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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Community Contributor
#596447
Smiley wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 7:19 pm
Armus wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 4:46 pm
Smiley wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 4:27 pm I'd start a design project to clean up and simplify the game. Turn 1e into 2e =)
Anyone else read it that way (along with a maniacal laugh or two thrown in for good measure)? :wink:
I'm quite fed up with this snide towards the other game and, well, the idea that any streamlining and simplification makes the game any less of 1E than it would be. The game is becoming unwieldy and over-complex just for the sake of complexity instead of adding depth and flexibility to gameplay. All we have to do it to look back to the days of OTSD or FC/DS9, for that matter, to see the game being simpler and still have space for a lot of games there. And I hope no one would say that that is less 1E even though it is less complex than what we have today.
Lol, calm down, dude. It was a joke.

I know there's some 1e purists in the crowd, but I'm hardly one of them. I play 2e on the regular, and while I've had my issues with some of their design decisions, I consider the core mechanics of the game to be pretty solid.
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By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#596450
Armus wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 4:46 pm
Smiley wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 4:27 pm I'd start a design project to clean up and simplify the game. Turn 1e into 2e =)
Anyone else read it that way (along with a maniacal laugh or two thrown in for good measure)? :wink:
Brian you said the quiet part out loud again…
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By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#596452
Smiley wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 7:19 pm
Armus wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 4:46 pm
Smiley wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 4:27 pm I'd start a design project to clean up and simplify the game. Turn 1e into 2e =)
Anyone else read it that way (along with a maniacal laugh or two thrown in for good measure)? :wink:
I'm quite fed up with this snide towards the other game and, well, the idea that any streamlining and simplification makes the game any less of 1E than it would be. The game is becoming unwieldy and over-complex just for the sake of complexity instead of adding depth and flexibility to gameplay. All we have to do it to look back to the days of OTSD or FC/DS9, for that matter, to see the game being simpler and still have space for a lot of games there. And I hope no one would say that that is less 1E even though it is less complex than what we have today.
The game is just as complex today as it was during the DS9 block. It’s just different. Power levels are all over the place and even with OTF it changes a lot of things and some not for the better. Streamlining/simplifying isn’t needed. This isn’t a modern game and there isn’t a need to change 1E since there is 2E instead if you want a more modern rule set game.
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By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#596453
KazonPADD wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 10:16 am Hey all - happy Friday - and welcome to your latest Friday Question!

It was meant to be a question from Charlie this week, but he’s away at the minute so I offered to fill in! But that in itself got me thinking…

If you were 1E Director for the day, what’s the one small change you would like to make?

Obviously, I’m not talking sweeping or groundbreaking changes here. Something small and achievable in a short timescale? Maybe you’d ban that one problem card you have an issue with? Or unban one you think is actually OK? Maybe you want to tweak an attribute that’s always felt off to you? Or fix some dodgy PAQ-era wording that doesn’t flow right?

Let us hear your views!
One small thing? Hmm. I’m going to aim for a few

1) I’d finally have the decipher cards remastered and digitized so they print nicely

2) I’d roll back some recent errata that was done not as a result of game breaking but due to ‘balance’ and take cards off the ban list and see how the community uses them for a trial period. Which rolls right into number 3.

3) Create a new tier of online playing. Casual fun for a different tier of ratings and points so people will play actual fun / non tier 1 decks so we can get some real tournament data from them. Special prize pulls and incentives for people to do this.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#596466
DarkSabre wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 10:43 pm
3) Create a new tier of online playing. Casual fun for a different tier of ratings and points so people will play actual fun / non tier 1 decks so we can get some real tournament data from them. Special prize pulls and incentives for people to do this.
I'm intrigued on how this would work. Usually adding any kind of prizes, even just "first place" tends to make people competitive, so how do you avoid people playing "tier 1" as long as tier 1 exists?
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#596468
boromirofborg wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 9:45 am I'm intrigued on how this would work. Usually adding any kind of prizes, even just "first place" tends to make people competitive, so how do you avoid people playing "tier 1" as long as tier 1 exists?
Don't make the prize for first-place then. Make it participation, or player-vote, or random draw.

Will people still roll up with their T1 tech? Some. But they'll do that even if there aren't prizes.
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By winterflames (Derek Marlar)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#596471
I would institute a Monthly "Coolest Deck" vote. Site visitors vote on the Coolest Deck played last month for 1E and the winner receives an interview and front page article describing the goal of the deck and how they think it fared, along with questions meant to ferret out how to make the deck cooler in the future. Maybe give Exclusive Prizes (like a forum badge that rotates to the next winner, granting an Emeritus badge for one -insert- time- period- when you rotate out. Not necessarily physical prizes).

This would be a great way to highlight lower teir players and lower teir decks that bring flavor to the game without dominating the tournament scene.

Edit: Maybe take nominations from each tourney, rather that put every played deck in the month up for vote
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#596494
another crazy idea:

[Equ] is always in a weird place. Costs as much as a personnel, but rarely worth it. Most [Equ] that is played is a download.

So make [Equ] a free play.

Either:

- unlimited. Probably some way to break this.
- once per turn as a rule
- Errata outposts to allow 1 free [Equ] per turn. Which then gives outposts something cool that HQ don't have.
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By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#596498
boromirofborg wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 9:45 am
DarkSabre wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 10:43 pm
3) Create a new tier of online playing. Casual fun for a different tier of ratings and points so people will play actual fun / non tier 1 decks so we can get some real tournament data from them. Special prize pulls and incentives for people to do this.
I'm intrigued on how this would work. Usually adding any kind of prizes, even just "first place" tends to make people competitive, so how do you avoid people playing "tier 1" as long as tier 1 exists?
Everyone participating would get put into a raffle for cool prizes. Maybe create thematic prizes (like full art cards) to give to those who create new unique decks.

Mainly this is to encourage heavily to idea of making new and fun decks and not just everyone running the same decks with a few tweaks or same dilemma strategies that have been going on as of late. The current online meta isn’t a good point of comparison to the health of the game because people are being competitive and you aren’t going to have people NOT. Also it’s a lot easier to net deck and play a lackey game because you need to pay to use the real deck builder (the free one is absolutely horrendous and a disgrace to even be put on the site)

I would say this should be tied into dropping cards off the ban list and maybe some possible errata roll backs (looking at you Invasive Beam In) and see what happens and if it helps encourage new unique decks or is it just going to promote more unfun abusive shenanigans.
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By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#596500
winterflames wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 10:51 am I would institute a Monthly "Coolest Deck" vote. Site visitors vote on the Coolest Deck played last month for 1E and the winner receives an interview and front page article describing the goal of the deck and how they think it fared, along with questions meant to ferret out how to make the deck cooler in the future. Maybe give Exclusive Prizes (like a forum badge that rotates to the next winner, granting an Emeritus badge for one -insert- time- period- when you rotate out. Not necessarily physical prizes).

This would be a great way to highlight lower teir players and lower teir decks that bring flavor to the game without dominating the tournament scene.

Edit: Maybe take nominations from each tourney, rather that put every played deck in the month up for vote
The problem is that some people care about their rankings. So while people might make a cool deck it’s going to be built on a deck archetype that is going to be upper level tier for the most part.

Because we don’t have many local events happening anymore and lackey has a ton more tournaments going on we need a way to be able to 1) get better deck data for the health of the game and 2) encourage new deck building ideas

Maybe tie it into an achievement system where you get prizes for doing an achievement. Like building a Ferengi deck with cargo runs? Or a mirror deck that doesn’t use badlands? Just throwing ideas out there. I personally miss the ability to test out fun decks with a casual local tournament and not care about getting curb stomped
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Regent
Community Contributor
#596502
Riffing on this...

What if we had a thing where a "release event" got flagged as such in the system and in addition to the tournament winner, the highest ranking player who played a deck that qualified for the release achievement got the win achievements for their deck as well?

Maybe this is coming from a place of personal bias, but the thing I find most dismaying about playing in release events is working hard on sometimes very short notice to play a deck that uses the new cards, only to get rolled by a player bringing in whatever finely tuned tournament deck (or even not-so-finely-tuned tournament deck) they already have locked and loaded.*

Or worse, getting rolled by a player (or two) bringing all the new stuff hate to the release event (looking at you, Dogs of War...).

I'm a firm believer in maximum participation, and I'm a firm believer in players getting to play the deck they want to play, but there should be something to be said for actually playing with the new cards in a release event, otherwise, what's the point of having them?

*This isn't directed at any one individual, it's just something I've observed across multiple release events over multiple years, mainly online. And yes, I have been on the receiving end of several of those, and no I don't begrudge my opponents their wins or the decks they played.
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By winterflames (Derek Marlar)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#596504
If your goal is to be top dog of a dead card game, your goal is not mine.

I did say "Highlight lower teir players" did I not? The goal of my thought was to make something for people who "Don't Rate Highly." I play this game to play this game, it should matter that I am here and playing, even if I have Exactly Absolutely Zero chance of ever getting my name on those Championship plaques on the front page.

Don't shoot down my idea just because it won't work on Teir One Players. That isn't who it was meant for and I said so within the fictitious proposal in The Thread for Fictitious Proposals.

That being said, I don't have a problem with teir one players playing Cool decks. I don't have a problem with people playing UnRated events. My fictitious proposal could definitely be reworked in those lights.

I just didn't want to propose a thing that requires an entire new set of programming added to the site. I wanted to propose a cool thing which could run alongside the current system without significant changes. Something that could be instated during Charlie's day off...

(Armus, we cross posted, this post isn't intended to respond to yours.)
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By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#596505
My small thing (that I think I could actually accomplish in a day if I had Director Powers) is that I would take all the 1E content on the homepage and put it on a new webpage. A 1E hub page, if you will.

Making maximum use of this new space (and the navigational opportunities that open up when you aren't trying to jam an entire game's cards, rules, resources, and tools into a single 4x11 square on the side of a busy webpage with four competing navbars) would be a longer-term project.

***

Of course, this thread has pretty quickly gone from plausible "king-for-a-day" fancies that could (as a practical matter) probably go from conception to publication in 1-2 months (which is very fast in production terms) to quite, uh, ambitious plans that would take not less than a year.

Two tips, born of hard experience:

1. If your idea requires coordination across multiple CC departments, it's going to take a lot of work to get all stakeholders, deciders, and veto points on the same page. For example, I'm trying to coordinate a package of OPG changes between 1E Rules, 1E All Staff, Organized Play, Programming, and (belatedly) Communications. It started as a single pretty modest thing in mid-June 2022, it snowballed a bit, and now I'm working hard to ensure it will be out start of May 2023.

So, basically, budget a year for anything that implicates the OPG, significant programming changes, prize support, and/or writing articles.

2. If your idea requires playtesting, you can get it done faster (~2 months for a simple change, ~6 months for a more complex one) (testers got a lot on their plates), but there's a ~50% baseline chance playtesters will find serious problems with your proposal and it will have to be shelved (or Rules will gum up your works in some way; we are expert works-gummer-uppers, even when we like the idea). Scale up both the time and the probability of rejection depending on how complex your idea is.

2.5. Your idea probably requires playtesting. You gotta work pretty hard to avoid it. (The IKC/IKS suggestion doesn't need it. It's one of the most plausible ideas in here, even though I don't want to actually do it.)

Kudos to Smiley for avoiding this trap by cleverly not claiming he can get his whole project done in a day; all he needs to do in his day is start the project and let it run. :P (Forming a team usually takes a few weeks, though, and incidentally I apologize to Project Immunity for slowing down your team formation this month. Should be back on track very soon indeed.)

This is why my usual suggestion to people who want to do something cool and good is to just do it, make it successful, and invite the CC to recognize it after you've rocked it. For example: there's no law that says TD's have to give prizes to tournament winners and only the winners, as long as prize rules are stated in advance. The OPG's allowance for custom/"cool" tournaments means anyone who wants to fiddle with the card pool and/or basic game rules can just do so and then report back about the awesome time they had. The writing team, as I understand it, is pretty open to running articles about the game / interviews with tournament winners that are submitted from the public, if someone is willing to write them. Hall of Fame format was initially run through forum polls (and I guess still pretty much is). The 1E Rulebook was something I banged up in my garage.

So just do it! I am not joking when I say that the average player, free to do whatever he wants, has (in some ways, not all ways) a lot more power than the 1E Director, whose job is essentially to facilitate discussions, build consensus, deliberate, and try and push a hundred balls uphill at once.

</soapbox>

FWIW, I would vote in "coolest deck of the month" polls posted in this forum or on Facebook or anywhere else, and I would eagerly read any interviews that resulted.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#596506
winterflames wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 5:30 pm Don't shoot down my idea just because it won't work on Teir One Players. That isn't who it was meant for and I said so within the fictitious proposal in The Thread for Fictitious Proposals.
I wouldn't take the responses you've gotten as shooting it down. I know my response wasn't meant that way. Indeed, if anything, the discussion shows that your idea has some of the most interest of any listed.

Any of my questions were meant to prompt more discussion about the best way to go about this, not to say "don't bother"
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By winterflames (Derek Marlar)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#596507
DarkSabre wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 4:47 pm The problem is that some people care about their rankings. So while people might make a cool deck it’s going to be built on a deck archetype that is going to be upper level tier for the most part.
I should have quoted originally, but I was specifically responding to this paragraph.

That was my fault.

(And I see my Forum Badge being a little Parallax Arguers)
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