This poll is based on some meta discussion I had with other players.
Clearly, some clans are weaker than others. They could have better disciplines, their disciplines could have better synergy, their sect could be generally weaker, or perhaps they are fine, but they are not played as much by the general population for any number of reasons unrelated to effectiveness in VTES.
But what is the best way to help those weaker clans?
Should they get new cards which "enable" strategies? Examples of cards which tried to address deficiencies with action include Loss, The Eldest are Kholo, Hive Mind and Dogs of War.
Or should they get new cards which "disable" their weaknesses? Examples such cards include Confusion of the Eye, Eyes of the Beast, Nest of Eagles, and Yawp Court.
Thanks for your input.
When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike.
pckvtes.wordpress.com
@pckvtes
In many cases, I'm not quite sure what the difference is.
You have "Loss" as a case of "enabling strategies." The primary thing loss does is allow Assamites to bleed at +2. Is that actually a case of giving them something new? They could always bleed (and at stealth) before. Those with Auspex, could already bleed at +2. Or was one of their *deficiencies* or *weaknesses* that they didn't have enough forward momentum, so giving them a + bleed card like Loss was actually addressing one of their weaknesses?
You could argue that Protean intercept cards (like Eyes of the Beast) are compensating for a "weakness" (bleed defense, not being able to block political actions) or you could say that they are "enabling strategies" by allowing people to build Protean intercept decks (with less reliance on Auspex or Animalism).
Simply the way you frame it, allows you to subtly manipulate how others perceive the question and are likely to respond.
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@pckvtes
I'm for enabling strategies. I like the diversity of the different clans. If you reduce their weaknesses you are in danger to level the differences too much and get a boring equality. I fear it is of no much importance what clan you play as youo have (more or less) the same tools for every clan to play the different archetypes. This leveling has already begun imho with the addition of cards like Mirror Walk, Sonar (+ Eyes of the Hare on pro), Instinctive Reaction, Deep Song, Old Friends, Perfect Paragon, etc. All of them give unusual abilities to disciplines latter didn't had before. Some might like this tendency as they can build intercept decks with protean and give pure obf-decks +bleed and the like. I like the difference.
An additional point: If those upgrades benefit only weak clans it'd be okay. But to give Thaumaturgy +stealth benefits a very good clan. Perfect Paragon makes pre-vote-decks even stronger. So I'd say give weak clans good cards for strategies, don't try to work on the weaknesses.
Baron of Frankfurt
> Jeff wrote:
> But what is the best way to help those weaker clans?
>
You're not asking the right question.
The first question has to be "Should weaker clans be made stronger?"
Then, ask "Should weaker clans be made as strong as regular clans?"
My opinion is that some clans / disciplines are worse than others. So be it. "No" to the first, "Moot" to the rest.
That doesn't mean weaker clans (which is yet to be defined - TWDA isn't the only argument) don't get their chance of having new cards / new strategies. It means new cards / new strategies should not copy existing cards / existing strategies.
I don't think VTES needs balancing. We don't need to try to make all clans (or disciplines) equal. The game has a good balance now and trying to change will just shift the balance around with the same amount of different competing clans/disciplines. We won't achieve perfect balance.
What new sets should focus on is adding new interesting concepts, not giving old ones to new disciplines. I don't want another Resist Earth's Grasp, I want another Enkil Cog.
Adam Esbjörnsson,
Prince of Örebro
> Joscha wrote:
> I'm for enabling strategies. I like the diversity of the different clans. If you reduce their weaknesses you are in danger to level the differences too much and get a boring equality. I fear it is of no much importance what clan you play as youo have (more or less) the same tools for every clan to play the different archetypes. This leveling has already begun imho with the addition of cards like Mirror Walk, Sonar (+ Eyes of the Hare on pro), Instinctive Reaction, Deep Song, Old Friends, Perfect Paragon, etc. All of them give unusual abilities to disciplines latter didn't had before. Some might like this tendency as they can build intercept decks with protean and give pure obf-decks +bleed and the like. I like the difference.
>
I think this relates to a potentially different issue. Disciplines (and clans) should maintain their own distinctiveness and flavor. I agree with you that it is problematic that over the past couple of expansions, a lot of disciplines have been able to do a little bit of everything (Obfuscate getting S:CE, vote push, and + bleed; Presence getting stealth, pseudo-stealth, and bleed reduction; Protean getting votes and intercept; etc.). I like the idea of the MtG "color wheel," where disciplines mainly focus on what they do best, rather than everyone being able to bleed/fight/vote/stealth/intercept.
But that's a different issue than "enabling strategies."
> An additional point: If those upgrades benefit only weak clans it'd be okay. But to give Thaumaturgy +stealth benefits a very good clan. Perfect Paragon makes pre-vote-decks even stronger. So I'd say give weak clans good cards for strategies, don't try to work on the weaknesses.
>
Thaumaturgy has gotten significantly better the past couple of sets with Mirror Walk and Rego Motus. But to be fair, they've gotten a disproportionate number of "cornercase" cards up until that point. Inscription, Serenading the Kami, and The Name Forgotten don't really see much play. Perfect Clarity, Biothaumaturgic Experiment, and Blood of Sandman have their uses, but are pretty narrow as well. The Tremere have traditionally been a good clan (the !Tremere not so much until recently, probably since Third Edition with the new crop of Group 4 vampires). But the Tremere mainly benefit from , , and a handful of key Thaumaturgy cards (Magic of the Smith, Theft of Vitae, the occasional Rutor's Hand or Walk of Flame, and now Mirror Walk and Rego Motus). In the early days, Thaumaturgy was mainly designed as a "combat discipline" and suffered many of the same problems as Celerity, Potence, and Quietus. Things have gotten much better since then, however.
In any case, I do agree that Deep Song (weenie was already strong), Eyes of Argus (weenie didn't need that), Perfect Paragon (effective stealth for Presence vote?), and No Trace (S:CE for stealth bleed?) were all unnecessary. I think Horseshes is one of the few examples of new KoT cards that is fairly well designed. Gives something new to do, makes weenie potence more interesting, results in new deck ideas, and is definitely in theme of the discipline (like Touch of Pain).
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@pckvtes
> Jeff wrote:
> This poll is based
>
The text of the two choices are identical.
It isn't a poll when all of the options are the same.
> Poll wrote:
> I prefer new cards which
> I prefer new cards which
>
> Adonai wrote:
>
> > Jeff wrote:
> > This poll is based
> >
> The text of the two choices are identical.
> It isn't a poll when all of the options are the same.
>
> > Poll wrote:
> > I prefer new cards which
> > I prefer new cards which
> >
That's strange, they were two different choices when I votes (either "enables new strategies" or "disables some weaknesses")
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
Something happened to the poll. Perhaps the choices had too many characters.
At any rate, I changed the text of the poll name and the choices to be more concise without changing the meaning of the poll.
When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike.
pckvtes.wordpress.com
@pckvtes
> Jeff wrote:
> Something happened to the poll. Perhaps the choices had too many characters.
>
> At any rate, I changed the text of the poll name and the choices to be more concise without changing the meaning of the poll.
>
My vote is to diablarize weaknesses (at +1 stealth because I have the Hunt Club).
Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/
> brandonsantacruz wrote:
> My vote is to diablarize weaknesses (at +1 stealth because I have the Hunt Club).
>
Ssssssss!!!!111
When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike.
pckvtes.wordpress.com
@pckvtes
> Xaddam wrote:
> I don't think VTES needs balancing. We don't need to try to make all clans (or disciplines) equal. The game has a good balance now and trying to change will just shift the balance around with the same amount of different competing clans/disciplines. We won't achieve perfect balance.
>
> What new sets should focus on is adding new interesting concepts, not giving old ones to new disciplines. I don't want another Resist Earth's Grasp, I want another Enkil Cog.
>
Funny. Shifting the balance is exactly what CCGs should do. Of course, at any given time, there's no perfect balance between strategies. What should happen, regularly, is that what's best and what's worst should change.
V:TES is incredibly bad about this relative to other CCGs. There has never been a time when Dominate was not at the top of the power curve. There has never been a time when Quietus was an elite discipline. Prince/Justicar, Dominate + stealth, Dementation + stealth, Auspex bounce, Dominate bounce, pulling blood off of vampires with masters, Presence vote - lots of things have never been overshadowed.
Sure, there are things that are good now that weren't before. Weenie Animalism isn't that old as a major force in the game. Brujah have a good P/J crypt that doesn't involve Dominate. Celerity is far better. Thaumaturgy is far better. Trujah have good options, now. !Ventrue used to be thought of as sucking. And, so on.
But, in the great scheme of things, there should have been far more changes in what is best in the game and a real attempt to address what sucks.
Then, when you have regular changes, what was old becomes new again. Dominate goes out of favor as Quietus and Potence reign supreme only to rise up again years later. Really, I'm being serious. There should be years when Dominate is not a top discipline. Of course, that's highly unlikely without set rotation or a lot of bannings, neither of which seems palatable to the playerbase.
Traveller Card Game
> ICL wrote:
> Shifting the balance is exactly what CCGs should do.
>
Why though?
And how? The only way to achieve this is to either ban anything but the recent sets or cards (like Magic does) or by creating increasingly more powerful cards. One requires a monumental change in the structure of the game, so that's out of the question. The only other option is to continually create more powerful cards. I think it's a good thing we don't have the power curve phenomenon in V:TES. We can make Quietus stronger than Dominate and keep on doing so until we've made a full circle, but when we're done we're bleeding for 15 and striking with Strike: Burn opposing vampire.
Adam Esbjörnsson,
Prince of Örebro
> Xaddam wrote:
>
> > ICL wrote:
> > Shifting the balance is exactly what CCGs should do.
> >
> Why though?
>
> And how? The only way to achieve this is to either ban anything but the recent sets or cards (like Magic does) or by creating increasingly more powerful cards. One requires a monumental change in the structure of the game, so that's out of the question. The only other option is to continually create more powerful cards. I think it's a good thing we don't have the power curve phenomenon in V:TES. We can make Quietus stronger than Dominate and keep on doing so until we've made a full circle, but when we're done we're bleeding for 15 and striking with Strike: Burn opposing vampire.
>
It's not really possible without set rotation, huge errata or fresh start. But i would enjoy that is actually good at something, maybe not as good as dominate, but actually worth considering.
Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.
> Lech wrote:
> It's not really possible without set rotation, huge errata or fresh start. But i would enjoy that is actually good at something, maybe not as good as dominate, but actually worth considering.
>
I agree, a few other disciplines up there would be fun. But it's important to think about the big picture. We can't just "make it so" and then 'wham!' we have an instantly more fun game. In my opinion the risk of introducing more powerful cards and the risk decreasing the amount of competitive decks does not outweigh the minimal and short-lived fun of having Quietus on top for a year.
Adam Esbjörnsson,
Prince of Örebro
Also, I would find important to have a metagame where every deck have a nemesis that counter him hard time without the counter-strategy being too narrow. That also is pretty difficult to do but may be worth it.
> ICL wrote:
> Funny. Shifting the balance is exactly what CCGs should do. Of course, at any given time, there's no perfect balance between strategies. What should happen, regularly, is that what's best and what's worst should change.
>
> V:TES is incredibly bad about this relative to other CCGs. There has never been a time when Dominate was not at the top of the power curve. There has never been a time when Quietus was an elite discipline. Prince/Justicar, Dominate + stealth, Dementation + stealth, Auspex bounce, Dominate bounce, pulling blood off of vampires with masters, Presence vote - lots of things have never been overshadowed.
>
Actually, I see this as a major strength VTES has over other CCG's.
Most CCG's can only do this through set rotation and/or rapidly increasing power creep. That also results in players constantly needing to buy lots of the latest set (either because older cards are rotated out, or the power curve has reached the point where all the older cards pale in comparison to the souped up newer cards). With VTES, you don't need constant outlays of money for the newest set - old cards can still be extremely competitive. It's also more conducive to older players who get back into the game and those with older collections but who haven't been as up-to-date.
VTES has significantly more balance and stability, which I see as good. Considering the wasteland of failed CCG's, it seems that the rapid power curve approach just isn't sustainable for the majority of CCG's.
Also, with other CCG's (MtG, L5R), the environment is often clearly dominated by particular decks/archetypes, so in most situations, there is a very dominant deck type (which lots of people end up playing). That often persists until the next expansion puts someone else on top.
In VTES, you do have general overall stability, but that is compensated by a constantly shifting metagame. You don't need to wait for a new expansion, for a "top" deck to suddenly drop because everyone has adapted to it by choosing different deck types (or playing with anti- cards). I think that the shifting metagame does a good job at keeping things relatively fresh.
pckvtes.wordpress.com
@pckvtes
> Xaddam wrote:
>
> > ICL wrote:
> > Shifting the balance is exactly what CCGs should do.
> >
> Why though?
>
> And how? The only way to achieve this is to either ban anything but the recent sets or cards (like Magic does) or by creating increasingly more powerful cards. One requires a monumental change in the structure of the game, so that's out of the question. The only other option is to continually create more powerful cards. I think it's a good thing we don't have the power curve phenomenon in V:TES. We can make Quietus stronger than Dominate and keep on doing so until we've made a full circle, but when we're done we're bleeding for 15 and striking with Strike: Burn opposing vampire.
>
Why? Because of boredom. The people who currently play the game aren't bored with it. But, how many people who don't play it anymore got tired of how repetitive it is?
I've been saying recently that Dominate is oppressive. Not because you have to play it. Not because it's boring to play or play against. But, because deck construction is so much less interesting when you can add Dominate and make so many decks better.
As for major shifts in power, sure, that's a bit of a problem to manage when you never retire cards. I would be happy to dispense with tons of cards, but others are not, but then, others seem to find the exceedingly slow evolution of the game more desirable than I.
It is entirely possible to make something better without making everything better. Animalism is very, very strong these days. Even before Deep Song, it rose to much greater heights. Much of its strength is off of a card printed in Jyhad and one printed in Sabbat. What has happened is a tipping point.
And, yes some metagame changes have occurred. Though, I don't remotely agree with Eric about a constantly shifting metagame. Even without comparing to other CCGs, I don't find a great need to change strategies from ones available a decade ago to remain competitive, let alone needing to adapt from year to year.
I distinguish CCGs from boardgames in a number of key ways. Obviously, CCGs allow you to bring your personality and interests into a game in a way that boardgames don't. But, that matters much less when the evolution of the competitive card pool is slow. Boardgames are a limited universe of possibilities, where CCGs are for all intents and purposes infinite in possibilities. In theory. In practice, not so much. Yet, I'd rather have more (competitive) options rather than less.
I will say, as I always say, that far more strategies and cards are viable in V:TES then in other CCGs. I'd lean towards maybe a third of the card pool for an "average CCG" is actually playable besides as a joke. So, I understand that we don't feel the staleness one might feel if another CCG saw so little change in power levels. On the other hand, that the inequality in power that has existed since Jyhad doesn't break the game also suggests that creating new, powerful cards in other areas won't likely break the game either.
What is the point of new cards? If not to change the environment, then why bother at all? Why not settle in as more of a boardgame with lots of possibilities? Maybe I just like the CCG model where you do need to keep up or fall behind. On the other hand, I'm not that bothered by thinking of V:TES as more like a boardgame with thousands of relevant components, which is why I don't feel any need for new cards.
Anyway, there's what should have happened long ago, what could happen now, what we prefer to see. I don't care that much about a major shift in what cards people play at this point. But, I'm also not terribly worried about productive shifts in power from new cards, either. No, what would worry me is attempting to rebalance the game and only ending up helping things that are already strong, which is a common problem. Well, whatever, it's all theoretical at this point. An advantage of sets like the new set is that it's easy to retract the set or make changes should a problem arise.
Traveller Card Game