[DISCO Rox No More]

You're imagining rules/cards that add mission-stealing for the sake of adding mission-stealing, rather than adding mission-stealing for the sake of creating interesting, tense, interactive games (i.e., the kind of games that Boromir was talking about).

It's the same mentality that took a terrible errata'ed Q off the banlist. It was altered in a manner that was for the sake of taking it off the banlist, rather than in a manner that made it fun or captured the essence of the original.

In other words, if you're not going to do it right, then don't bother.

The NPEs -- which absolutely HAVE to be addressed -- are:

I don't know what you mean by "NPE," but it sounds like you mean "anything the opponent won't like having done to them" or "playing in a way that isn't rigidly expected by the opponent."

Which, of course, includes "winning the game." Did you want to "address" that, too?

-Swooping in and stealing a mission at the last minute after you cleared out all the dilemmas

How do you define "at the last minute?"

If you throw an away team at a mission and clear the dilemmas, but can't solve it, then whose fault is that?

Yours, for making a bad decision (you didn't throw the right away team at it, probably wasn't big enough and you attempted too early, instead of holding off and waiting for more backup away team members before proceeding). And you should rightly expect to be punished for making a strategically bad choice because you were too greedy and tried to get points too fast, especially if you're going up against a mission-stealing deck that is well-telegraphed.

-Players facing their own, known dilemma combos

What?

The major strategic advantage of setting up your deck to mission-steal is because you have some idea of what it is you're facing with respect to dilemmas. That's the upside for the sake of the downsides (having to have a deck so flexible it can tackle any mission it might see an opponent seed, having to venture into opponent's territory which opponent might fiercely defend, etc.).

Adding a bunch of dilemmas to the mission mid-game defeats the entire purpose, and makes mission-stealing a non-starter for strategic purposes.

And, as been pointed out several times now, you are free to seed dilemmas under your own missions. If I'm stealing your missions and not facing your dilemmas, that's a result of your decision, not mine, and you don't need a "dilemma-swapper" card to enable you to force me to face your dilemmas.

-Stealing multiple missions can lead to a lockout (a stolen mission isn't just worth points for your opponent, it also takes away one from you)

I don't understand how this could be a problem. If I've stolen enough of your missions such that you can't complete enough missions to win the game, then chances are I've already completed enough missions to win the game and it's already over.

It's no more a "lockout" than if I get 100 points off of my own missions.

If these can be avoided, then we can open up some dynamic gameplay and interaction without abuse.

Winning the game and making strategically sound choices, especially in the face of strategically unsound choices on the part of my opponent, isn't "abuse."

[MidnightLich]

It's the same mentality that took a terrible errata'ed Q off the banlist. It was altered in a manner that was for the sake of taking it off the banlist, rather than in a manner that made it fun or captured the essence of the original.

In other words, if you're not going to do it right, then don't bother.

This is factually incorrect. We took another shot at Q because the original errata was wildly unpopular. The fact it was made to be related was a happy coincidence. Fun is subjective, and the original was very problematic.

I appreciate that you don't like this change, I encourage you not to equate opinion with fact.

-crp

[Rachmaninoff]

I don't know what you mean by "NPE," but it sounds like you mean "anything the opponent won't like having done to them" or "playing in a way that isn't rigidly expected by the opponent."

What I mean by "NPE" is "something that makes a player not want to play the game," and my list is of reasons people have given why they feel mission stealing is unfair. Yes, this is 100% subjective. We all play the game for different reasons, and we all have the right to express what parts of the game make us happy, frustrated, or anything else. In every thread where the topic is broached, a significant number of players have very negative reactions to anything making it easier to steal missions. In some threads this goes as far as threatening to quit the game. Regardless of whether I personally feel those things are unfair, there are enough who do (and the player base is small enough) that we can't afford to alienate them.

Telling someone they shouldn't feel the way that do about mission stealing (or many other things, for that matter) is unlikely to be helpful or productive. Given the number of people who have expressed such ideas, over many years, I take that reaction as genuine. My goals are to (1) understand *why* they feel that way, and (2) see if there are ways to accomodate that while expanding gameplay in this direction.

Note that I personally don't consider many of those things that bad. I've taken my share of losses to mission theft decks over the years, but never considered them unfair. Yet many players do, and their perspectives matter too. If I were dictator of the game and designing it for people exactly like me, I'd have proposed something entirely different, and probably more akin to the ideas you're suggesting here. But I'm not, and my goal was to propose ideas that would make even those adamantly against mission-stealing to think "hm, actually that might not be so bad. Maybe there *is* something worth looking at here." I probably did not succeed -- again, I never found it that much of an NPE in the first place, so I am really not the right person to be doing this -- but that was my aim.

[Hoss-Drone]

I find these ideas at least interesting and potentially even playtesting worthy.

"It might be an NPE" cannot be the reason something is not explored. Mission stealing got nerfed bc of the reason a lot of things get nerfed/banned : it gave too much benefit for the investment. If design and rules can balance it, it should be allowed to be expanded/expounded upon.

My personal opinion: that can be accomplished with a blanket rule of no mission stealing, then a dedicated suite of cards that allow it back in under controlled, cost/benefit conditions.

Constructed Gravitational Singularity

Seeds on table. All missions now show a printed value of 30 points. Once per game, each player may select an opponents mission that they may attempt and complete.

[MidnightLich]

My personal opinion: that can be accomplished with a blanket rule of no mission stealing, then a dedicated suite of cards that allow it back in under controlled, cost/benefit conditions.

This has always been my take on this as well. And I don't want to add it back in "just because," either. I'm pretty sure that some day, we'll figure out a way to work on this and get something in front of testers. Especially if we can make it very thematic and flavorful for a small subset of the game's affiliations.

-crp

[Armus]

What if mission stealing got you the points but not the mission?

I steal your 35 point mission, I score 35 mission points, but the mission isn't "solved" and now you have a wide open mission to go solve and no dilemmas in the way.

This is probably best done with a card and not a rule change, but it would both take some of the sting out of having your mission "stolen" AND introduce another level of strategic complexity.

I dunno, just a thought...

[JeBuS]

@Armus kind of matches the rules with Borg, too, where both players can score points for the mission.

[DISCO Rox No More]

This is factually incorrect.

No, it's not factually incorrect. But thanks for trying!

Time for a history lesson:

Q was a dilemma that (when passed with enough requirements) wiped out all the dilemmas that followed it and (when failed) allowed the spaceline to be completely re-arranged. (You can see that on the card's website by clicking "See the original image here").

That was deemed to be too powerful (especially the first function, deemed "Q-Bypass"), so it was hard-banned (after Decipher all-but soft-banned it with Writ of Accountability).

Then it was errata'ed to become just a blanket wall, with no other consequences. In fact, if memory serves, it actually gets discarded once it's encountered, even if the away team fails to pass it, so it's not even a proper wall. (You can't actually see that version on the website, because it's been disappeared, but it had been there for years)

That was "altering in a manner that was for the sake of taking it off the banlist, rather than in a manner that made it fun or captured the essence of the original." It wasn't fun, nor did it capture the essence of the original; hence, the errata was purely for the function of making it not overpowered from a game balance perspective (though of course, no one played it, because it was completely defanged, essentially underpowering it).

We took another shot at Q because the original errata was wildly unpopular.

The fact that they "had to take another shot" at Q because it was wildly unpopular is proving the point of my example.

The fact it was made to be related was a happy coincidence. Fun is subjective

I don't know what this has to do with anything.

and the original was very problematic.

Then why the hell are you arguing with my example?

I appreciate that you don't like this change, I encourage you not to equate opinion with fact.

I encourage you to first read and understand what the hell people are talking about before you start accusing people of "equating opinion with fact."

[MidnightLich]

@DISCO Rox No More

I had assumed that you were talking about the most recent Q errata and not the one from around 2011. I was aware of that errata (obviously) but didn't consider you were referring to that one. My fault for assuming, that's on me.

-crp

[stressedoutatumc]

No offense, but this is a terrible idea, IMO. The reason mission stealing was effectively killed off in this game is because there is no way to effectively balance it because like other broken mechanics, it completely subverts the main interaction of the game itself...encountering your opponents dilemmas. It creates a boutique situation where the only way I can stop it is by planning very specific counters for the mechanic which is ridiculous justification for the existence of the mechanic. Why not just play the game instead of finding ways to work around it.

They may be terrible ideas, but all of them do force the stealing player to encounter their opponent's dilemmas, through different mechanisms: either swapping another pre-seeded combos, download-and-seed (even an opponent's dilemma, and repeatedly!), or seeding the mission from the beginning as if both players seeded it, which is already a possibility you have to be prepared for.

No doubt, but it doesn't address the fundamental flaw which is there should be no mission stealing unless a player is taking a reasonable and known risk. The "gotcha" nature of old mission stealing decks from the late 90's/early 00's were not a healthy mechanic. No more than forcing someone to attack you at Quarks and then having to deal with them downloading 100 cards. No more than the genesis device (which I have to guess is why Give me GENESIS! was made. Its not healthy for a game to cater to the lowest hanging fruit of the player base that would rather win any way they can vs win honorably. Just my opinion, but again id point out that anytime there was a cheese tactic (with the exception of the current ...which I hope they are talking about) they eventually built it out of the game. The cards you are proposing are predicated on the mission stealing rules changing, which they 100000000% should not, imo.

[stressedoutatumc]

So I’d submit that this whole discussion from all parties is moot. The modern game rejects mission stealing.

Huh.

Anastasia and Nilz Baris have been part of the modern game for more than twenty years now, but apparently that hasn't made your complaining about them any more "moot" in your eyes.

It's funny how every time your faulty logic gets called out in a thread, you're suddenly quick to try and shut down any further discussion by calling it pointless. Seems to be a pattern for you.

The team took the risk of throwing a pass

You take a risk by doubling down and putting all your dilemmas under my missions.

and most interceptions are the result of a mistake made during that action

Most mission stealing would be the result of a mistake made during your choices in the seed phase.

Whatever you say, Ensign Q.

[Armus]

#shotsfired

[Enabran]

Whatever you say, Ensign Q.

He may or he may not be Ensign Q - but it is strange that DISCO Rox No More only writes here, when Ensign Q disappeared.
And it is strange that DISCO Rox No More writes like a old time Tournament Veteran but do not have a single tournament in his record.

[BCSWowbagger]

I will say that (as someone with the power to check) Ensign Q and Discovery Rox No More post from very different networks with very different IP addresses.

EDIT: Also, as long as I'm clearing the air of sockpuppetry accusations against EnsignQ, I may as well add: VulcanHello is definitely not EnsignQ. VulcanHello probably is a sockpuppet (I won't say whose), but EnsignQ ain't the operator.

As far as I can see, EnsignQ is (like David Pumpkins) his own thing.

[Armus]

I will say that (as someone with the power to check) Ensign Q and Discovery Rox No More post from very different networks with very different IP addresses.

EDIT: Also, as long as I'm clearing the air of sockpuppetry accusations against EnsignQ, I may as well add: VulcanHello is definitely not EnsignQ. VulcanHello probably is a sockpuppet (I won't say whose), but EnsignQ ain't the operator.

As far as I can see, EnsignQ is (like David Pumpkins) his own thing.

sockpuppet hahahah

time for a brand new tin foil hat

It all makes sense now...

@VulcanHello is really just @MidnightLich when he wants to tell the community how he really feels, but doesn't want to hurt the CC brand!

We're now one step closer to the ultimate reveal... @BCSWowbagger , in true Balok fashion, is really.... JOHN CORBETT!! @KillerB!!

IT'S ALL RIGHT THERE!! THE AVATAR! LOOK AT THE AVATAR!! IT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF US ALL THE WHOLE TIME!!


AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!



Hmmm... maybe this new green eco-friendly tinfoil isn't as strong as my old hat was. That's OK, I'm sure it'll be just fine regardless....

Sure, John, whatever you say...