First: Sorry for beating on a dead horse. I might be a bit out of the loop on this subject, but the last thing I heard was something like "we´ll see - the card might be changed and return if print-on-demand happens".
Now pod don´t seem to happen. Will Lilith´s return?
I think the easiest thing would be to return it with the requirement of fetching a skill card to get the 3 blood. That´s a minimum of errata - many players interpreted the card that way anyway, in the beginning.
"My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."
It's banned and personally I can't see it returning without serious errata, and that is kind of pointless to do without new prints.
Jussi Hattara
Webmaster Extraordinaire
Finnish Politics!
> jhattara wrote:
> It's banned and personally I can't see it returning without serious errata, and that is kind of pointless to do without new prints.
>
Why? Plenty of cards have errata.
"My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."
> Ashur wrote:
>
> > jhattara wrote:
> > It's banned and personally I can't see it returning without serious errata, and that is kind of pointless to do without new prints.
> >
> Why? Plenty of cards have errata.
>
Almost all of the cards with serious errata have been reprinted with that errata. Especially when the errata was extremely major.
Jussi Hattara
Webmaster Extraordinaire
Finnish Politics!
> jhattara wrote:
>
> > Ashur wrote:
> >
> > > jhattara wrote:
> > > It's banned and personally I can't see it returning without serious errata, and that is kind of pointless to do without new prints.
> > >
> > Why? Plenty of cards have errata.
> >
> Almost all of the cards with serious errata have been reprinted with that errata. Especially when the errata was extremely major.
>
Everyone bitches about liliths, but you know what?
Annoying as hell girls decks are still annoying as hell and still winning.
Period.
This was an excercise in card design for all of us. And its plainly not easy. Hats off to pacal.
Now, we have a game with cards we carnt use, id errata pto at this point to add cards not printed from a pdf file to the mix.
Ashurs need to be errata'd. Lilliths need to return in an erratad state.
Both cards enable other decks as well as bad ones. Villeins errata was minimal. Why not add mandatory skill card to liliths and the word "minion" to ashur, prohibiting events and masters.
Easy fix, its been said alot of times. And the idea was lilliths would be back, folks just cried too much about mmpa decks. So, since those decks are still everywhere(NAC, EC have happened. Did ppl stop playing gitlrls? HELL NO) and they tried killing one card with other applications, lets errata both lb and ashurs, make liquidation once per game, and see what happens.
Any argumentcthat lilliths was breaking the game with mmpa decks is invalid, since those decks are still here.
So, status?
no offense, mirddes, but this appears to be a colossal issue for you, and i cannot fathom why this is so. even then, there are only a very small number of cards on the banned list:
Dramatic Upheaval (V:TES)
Edge Explosion (NoR)
Kindred Restructure (V:TES)
Lilith's Blessing (Promo)
Madness of the Bard (Dark Sovereigns)
Memories of Mortality (Ancient Hearts)
Protect Thine Own (Ancient Hearts)
The Return to Innocence (Ancient Hearts)
Succubus Club (V:TES)
nothing is stopping you from using any of the banned cards in your own personal group. they're just banned from official VEKN sanctioned tournaments. many of these cards aren't banned from tournaments because they're overpowered, but because they have effects that just stall out the game or are just plain silly. I'd be hard pressed to convince my regular play group that they can't use Dramatic Upheaval or Kindred Restructure, or even the Succubus Club for our friendly games. i had a hard enough time convincing everyone to cut their decks down to 90 cards from 150+ and not use a 4 per-card limit.
bottom line, sir: play the game the way you want to play it. the game police aren't going to break in your door and haul you away.
I remember how the card had to be nerfed several times during playtesting, and at the end I still called it overpowered. and MMPA decks weren't that big at the time, so I wasn't even considering that angle; it was too good just by itself. I guess my playtest notes got ignored.
my point isn't about hindsight being 20/20, but rather, I don't trust that errata will go far enough. giving 3 free blood is way too good, even if you make the discipline card a prerequisite. players will jump through the hoops. even without abusing it, I simply replaced hunting grounds in all my decks for Lillith's Blessing because it was amazing.
I'm thinking something on the level of Guide & Mentor before allowing it back...
Another angle is to remove the give blood thing completely, and turn it into a way to give a skill card to a vampire (and making it Bahari thus rendering it limited to one-time per vampire). It would still enable some decks (and not actual tier 1 decks)
I am not sure if my perception is skewed because I haven't played the game for several years, but my impression is that it's getting too easy to get blood and pool these days. It requires almost no tech at all, and definitely requires a lot less deck space than it used to. The result is that bigger vampires and the decks that come with them are usable, but at the cost of games becoming too long, but perhaps that's just an ill perception. Is there data available about how many tournament matches end as 0,5 point for everyone ties compared to previous years?
Even a broken clock is right twice a day
> smiling wrote:
> too easy to get blood and pool these days. It requires almost no tech at all, and definitely requires a lot less deck space than it used
>
11cap+villien+golconda, bounce, combat mitigation, ousting.
UDHR18/19/27
> ReverendRevolver wrote:
>
> Now, we have a game with cards we carnt use, id errata pto at this point to add cards not printed from a pdf file to the mix.
> Ashurs need to be errata'd. Lilliths need to return in an erratad state.
>
I really find this attitude hard to understand.
Banning stuff doesn't mean you're a bad person it just means that you managed to produce cards that in combination have a negative impact upon the game, this may be due to too many combination to test, prevalence of strategy when testing occurred or just shoddy design in the first place or some other unspecified reason.
We have 3,500 cards to use in VTES - I really don't see that we should invest so much effort into getting one card that was poorly designed [and playtested] back into the mix.
Lilith's Blessing isn't an enabler [Hermana decks already existed and were still awful] and nor is Ashur in its current form [it lets decks be extremely lazy but fundamentally Kiasyid bleed, Ani high cap combat and Tor high cap guns or tap and bleed all existed fine without it - they may be a lot stronger]
So i'm very happy for Lilith's Blessing to stay banned and spend the time looking at all the cards we've got that aren't used due {Gaurd Duty, Thanatosis, corruption etc]
Im alwqys on board to see bad cards changed to be playable. I was just thinking about how useful veles hunt would be if a delaying tactics didnt kill it. Sure, Slava can use one veles in a deck, but there could be actual veles hunt decks with merged Karsh and some other voters if not for its text saying if it gets outvoted or cancelled it cantb called again.
And there are plenty of cards that are unplayable that we could be looking at.
We have plenty of top notch cards legal for play. We have awful cards that are legal but cant be played too.
I tossed up the idea of errata for bad cards when pod was being discussed, but the prospect of any card costing very little made me not care.
Now, we again dont have cards that will get printed, so its something worth dsicussing again.
My complaints about pod dying arexmy complaints from ccp cancelling us: cant get new players, cards arent any easier to get, we have crypt issues in g5-6 and could benefit from adv versions of almost-awesome vamps.
Vekn has a plain plan, no hidden agendas or anything, to address the crypt issues. And they so far are doing a fair job. Hell, they listened to reason and Gangrel get love in an indy set, so awesome there.
Without pod or being printed in general, my other complaints are still there.
I liked liliths. I own liliths. It got banned, i just want more good cards to use, so im curious.
Honestly, you'd be better off with errata on "de facto banned" cards that already have had huge print runs. There's plenty of low tier cards that could use the elevation to playable status. And it'd be a far easier and far better use of the community's creativity than flaming out on some overpowered nonsense (especially hard-to-get promotional nonsense) that needed to be cut out of the card pool.
Like, go pick the master card Frenzy for "trifle" errata, or something. This is about as fruitful as asking for Edge Explosion to come back into the game. There's really *much* better things to do to improve this game.
Well if they aren't bringing back liliths blessing, then maybe print something similar in the next set that gives bloodlines who for most parts don't have a hg some useful blood gain permanent. My Samedi deck for example took a big hit when Lilith's Blessing was banned.
> Azel wrote:
> Honestly, you'd be better off with errata on "de facto banned" cards that already have had huge print runs. There's plenty of low tier cards that could use the elevation to playable status. And it'd be a far easier and far better use of the community's creativity than flaming out on some overpowered nonsense (especially hard-to-get promotional nonsense) that needed to be cut out of the card pool.
>
> Like, go pick the master card Frenzy for "trifle" errata, or something. This is about as fruitful as asking for Edge Explosion to come back into the game. There's really *much* better things to do to improve this game.
>
We had a thread on masters that should be made trifles.
It was kinda fruitful, basically everyone agreed short term investment, long term investment, and secret horde should be trifles.
As for samedi and bloodlines, there are less broken ways to provide bloodgain. I want liliths to return, but even i hate it being a gain 3 free blood once a game enabler. Mandatory skill card, and it having 3 blood on it and depleting is optimal.
Samedi gain blood from little mountain, but should have some kind of engling fury hunt action where mayne they remove an ally from thier ashheap from the game to hunt for 2 and untap.
Anyway, i agree that any cards that could be erratad to be playable (meaning shitty cards and banned cards)
Would help the game. Yes, itd be cooler if pod was happening and we could buy new cards. But making several hundred cards in each collection playable would undeniably help some. I dont like printing and sleeving. I dig the new cards, but i feel like im proxying my sinkholes and a bayou in mtg again even thinking about it.
I get Hugh not umderstanding the fuss about liliths, as hes right about it being not screened right, and knows full well how rediculosly broken it is. But having more playable cards is optimal. What if we errata all Jyhad justicars that have inferior fortitude to having superior? Democritous, Angus become good. Sheldon becomes great.
There are cards we could make playable that currently arent. While fixing memories of motlrtality to say non imbued, or reissuing pto or lb arent high on the agenda, maybe fixing bad cards could be?
It at least helps the game.
> Azel wrote:
> Honestly, you'd be better off with errata on "de facto banned" cards that already have had huge print runs. There's plenty of low tier cards that could use the elevation to playable status. And it'd be a far easier and far better use of the community's creativity than flaming out on some overpowered nonsense (especially hard-to-get promotional nonsense) that needed to be cut out of the card pool.
>
Please bear in mind that there are a non-trivial number of players who like to play with the cards they've got, with minimal errata. (Me, I don't mind errata at all - but I understand where they're coming from.) Even when the cards are extremely powerful, borderline broken, there are players who'd rather soldier on than rewrite them.
6/23 and 7/7 both had anguished players upset about another truck of errata, even though they could (as some players did) print out sticky labels and put them in sleeves.
Personally, I think I would prefer enabling tech that made (some) crappy cards less crappy. Like a vampire with a special ability, an Event that made them usable, a political action that changed the ground rules of the game a little, or whatever. Multi-functional things that aren't bad anyway - say, a Kaymakli Fragment-like card that has a solid normal use, and also says "Regaining the Upper Hand is not poo anymore." Clearly, there's a need to exercise some moderation - you don't want every vampire crammed with specials that say "Pere Lachaise and the Deadliest Sin are now playable". And some cards are probably too corner case and situational to rehabilitate anyhow.
Lilith's Blessing was never as powerful as Villein. Everyone says: Villein should exist beacuse it's an 'enabler' for large-caps (and i agree in large part), but it's the combination of the two (MMPS!!!) that led to LB being banned. Which is kind of counter-intuitive since Villein gives you the real deal - pool - directly when Lilith's only gives your amptied vampires a one-time refill. Like 80% of the time, they will lose the blood again soon enough.
About LB not being an 'enabler':
Please tell that to my my poor vermin channel-bleed deck which became obsolete the instant LB was banned. surely, this cannot have been intentionally! MMPA is the one thing in VTES that is really unbalanced (Anson, Nana, Cybele, Parthenon above all & Parthenon and Isanwayen less). making any additional Master Phase Acions cost 1 through some means (as per Huitzilopochtli's special) could solve that, but that is another discussion. Ashur, Villein, LB, Liquidation, Golconda-recycling with Anthelios, even Giant's Blood: they only become insane once MMPA enters the picture. Saying Lilith's is the real problem is just not very correct in light of this.
As for Lilith's, making the skill-card mandatory as a fix gets my vote. (BTW, Hunting grounds have lost their value in most of my decks a long time ago and are no longer a good point of reference IMO. Just compare the newer 'Code of Samiel' from HttB to an oldskool regular Hunting ground and see what i mean. nice design, still not broken.)
On mmpas:
These decks are still broken.
Ruling you can only recieve an additional master phase from one source a turn, and making trifles not use up that source is optimal. Nana, Anson, Cybele are then still playable. As isxparthenon. But if yiu arent playing broken combo decks, why the hell do you need 3-4 freaking master phases?
Next on the list of fixes for girls decks are:
Erratta/ ban ashurs and liquidation(make ashurs say minion, liquidation once a game)
Ban villein. Or make it so a minion with a villein cant gain blood until the next minion phase.
Change Aksynia to remove a master card in your hand from the game.
Please note, we have already banned the easiest card to ban and these decks are still winning.
As has been stated, only tier 2, playable but not unstoppable types of decks are missing lilliths.
Errataing stuff is still a good idea, but eyes of the dead is probably a lost cause.........
I think we would've seen quite a bit of card text changes if the PoD had gone through.
Now with no chance of getting an actual printed version of a card with revised card text, I don't think revising cardtexts will rank that high on anyone's priorities.
Finnish Politics!
It is amusing how one aspect can be discussed over and over again with exactly the same arguments. No offence meant, it's just remarkable.
Baron of Frankfurt
> jamesatzephyr wrote:
>
> > Azel wrote:
> > Honestly, you'd be better off with errata on "de facto banned" cards that already have had huge print runs. There's plenty of low tier cards that could use the elevation to playable status. And it'd be a far easier and far better use of the community's creativity than flaming out on some overpowered nonsense (especially hard-to-get promotional nonsense) that needed to be cut out of the card pool.
> >
> Please bear in mind that there are a non-trivial number of players who like to play with the cards they've got, with minimal errata. (Me, I don't mind errata at all - but I understand where they're coming from.) Even when the cards are extremely powerful, borderline broken, there are players who'd rather soldier on than rewrite them.
>
Meh, the game for all intents and purposes is dead, especially as Printable Legal Fan Sets are considered the tombstone standard for living games among the tourney scene. Errata can do no real harm anymore at this point. I know the play base is stultifyingly calcified in their own ways, but the big one has been dropped so that excuse doesn't fly much with me anymore.
So, sure, pump out more fandom cards that expand on barely tapped ideas. What's the worse it can do? The game has already seen enough text migration, card stock and appearance shift, let alone errata to knock that complaint to hell and back. And with the game's current living state now cap stoned with THE death knell, to fret at this point over dredging up actually legal printed cards with errata is... adorable.
But whatever, we agree it's no biggie. There'll always be people who cannot handle things.
> Azel wrote:
>
> > jamesatzephyr wrote:
> > [Please bear in mind that there are a non-trivial number of players who like to play with the cards they've got, with minimal errata. (Me, I don't mind errata at all - but I understand where they're coming from.) Even when the cards are extremely powerful, borderline broken, there are players who'd rather soldier on than rewrite them.
> >
> Meh, the game for all intents and purposes is dead,
>
Hence the reference to 6/23 and 7/7, which also happened when the game was dead.
There was briefly a small window in which it looked like WotC might do a bizarre joint release for Netrunner, Spellfire and V:TES, releasing maybe 20-50 new cards for each game, to fill obvious holes. But little to no chance of reprints. No-one wanted to take the game over - the hope that, in particular, FRPG might take it over was nixed when FRPG was itself taken over by WotC, and it turned out the Ryan Dancey thought that a game depicting vampires was intrinsically evil, but their game depicting ritual suicide was just dandy. The White Wolf takeover came out of nowhere and - given their history with Rage (some idiotic mechanics holes and power issues) and Arcadia (an utterly rancid game, devoid of merit) - was greeted with some scepticism.
And there were fan-created cards with quite a lot of playtesting (e.g. www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~justinf/jyhad/ ) and everything else too.
And still, quite a lot of people wanted to be able to let a friend leaf through their card set, put a deck together, and not have to remember dozens of errata. And some players wanted to play casual games with players who used to play, and not have to tell them "Oh, by the way, everything you knew about the game? Totally changed, because..."
> Azel wrote:
> Meh, the game for all intents and purposes is dead, especially as Printable Legal Fan Sets are considered the tombstone standard for living games among the tourney scene.
>
Sour grapes, eh?
Do recall that VEKN is NOT a bunch of fans it is THE Official VTES Player Organization.
Finnish Politics!
> Lönkka wrote:
> Sour grapes, eh?
>
> Do recall that VEKN is NOT a bunch of fans it is THE Official VTES Player Organization.
>
How do you define "official"? Does VEKN have the support and backing of the legal owners of the game? That is what I would define as "official".
No, VEKN is not a bunch of fans: it is a select group of fans. I understand VEKN to function on fan support. VTES players want an authority to manage the still-active aspects of the game, and they allow VEKN to do that.
I don't think what Azel wrote is necessarily derogatory - it is simply the truth. DM is a fan set. It's just a fan set that enjoys much popular support from many fans because the fans support VEKN.
However, if VEKN has the real backing of the owners of the game, than what I've written isn't true; maybe the relationship is different or more formal than I understand it to be.
@AaronC:
VEKN was created with the help/permission of White Wolf. So its inception was official. No other group has stepped up, made a claim to White Wolf and gained approval as a player organisation.
So yeah, it's about as official as it gets.
DM might be considered a "fan set" but it went through a systematic design and playtest process. We should potentially also view this 'down time' as a chance to overhaul a number of things about the game. We may be able to use this time as a space to rebuild the early sets (Jyhad, DS, Sabbat) and set things up for a better future.
Even if a single corporation doesn't take over VTES from WW/CCP, it doesn't mean that VTES is dead...
Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418
> Juggernaut1981 wrote:
>
> DM might be considered a "fan set" but it went through a systematic design and playtest process. We should potentially also view this 'down time' as a chance to overhaul a number of things about the game. We may be able to use this time as a space to rebuild the early sets (Jyhad, DS, Sabbat) and set things up for a better future.
>
> Even if a single corporation doesn't take over VTES from WW/CCP, it doesn't mean that VTES is dead...
>
I guess "fan set" has a really negative connotation. I don't think that DM is bad quality because it was made by non-employees of WW/CCP, just as I don't think that "official" cards have necessarily been of good quality. DM seems quite nice, actually. However, there are other fan sets that have also been systematically designed and platested. The fact that they weren't created by VEKN or WW doesn't really say anything about their quality, just more about their chance for public acceptance.
I am on the bandwagon to revisit some previous materials. I'd love to share ideas with you. The fan base wants changes to come from something they see as "official" though. Thus changes require politicking.
> AaronC wrote:
> The fact that they weren't created by VEKN or WW doesn't really say anything about their quality, just more about their chance for public acceptance.
>
> I am on the bandwagon to revisit some previous materials. I'd love to share ideas with you. The fan base wants changes to come from something they see as "official" though. Thus changes require politicking.
>
RE: Non-VEKN/WW Production.
I agree, there were some howlingly mediocre cards made by WW/WotC at times. When we are talking about 'fan base' remember we are talking about one of the better players in the game heading up both design and play-testing. So I'd be suggesting that these people at least know what a good VTES card should be even without extensive play-testing. "Fan Set" does have more of a "Loony Fan-boy" ring to it, even if you didn't mean it that way.
RE: Acceptance
I'd be suggesting that we already know and have means to get cards accepted. Design them, drop them into the "Card Ideas" area and keep going. The Design Team read the thing, they are listening to ideas...
Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418
> Juggernaut1981 wrote:
> @AaronC:
> VEKN was created with the help/permission of White Wolf. So its inception was official. No other group has stepped up, made a claim to White Wolf and gained approval as a player organisation.
>
> So yeah, it's about as official as it gets.
>
That is not correct. The VEKN was created way before WW took over from WotC. It was formed by players, and at first without any "official" sanctus of the company. This changed some time later, when WotC decided to fully abandon VTES, they put the VEKN fully in charge of organised play and rules/rulings/errata.
Maybe Robert Goudie has more to say about how the VEKN was formed. B-)
Here is a tidbit of information from an older post of Damnans, as this has all been discussed before (and will be discussed again):
about VEKN origins
pckvtes.wordpress.com
> AaronC wrote:
>
> > Juggernaut1981 wrote:
> > I guess "fan set" has a really negative connotation.
> > ...
> > However, there are other fan sets that have also been systematically designed and platested. The fact that they weren't created by VEKN or WW doesn't really say anything about their quality, just more about their chance for public acceptance.
> >
> Right.
> An example would be this set:
> Guardians of the Faith
>
> Another one would be our upcoming Laibon set (release date 29th of October - see also our blog .
>
pckvtes.wordpress.com
> Ashur wrote:
> Now pod don´t seem to happen. Will Lilith´s return?
>
Yes, though I don't know exactly when. PoD news got a bit in my plans of reintroducing it.