
"Mike Nudd" <mi...@vekn.org.uk> wrote in message news:<aoolk1$m1h$1...@venus.btinternet.com>...
> Having said all this, it is clear anyway that Earth Meld always was the
> stronger card of the two, and is even more so now given the change recently
> made to Majesty. Who wants to bet that we see an increased cost on Earth
> Meld when it is eventually reprinted in the Anarch set? :)
When the cards effect is all that matters, Earth Meld if superior to
Majesty, but I think that it must be considered that far more vampires
have prescence then protean (217 vs 72), which makes Majesty more
useful and therefor better. Same thing goes for comparing The fifth
Tradition and Renewed Vigor. It's easier to make good use of The Fifth
Tradition then of Renewed Vigor, which makes the changes to the former
card acceptable...
Mike Nudd wrote:
> Having said all this, it is clear anyway that Earth Meld always was the
> stronger card of the two, and is even more so now given the change recently
> made to Majesty. Who wants to bet that we see an increased cost on Earth
> Meld when it is eventually reprinted in the Anarch set? :)
Actually, I'd bet we don't. I think this is a case of differentiating the
strength of a function as used in two different disciplines. Take stealth,
for instance: extremely cheap, available, and effect in the Obfuscate
discipline, somewhat less so in Obtenebration, beginning to get pretty
expensive and much more rare (that is, fewer cards and thus less variety
available) in Necromancy, and downright expensive and of extremely limited
utility in Celerity.
It seems quite valid that SCE should be rather easier to use in Protean than
in Presence. Presence has excellent bleed and voting advantages without the
cheap-n-easy SCE. Though Protean has excellent combat options, it's harder
to find useful actions to do with it.
Fred
"Mike Nudd" <mi...@vekn.org.uk> wrote in message news:<aoolk1$m1h$1...@venus.btinternet.com>...
[ quoted text not captured ]
I'll take that bet. I don't beleive that they will change it at all.
Majesty was slightly imbalanced because it requires a discipline that
can bleed and vote and prefers not to fight, so Majesty is a no
brainer in non-combat decks and allows easily attained parameters for
the making of a highly effective mono-discipline deck that, with its
old cost at basic, made weenie Presence decks pretty powerful. It is
also most obvious that the increased cost was made to hamper those
with only basic Presence, like most weenies have, as Catatonic Fear
was also increased and has a less desirable effect at superior for a
non-combat deck. Protean non-combat decks using Earth Meld cannot
bleed or vote with anywhere near the same efficiency that Presence can
and will most likely not require such a change. Assuredly, Protean
can be mixed with other disciplines to be made as effective, but this
requires more work on the deckbuilder's part and would still not feed
a demand to increase the cost to Earth Meld. So not only do I believe
that Earth Meld will not have any changes made to it but I am also
fairly certain that no further changes will be made to Form of Mist
either.
Robert Scythe
[ quoted text not captured ]
Because weenie presence ousts MUCH faster than weenie protean. The
change slows weenie presence down marginally, but enough to allow the
first prey a chance to do something to survive.
Fanboy