First of all, I want to thank you Black Chantry Productions, the people behind the project, for making such a wonderful job in breathing life to V:TES. You’ve done fantastic job on the new releases and on most of the changes to the game so far. I love the new cards, and all the releases have been relevant and made playing the game easier, for new and old players alike. The new 5th edition boxed set looks amazing and greatly supplements the already existing Sabbat starters. I can’t wait to get my hands on the new cards!
But complimenting you is not the only point of this letter. As things are, the community of V:TES is in chaos right now. This is caused by the announcement of open play test for new, completely overhauled crypt contest rules. Even I was shocked by the announcement, as I am a fan of the current rules. I personally feel like the contest rules add to the uniqueness of the game, which was one of the game’s appeals to me. Obviously the proposed changes are not going to trash the rule completely, it will just adjust the most overwhelming part of it, the contesting of Vampires. I can see the idea behind the rule in testing, and I understand that it is meant for the good of the game. Having fun is the most important factor in games, and having to contest vampires is not fun, and it’s even worse if the vampire you contest is your so called “star vampire”.
Now to the concerns I have for the future of the game, and the worrying things about the contest rule changes. Something that I think many of us have on their minds at the moment. I try to be as objective as I can with all this, but my own opinion is what it is, and affects my thoughts.
The first problem that popped into my mind when I heard about the tested rule was the impact of it to the balance of the game and the internal balance of the tables where the rule would occur. V:TES has been designed around the current rules for over 20 years. Some of the strongest cards and vampires in the game are “balanced” because of the risk of contest. You always have to make the decision whether you want to risk the contest or play it safe when building and choosing a deck for a tournament. This helps the tournament meta from going stale, as whenever it looks like there is a so called “deck to beat” emerging, people start playing something else, as it becomes too common to contest the “best” deck. This makes the meta to cycle on its own, without any outside help from the development, and removes the need for power creep on new cards or constant banning of problematic cards. Even if some of the better decks are always part of the meta, you still have competitive choices outside of them, as you can somewhat count on not facing the “best” decks on all rounds of tournament, which allows you to play something a bit more experimental and under the radar, and doesn’t make the game feel too rock paper scissors. Playing something innovative is punished really heavily in the case that you have to play against a field of really tuned top tier decks. An effect that can be seen on games like Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone. In those games there is no room for innovation in the tournament environment, you just play the “best” deck all the time. In those games the way for the developers to combat this issue, is multitude of formats, some that are rotating, and constant new releases to keep the game fresh. But this also introduces a new issue to those games; constant power creep. Something that I would not like to see in V:TES.
This brings us to the second issue I have with the testing, the information gathering and what is relevant to the change. In the VEKN forums I can see that you are pursuing for information about the occurrence of contests in games that the rules is tested. There is a huge flaw in this thought. First of all, the amount of contests in normal games, is not at all relevant to the rule. You can’t change core rule of the game, just because “it doesn’t even happen that much”. The idea of play test is to test the rule, so it should be tested. You have to generate the situations for the rule to be tested, so basically force the testers to knowingly contest vampires. This way you get real picture of the way the rule impacts gameplay. Now that you have that information, you can make assumptions on how it would impact the meta game. Not the other way around. You can’t take occurrence share of contest in play tested games and apply it as a general rule of occurrence. If the rule impacts the gameplay heavily, the meta will change, its naive to think otherwise. This is something you can’t see in play testing phase, the effects only appear after maybe a year of the rule being used in tournament play. So the only relevant factor should be the balance and impact to the games where contests happen. Which is why these kind of changes should not be tested in open test in the first place. Obviously if you allow the rule to be tested in tournaments and keep it in play test phase for maybe year and a half, you might have more reliable data on the occurrence, but I don’t thing that is really possible, or something that you want?
Which brings us to the next problem. What do you want? We have no idea on what is going on behind the scenes really, there is no road map for new releases or changes coming to the game.There is no information on how you feel like the game should be, the philosophy of your design for the game. This all is something I feel like everyone would love to hear more about. I feel like it could be very beneficial for the game, to have a small update on the development process, and maybe your ideas for the game in each monthly newsletter. Like where you would like to see the game be in like 2 years etc. This would probably give more confidence in you to players, and they would not freak out about every change you make or propose, as the general direction would be more clear. What issues are on your mind, and when are you going to address them?
Lastly, I would like to know, why are you testing these changes to the core mechanics of the game right now? I feel like the first issues to be fixed should be with the rules inconsistencies that are in the game already, overall rewriting of the rules and getting rulings more available. This is one of the main problems with the game at the moment. As the game is really complex, even for the card game category, I feel like this should be one of the first problems to fix and it would affect the play experience positively, even more than changes to contesting, which brings even more confusion and exceptions to rules; i.e. more work for you. After the baseline rules and rulings are on solid footing, its easier to see the real issues in the game and make changes accordingly. Changing a rule so that it generates even more inconsistencies and problems, is something that I feel should be avoided at this point. When the current problems are addressed, the situation is completely different.
The point of this letter is not to get the rule tests to be finished and the proposed idea to be trashed completely. My main idea behind this letter is to get some healthy conversation going, and to take note on some potential danger behind these changes, if not tested properly and on some potential flaws in the testing process and priority of changes. I will help in testing out of the rule by organizing games to test it, as I am interested in the results myself. I am not too worried that it would ruin the game completely, as being a multiplayer game V:TES is so completely different in nature from 1v1 games mentioned above, but this kind of large, impactful changes to the core mechanics and even core philosophy of the game always come with risks, and unforeseen outcomes. There is the possibility that the impact is much greater than expected in the long run. But even if the change happens to go through, it won’t stop me from playing and enjoying the game.
Sincerely,
Aapo “Khormag” Järvelin
Prince of Joensuu, Finland
Yes to all this.
On the testing topic, the current Lackey league offers absolutely no valid data because :
- Lackey has never been representative of the live meta
- Some do play decks on purpose to see if they get contested, some play random stuff that you never see in a proper tournament
- As Aapo said, the cases where nucontest happens are so rare that the impact on games can't be analysed.
So, as I said : no relevant data. 0 interest in doing that.
The only thing missing from Aapo's excellent summary is :
Admitting you wanted to test an alternative rule, and knowing that a while ago we were asked which ones we would consider, why the hell choose this one, that I never saw proposed anywhere and that completely breaks the thing ? One more question to which I saw no satisfactory answer...
So far when testing the net effect of the rule change has been positive. In one game it meant that two players had a game even though their star was contested. In another a support vamp was contested with no negative impact to the game.
The pool damage per turn combined with vampires that can act also speeds up the game. This along with allowing all 5 players to play is just better overall.
I hope that eventually this becomes the standard rule.
Amaranth Deck Building Tool : VTES NZ : VTES ANZ Facebook
> Ke. wrote:
> ...the rule change has been positive.
>
Most of the players playing two same star vampires without problems on the same table do not see it as "positive". Therefore, so far when testing the net effect of the rule change has been totally negative.
I hope that this will never ever become a rule, more precisely, I hope that the rule will remain exactly as it has been so far.
What about all the vampries with special abilities?
One that came up is Hardestadt.
If you read the card text as is my interpretation is that whoever brings him up first will be the one who has to yield. So while both get to play whoever is 2nd comes up on top. I'm guessing there are more examples like this. Do we just go through them all and create a rule for each contest?
I'm gonna make a big generalization, correct me if I'm wrong.
It seems that people that are positive to this new rule are generally people who play on Lackey. The people who are pushing this are the people playing the on-going tournaments on Lackey where each round you can choose a new deck. For casual games I think it's fine if you wanna use a contest rule like this, I just don't think the penalty is big enough and it will push decks that can mitigate the 1 pool loss per turn.
On the other side are the tournament people who care about how this can effect the tournament scene. People will no longer have to worry about contesting their big vamp which can end up stifling the scene (like Khormag explained).
I think downplaying this change and saying, "it doesn't happen that often" is just plain wrong. It can have huge effect on the table, especially with star vamps like Enkidu.
Another thing is simply the aspect of uniqueness (each vamp that is) that makes VTES very different from many games.
I really hope this change won't happen based on data from solely from Lackey games.
A question, why was this change the one to be tested? What about other proposed rules to "fix" contesting?
With all that said, it's still important to note that BCP is doing a great job and I hope a sensible discussion can be had on this topic.
Agree with moast of your post expet this:
> "The first problem that popped into my mind when I heard about the tested rule was the impact of it to the balance of the game and the internal balance of the tables where the rule would occur. V:TES has been designed around the current rules for over 20 years. Some of the strongest cards and vampires in the game are “balanced” because of the risk of contest. You always have to make the decision whether you want to risk the contest or play it safe when building and choosing a deck for a tournament. This helps the tournament meta from going stale, as whenever it looks like there is a so called “deck to beat” emerging, people start playing something else, as it becomes too common to contest the “best” deck. This makes the meta to cycle on its own, without any outside help from the development, and removes the need for power creep on new cards or constant banning of problematic cards. Even if some of the better decks are always part of the meta, you still have competitive choices outside of them, as you can somewhat count on not facing the “best” decks on all rounds of tournament, which allows you to play something a bit more experimental and under the radar, and doesn’t make the game feel too rock paper scissors. Playing something innovative is punished really heavily in the case that you have to play against a field of really tuned top tier decks. An effect that can be seen on games like Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone. In those games there is no room for innovation in the tournament environment, you just play the “best” deck all the time. In those games the way for the developers to combat this issue, is multitude of formats, some that are rotating, and constant new releases to keep the game fresh. But this also introduces a new issue to those games; constant power creep. Something that I would not like to see in V:TES."
>
IIf you look TWD: most of a winning decks are rotating, there is no shift in meta. The same concept the same cards,the same playstyle, with a little deviation on caln variant. But the same core. Look how many star decks are a winning decks on TWDA Stanislawa is a good example, if your reasoning would be true there would be a lot less this decks.
Contest doesn't prevent from playing the "best" decks look what happened when legionners were released. TWDA is flooded with this deck in this time period.
There is no power creep because there are no new card, not because of meta rotation, You play the strongest card already and because there are no new ones, there is nothing to replace them with to create power creep.
Competitive choices you have are not impacted by contest rules, but by power level and amount of cards. You would see how faulty this rules is if you would have for example two set to play like new players have right now. This limited option actually create negative player experience because you can't play what you like.
The best example is a first blood introduction for new players we made in our community, we had to remove contest rule to be even able to show the game to new players. People tend to forget that new players have a very limited resource to play with.
This game is design as rock,paper, scissors and telling me that it doesn't feel like that because of multiple options doesn't convince me at all. As I sad at the beginning look at TWDA the same archetypes, playstyles, same cores of decks same feel. This games is design around rock,paper, scissors that's why sitting is so important. VTES will always be like this and it's not a bed thing.
Because of this nature you can't compare it to MTG or Hearthstone at all.
I feel that VTES players will always say that changes are bad and catastrophic, look on parity shift, pentex reactions. Old players don't what changes. Its is our nautre.
I agree that getting data from casual games is wrong. Because first question of day in my community is "what do you play" when we sit. We want to avoid stupid contest rule. That show have bad this rules is and why you shouldn't use casual games for this statistic.
Will the new contest rule shift the meta - Yes
Will its create a huge negative consequences - I dont thing so.
Will it help new players - Yes
Will it break immersion - Yes
Will it improve player experience - Yes
Is it good frorm mechanical point of view- Yes
Is it good for VTES "rpg" feel - No
Of course there is an issue with vamps abilities but as I understand this will have to be handled before any changes.
To cut a long story short and say how I see the answers to your selfquestions:
Will the new contest rule shift the meta - Yes, because with the new rule, we will see only those same TWDs and nothing else, even in a casual play. Very bad thing for the game.
Will its create a huge negative consequences - Yes, see above. Also, seeing two or more same vamps on the table will be painfully boring in casual games.
Will it help new players - No, old players usually introduce new ones one by one. And old players rarely play preconstructed decks. If there are 4-5 new players, they are usually friends and they will all buy different decks, probably the whole one new set.
Will it improve player experience - No, The old players are already experienced, and they love the game as it is. To new players, the new rule means nothing, they are new and they don't even know about the old rule.
Is it good from mechanical point of view - No, it will only create new problems.
Is it good for VTES "rpg" feel - No.
I can see that you are reading a bit too much between the lines. I literally say in the text, that the best decks are always part of the meta. Also looking at TWDA results and saying there is no meta shifts is not totally valid.
I don't know about other areas, as I mainly play in Finland, besides the yearly ECs. From what I've seen, there is definitely a meta game that shifts occasionally in VTES. Lets look at the situation where the game was in my area during years 2017-2018. Meta here was dominated by ally decks, and the whole thing culminated in the release of Emerald Legionnaires. Obviously the deck was dominating the meta during that time, but this is totally normal, as new things enter the game, they are usually more heavily represented than they are going to be when the meta adjusts, but you have to realize that Allies were dominating the meta even before that, in the form of Nephandus decks. This lead to a situation where decks started to prepare to face allies, and started to play more ways of dealing with them. Like playing a lot of Entrancements or other effects that steal or negate allies. During this period, a huge influx of of Animalism decks emerged into the tournament scene, mainly lead by the decks build around Nana Buruku, with heavy Anarch modules. This lead to a meta shifting towards combat decks, which lead into Animalism kind of dropping out of the meta, because it doesn't really handle other combat decks that well. Also decks like Unnamed and different variations of Girls archetype started to become more prominent part of the meta, because of cards like Unleash Hell's Fury being very effective in defending against combat and the MMPA Strategy being extremely resilient.
However, there was always decks that could win, and won tournaments, that were not considered part of the "meta" or didn't really follow the general direction of other decks. And what comes to the star vampire decks, I think they will always be heavily represented, as from what I see and hear, they are kind of an "fan favourite" type of decks.
On the game being an Rock Paper Scissors game, that is something I agree on, and something I even said on the text. Although maybe a bit confusingly, I just said that the game doesn't feel too Rock Paper Scissors, but I didn't mean that the game isn't just that. It's just not as set in stone as in some other games, where the competitive options are way more limited. Having played a lot of games competitively, there are games like "Warmachines and Hordes" and "Guildball" that I quit because they were too much of Rock Paper Scissors, which made the games very heavy and straining to play in tournaments. Obviously those games are not card games at all, but it doesn't make it less true, that the games felt super boring and repetitive, because you could only play "the Rock, the Paper or the Scissors". Something that is not as apparent in V:TES.
Saying that contest rules don't affect competitive choices is both true and not true. It is true that it doesn't affect the power level of decks at all. What it does affect, is the choice that you are making when deciding what to play in a tournament. Which indirectly affects the meta game, and the "power level" of some decks. I honestly think that Unnamed based bleed decks are probably the best, or one of the best decks in the game at the moment. But you won't see half of the tournament scene playing those decks, because of the current contest rules. Which is a good thing for the game.
I understand the problems with new player experience, and problems with limited collections. I have been there myself, and I play in area where there is many new players. The situation is not easy one to solve, but it will get better, once there is more products to choose from, and it is totally OK to play with some house rules that make it easier for new players to learn the game. Although I do agree on that the contesting of crypt cards might need some tuning, as I said in the text. But as I said, I don't think that this is the right time for it yet.
Prince of Joensuu, Finland
Will the new contest rule shift the meta - Yes, because with the new rule, we will see only those same TWDs and nothing else, even in a casual play. Very bad thing for the game
As i said, we already do. 80 % of the decks are the same at core(in their archetype) and already most of the decks are based on TWDA only because it exists.
Also as i wrote contest is non existent in casual games if you have only means to avoid it. Because people will switch decks only to not do it. Issue is if you dont have the means to do it or its a turnament and you have no choice
Will its create a huge negative consequences - Yes, see above. Also, seeing two or more same vamps on the table will be painfully boring in casual games.
No it want be, it will allow player to play the game the way he what to it's not boring at all. It's like saying that playing the same archetype is boring,
Will it help new players - No, old players usually introduce new ones one by one. And old players rarely play preconstructed decks. If there are 4-5 new players, they are usually friends and they will all buy different decks, probably the whole one new set.
And what happen if two of this guys play one clan.
Will it improve player experience - No, The old players are already experienced, and they love the game as it is. To new players, the new rule means nothing, they are new and they don't even know about the old rule.
What lack of knowledge has to do with player experience. They will enjoy games more its has nothing to do with the rule history
Is it good from mechanical point of view - No, it will only create new problems.
ye it creates a problem that pepole can play thier decks as intended and don't have to play a cripple game because of random factor. /s
> Tadori wrote:
> Contest doesn't prevent from playing the "best" decks look what happened when legionners were released. TWDA is flooded with this deck in this time period.
>
Your example with legionnaires is actually a very good example. The explosion of decks with legionnaires happened precisely because the legionnaires are not unique. Virtually anyone could play them, regardless of the crypt.
> Tadori wrote:
> The best example is a first blood introduction for new players we made in our community, we had to remove contest rule to be even able to show the game to new players. People tend to forget that new players have a very limited resource to play with.
>
It is house rules, and it's ok. It is not necessary to implement this in tournament environments. In casual play, old players are very aware that new players have a limited pool of cards.
> Tadori wrote:
> And what happen if two of this guys play one clan.
>
This can go to infinity, so I'll stop here. But I have to ask you. When you play Risk! casualy, and you want to play with, say, red pieces, and your friend also wants red pieces. What are you going to do? Will you both play with the red pieces in the same game or will you agree on something else? For example, that he or you play the next game with red pieces. We're talking about casual game, remember.
Color of pcs does not impact the gameplay and contest dose so your argument is invalid
And we are talking about contes rule that finally will impact tournament play.
> Khormag wrote:
> I can see that you are reading a bit too much between the lines. I literally say in the text, that the best decks are always part of the meta. Also looking at TWDA results and saying there is no meta shifts is not totally valid.
>
> I don't know about other areas, as I mainly play in Finland, besides the yearly ECs. From what I've seen, there is definitely a meta game that shifts occasionally in VTES. Lets look at the situation where the game was in my area during years 2017-2018. Meta here was dominated by ally decks, and the whole thing culminated in the release of Emerald Legionnaires. Obviously the deck was dominating the meta during that time, but this is totally normal, as new things enter the game, they are usually more heavily represented than they are going to be when the meta adjusts, but you have to realize that Allies were dominating the meta even before that, in the form of Nephandus decks. This lead to a situation where decks started to prepare to face allies, and started to play more ways of dealing with them. Like playing a lot of Entrancements or other effects that steal or negate allies. During this period, a huge influx of of Animalism decks emerged into the tournament scene, mainly lead by the decks build around Nana Buruku, with heavy Anarch modules. This lead to a meta shifting towards combat decks, which lead into Animalism kind of dropping out of the meta, because it doesn't really handle other combat decks that well. Also decks like Unnamed and different variations of Girls archetype started to become more prominent part of the meta, because of cards like Unleash Hell's Fury being very effective in defending against combat and the MMPA Strategy being extremely resilient.
>
> However, there was always decks that could win, and won tournaments, that were not considered part of the "meta" or didn't really follow the general direction of other decks. And what comes to the star vampire decks, I think they will always be heavily represented, as from what I see and hear, they are kind of an "fan favourite" type of decks.
>
> On the game being an Rock Paper Scissors game, that is something I agree on, and something I even said on the text. Although maybe a bit confusingly, I just said that the game doesn't feel too Rock Paper Scissors, but I didn't mean that the game isn't just that. It's just not as set in stone as in some other games, where the competitive options are way more limited. Having played a lot of games competitively, there are games like "Warmachines and Hordes" and "Guildball" that I quit because they were too much of Rock Paper Scissors, which made the games very heavy and straining to play in tournaments. Obviously those games are not card games at all, but it doesn't make it less true, that the games felt super boring and repetitive, because you could only play "the Rock, the Paper or the Scissors". Something that is not as apparent in V:TES.
>
> Saying that contest rules don't affect competitive choices is both true and not true. It is true that it doesn't affect the power level of decks at all. What it does affect, is the choice that you are making when deciding what to play in a tournament. Which indirectly affects the meta game, and the "power level" of some decks. I honestly think that Unnamed based bleed decks are probably the best, or one of the best decks in the game at the moment. But you won't see half of the tournament scene playing those decks, because of the current contest rules. Which is a good thing for the game.
>
> I understand the problems with new player experience, and problems with limited collections. I have been there myself, and I play in area where there is many new players. The situation is not easy one to solve, but it will get better, once there is more products to choose from, and it is totally OK to play with some house rules that make it easier for new players to learn the game. Although I do agree on that the contesting of crypt cards might need some tuning, as I said in the text. But as I said, I don't think that this is the right time for it yet.
>
I agree but this rotation of the meta happened because of paper, rock , scissors design and it will happen regardless of contest rule
BTW i also played BG nad agree 100 % For W&H the problem for me is amount of knowledge you have to have to play efficiently.
Its true that the rotation is mainly caused by the rock, paper, scissors design, and changing contest rules won't change that, but what it will change is the meta, as you will be less punished from playing the actual best deck. Which might lead into a situation where the rotation becomes stale, and the diversity of current meta game suffers, becoming very focused on certain decks. Which is what I've been saying the whole time.
Contest rules also prevents a deck from becoming too big part of the meta to a degree, as you always have to consider it as an risk, when going to a tournament. Without it, we might see similar problems arise, than what has happened in other games before. Like in MTG or W&H, where there has been times when one deck or army list was 70-80% of the meta. Even if the meta is focused on similar style of decks, the current rules make it so that there are options to build the certain deck archetype, and you just don't see the exact copy of the best "stealth bleed" all the time. Obviously this can be seen as negative too, as it does limit some decisions more than others as it is not always smart to play your favourite vampires, but it also gives more options and decisions,as you are not only limited to the "best" option.
Prince of Joensuu, Finland
Obviously the proposed rules change still punishes you for contesting. So it is possible that the impact to the meta game will not be as huge as I fear it might be. But this is why we need to properly test the rule. And which is why I wrote this post in the first place!
Prince of Joensuu, Finland
> Khormag wrote:
> Obviously the proposed rules change still punishes you for contesting. So it is possible that the impact to the meta game will not be as huge as I fear it might be. But this is why we need to properly test the rule. And which is why I wrote this post in the first place!
>
> Ke. wrote:
> So far when testing the net effect of the rule change has been positive. In one game it meant that two players had a game even though their star was contested. In another a support vamp was contested with no negative impact to the game.
>
> The pool damage per turn combined with vampires that can act also speeds up the game. This along with allowing all 5 players to play is just better overall.
>
> I hope that eventually this becomes the standard rule.
>
You can see from Ke.'s report that the contestation had no effect. Literally both players played undisturbed (I read the report on Facebook). They played like they had an infernal vampire, and they compensated the pool loss unhindered with hunting grounds or similar. This is an extremely big change that will have a big impact on the game, so the fear is justified.
> Palamedes wrote:
>
> You can see from Ke.'s report that the contestation had no effect. Literally both players played undisturbed (I read the report on Facebook). They played like they had an infernal vampire, and they compensated the pool loss unhindered with hunting grounds or similar. This is an extremely big change that will have a big impact on the game, so the fear is justified.
>
I'd just like everyone to distinguish between two things:
- facts: they did lose pool each turn, so it had an effect. On that game, that effect was small since they had ways to cope, but telling that it had "no effect" is wrong. Be factual.
- opinion: whether the rule change "will have a big impact on the game" is to be determined. This opinion is not based on facts but on a general feeling. We can't even talk about experience, since noone (as I know) has tested the rule before we submitted it.
We all have opinions (I do have pros and cons that are not the same as yours) but right now we want to collect game reports. We do know it's a sensitive change.
I've read that people are convinced that the data won't be "true": lackey games wouldn't reflect "reality", people play differently in friendly games etc. We are aware of that. We're also open to all kind of data, including tournament data that would matter only for "how often are vampires contested", since the change doesn't apply to tournaments.
Unless those people are suggesting we should test the rule in tournament?
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
Yes, to be able to draw any sort of conclusion I believe you would have to use the rule for quite many big tournaments to be able to draw any conclusion on the effect.
> Tadori wrote:
> Is it good for VTES "rpg" feel - No
>
This right here is, in my opinion, is an extremely underrated reason to not pursue any changes to the contest rule. The way I understand things, the intent behind changing the contesting rule fundamentally is because the current number of crypt options has allowed the the impact of the rule to "be more severe with larger numbers of “key vampire decks” now in existence". While I trust this is true at the tournament level, it is much, much less so in a casual environment, where house rules can easily be made to avoid the contest issue, if it even is an issue (which in my experience, it is not).
The way I see things, the only reason for this change is to see if there is any beneficial effect at the tournament level, even though the rule change is being sold as a way to fundamentally accommodate a large amount of crypt options more elegantly at all levels of play. I don't buy that. It's only people who play in tournaments who would ever gripe about the rule, so changing contesting to work better at the tournament level seems to be an ulterior motive.
The rule was in existence in the Jyhad rulebook to reflect the V:tM source material. As a casual player, I would not be enthused to see a fundamental rule change that directly undermines a mechanic based on the source material because a handful of people feel like their precious little tournament experience is negatively affected because of the existence of that rule.
If that's the prevailing sentiment, then by all means, make a tournament rule that allows players to control contested vampires. But I implore anyone reading to think very carefully about changing any rule that was originally included to add flavor from the source material.
People seem to forget that the game was originally designed to have players roleplay ancient vampires during the course of the game. Thus, if more than one copy of the same vampire came into play and was contested, the players were given the opportunity play out the situation taking a cue from the source material (picture players roleplaying stubborn Muthuselahs hurling insults at each other and fighting over who has the right to take control and who must yield). You remove this rule, you remove that optional roleplay opportunity for casual players.
And this is even before getting into the less esoteric issues of the card changes necessary to accommodate any change to the contesting rule. Again, why should casual players have to play Hardestadt, Sonja Blue, Jimmy Dunn, et al differently because some tournament players wanted their tournament experience to be better?
Again, go ahead and make a special rule for tournaments. But please keep any rule change at least 6 feet of social distance away from any game I might play.
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> but please keep any rule change at least 6 feet of social distance away from any game I might play.
>
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> it is much, much less so in a casual environment, where house rules can easily be made to avoid the contest issue, if it even is an issue (which in my experience, it is not).
>
So, if you are a casual player, just make a house rule about it? If this is the easy solution for playgroups to change rules to their liking, do the rules actually matter?
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> People seem to forget that the game was originally designed to have players roleplay ancient vampires during the course of the game.
>
Personally, I like V:TES because it offers me a more abstract but concentrated Vampire: The Masquerade experience, but I vehemently dislike people who use V:TES as a substitute for a Vampire: the Masquerade roleplaying group. If someone wants to roleplay, that's cool and I'm all for it, but they should play the roleplaying game (I hear there's a new edition out).
Having sat a table with a player with Malkavians making bad plays because he was roleplaying being crazy, or a player with Brujah or Gangrel vampires rushing my Ventrue cross-table because "roleplay" not only had a bad effect on my game, but a bad effect on most everyone's game at the table. Except for the eventual winner, none of which were the people roleplaying, one of whom had the audacity to complain that he lost. I realize that this is an anecdote and not data, but making direct comparisons comparisons between a card game based on a roleplaying game and an actual roleplaying game seems like a reach to me.
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> And this is even before getting into the less esoteric issues of the card changes necessary to accommodate any change to the contesting rule. Again, why should casual players have to play Hardestadt, Sonja Blue, Jimmy Dunn, et al differently because some tournament players wanted their tournament experience to be better?
>
I'm pretty sure that Hardestadt, Sonja Blue, Jimmy Dnn, and all of those problematic corner cases are the reasons why Black Chantry has asked for an 'open playtest' rather than just changing the rule out of hand.
Also, why should tournament players be punished by rules that casual players can just agree to change with house rules?
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> The rule was in existence in the Jyhad rulebook to reflect the V:tM source material. As a casual player, I would not be enthused to see a fundamental rule change that directly undermines a mechanic based on the source material because a handful of people feel like their precious little tournament experience is negatively affected because of the existence of that rule.
>
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> it is much, much less so in a casual environment, where house rules can easily be made to avoid the contest issue, if it even is an issue (which in my experience, it is not).
>
So by your own statement, casual players can just make a house rule about it and not worry what Tournament players have to face.
Throughout your post, I get the impression that you personally don't like tournament play. Which is totally fine, by the way! But I don't understand why a change to the main rules that would open up tournament play a little more and (allegedly) have very little effect on casual games and gamers, who could also just house rule the contest mechanics back in if they wanted to, is seen as so threatening to some people.
> Palamedes wrote:
>
> > Ke. wrote:
> > ...the rule change has been positive.
> >
> Most of the players playing two same star vampires without problems on the same table do not see it as "positive". Therefore, so far when testing the net effect of the rule change has been totally negative.
> I hope that this will never ever become a rule, more precisely, I hope that the rule will remain exactly as it has been so far.
>
can you explain to me how two players having increased engagement results in a lack of engagement from the players who are not contesting at the table?
Also, which game has the least amount of player interaction between these situations?
[one]
Five players sit down a table to play a game of V:TES. No player contests vampires the game proceeds and there is a winner after 2 hours.
[two]
Five players sit down a table to play a game of V:TES. Two players contest vampires and are hosed off the table. the player between the two contesting players is able to sweep the table because they not only had a weak prey, but a weak predator as well. The game ends with a winner after two hours.
[three]
Five players sit down a table to play a game of V:TES. Two players contest vampires under the proposed rules, but are still able to maintain the balance of the table and play the game. The game ends with a winner after two hours.
If i'm a designer of a multiplayer game, it feels like I would want players to be able to play the game instead of not being able to play the game. I realize that V:TES is a game of elimination and not everyone is going to make it to the end, but in a two-hour game, I'd like to see players being actively engaged with the game for at least half of it before being ousted.
It feels like forcing two players to sit for an hour or more before being ousted because they're contesting vampires seems counterproductive and punitive. I also would have a hard time taking any kind of enjoyment that someone had a bad time in a game i was playing through no fault of their own.
> self wrote:
> So, if you are a casual player, just make a house rule about it? If this is the easy solution for playgroups to change rules to their liking, do the rules actually matter?
>
I'd like to point out again that in my experience, a house rule is not necessary. I was speaking for the hypothetical person that may have an issue with the rule in casual play and thinks it needs to change. I'm not sure that person actually exists.
> Personally, I like V:TES because it offers me a more abstract but concentrated Vampire: The Masquerade experience, but I vehemently dislike people who use V:TES as a substitute for a Vampire: the Masquerade roleplaying group. If someone wants to roleplay, that's cool and I'm all for it, but they should play the roleplaying game (I hear there's a new edition out).
>
Totally understand your viewpoint. But, the crux of my argument is what you "vehemently dislike" is how the game was originally designed to function. I don't really have much evidence to back this claim up other than my understanding of the game and how it could be played when it first came out (I do remember the Jyhad rulebook being a little loosey goosey with describing the role of methuselahs and how to play the game). So it's definitely an opinion, and I happen to have a different viewpoint than you on that.
[qoute]Having sat a table with a player with Malkavians making bad plays because he was roleplaying being crazy, or a player with Brujah or Gangrel vampires rushing my Ventrue cross-table because "roleplay" not only had a bad effect on my game, but a bad effect on most everyone's game at the table. Except for the eventual winner, none of which were the people roleplaying, one of whom had the audacity to complain that he lost. I realize that this is an anecdote and not data, but making direct comparisons comparisons between a card game based on a roleplaying game and an actual roleplaying game seems like a reach to me.[/quote]
I have to say that, other than the person complaining that they lost, this sounds like my idea of a fun game. So again, different viewpoints here. I do have a strong opinion that what you describe is how the game was originally intended to be played (other than the party pooper complaining about losing). But it's just an opinion.
> I'm pretty sure that Hardestadt, Sonja Blue, Jimmy Dnn, and all of those problematic corner cases are the reasons why Black Chantry has asked for an 'open playtest' rather than just changing the rule out of hand.
>
I wasn't doubting that. I have no issues with how the proposed rule changes are being explored. I just don't want any rules or cards to end up changing, that's all. In terms of exploring the idea, I think that's a worthwhile thing to so.
> Also, why should tournament players be punished by rules that casual players can just agree to change with house rules?
>
Apparently not everybody thinks they are being punished? I've seen split opinions on whether the rule needs to change. But that's beside the point. Tournament players already operate under a different set of rules to not be punished by design choices (eg, play to win rule). If this framework already exists, my question is why not just change that framework? Is it really necessary to affect those casual players like me who want to act out being a Malkavian and make questionable in game choices? (Please don't hate me too much!)
> So by your own statement, casual players can just make a house rule about it and not worry what Tournament players have to face.
>
Again, a house rule has not been needed in my actual experience. Sorry for the confusion. I was approaching my argument to include the point of view of someone who may want this rule changed outright to make casual play better. That obviously led to confusion and muddied my argument.
> Throughout your post, I get the impression that you personally don't like tournament play. Which is totally fine, by the way! But I don't understand why a change to the main rules that would open up tournament play a little more and (allegedly) have very little effect on casual games and gamers, who could also just house rule the contest mechanics back in if they wanted to, is seen as so threatening to some people.
>
Well, "threatening" is way too strong of a word here. We are discussing a silly card game about vampires. I would say I feel like there's no reason to make a change except at the tournament level, so why make the change at a fudamental level? But your point about just adding back in contesting as a house rule is a good one I was not thinking about. The only thing I would say to that is causal players would still have to deal with any changes to cards that would be needed to accommodate a change to the rule. But you are absolutely right that any rule change could be "house ruled" back to the original, and old cards could be used.
> self wrote:
> I don't understand why a change to the main rules that would open up tournament play a little more and (allegedly) have very little effect on casual games and gamers, who could also just house rule the contest mechanics back in if they wanted to, is seen as so threatening to some people.
>
I can say that all this is just an opinion. My opinion is this will not open anything (except Pandora's box), it will actually narrow down the choice of the decks. The existing rule works well, I don't see a problem. Also, a casual game can be played by an "old" house rules, but what if you want or happen to play in a playgroup other than your own? You will probably have to play by "unacceptable" official rules or accept some bad version of their house rules. This is that threatening thing. And why all this? Just because some people in tournaments want to play only the "best" decks/vampires, and it is hard for them if someone came up with the same "idea" (TWD list).
But that's it. Test your games, see what happens, decide whatever you want, go report "objectively" and "positive". But please, don't say that it is for the benefit of the game and the community, because it's really not. Well, yes, it is also my opinion, I haven't tested this rule, except once upon a time, something similar, but who cares. See you when all this is over, I'm out.
what's this? two people who disagree with each other having a civil conversation on the internet? say it ain't so!
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> Totally understand your viewpoint. But, the crux of my argument is what you "vehemently dislike" is how the game was originally designed to function. I don't really have much evidence to back this claim up other than my understanding of the game and how it could be played when it first came out (I do remember the Jyhad rulebook being a little loosey goosey with describing the role of methuselahs and how to play the game). So it's definitely an opinion, and I happen to have a different viewpoint than you on that.
>
It was much the same way with Magic the Gathering, which the early rulebook had a pretty loose interpretation of what its own rules were as well. Near as I can tell (I accept that I may be hugely incorrect in this conclusion) it was the tournament scene that helped tighten rules up. It's pretty clear in hindsight, that at the time the design team thought the game functioned differently than how it actually does in the early days. When I look at where V:TES is now in terms of design and designers who understand how the game works, I am not at all inclined to point to those early, wild-west times and say "that's how the game is supposed to function/be played."
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> I have to say that, other than the person complaining that they lost, this sounds like my idea of a fun game. So again, different viewpoints here. I do have a strong opinion that what you describe is how the game was originally intended to be played (other than the party pooper complaining about losing). But it's just an opinion.
>
Maybe it's just me, but having my game dunked on 'because roleplaying' isn't very fun for me. Even if it was how the game was originally intended to be played, I'm not sure that's how the game has been intended to be played for many years now. But it's totally fair that different people play to get different things out of the game. Difference of opinion, i guess.
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> Apparently not everybody thinks they are being punished? I've seen split opinions on whether the rule needs to change. But that's beside the point. Tournament players already operate under a different set of rules to not be punished by design choices (eg, play to win rule). If this framework already exists, my question is why not just change that framework? Is it really necessary to affect those casual players like me who want to act out being a Malkavian and make questionable in game choices? (Please don't hate me too much!)
>
> [...]
>
> I would say I feel like there's no reason to make a change except at the tournament level, so why make the change at a fudamental level?
>
Bear with me on this, but why can't we have just "the Rules?" It's hard to play a game competitively that has "loosey-goosey" rules. Hell, it can be hard to play a game casually if there's any kind of strong disagreement on how something works. But it's not hard to play a game with "air-tight" rules casually. Even if 'play to win' was hard coded in the game's rulebook, casual playgroups can just house-rule it to their liking. Your group could continue to make questionable plays with your malkavians and cross-table assault ventrue with Brujah because it's thematic and it won't bother the tournament scene at all.
An added benefit of this is that casual players end up getting a better game out of the deal. Because when rules arguments come up there's a clear, concise answer. Yeah, I know that's a stretch of an outcome for V:TES but one can dream, right?
> Palamedes wrote:
> I can say that all this is just an opinion. My opinion is this will not open anything (except Pandora's box), it will actually narrow down the choice of the decks. The existing rule works well, I don't see a problem. Also, a casual game can be played by an "old" house rules, but what if you want or happen to play in a playgroup other than your own? You will probably have to play by "unacceptable" official rules or accept some bad version of their house rules.
>
this is already a risk present in the game. There is a difference between "I don't like this rule change, but I still play by it" and "I don't want to use this rule change so my group house ruled it back into existence, but when I go to other playgroups, they use the rule I don't like."
> Palamedes wrote:
> This is that threatening thing. And why all this? Just because some people in tournaments want to play only the "best" decks/vampires, and it is hard for them if someone came up with the same "idea" (TWD list).
>
Net-decking and the relentless grind for optimization is inescapable this day in age. Without some kind of set rotation, something the V:TES community is profoundly and strenuously against, any meta will stagnate or have some kind of power creep as new cards are added to the game. Changing the Contest rule may very well produce an uptick in these star vampire decks being played, but it feels like this could be solved on a playgroup level by some negotiation with the other players.
> Palamedes wrote:
> But that's it. Test your games, see what happens, decide whatever you want, go report "objectively" and "positive". But please, don't say that it is for the benefit of the game and the community, because it's really not. Well, yes, it is also my opinion, I haven't tested this rule, except once upon a time, something similar, but who cares. See you when all this is over, I'm out.
>
very, very, very broadly speaking, the reports and anecdotes i've seen over the years appear to indicate that contesting a vampire with someone is, in and of itself, a relatively rare event. However, when it does come up it effectively punishes players for their deck choice. If a rule comes up rarely, and only serves to make people have a bad time playing game (or attempting to play the game) is it a good rule?
I do agree that deck variety at a given table should be encouraged by the rules, but I don't think the fear of punishment for bringing a star vampire deck to a table provided by the Contest rules does a good job of encouraging that sort of diversity.
I'm 100% against the proposed change to enable contested vampire to play, but I do agree that the random chance of lose +-10 pool just ruins some games.
I did a suggestion about how we could handle it in another way here: www.vekn.net/forum/generic-v-tes-discussion/78628-suggestion-another-option-to-handle-constest
Archbishop of Itaocara
Prince ID #510
Claiming that new players need this proposed rule since they have access to merely a very limited card pool does not hold water.
Most new players tend to receive additional cards from old timers.
Most new players tend to cruise around to the interwebs and make a little shopping spree for single cards from one of the many vendors there offering basically everything for this game. Usually also with pretty darn cheap prices.
Finnish Politics!
> Lönkka wrote:
> Claiming that new players need this proposed rule since they have access to merely a very limited card pool does not hold water.
>
> Most new players tend to receive additional cards from old timers.
>
> Most new players tend to cruise around to the interwebs and make a little shopping spree for single cards from one of the many vendors there offering basically everything for this game. Usually also with pretty darn cheap prices.
>
Basing rules decisions on this assessment is just fundemtly wrong. You can't assume that people will do anything.
> Tadori wrote:
>
> > Lönkka wrote:
> > Claiming that new players need this proposed rule since they have access to merely a very limited card pool does not hold water.
> >
> > Most new players tend to receive additional cards from old timers.
> >
> > Most new players tend to cruise around to the interwebs and make a little shopping spree for single cards from one of the many vendors there offering basically everything for this game. Usually also with pretty darn cheap prices.
> >
> Basing rules decisions on this assessment is just fundemtly wrong. You can't assume that people will do anything.
>
Based in your response, you cant base rules assuming that people will make:
Decks with the same vampire.
Decks with just one vampire.
Contest.
Play only with the v5 decks
Play only with BC decks
Play only with other first timers that dont have cards besides BC decks.
Archbishop of Itaocara
Prince ID #510
> Sambomb wrote:
>
> > Tadori wrote:
> >
> > > Lönkka wrote:
> > > Claiming that new players need this proposed rule since they have access to merely a very limited card pool does not hold water.
> > >
> > > Most new players tend to receive additional cards from old timers.
> > >
> > > Most new players tend to cruise around to the interwebs and make a little shopping spree for single cards from one of the many vendors there offering basically everything for this game. Usually also with pretty darn cheap prices.
> > >
> > >
> > Basing rules decisions on this assessment is just fundemtly wrong. You can't assume that people will do anything.
> >
> Based in your response, you cant base rules assuming that people will make:
> Decks with the same vampire.
> Decks with just one vampire.
> Contest.
> Play only with the v5 decks
> Play only with BC decks
> Play only with other first timers that dont have cards besides BC decks.
>
I was not clear, I was saying that people will not do anything outside buy and use your product as it was presented to them by its creator.
when you are making a product you have to prepare it the way that will deliver in all of this cases, you can't assume people will go to second hand market or to receive a help from someone. Your product has to take all this cases into consideration without outside factors. It already has to have a solution.
So basing a solution on that people will do something else then buy and play is wrong from design point of view
You can't assume, but people WILL.
Because they're people.
Want to make darn sure that people do so, forbid them from buying 2nd hand cards...
Finnish Politics!
> Lönkka wrote:
> You can't assume, but people WILL.
>
> Because they're people.
> Want to make darn sure that people do so, forbid them from buying 2nd hand cards...
>
OFC most of them will(I know people that will not, because they don't like online trading),but as a designer you can't take this in consideration. You have to prepare solution that will work even if they don't do it.
As a designer you can't say there is a 2H market so we can ignore this issue.
> Tadori wrote:
> I was not clear, I was saying that people will not do anything outside buy and use your product as it was presented to them by its creator.
>
> when you are making a product you have to prepare it the way that will deliver in all of this cases, you can't assume people will go to second hand market or to receive a help from someone. Your product has to take all this cases into consideration without outside factors. It already has to have a solution.
>
> So basing a solution on that people will do something else then buy and play is wrong from design point of view
>
I got it, and thats the reason the v5 decks are sold in packs of 5 and the game is ruled to play by 4 or 5 players. So, if you take the kit you can just play, if you dont use the new decks you dont have enough decks to play a game, and you need more cards from another location to be able to play.
Archbishop of Itaocara
Prince ID #510