This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.

Which strategies for changing the game's pace do you believe work?

Introduce a rotating card pool so the existing strong cards leave over time.
6
12%
Ban any cards that are "too good."
5
10%
Errata any cards that are "better than desired" to be more in line.
11
22%
Add new cards that promote the new rate of play.
14
29%
Add new cards that punish the old rates of play.
8
16%
Create a new format with harder rules on rate of play.
5
10%
User avatar
Director of First Edition
By MidnightLich (Charlie Plaine)
 - Director of First Edition
 -  
Prophet
#576738
Hello everyone!

Yesterday was my birthday, and the Nerd gods gave me a lot to appreciate! The Season 2 finale of Picard (awesome), the premiere of Strange New Worlds (no spoilers, I haven't seen it yet), and the new Doctor Strange move (again, no spoilers - not seeing it until Sunday.) But, it's Friday, and that means it's time for a new question for you and less blathering about me!

Over the game's lifespan, there have been a number of times that the pace of the game has evolved. When launched, you played one card each turn and drew one card each turn. Around the time of Deep Space Nine, it was more like play 2 and draw 2. Voyager through The Motion Pictures made it 4 or more plays and draws each turn. Eventually, the CC would work to address that and try and bring it down to play 3, draw 3. (Your mileage may vary on how successful we have been.)

Regardless of what you think of the game's pace now, or where you think it should be, changing it isn't an easy feat. Well, it's not too hard to make thing faster. But escalation like that quickly risks the game's framework. After all, going from the pace and quality of personnel in Premiere to that of Voyager did significant harm to the game. Slowing things down is even harder, because you have to either ban and errata card that are "too fast," rotate them out of the card pool, or create carrots to promote slower play and sticks to punish faster play. All have their advantages and their weaknesses.

I've given you a list of a few options in today's poll. They are to help you answer today's question: which approaches do you like when trying to adjust the game's pace? Check off any of them you think are a valid and sustainable approach to adjusting the game's pace. And then please take a moment to comment on your thoughts on the ideas, and any ideas we missed.

Have a great weekend. If you're celebrating Mother's Day in the US this Sunday, I hope it's a good one. Live long and prosper.

-crp
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By ShipNerd
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#576746
Play up to 3 (average personnel) or 2 high skill personal. draw up to 3. I did suggest that focus 2010.

Reduce downloads, especially download cards that have *many* possible targets (Assign Mission specialists, Pike downloads, Nor downloads, Life´s Simple pleassures etc.) Errata them. So that downloads are seldom and fast and promote smaller then larger decks.

Edit: And 3 plays should already include addtionals plays/draws by [DL]
Last edited by ShipNerd on Sat May 07, 2022 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#576753
ShipNerd wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 4:49 pm Play up to 3 (average personnel) or 2 high skill personal. draw up to 3. I did suggest that focus 2010.
If you shifted your scale to the number of [SD], what would that number be, do you think? I'm wondering if there's a balancing act that can be accomplished similar to Recruit Mercenaries. (Though, I'm not saying that -10 points is balanced for 7 [SD] ).
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#576777
I'll voted on a lot of things here. But I'll explain why. But first off a disclaimer: This as a datapoint will not be a as useful. Should probably have been a scale thing instead. To see where the forum active community stand in this.

Mostly why was that there is not really an easy answer to this problem. There is though a best approach according to multiple games and testing over time and more than one study on the matter.
Rotation


But what you probably have to do to be able to adjust game speed. Not just once but to make it more flexible and have it weave a little back and forth to make a game that is not stale and that feels a bit different over the years as well as reack according to what game flow each expansion should have.

So start by embracing the idea of a rotating card pool so the existing strong cards leave over time. From time to time you'll have to Ban any card that are "too good." This is just part of the game. Neither designer nor Testers will see all possible interactions and broken combos. We will of course have to errata any cards that are "better than desired" to be more in line need updating according to the latest rules and syntax. We of course have to Add new cards that promote the new rate of play. We are making new expansions and cards so this is inevitable.
We should also Add new cards that punish the old rates of play. This is to make it more interesting, I'm not talking about [Ref] or pure silver bullet cards but rather cards that make it interesting to have in your sideboard tent to bring forth when your opponent is trying things that have been done one too many times.
And of course, we should Create a new format with harder rules on rate of play. to make the game interesting to play and force players to have to be good at more than one way of playing with the cards.

I hope I'll see this soon as the game that we have today is so far removed from the game that I started playing and not that fun anymore. All luck of the draw has been removed, too much to keep track of, a board state that is insurmountable to remember, almost no randomness left, each game feels and plays the same and deckbuilding takes at least 2 weeks. And on top of this, trying to teach the game and get new players into it is just impossible as there are just too many better games and a totally different design state and meta out there to compete with.
User avatar
 
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#576782
Smiley wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 1:44 pm I'll voted on a lot of things here. But I'll explain why. But first off a disclaimer: This as a datapoint will not be a as useful. Should probably have been a scale thing instead. To see where the forum active community stand in this.

Mostly why was that there is not really an easy answer to this problem. There is though a best approach according to multiple games and testing over time and more than one study on the matter.
Rotation


But what you probably have to do to be able to adjust game speed. Not just once but to make it more flexible and have it weave a little back and forth to make a game that is not stale and that feels a bit different over the years as well as reack according to what game flow each expansion should have.

So start by embracing the idea of a rotating card pool so the existing strong cards leave over time. From time to time you'll have to Ban any card that are "too good." This is just part of the game. Neither designer nor Testers will see all possible interactions and broken combos. We will of course have to errata any cards that are "better than desired" to be more in line need updating according to the latest rules and syntax. We of course have to Add new cards that promote the new rate of play. We are making new expansions and cards so this is inevitable.
We should also Add new cards that punish the old rates of play. This is to make it more interesting, I'm not talking about [Ref] or pure silver bullet cards but rather cards that make it interesting to have in your sideboard tent to bring forth when your opponent is trying things that have been done one too many times.
And of course, we should Create a new format with harder rules on rate of play. to make the game interesting to play and force players to have to be good at more than one way of playing with the cards.

I hope I'll see this soon as the game that we have today is so far removed from the game that I started playing and not that fun anymore. All luck of the draw has been removed, too much to keep track of, a board state that is insurmountable to remember, almost no randomness left, each game feels and plays the same and deckbuilding takes at least 2 weeks. And on top of this, trying to teach the game and get new players into it is just impossible as there are just too many better games and a totally different design state and meta out there to compete with.
Other than the portion of the above where i added an underline, i disagree with all of it.

Those "better games" is totally subjective. I play MTG, and it utilizes all of the tools that you mention yet i think its a VASTLY INFERIOR game and I refuse to spend any money on it. I play arena b/c i'm ok with it at the free to play level.

Popular is subjective and even if you can get everyone to agree that something is popular does not mean its actually a good thing or better than an alternative. I could spend an hour writing out examples of things that are popular but only because people dont know about the alternatives.

MTG rotates card pools and pisses players off that they cant play their cards because everyone wants to only the play the new stuff, or the old stuff, or whatever. Rotation just fractures player bases and adds complexity. MTG adjusts the game speed...and pisses players off when its too fast or slow to their liking - some players love red deck wins and most people hate it because the game is over before they even get to play any of their "fun cards". IMHO a well designed game brackets the gameplay into "an overton window". MTG is incredibly luck of the draw dependant (particularly in the resource management department) and that alone is the reason I would NEVER advise anyone to spend money on it. When you cant really plan on executing your strategy, its not actually a strategy. Magic players just fool themselves into thinking they are playing a strategy when really they are just cobbling together a series of decisions and hoping it works 2 games out of 3. That is not the same as actual strategy. Strategy is I "will do x, y and z and we'll see how that interacts with my opponents". Magic is "i will hopefully draw enough resources to do x, we'll see if the luck of the draw lets me do either y or z .....hopefully, maybe, idk"

"All luck of the draw has been removed, too much to keep track of, a board state that is insurmountable to remember, almost no randomness left, each game feels and plays the same" - LOL WHUT?! Dude, get out whatever bubble you're in and start playing different players around the world man. My games against the MN guys, the PNW group, and my games against the europeans are nowhere near the same. Each group has vastly different meta's and the players go down vastly different decision trees and i've had a bunch of games decided by some very important random draws. But maybe thats the difference between us - i would rather have a game where a small amount of randomness decides a game thats close because of predictable player decisions, and you'd rather have a game where a small amount of player decision making wins a game that only got there by a bunch of randomness. *shrug*
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#576848
I worried that voting for ban/errata would be interpreted as a vote for aggressively giving errata to everything that pokes its head above the curve and that voting against ban/errata would be interpreted as a vote for no bans/errata to anything ever.

So I voted against it and decided to make this clarifying post: bans/erratas are sometimes the right tool! But ideally a ban is temporary and an errata is a last-resort solution.
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Moderator
#576852
Just going to chime in to say that I hate how everyone forgets that "errata" is plural; the proper singular form is "erratum".
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#576856
nobthehobbit wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 10:16 pm Just going to chime in to say that I hate how everyone forgets that "errata" is plural; the proper singular form is "erratum".
This is very true (because it's a second-declension neuter noun), but, whenever I try to make it stick, people in my real life call me a twerp, or whatever the 2022 equivalent of that is.

I still get it right (or try to, anyway!) in any formal writing for the homepage.

EDIT: It is a very legitimate pet peeve, and I respect you for having it.
User avatar
Director of First Edition
By MidnightLich (Charlie Plaine)
 - Director of First Edition
 -  
Prophet
#576874
nobthehobbit wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 10:16 pm Just going to chime in to say that I hate how everyone forgets that "errata" is plural; the proper singular form is "erratum".
BCSWowbagger wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 11:35 pm This is very true (because it's a second-declension neuter noun), but, whenever I try to make it stick, people in my real life call me a twerp, or whatever the 2022 equivalent of that is.

I still get it right (or try to, anyway!) in any formal writing for the homepage.

EDIT: It is a very legitimate pet peeve, and I respect you for having it.
The entire point of language is to facilitate communication. Language also evolves. So while what you say might be technically correct, as long as the message is conveyed to the intended recipients in a manner that they understand, I don't believe a word or phrase is ever functionally incorrect.

-crp
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#576875
It's just a good reminder that we should be doing changes two at a time.

Don't errat-um, errat-a!

:P

OK, serious comment - one angle to look at game pace through is net, rather than gross plays. Back in Ye Olde Days, it took 5-6 turns to get a crew together at one card per turn. Which meant any sort of mass kill cost you roughly that amount of time. In the modern 3-4 plays/turn, that means you can be up and running in two turns (less with more aggressive shenanigans). But have dilemmas been keeping up with the increased supply? We keep seeing more esoteric dilemma requirements, but that doesn't decrease the net number of cards on the board. Maybe we need to let ourselves be more aggressive with effects that remove cards from the board (kill, return to hand, whatevers), because we know decks can repopulate fast enough?
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By stressedoutatumc (stressedoutatumc)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#576876
I honestly think the pace of the game is good, for the most part. If there is anything I think should be adjusted is the ability to have a 2 mission win. I think when I read complaints of how "fast" the modern game is, I personally believe that the culprit is usually bonus points and dilemma skirters like Nilz Baris, Anastasia Komananov, and Kes. Yes there are counters, but it creates an arms race that affects how you build your deck. Id wager anyone who intends to be competitive in worlds is either using these hacks or has to build, specifically against them. This is not a good thing. I've made this argument before, and I'll keep making it. Other cards are banned because they are being misused, create NPE, or being overused for an unintended effect. These cards meet all those criteria. I think it would be good for pacing and the game overall if you had to finish 3-4 missions at least for the win.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#576885
STCCG is at a weird place when it comes to rotation.

Most of the problematic power cards are either in premere (which is 85% underpowered), or in the TWT-HA years.

So if you rotate based on what people would normally expect, of old sets rotating out, it would take several rotations before the power levels were addressed to begin with.
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By geraldkw
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#576931
boromirofborg wrote: Mon May 09, 2022 3:17 pm STCCG is at a weird place when it comes to rotation.

Most of the problematic power cards are either in premere (which is 85% underpowered), or in the TWT-HA years.

So if you rotate based on what people would normally expect, of old sets rotating out, it would take several rotations before the power levels were addressed to begin with.
I don't think chronological rotation would make sense for this game. I think rotation would basically need a base card pool established which would immediately rotate out quite a few cards. Some of those cards would rotate back in later, but how this is determined: I don't have a good answer.
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By geraldkw
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#576932
I'm not sure that any one of these will work in isolation. I feel like banning and errata would be part of the process. I kind of expected the balance team to throw out a few bans and errata for some of the more problematic play engines sooner rather than later. Maybe that is in progress. I know that making a change to a card that is the core of many decks needs to be done carefully to avoid making the card useless, or even accidentally making it better.

I also feel like card rotation might work but as I mentioned in another post it wouldn't be chronological "rotation" so it would be more accurate to describe this sort of thing as an alternate card pool or mass banning, both of which are pretty complex to execute.

If new cards are created to stabilize the game at it's current pace, I think those need to center around speeding up the affiliations, factions and engines that don't have any competitive deck builds.

I don't love the idea of cards that punish players for playing the available cards. This is basically creating a new series of [Ref] cards, and I think most people, myself included, don't want that.
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By WeAreBack
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#576934
Ever since I came back to the game, I have been wondering why there isn't some kind of card that works a little bit like New Arrivals but that uses the opponent's pace to set its own.
It would basically read like this:
"Seeds or plays on table. Each time your opponent plays an event, ship, or personnel for free, place a card from your hand of the same type face down on this card. You may play cards from her for free as if from your hand.
You may not play cards for free, except those placed face down on this card."

Not a silver bullet for the person playing it, obviously: you actually have to have the card in your hand when your opponent plays the card for free, so you might need something like Condition Red or General Order 7 to make it work in practice.

But the MERE EXISTENCE of this cared would make everyone is a little more reluctant to build a deck that involves seeding 4 cards to get free plays, because you're opening yourself up to an opponent seeding 29 dilemmas, one other card to piggyback on your free reports, and some kind of built in reporting location (a Mission II or something like Campting Trip).

The same thing could work for card draws.
"Seeds or plays on table. Each time your opponent take an action to draw cards that increases the number of cards in hand (other than a regular end of turn draw), place an equal number of cards from atop your draw deck face down on this card. When you draw a card at the end of your turn, you may take any number of cards from here into hand. You may not draw additional cards from cards you play or control. "
(Notice the wording doesn't allow draws for things like Recreation Room and also prevents you converting those to downloads and End Transmission monkey business.)

Suddenly, you would have people building decks that work fine at a play 1 draw 1 pace, but that can be sped up.

If two decks using cards like these against each other, they would play at PAQ p pace in terms of the number of turns everything takes. That would mean that suddenly cards like Friendly Fire that depend on an 8 turn game for their power wouldn't be such a lock anymore.

And if your opponent has a card like this out, you have to be a lot more strategic as a player. People would have to ask themselves: "Do I really need to play this personnel I just picked up. It's free, but he's not helpful right now. Better to deprive my opponent of the free play." As it is, the rule now is just play for free whenever you can with no strategy to it.
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