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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#592158
Ross inspired me with his poll yesterday. Now that the 50s are over, we can take a macro view of Design under the last two administrations/regimes/call it what you will.

There was "The Process" era, led by John Corbett as Design Director. That era started with set 40 and ran through set 49. Just to list them, those sets included:

Zero Hour
The Nth Degree
Dead Stop
Symbiosis
Far Beyond the Stars
Warp Pack: Access Denied
Shattered Mirror
Q-Pid
A Less Perfect Union
and
Sacrifice of Angels

Contrast that with the "Fanboy Design" era, led by Nathan Miracle and Richard New that started with Set 50 and is still going today. Again, for reference, here is a list of those sets:

The Omega Directive
All Our Yesterdays
Apocalypse Rising
Shore Leave
Move Along Home
Heroes and Demons
Caretaker
Classification: Civilian
The Menagerie
Second Skin
and
Timeless

One set I wasn't sure where to put was Inheritance, as it was right on the line between the two eras. I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

So which era was better? I certainly have my opinions, but I'm interested in what the community thinks, especially as we head into PoR time.
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By GooeyChewie (Nathan Miracle)
 - Gamma Quadrant
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
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#592161
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 11:32 am There was "The Process" era, led by John Corbett as Design Director. That era started with set 40 and ran through set 49. Just to list them, those sets included:
I wasn't going to bring it up on the poll, but I will here. Calling sets 40 thru 49 the "The Process" era is a misnomer. "The Process" was only actually used on three expansions: The Nth Degree, Symbiosis and Shattered Mirror.
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 11:32 amContrast that with the "Fanboy Design" era, led by Nathan Miracle and Richard New that started with Set 50 and is still going today. Again, for reference, here is a list of those sets:
I'm not sure where the term "Fanboy Design" comes from, or what it is supposed to mean?
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#592173
I’ll give a shot at trying to state it in as neutral manner possible:

I suspect it refers to the story-driven sets of the era (exemplified by Apocalypse Rising and Heroes and Demons) that resulted in decks that, while perhaps balanced against each other, were either over or underpowered when combined with cards from earlier sets. The term itself is from the 2022 World Champion winning 5SV build, which ironically, as I said in the other thread, I found Caretaker to be one of the highest quality sets of the era.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#592174
abargar7510 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:29 pm I’ll give a shot at trying to state it in as neutral manner possible:

I suspect it refers to the story-driven sets of the era (exemplified by Apocalypse Rising and Heroes and Demons) that resulted in decks that, while perhaps balanced against each other, were either over or underpowered when combined with cards from earlier sets. The term itself is from the 2022 World Champion winning 5SV build, which ironically, as I said in the other thread, I found Caretaker to be one of the highest quality sets of the era.
You know that deck won Worlds by leveraging the overpowered Voyager cards in Caretaker, right?
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#592175
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:31 pm
abargar7510 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:29 pm I’ll give a shot at trying to state it in as neutral manner possible:

I suspect it refers to the story-driven sets of the era (exemplified by Apocalypse Rising and Heroes and Demons) that resulted in decks that, while perhaps balanced against each other, were either over or underpowered when combined with cards from earlier sets. The term itself is from the 2022 World Champion winning 5SV build, which ironically, as I said in the other thread, I found Caretaker to be one of the highest quality sets of the era.
You know that deck won Worlds by leveraging the overpowered Voyager cards in Caretaker, right?
I think the verdict is still out on the one errata that has been issued so far. As opposed to the 4 or 5 or whatever that were needed after NeuNeuDominion. If further is needed/to more cards... maybe that changes things.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#592176
abargar7510 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:40 pm
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:31 pm
abargar7510 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:29 pm I’ll give a shot at trying to state it in as neutral manner possible:

I suspect it refers to the story-driven sets of the era (exemplified by Apocalypse Rising and Heroes and Demons) that resulted in decks that, while perhaps balanced against each other, were either over or underpowered when combined with cards from earlier sets. The term itself is from the 2022 World Champion winning 5SV build, which ironically, as I said in the other thread, I found Caretaker to be one of the highest quality sets of the era.
You know that deck won Worlds by leveraging the overpowered Voyager cards in Caretaker, right?
I think the verdict is still out on the one errata that has been issued so far. As opposed to the 4 or 5 or whatever that came out after NeuNeuDominion. If further is needed/to more cards... maybe that changes things.
All that errata did was move the super-jump-start (which Voyager hardly needed to begin with) from Turn 1 to Turn 2. If you didn't bring A5A or the Ritual Mission, you're still fucked against it (but at least you don't lose *despite* bringing the ritual mission if you lose the coin toss, so there's that I guess).

Free Riker should never have been made. As if Tolian and Ezri weren't enough already...

Put too much grease on the track and you create a very slippery slope indeed...
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#592179
monty42 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:59 pm Honestly, I hate 5SV as much as anybody but to be fair, it's not like there haven't been cards that fucked everyone over and caused overpowered decks in the 40s.
:twocents:
This is true. But it's true of every era.

If we want to look at the broken cards factor, aside from the two you mentioned, how many other Process era cards needed substantial re-work? TR-116 Rifle?

Compare to the Fanboy Era, where TNG, Dominion, AND Voyager had multiple cards that needed dumbing down.

Nobody's perfect, and I'm not looking to call out individual cards or Designers here (in fact, a lot of Designers worked in BOTH eras)... I'm just trying to take a step back and look at the big picture, because there's enough data points to actually do a reasonable evaluation of both eras.
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#592180
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:45 pm
abargar7510 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:40 pm
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:31 pm

You know that deck won Worlds by leveraging the overpowered Voyager cards in Caretaker, right?
I think the verdict is still out on the one errata that has been issued so far. As opposed to the 4 or 5 or whatever that came out after NeuNeuDominion. If further is needed/to more cards... maybe that changes things.
All that errata did was move the super-jump-start (which Voyager hardly needed to begin with) from Turn 1 to Turn 2. If you didn't bring A5A or the Ritual Mission, you're still fucked against it (but at least you don't lose *despite* bringing the ritual mission if you lose the coin toss, so there's that I guess).

Free Riker should never have been made. As if Tolian and Ezri weren't enough already...

Put too much grease on the track and you create a very slippery slope indeed...
I suspect the bigger impact is moving it from a 4-counter jumpstart to a 3-counter jumpstart in a build full of 2 and 4 cost personnel. But I'm not very good so who knows lol.
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By monty42 (Benjamin Liebich)
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
2E World Quarter-Finalist 2023
Chancellor
2E European Continental Runner-Up 2023
2E German National Champion 2022
#592183
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:07 pm Compare to the Fanboy Era, where TNG, Dominion, AND Voyager had multiple cards that needed dumbing down.
Some might call this a bug. I'd like to view it as a feature.
I very much like when design is pushing the boundaries of what's possible. With that comes the danger of occasionally overstepping a certain line.
For me it is much more important that errata is able to identify these occasions and act on them quicky. Not like back in the day when it took 3 years to put the hammer to Homeward Bound.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#592184
monty42 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:19 pm
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:07 pm Compare to the Fanboy Era, where TNG, Dominion, AND Voyager had multiple cards that needed dumbing down.
Some might call this a bug. I'd like to view it as a feature.
I very much like when design is pushing the boundaries of what's possible. With that comes the danger of occasionally overstepping a certain line.
For me it is much more important that errata is able to identify these occasions and act on them quicky. Not like back in the day when it took 3 years to put the hammer to Homeward Bound.
It's possible to push boundaries without making things too overpowered. This would be less of an issue if there were more playtesters, which there were during The Process era. I'd submit most of the broken stuff got caught and made less broken but still good. Hell, look at KCA as an example: Multiple deck types that can operate off of it, all of them strong, but nothing broken.

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.

Question 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?
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By Danny (Daniel Giddings)
 - Gamma Quadrant
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2E British National Runner-Up 2021
#592185
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:27 pmAnd 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.

Didn't SoA have a handful of cards errataed? Did that have something to do with the... mildness (opposite of rampant)?
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#592186
Danny wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:40 pm
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:27 pmAnd 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.

Didn't SoA have a handful of cards errataed? Did that have something to do with the... mildness (opposite of rampant)?
I don't remember the details, but looking at the set, there's 6 cards that have received errata.

Also, to be fair and balanced, Keevan was another card that broke stuff and had to be fixed from the Process era, mainly because Stefan Slaby (@Winner of Borg) is a mad scientist... :wink:
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By monty42 (Benjamin Liebich)
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2E World Quarter-Finalist 2023
Chancellor
2E European Continental Runner-Up 2023
2E German National Champion 2022
#592187
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:27 pm
monty42 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:19 pm
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:07 pm Compare to the Fanboy Era, where TNG, Dominion, AND Voyager had multiple cards that needed dumbing down.
Some might call this a bug. I'd like to view it as a feature.
I very much like when design is pushing the boundaries of what's possible. With that comes the danger of occasionally overstepping a certain line.
For me it is much more important that errata is able to identify these occasions and act on them quicky. Not like back in the day when it took 3 years to put the hammer to Homeward Bound.
It's possible to push boundaries without making things too overpowered. This would be less of an issue if there were more playtesters, which there were during The Process era. I'd submit most of the broken stuff got caught and made less broken but still good. Hell, look at KCA as an example: Multiple deck types that can operate off of it, all of them strong, but nothing broken.

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.

Question 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?
Funny that you would bring up Sacrifice of Angels because to me that set is the most glorious failiure of them all.
A whole expansion dedicated to promoting battle and yet hardly anybody is playing battle and the ones that do aren't even using cards from that set.
Granted it had a couple of good cards. Most importantly Code of the Ushaan. I also love Royale Casino: Craps. And then there's the card draw Interrupts.
But none of those have anything to do with battle.
So you are right, it is hardly running rampant. I would go as far as to say it is hardly running at all.

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.
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