Discuss all of your questions, concerns, comments and ideas about Second Edition.

Which era was better?

The Process (sets 40-49)
5
33%
Fanboy Design (sets 50+)
10
67%
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#592188
monty42 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:53 pm
As far as spending real money, I spent good money travelling to the 1st 5SV (Lower Decks) disaster as well as to the Casualties/TEOME dumpster fire. And yes, I hated every second of playing against that garbage. Yet, I still stand by my previous statements.
Fair enough. You put your money where your mouth is. I respect that.
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By GooeyChewie (Nathan Miracle)
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#592189
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:27 pm And take Sacrifice of Angels. That set gave us a whole new toy box full of battle stuff that opened up some doors, but is hardly running rampant.
Life-Changing Encounter was until it got nerfed. And while there is some good stuff in that expansion, there's also quite a bit of stuff that saw little to no play at all.
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:27 pmQuestion though: would you still hold that "broken is good" take if you had paid real money to go to either of the last two Worlds and had to face the brokenness?
It's not a matter of "broken is good." It's a matter of not assuming everything that's halfway decent in playtesting is broken. Sometimes that mentality allows overpowered cards through, but it also stops cards from being pre-emptively gutted. Meanwhile, overpowered cards get through regardless. The two Worlds before the last two had The Enemy/Casualties and TR-116 as their "brokeness."


Side note, I still haven't gotten an explanation of what the term "Fanboy Design" actually means. Until I do, I will be referring to expansions 40-49 as the "Corbett Fanboy" era.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#592267
GooeyChewie wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:59 pm
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:27 pm And take Sacrifice of Angels. That set gave us a whole new toy box full of battle stuff that opened up some doors, but is hardly running rampant.
Life-Changing Encounter was until it got nerfed. And while there is some good stuff in that expansion, there's also quite a bit of stuff that saw little to no play at all.
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:27 pmQuestion though: would you still hold that "broken is good" take if you had paid real money to go to either of the last two Worlds and had to face the brokenness?
It's not a matter of "broken is good." It's a matter of not assuming everything that's halfway decent in playtesting is broken. Sometimes that mentality allows overpowered cards through, but it also stops cards from being pre-emptively gutted. Meanwhile, overpowered cards get through regardless. The two Worlds before the last two had The Enemy/Casualties and TR-116 as their "brokeness."


Side note, I still haven't gotten an explanation of what the term "Fanboy Design" actually means. Until I do, I will be referring to expansions 40-49 as the "Corbett Fanboy" era.
That's cute, Nathan. You do realize your name is on 40% of the "Corbett Fanboy" era sets, right? Does that make you his biggest fanboy?

But I'll answer the question.

To summarize it in one sentence: The Process era model was to make cards based on what the game needed, while the Fanboy Design model is to make cards that the Designers want to make regardless of what the game needs.

This is exemplified by @tjark's statement during a past PoR of "I let the Designers choose what they want to Design " ... and the result is 2 sets of DS9/Dominion broken story mode cards, a set of broken Voyager boosters that nobody asked for, and a set based on what the community wanted to see that made nobody happy because (ironically) the cards weren't as broken as the community wanted them to be.

That's not to say there isn't room for designing cards in unexplored design space, as otherwise the game would never expand, but when you're giving major boosts to affiliations that don't need it while ignoring affiliations that do, simply because that's the affiliation you want to Design for, the result is a less balanced, less fun game.

And this is why when I hear Tjark say something like 'we're designing Vidiians in the next year and are looking to add additional affiliations beyond that in the future" I get nervous. Not because there isn't room for Vidiians, etc. in the game, but because they aren't being designed with a game need in mind so much as a "we're going to do this to do this" attitude.
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By pfti (Jon Carter)
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2E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#592272
So this is a 2e player that plays okay and cant build a deck for shit, so I am sure I am missing good cards.
I went set by set and gave basic impressions (below)

Based on what I have seed, the real world meta impacts of the 40's was trying to create new ways to play and a KCA generic solver
50's is new speed solvers (fed and dom mainly) and a some good dilemmas.

I think I lean 40s for the weird/interaction stuff (THe rifle, Shocktroops, Racist starfleet) because I havent found anything in the 50s that really makes me want to pull something new or weird out.
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By Danny (Daniel Giddings)
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2E British National Runner-Up 2021
#592279
Armus wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:31 amTo summarize it in one sentence: The Process era model was to make cards based on what the game needed...

Having worked on sets during The Process, that's not my recollection of events. My recollection is: folk pitched ideas for a set, and John picked the ones he liked.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#592281
Danny wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 12:04 pm
Armus wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:31 amTo summarize it in one sentence: The Process era model was to make cards based on what the game needed...

Having worked on sets during The Process, that's not my recollection of events. My recollection is: folk pitched ideas for a set, and John picked the ones he liked.
Sure, but wasn't the guidance to pitch ideas for addressing what the game needed? I seem to recall things like affiliation power rankings informing what John decided that, to use your term, "he liked"...
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By Danny (Daniel Giddings)
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#592287
Armus wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 12:14 pmSure, but wasn't the guidance to pitch ideas for addressing what the game needed? I seem to recall things like affiliation power rankings informing what John decided that, to use your term, "he liked"...

Not really - the initial pitch guidance was "People can pitch whatever ideas they have".

Some of the ideas pitched for one of the first sets included "5 span missions, 20 point missions, Hirogen, Past Vulcans, Son'a".

The particular thread this came from included John saying "Thanksgiving week I'm going to narrow the pitches down. Then Christmas week I'll make selections."

Two sets of cards were then made, and folk (testers, I think) were asked to vote. The final set was then made up of 2/3 cards from the winning set, and 1/3 from the other, and the final set put together by the folk who contributed the cards from the 2/3 set.

That's "The Process" (at least, that's my recollection of it - in the event I've misremembered, I apologise and am happy to be corrected on the incorrect point/s).

Given this, I think Nathan's "Corbett Fanboy" name doesn't fall too far from the mark.
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By GooeyChewie (Nathan Miracle)
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
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#592294
Armus wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:31 am That's cute, Nathan. You do realize your name is on 40% of the "Corbett Fanboy" era sets, right? Does that make you his biggest fanboy?
To clarify, I do not mean “fanboy of Corbett.” I mean “same as ‘Fanboy Design,’ except with Corbett associated with it.” Based on your definition of “Fanboy Design,” I stand by that stance. As others have correctly pointed out, “The Process” had nothing to do with creating cards the game “needs.” The only expansion in 40-49 with that focus was Warp Pack: Access Denied (with the thought that the game needed more event/interrupt counters), and that expansion was not created via “The Process.”

Having worked in both “eras,” I can tell you that they aren’t as different as you seem to think. And even if I prefer one slightly more than the other, it’s not by a whole lot.
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By pfti (Jon Carter)
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#592296
This debate has become stupid. Can we talk about what is good or bad in different sets. Maybe offer visions to design going forward, rather than worrying about labels and our feelings about the designers attached.
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By The Prefect (Michael Shea)
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#592300
pfti wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:27 pm This debate has become stupid. Can we talk about what is good or bad in different sets. Maybe offer visions to design going forward, rather than worrying about labels and our feelings about the designers attached.
It would be more accurate to say, "this push-poll was based a faulty premise" and prolongued resistence to subsequent efforts to combat the implicit narrative with factual information has led to a stupid argument.

But, I agree. A discussion on the merits of individual sets would be much more worthwhile. Sadly, this push-poll, based on uninformed, overly broad generalizations, does not seem to have been designed to provoke such a discussion.
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By monty42 (Benjamin Liebich)
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#592301
pfti wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:27 pm This debate has become stupid. Can we talk about what is good or bad in different sets. Maybe offer visions to design going forward, rather than worrying about labels and our feelings about the designers attached.
I would suggest to open a new topic to do that because this was never gonna be the place where that was gonna happen. :twocents:
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#592314
The Prefect wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:47 pm But, I agree. A discussion on the merits of individual sets would be much more worthwhile.
monty42 wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 3:00 pm I would suggest to open a new topic to do that because this was never gonna be the place where that was gonna happen. :twocents:
Very well. Ask and you shall receive.

No bias, just a table set for discussion. Have at it.
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By The Prefect (Michael Shea)
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
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2E Sector 001 Regional Champion 2023
#592340
Armus wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:31 amTo summarize it in one sentence: The Process era model was to make cards based on what the game needed...
Designers are always trying to give the players things they want and give the game cards it needs. But what the game needs is usually not a matter of objective truth - ask three different designers what the game needs and you'll often get four different answers.

I worked as a designer on sets 41, 43, 44, 47, and 49. I also designed on sets 50, 52, 53, and 55 (I don't count my artistic work on sets 54 or 59 for this discussion because those sets contained no new cards). I think this experience working in both the 40s and 50s gives me a pretty good perspective on similarities and differences between the two sets that followed "The Process" and the rest. I also worked on both of the only two sets to follow "The Process."

"The Process"
  • A pre-determined set-cap of 27 cards was established.
  • Designers made pitches for themes with a few accompanying rough card ideas that could be executed in 27 cards (see below).
  • John picked the themes he liked and asked for two teams of designers to work on them.
  • Each team came up with a submission of 27 cards. Each team's work was reviewed and playtested.
  • Based partially on testing data and partially on personal evaluation, John picked the "winning" submission. That team would get 18 of their cards into the final set of 27.
  • John picked 9 of the "runner-up" team's 27 cards to include in the remaining slots.
  • He asked for feedback from both teams before making his decision on what cards to cut from each submission.
Only the The Nth Degree and Symbiosis followed every aspect of that list.

For all the other sets in the 40s and 50s, designers made pitches and the design director picked which he liked. There were no A and B teams competing, except for Shattered Mirror, which exceeded the 27-card cap (that cap wouldn't be imposed again until sets 51 and 52). There were no pre-determined set caps, except for Warp Pack: Access Denied, which was supposed to be the first in a series of 9-card sets, none of the rest of which got developed, but that set did not have competing teams.

So, essentially, when you say you're comparing sets that followed "The Process" with all other sets, you're really comparing two sets to eighteen sets, not ten to ten.
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By The Prefect (Michael Shea)
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2E Sector 001 Regional Champion 2023
#592343
I actually enjoyed working in both the 40s and 50s. Both had their pros and cons.

40s Process Pros
  • 27-card caps encouraged simple themes and tight design.
  • Competing teams of designers gave extra incentive for us to be on our "A Game".
  • John took a mostly hands-off approach to management, giving us a lot of freedom.
40s Process Cons
  • Pre-determined, arbitrary caps for non-boutique sets, especially a strict 27-card-cap, limit what designers can accomplish in a set (which is why even John scrapped that idea).
  • Competiton between designers within capped sets did lead to good cards getting cut for no reason other than they come after the 27th slot, which was frustrating.
  • The cut process meant Creative and Rules really couldn't do most of their work until fairly late in the pipeline, which meant sets took longer to produce.
40s and 50s non-Process Pros
  • Absence of set caps (except for 51 and 52) freed designers to explore larger, more complex themes.
  • Not having to compete reduced designer frustration.
  • Decisions to cut cards was driven entirely (or at least mostly) by testing data and/or designer feedback.
40s and 50s non-Process Cons
  • Design directors sometimes take too much of a hands-on approach, dictating ideas to designers rather than allowing designers to pitch.
  • Not having competing teams, set-caps, or boundaries against director involvement can make it easier for "pet projects" to get made (that's not always bad, but it is more risky).
  • Larger sets can lead to more waste.
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