This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.
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By Orbin (James Monsebroten)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#557631
As new sets are developed, the 1E Playtesting team tests the cards. New factions are produced and the testers help to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, providing feedback to the design team. There are a lot of different factors that get looked at for any new faction (card plays, card draws, defence and offence capabilities, skill density, skill gaps, new mechanics, trek sense).

All of that being said, are there any specific things that influence your desire to play a new faction/deck type?
* Do you have mechanical requirements like minim card plays or seed-able card draw mechanics?
* Do you want a story heavy faction with flavourful of verbs (objectives, incidents, events, interrupts, doorways)?
* Do you want a new mechanic that is different than anything else out there?

- James M
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#557633
I crave -- crave -- novel mechanics that "feel" true to the story. Storytime Objectives are fine and all, but don't scratch that itch, even when they're good (NARRATOR: they usually aren't, and Design has realized it).

To interest me, a deck has to feel different from any other deck. If it's just "same old skill dots, brand new color, ooo this one's that actress I like and its 15-point bonus objective for doing some random task is from that episode I enjoyed," I don't care. In a new decktype, I should both experience challenges and wield powers that I've never encountered before (a lot of that may be in the deckbuilding stage)... and it should all make me feel like I'm playing Star Trek.

Examples of clear successes in this department:

[SF] MACO Training Camp / Military Assault Command Operations (a bit LEGO but they sure feel different from everything else!);

Remote Interference / Distant Control (winning the whole game without leaving your time location! neato!);

the entire [Bor] Borg affiliation, incl. TNG Borg (sure, it was a mistake because of the rules complexity, but Decipher's aim in creating something that felt very different was sound and successful)

From what I've seen, Living Witness Voyager, with the persona swap mechanic - fascinating.

Staging Ground;

no-hand [TE] [SF]

New Civilizations, by itself, is a decktype

Examples of failures in this department:

the entire [1E-TNG] Block. All of it: [1E-TNG] [Fed] [Kli] [Rom] [Fer] [NA] . (You build all their decks the same way and they play the same way -- just different colored borders. The block was successful in many ways but not in this way);

[Vid] Vidiians (all [1E-DQ] to some extent but Vidiians are the absolute worst blurry-faced blandness);

[OS] [Fed] (but they were designed as an intro faction so I understand that -- they're supposed to be boring. Mission accomplished!)

Cadets

[OS] [1E-Rom]

[22] [NA] -only

Obviously not all factions are designed to be loved by all players, and so we're bound to have our own individual hits and misses. And I know the vast quantity of blood, sweat, and tears that was poured into each and every card released in the past several years -- even the ones I didn't end up liking. You'll notice that pretty every designer involved in one of the factions on that list -- me included! -- has at least one hit and one miss. This stuff's hard!

...and now I've basically broadcast what I intend to play for the next six months, whoops. On the bright side, I'm excited to play those decks!
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#557638
I would like it if decks/affiliations/factions felt different. And that each affiliation had access to a mechanic or 5 that were unique to them that no one else had access to. Then there could be some overlap in some of the other mechanics but not something that ended up in all affiliations but rather 2 or 3. This way you would make it feel different enough that it was not just another coloured border on the cards in the deck.

More off the complexity needs to go down so that you do less on each turn. There should never be a moment where you have too many things to do during your turn and you can do more or less all of them. There should be a clear direction but not a paint-by-numbers to each deck/affiliation as it is now. There needs to be more variance/randomness in each game. The top deckning of what youdraw should be important.

So TL:DR
Each affiliation needs at least one unique mechanic that they are alone in having in the game.
Some mechanics can be shared amongst some affiliations but not a majority to create some cool overlaps/deck construction posibilities for treaty/no treaty decks as an example.
Deck building needs to be less complicatied so that I want to build a deck more often for an affilitaion. Right now it's too much complexity in most that just puts me off from interacting with that affiliation.
And there needs to be more decktypes than speed and armada and they need to have a clear rock-paper-sissor feel to them so that you have to take a gamble when deckbuilding.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#557654
I mentioned this in another thread, but to me the [Bor] were a large part of the reason I kept playing STCCG.

I started collecting with premier, found one local player, played with him thru AU and then he moved. I collected QC, but my passion wasn't in it as a player. Then FC came out. I was willing to drive 2 hours each way to play in tournaments, because I enjoyed the Borg so much. And especially the assimilation overlays in EFC.


Were they over complicated? Sure. Could about 1/3rd of their special rules have not happened and it still been a.good affiliation - probably.

I could even argue that they probably should have been closer to other affiliations in regards to missions.


But playing them felt like playing the Borg, and I loved it. When the Borg came out in 2E I tried it again, but the love wasn't there. They felt too much like another affiliation pretending to be Borg. (To me). The idea that assimilating personnel was the same as brainwashing them or mind control, where nothing changed about the personnel... made sense from a gameplay perspective, but not what I wanted.


To me, the three biggest successes in 1E were [Bor] [Dom] [1E-Fer] , and to a lesser extend early DS9/DOM [Car] . Each of them felt different from all the rest, and felt "right".



I think ideally each affiliation should have:

- some unique flavor thing, even if mechanically the same as the rest
- Some mechanics that they are either unique in, or best in with another 1-2 affiliations being secondary.

- Borg were the Borg
- Dominion started in the GQ, had to come to the AQ, and had the KW to deal with.
- ferengi had rules and Latium
- Cardassians had Nors and capturing (both good examples of mechanics that overlapped with other affiliations but the Cardassians were best at.)
Last edited by boromirofborg on Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#557705
For some affiliations, I could actually already enjoy this in the past: [Down]
BCSWowbagger wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 12:44 amIf it's just "same old skill dots, brand new color, ooo this one's that actress I like and its 15-point bonus objective for doing some random task is from that episode I enjoyed"
Over the last 5 years I became more picky, and now I'd generally say this: [Down]
Orbin wrote: * Do you want a story heavy faction with flavourful of verbs (objectives, incidents, events, interrupts, doorways)?
Yes.

@boromirofborg explains quite well why I love [1E-Fer] and [Bor] . :thumbsup:
I learned to love the capitalistic critters in the series only after (i.e., because) I started appreciating their [Rule] mechanics, and their funny ways to earn GPL in this game.
 
By phaserihardlyknowher (Ben Daeuber)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#557771
1. Speed. I'm not necessarily into 4 and 5 turn games, but waiting around for people to report is boring. This encompasses card draw, reporting and moving around.

2. Some flexibility. Related to above, but the ability to recover from a disaster. I might not win, but I don't want to spend the rest of the game watching my opponent play.

3. Funness. I agree with James that novelty is fun, I liked playing Maquis, for example, since it was something largely different than the "outpost-ship" model. But it's a difficult and weird line to walk for me. To offer a counterpoint, one of the reasons I liked the TOS block so much was that it was extremely straightforward. There were some fun special objectives (General Order 7, especially) that guided a strategy, but the bones of the game were more or less straightforward: report people, encounter dilemmas, solve missions. I suppose that can get boring, but it's the most fun I've had playing in years because it hit the right balance for me, which is not to say that's the right balance for everyone. I do see James's point that to balance the game, things can get sort of samey. Neither TOS Romulans nor Klingons really come close to comparing to TOS Fed unless you play it exactly like TOS Fed. Some of that could probably be solved by beefing up an objective, but again, it's not really that novel and would get stale after a while, but I really needed the reset that Cage provided.

I can certainly see the appeal of both, but I wouldn't call TOS Fed boring, just more like the "classic", pre-CC game.
EDIT:
Smiley wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 4:43 am And there needs to be more decktypes than speed and armada and they need to have a clear rock-paper-sissor feel to them so that you have to take a gamble when deckbuilding.
I had a whole thing here about the pitfalls of non-symmetric games, but realized that was sort of tangential to the thread. I do however want to address this, since I really disagree. Part of the pitfall of novel mechanics is that balance is difficult (the Maquis were just not that good, for example), but it's the deck mismatch is a bigger possible problem for me. A deck needs to cover its weaknesses, but I have little tolerance for spending an hour not being able to play since someone had a specific deck type that perfectly counters mine. I might lose, but i want to play.
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#557922
Why would you not be able to play?
Even if I had a perfect deck against yours I still had to play it to win against you. So you for sure would play but I would with a high probability come up on top in the end as my deck was designed to be the shoe in the machinery.
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