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#578071
I also think all DS9 personnel and ships from after the first half of Season 5 should get [EE] . And DS9 personnel and ships from the Wolf 359 prologue should get [1E-TNG] , including Lt. Com Sisko. :cheersL: :cheersR:
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#578076
enabrantain wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:16 am I also think all DS9 personnel and ships from after the first half of Season 5 should get [EE] . And DS9 personnel and ships from the Wolf 359 prologue should get [1E-TNG] , including Lt. Com Sisko. :cheersL: :cheersR:
Even if we assume for argument's sake that this was a good idea (which I'm not at all sure it is, but that's why it's for argument's sake), how would you implement this?
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
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#578089
I don't think adding the [EE] icon to all the season 5 characters would work, but adding the TNG icon to the Emmisary flashback characters...

IIRC, they are all CC cards, so errata to them shouldn't be as big a deal as errata to printed cards, so you could just add the icon. Same as Lt. Sisko is [1E-DS9] , but also has the [OS] icon.

Now, that would have a couple interesting side effects, including them having [1E-TNG] even without the [WC] in play, but on a handful of cards that might be interesting.





Honestly, were I designing the [WC] / [RC] /Era system from the ground up, I would make it where:

- [1E-TNG] / [1E-DS9] were automatic on cards with the property icons, you don't need the "hack" of Reshape the Quadrent, etc.
- [WC] / [RC] / other engines for other eras all have a rule that says they are exclusive. So if you have a [WC] you can't have a [RC] . That might let decks have a little more creativity in deck building, being able to splash an off era card without losing the engine, but paying full cost for them.
 
By Klauser
 - Beta Quadrant
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#578131
Personally, I'm in favor of making the [EE] an icon for the Next Generation Movies era - very much like the [CF] icon is for the Original Series Movies era. Giving the First Contact Enterprise-E crew this icon was Decipher's awkward first attempt at defining a non-TNG set of cards. TCC has successfully refined a much better method of defining series-restricted play environments. IMO errata for personnel, ships, etc with TNG movie - era property logos should be considered to reflect this as a distinct era.
 
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#578250
[EE] should be indicative of a setting, not an era. The TNG movies took place at the same time as DS9, but the characters in DS9 were in a completely different place, metaphorically and literally, and the inclusion (or exclusion) of the [EE] icon should reflect that.

The TNG characters were on the most advanced ship on the fleet, warping through the galaxy, handling missions. The DS9 characters were in one place, on an alien space station (sometimes falling apart), focusing on a few very specific longterm goals.
 
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#578252
AllenGould wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 12:25 pm As memory serves, it was because there was concerns about giving Feds *two* sets of bridge crew, and the [EE] was to keep you in a lane and not mix-and-match the best versions of each set.
I think you're giving them too much credit. I always thought it was more about forcing buyers to spend money getting the whole set of bridge crew - and the ship - because they really only work well together as a set (since only they can staff the Enterprise-E, and they can't staff anything else). As luck would have it, both the Enterprise-E and all the bridge crew are rares, so that means you're having to purchase a whole bunch of packs from Decipher to "catch 'em all." Want to use that sexy new ship, arguably the best [Fed] ship to date, except for maybe the expensive, ultra-rare, almost-as-unstaffable Future Enterprise? Then you gotta get a whole bunch of other rares before you can make it go!

What a coincidence, Decipher!
 
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#578254
nobthehobbit wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 12:28 am And I'd still contend that because it is a special staffing icon and was not (unlike [OS] or [CF] ) designed with the thought in mind that it would serve as a faction icon
Pedantic, but both [OS] and [CF] were designed as special staffing icons first. Their use as faction icons was a retcon.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Community Contributor
#578256
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Fri Jun 03, 2022 11:52 pm
AllenGould wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 12:25 pm As memory serves, it was because there was concerns about giving Feds *two* sets of bridge crew, and the [EE] was to keep you in a lane and not mix-and-match the best versions of each set.
I think you're giving them too much credit. I always thought it was more about forcing buyers to spend money getting the whole set of bridge crew - and the ship - because they really only work well together as a set (since only they can staff the Enterprise-E, and they can't staff anything else). As luck would have it, both the Enterprise-E and all the bridge crew are rares, so that means you're having to purchase a whole bunch of packs from Decipher to "catch 'em all." Want to use that sexy new ship, arguably the best [Fed] ship to date, except for maybe the expensive, ultra-rare, almost-as-unstaffable Future Enterprise? Then you gotta get a whole bunch of other rares before you can make it go!

What a coincidence, Decipher!
Well of course they did. Unlike the CC, Decipher had to worry about selling packs of cards because the money from selling those packs of cards is what kept the lights on (at least until the scumbag brother in law embezzled all of that pack money anyway... :x )

That's the CCG Business model - it's hardly unique to Decipher.

That said, Allen isn't necessarily wrong. As Decipher itself found out, you can only crank the power level up so much before the game implodes, so designing a balanced game is ALSO in the interest of profitability.

I'm sure there's a Business School PhD Thesis to be had on the relative short-term and long-term costs and benefits of increasing power vs. maintaing balance... that's a hell of a revenue optimization problem, even without the scumbag embezzling brother-in-law...

You want a real interesting comparison, try tracking the rise and fall of WWE Raw Deal from 2000-2007... the parallels with Decipher - to include a full game reboot with backwards compatibility! - are uncanny.
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Moderator
#578257
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Fri Jun 03, 2022 11:57 pm
nobthehobbit wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 12:28 am And I'd still contend that because it is a special staffing icon and was not (unlike [OS] or [CF] ) designed with the thought in mind that it would serve as a faction icon
Pedantic, but both [OS] and [CF] were designed as special staffing icons first. Their use as faction icons was a retcon.
I'd have to dig up old rules documents to see what they had to say about Ensign Tuvok and Captain Kirk, admittedly. But I don't think there were any ships that could use the icon for staffing until those cards were eventually released in black border, so it wasn't locked in the way [EE] arguably is with the Enterprise-E. When the time came to make the TOS and Films personnel, the icons could be repurposed with minimal harm to existing gameplay. The same is not true of [EE] .
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By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
 - Delta Quadrant
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Trailblazer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#578270
Armus wrote: Sat Jun 04, 2022 12:33 am
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Fri Jun 03, 2022 11:52 pm
AllenGould wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 12:25 pm As memory serves, it was because there was concerns about giving Feds *two* sets of bridge crew, and the [EE] was to keep you in a lane and not mix-and-match the best versions of each set.
I think you're giving them too much credit. I always thought it was more about forcing buyers to spend money getting the whole set of bridge crew - and the ship - because they really only work well together as a set (since only they can staff the Enterprise-E, and they can't staff anything else). As luck would have it, both the Enterprise-E and all the bridge crew are rares, so that means you're having to purchase a whole bunch of packs from Decipher to "catch 'em all." Want to use that sexy new ship, arguably the best [Fed] ship to date, except for maybe the expensive, ultra-rare, almost-as-unstaffable Future Enterprise? Then you gotta get a whole bunch of other rares before you can make it go!

What a coincidence, Decipher!
Well of course they did. Unlike the CC, Decipher had to worry about selling packs of cards because the money from selling those packs of cards is what kept the lights on (at least until the scumbag brother in law embezzled all of that pack money anyway... :x )

That's the CCG Business model - it's hardly unique to Decipher.

That said, Allen isn't necessarily wrong. As Decipher itself found out, you can only crank the power level up so much before the game implodes, so designing a balanced game is ALSO in the interest of profitability.

I'm sure there's a Business School PhD Thesis to be had on the relative short-term and long-term costs and benefits of increasing power vs. maintaing balance... that's a hell of a revenue optimization problem, even without the scumbag embezzling brother-in-law...

You want a real interesting comparison, try tracking the rise and fall of WWE Raw Deal from 2000-2007... the parallels with Decipher - to include a full game reboot with backwards compatibility! - are uncanny.
Look at the baseball card glut of the late 1980s.... "Hmmm if we print 3 or 4 times more cards than usual, we will sell 3 or 4 times more cards....." Did it work? maybe, but the cards from that era are nearly worthless which is a shame for the egos of some of the Rookies of that era, their rookie cards are mostly worthless from those company's. Fortunately newer companies like Upper Deck did not follow that model which is why their 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie is worth so much more the Topps/Donruss/Fleer/Score versions. Sure these companies "technically" don't care about secondary market, but bottom line, more is not always better.
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
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Moderator
#578312
Professor Scott wrote: Sat Jun 04, 2022 7:50 amSure these companies "technically" don't care about secondary market, but bottom line, more is not always better.
My understanding has been that it's less that they don't care about the secondary market (quite the contrary, they care deeply about it) but rather that they can't openly acknowledge it. If they acknowledged the existence of a secondary market, that different cards of the same stated rarity you can get out of a pack can be sold for different amounts of money, that could be construed as an admission that opening packs is tantamount to gambling.

The best example of this that I know of is Magic: The Gathering's original Modern Masters set. At the time the Mythic Rare cards would have had to be finalized, the most expensive card in each colour in the sets under consideration were Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Vendilion Clique, Dark Confidant, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Tarmogoyf. Somehow, by some wild coincidence, these were all Mythic Rares in the first Modern Masters set.
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By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
 - Delta Quadrant
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Trailblazer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#578315
nobthehobbit wrote: Sat Jun 04, 2022 3:31 pm
Professor Scott wrote: Sat Jun 04, 2022 7:50 amSure these companies "technically" don't care about secondary market, but bottom line, more is not always better.
My understanding has been that it's less that they don't care about the secondary market (quite the contrary, they care deeply about it) but rather that they can't openly acknowledge it. If they acknowledged the existence of a secondary market, that different cards of the same stated rarity you can get out of a pack can be sold for different amounts of money, that could be construed as an admission that opening packs is tantamount to gambling.

The best example of this that I know of is Magic: The Gathering's original Modern Masters set. At the time the Mythic Rare cards would have had to be finalized, the most expensive card in each colour in the sets under consideration were Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Vendilion Clique, Dark Confidant, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Tarmogoyf. Somehow, by some wild coincidence, these were all Mythic Rares in the first Modern Masters set.
This is why I said "technically". They cannot formally acknowledge it. Just like CBS "technically" ignore us. Until we make them take note of us, they can "pretend" we don't exist.
 
By MarkB82 (Mark Bedwell)
 - Alpha Quadrant
 -  
#578418
enabrantain wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:16 am I also think all DS9 personnel and ships from after the first half of Season 5 should get [EE] . And DS9 personnel and ships from the Wolf 359 prologue should get [1E-TNG] , including Lt. Com Sisko. :cheersL: :cheersR:
The [EE] symbol as I recall was just to represent the special training needed for the enterprise-E. The simplest solution for card is to remove the move from play aspect of the play engine. The E was never intended to be used without the support of
Other fed cards, it was just the new ship.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
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#578584
I was joking about the DS9 cards. But I was not joking about the Wolf 359 cards from Emissary, they should get a [1E-TNG] icon.

As for my ideas and jokes about adding other characters to the mix from Voyager and DS9, lets just shelf and scrap those for now. I'm not on the design team, and I don't have their ear. I was just brainstorming possibilities.

Yes, when [EE] came out it was meant to represent 'special training' for the USS Enterprise-E. This made little to no sense, but Decipher didn't want to make the older cards obsolete, so they made the newer cards more difficult to use. But as Nobthehobbit pointed out, CC has used it on the USS Akira and now has given it to several non-main personnel. Now, DS9 characters and ships have [1E-DS9] , and TNG and Generations Characters have [1E-TNG] so wouldn't it make sense to give First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis (and Armada) the [EE] icon? Just like we need a card to give Voyager cards a [Voy] .

And next comes the incentives to use them. Now they could make new ships with the [EE] as a staffing icon, and bonuses if the entire crew is [EE] or if you have a certain amount of [EE] on board . Yes, dinosaurs like the USS Jupiter and USS Thunderchild wont have these built in, but cards that use [EE] to provide bonuses would still affect them.

It all comes down to the fact that this is one heck of a big game for what became a huge franchise. And the Federation is the biggest faction. It needs to be broken down into groups. Some of it is due to [MQ] and [1E-DQ] . And then other options became [CF] , [OS] , [Maq] , [TE] , [KCA] , [1E-DS9], [22] and [1E-TNG] . You don't have to use them, but they do help bring sense to the Star Trek CCG universe. Anyways, in the end the CC might not even take this route, and we wont know for another two expansions. And just to clarify, I have no problems with Admiral Janeway and Mathew Dougherty fighting the Romulans from the bridge of the USS Enterprise-E, it's exactly what Star Trek CCG was made for.
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#578585
enabrantain wrote: Tue Jun 07, 2022 1:14 pm I was joking about the DS9 cards. But I was not joking about the Wolf 359 cards from Emissary, they should get a [1E-TNG] icon.
The problem is that TNG (and DS9) trigger off the property logo. So either we're deliberately putting the wrong series on the card, or we're hard-coding that icon onto a DS9 card, which would (a) make them *both* DS9 and TNG, and (b) neuter the enforcement on Continuing Mission / Reshape the Quadrant.
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