[BeastNbrews]

hello, let me start by saying I have no in depth knowledge about where the past and present design team or leadership has wanted to take the game. I personally think from my point of view it seems pretty good, but I have no knowledge of the inner workings. I imagine that most people want this game to grow at a respectful pace for what it is. I understand we will always be in fear of paramount and the legal system. From reading some of these posts about people getting upset and not wanting to help the game continue or people having different ideas of where the game should go, I'd like to offer my extremely un informed opinions on how a game like this could grow so grab your pitchforks and get ready to skewer me!

1 - accessibility - I think the game is very good at this, its easy to make a list and print it off at basically no cost. So their it succeeds.
- sub category is online play in the current environment and from my understanding that is going pretty good. A TTS addon might help this but hey that's extra!

2 - freshness - and I mean new sets should almost always bring a bottom deck up, and maybe create a new deck.if I look back through sets release it doesnt seem like much diversity has appeared and that may be because the images aren't their which i understand.

3 - flavor - I think in a game like this the possibilities are endless, i would like to think we have the technology. Almost every set should come with a couple full art cards, its a little thing but so very powerful.

4 - brew-ability - new player should be able to brew up decks with almost any affiliate and not be laughed at. (Again I don't know if that's the case but it doesnt look like it in the sets I see.)

5 - frequency - I think most people would take less cards in sets of they knew that say every 4 months a small set was coming out to bring a lower class affiliate up.

Thanks for reading, again these are just some random thoughts I have had without any knowledge about how the inner workings of this space station operates.

[Nerdopolis Prime]

Thank you for taking time and writing this post. It is refreshing and something very positive.

I agree on many of your points, it was an excellent idea to share them with us.

[Gorgo Primus]

I don't quite understand what you mean by brew, but you'll be happy to learn there are no affiliations that will get you 'laughed at' for playing. Also to my mind there isn't really an entire 'lower class' affiliation that is desperately in need of help (some [sub-]sub-affiliations are underserved, but that's not that surprising given how many there are now).

[Naetor]

2e was always advertised as simpler alternative to 1e. But after 1000s of cards, and many that require a PhD in 2e to comprehend (including a bunch from the last set) I don't think that's true anymore. It's not new player friendly, even if community members are. Nostalgia will draw new people to 1e over 2e unless that distinction can be re-made.

[Gorgo Primus]

I don't think 2E is nearly as complicated as you're making it out to be. 1E on the other hand... I don't see anyone ever going to that if they somehow can't handle 2E (which is still simpler than even MTG - which people don't seem to have trouble with year after year).

[The Prefect]

I don't think 2E is nearly as complicated as you're making it out to be. 1E on the other hand... I don't see anyone ever going to that if they somehow can't handle 2E (which is still simpler than even MTG - which people don't seem to have trouble with year after year).

Agreed.

There has scarcely been a year since 2013 that the Atlanta playgroup hasn't added at least one new player who ends up being a regular or semi-regular event attendee for at least sometime thereafter. We sometimes get players that drive hours from Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida just to play in locals with us. That's because we try hard to make this game fun, and we treat each other as friends and fellow fans of the same phenomenon known as Star Trek.

Just last year, I advertised a Sealed Deck event at Dragon Con and drew 19 players for a local at a convention at which those people could have been doing any number of things with their time. That's not the indication of a game on the verge of death.

This game is in good shape.

Are things perfect? No. Never have been. Never will be.

Are there specific things that can be done better? Sure. Always have been. Always will be.

Should we try to do better where we can? Absolutely.

The politics of the last year - the in-fighting, the fragmentation of the player community, the constant negativity - does much more to harm the prospects of this game's survival than the release of a set with a few complex cards in it.

[BeastNbrews]

What I mean by brewing is say someone wanted to make an on theme new deck as a new player, the possibility needs to be there to make it tier 1.5 competitive. Now that can't happen over night. But if I look back in last few sets I don't see many borg cards printed, now maybe borg are super viable right now. But without new cards there is no brewing potential. It becomes solved.


I definitely don't think 2e is complicated at all at a game level, card choices become hard but that is good.

I'm mostly saying that if someone brand new looks back they should be able to see a new set for every affiliate.

[Nerdopolis Prime]

It's not new player friendly, even if community members are.

Wait, what???

Weren´t you one of those who preached new players were a myth?

Or did you change your mind now you´re running for the 2E Director position?

What I mean by brewing is say someone wanted to make an on theme new deck as a new player, the possibility needs to be there to make it tier 1.5 competitive.

Homebrews are always fun. I do that all the time. Guess thats why I don´t get into top positions regularly. But a Dominion home brew won me the nationals, so I´m fine with that. Never underestimate homebrews. You can always come up with something new and phantastic. So don´t give up if the first homebrews get crushed. Learn from mistakes, always keep your mind working, and most important of all ... enjoy the games.

[Naetor]

I think if you ask any new player to identify the distinction between your mission and this mission on italicized gametext in this new set, they will have no idea.

It's not new player friendly, even if community members are.

Wait, what???

Weren´t you one of those who preached new players were a myth?

Or did you change your mind now you´re running for the 2E Director position?

I think you are crossing too many streams of nerd-hate. An unnecessarily complex game isn't good for new or old players.

[Nerdopolis Prime]

Whatever naetor

Back to topic.
How many games have you already played?
Which decks were you playing against which affiliations?
And of course which cards did you use, decipher only, CC only or a mixture?

Cheers

[monty42]

It's not new player friendly, even if community members are.

Wait, what???

Weren´t you one of those who preached new players were a myth?

Or did you change your mind now you´re running for the 2E Director position?

[BeastNbrews]

Whatever naetor

Back to topic.
How many games have you already played?
Which decks were you playing against which affiliations?
And of course which cards did you use, decipher only, CC only or a mixture?

Cheers

I'm playing mostly with my friends at the moment, and I have not played more than a handful.

And if I look into the top decks their are lots of affliations their, now I dont know how many of those players are new players or relatively new players, i was mostly going by the last few sets i looked through didnt seem to have many different affiliations in them, which i think is a hard thing to balance as a game designer. As I put more time in my views might change, I am just reminded how mtg doesn't let things stay the same for to long. Great discussion going on!

[Naetor]

It's not new player friendly, even if community members are.

Wait, what???

Weren´t you one of those who preached new players were a myth?

Or did you change your mind now you´re running for the 2E Director position?

Haha! I say people are friendly, then get slapped in the face.

[Fritzinger]

Great topic and welcome!

If I understand you right, you’re saying that the excitement of a new set makes the new cards visible and inspires “brewing”, but the absence of cards for some affiliations in any given set makes you less likely to starting brewing for those affiliations? And also building decks with older cards (In order to work with the “missing” affiliations) is less exciting because the older cards have already been solved.

In which case, I hear ya, I had the same experience when I returned to 2e. I thought of cool combinations for reanimating integrity Bajorans, but everyone here just wanted to talk about treachery bajorans because they’d been stronger in the recent past.

OTOH community wisdom often misses strong things. People mostly ignored Common Cause and Common Purpose for a year before Ken Tufts put them into a deck that dominated standard for at least a year. And Ken was new to 2e at that stage.

But that's tier 1. As Gorgo says, there’s definitely a tier 1.5 deck out there for every affiliation. Do you have a favourite? Maybe we can get you started with some tips for relatively unexplored territory? These things can be quite subtle, like a space mission with 2 span, or a non unique personnel that has strength 7 instead of 6.

[BeastNbrews]

My statement was not necessarily my problem, ive done a fair bit mtg brewing so I can get the frameworks of decks together. I was just writing a few thoughts I had after reading a number of the posts about the 2e community not getting along or having a similar vision.

I think fundamentally in any format new players need to feel its not to overwhelming or secretive to brew, that also includes having some new cards every few sets to try out old brews or new brews. I think that is a key component to keeping a game fresh and helping new players out.



This has been a great convo!