[KazonPADD]

Hello all, happy Friday and welcome to your latest Friday Question!

No, this isn't a question about Romulan spies! It's a play on Fraser Crane's usual tag line of "I'm listening"...

What has you concerned about the current state of the game? What issues are you spotting in your games? What would you like to see the Balance team look at next? Is there anything you've spotted following Worlds or the release of Lifesigns? What do you feel you currently need to go out-of-your-way to plan around in a game? What do you see as the next major threats on the horizon?

Let us know your thoughts! You might even get a reward!

[Smiley]

Free plays and card draw. There should not be any free plays unless they come with a cost and a specific seed location is needed. Card draw should never be seedable, they need to come with the cost of having to draw and play them. Some could be persistent for a smaller amount of draws if you meet some sort of cost as well.
The game's balance has been off for quite some time now, and the cognitive overload has gone a little bit too far for most of my players.

[boromirofborg]

My usual complaints about the lack of interaction options that don't lead toward total lockout.

Quadrants
It should not be possible to, by choosing different quadrants, have high odds of no interaction from the opponent at no significant cost.

I saw this at worlds. Both with my own DQ only Vidiian deck, and some well made decks that were MQ only. For a single seed (Homestead), you get a very decent chance of guaranteeing your opponent cannot come interact with you. Until the Voyager set was released, the game just didn't allow that. there was always risk of spontaneous interaction. The quadrants becoming viable to turtle in is a rules based issue, and should have a rules based solution.

The cost of meaningful interaction is usually high enough that you might as well go for the lockout
Everythign should have counterplays. Almost. The one that that should be near-sacrosanct is the ability to play 1/draw 1. At minimum, facilites should either be immune to hull damage, OR have their text turn off when 100%. (so a 100% damages Outpost would still allow reports, since that's a game rule, but a 100% damaged HQ would allow regular reports, but not free ones.)

[abargar7510]

I think that expanding the selection of viable dilemmas (and since this is directed to the Balance team-even through errata to dilemmas that are weaker than expected), is something that can always be done to shake up the "meta" and expand the number viable decktypes (if the right dilemmas are picked to be buffed). In particular, I'd like to see dilemmas buffed that strengthen (even if indirectly).

[Winner of Borg]

this year's errata have taken some longtime cornerstones of deckbuilding from us:
- finding a good set of missions that share multiple mission specialists skills is no longer a thing (and the value of decks that re-play Assign Mission Specialists multiple times is diminished).
- decks that can play many romantic couples are no longer relevant.
- AQ HQs have lost their 2 safe card draws from Study Divergent History.
these changes make deck building less enjoyable for me. they have also invalidated many old (unbroken) decks, along with content like videos and strategy articles created around them.

then design has released Superior Surgical BS 1 and 2. these have taken things that have always been purely beneficial, things that i'm always trying to achieve when building a deck: being able to play more personnel, download more personnel, and draw more cards; and they've turned them into tactical choices with a (potential) serious drawback.
the existence of these cards makes deck building much less enjoyable for me. high investment high reward cards based around such things, like Vulcan Database (draw 4 cards) or Retask (download 7 personnel), that have always been achievements to work towards, can now be a *liability*. "cycling" cards that discard cards or kill personnel to draw more cards and play or download better personnel have become much worse.

(on top of that, some smaller changes have taken even more tools out of my deckbuilding kit. things like MQ losing access to the Maquis free play, or Full Complement of Shuttles losing access to free equipment. those are the kind of changes that i'd have complained about in any other year, but seem totally insignificant this year...)

don't get me wrong, i've enjoyed *playing* this year's continentals. but the deck i brought was very niche, very negative, working around the above changes, and exploiting them to hurt the opponent. that's not what i'd want to do in an everyday tournament, and there's not a lot of deck building space around that either.

two months later, i miss *playing* the game, i keep watching videos of past games, yet i cannot bring myself to schedule a tournament because that would mean i'd have to sit down and build another deck in this mess...

if i had a magic genie, i would ask it to undo most of this year's changes. restore (at least) AMS, Cafe des Artistes, and Study Divergent History to their former function, and ban Superior Surgical BS 1 and 2.

[Gul Dakar]

Totally agree with Study Divergent History. This was also a cornerstone for my cardassian Decks. Since then i struggle to get them enough draws. This results in making smaller decks and doing without cards Like Kevin uxbridge and so on. It still works, but the decks are less diverse

[Armus]

Totally agree with Study Divergent History. This was also a cornerstone for my cardassian Decks. Since then i struggle to get them enough draws. This results in making smaller decks and doing without cards Like Kevin uxbridge and so on. It still works, but the decks are less diverse

You know there's always A Better Alternative for your decks...

[Gul Dakar]

Totally agree with Study Divergent History. This was also a cornerstone for my cardassian Decks. Since then i struggle to get them enough draws. This results in making smaller decks and doing without cards Like Kevin uxbridge and so on. It still works, but the decks are less diverse

You know there's always A Better Alternative for your decks...

I know ...but it´s more convenient just to stop someone and more important - not to use up the card play. And i also know that this was one of the reasons for the nerf...but anyway

[sekce31]

How pretty much free 10 points Phoenix is a thing is well... I have seen this time and time again, and it is boring and feels unfair. Play it to headquarters (especially HQ hidden at time location). Game over.

Another thing that I basically said I am not going to playing agaist is Borg aggro deck. You can play it at Words if you can. But this is not a deck for friendly game.
To repeatedly assimilate the same species over and over, attacking every round. What can you do? Yes. You can hide on your HQ or whatever. Last time I looked this game should be fun and the goal was overcoming dilemmas and attempting missions (or at least scouting them). Why do I even try to seed dilemmas against borg deck, that would steam roll anything and simply collect points from gutting my crew, away team or whatever never bothering to see any dilemma at all is a cynical resignation to fundamental principles of the game. (I need to add that yes borg should be a threat, but the problem is why bother to seed anything anyway. Maybe assimilation should be possible once they at least do something like scout a mission maybe. Currently it comes so easy for them.)

[WeAreBack]

How pretty much free 10 points Phoenix is a thing is well... I have seen this time and time again, and it is boring and feels unfair. Play it to headquarters (especially HQ hidden at time location). Game over.

Agreed. This card needs an errata to add the words "Enters play landed (only)." Having to at least staff the phoenix was clearly understood as one "cost" of the card.

The other issue -- the Phoneix's vulnerability to getting destroyed in an attack- was supposed to be a check on this. However, with so many time locations (especially the two Earth locations with their HQs) and people playing in different quadrants, it is vulnerability is irrelevant a lot of the time -- anyone who wants to destroy it needs to get a ship to where it is. Moreover, you get no chance to destroy it if your opponent just waits until they are 90 points to play it.

Maybe the text could have to be "If acquired and launched while you have less than 75 points, worth points while in orbit."

How pretty much free 10 points Phoenix is a thing is well... I have seen this time and time again, and it is boring and feels unfair. Play it to headquarters (especially HQ hidden at time location). Game over.

Another thing that I basically said I am not going to playing agaist is Borg aggro deck. You can play it at Words if you can. But this is not a deck for friendly game.
To repeatedly assimilate the same species over and over, attacking every round. What can you do? Yes. You can hide on your HQ or whatever. Last time I looked this game should be fun and the goal was overcoming dilemmas and attempting missions (or at least scouting them). Why do I even try to seed dilemmas against borg deck, that would steam roll anything and simply collect points from gutting my crew, away team or whatever never bothering to see any dilemma at all is a cynical resignation to fundamental principles of the game. (I need to add that yes borg should be a threat, but the problem is why bother to seed anything anyway. Maybe assimilation should be possible once they at least do something like scout a mission maybe. Currently it comes so easy for them.)

I think the points from Add distinctiveness (the mechanism for obtains points) would be bonus points, so they do have to go scout somewhere. But in general Borg are so strong that I think we should consider peeling back on the special privileges that they have. An affiliation that is so dominant doesn't need to get around restrictions on "mission attempts" or have a special immunity from losing points. I don't really enjoy being a Borg player or playing against a Borg deck because it feels "unfun" at the moment.

[sekce31]

I think the points from Add distinctiveness (the mechanism for obtains points) would be bonus points, so they do have to go scout somewhere. But in general Borg are so strong that I think we should consider peeling back on the special privileges that they have. An affiliation that is so dominant doesn't need to get around restrictions on "mission attempts" or have a special immunity from losing points. I don't really enjoy being a Borg player or playing against a Borg deck because it feels "unfun" at the moment.

It might be. A friend of mine really wanted to try aggro borg deck. I was able to do one mission for 45 points before he started to gut my crew. I might stop reporting personnel and simply wait till time limit or whatever to win instead of trying to do something and providing more material to assimiliate but that is not a point. I don't mind losing a game, if the game itself feels "right" or "fair". But with borg aggro deck, I don't mind if I win or if I lose, the point is it feels terribly unfun and really wrong. It does not follow the basic principles of the game. So that's what I would appreciate to change. If make change to Borg point management, or how dilemma work with them or something else would do the trick, I don't know. But at least try to change something, instead of letting it reign.

[phaserihardlyknowher]

Free plays and card draw. There should not be any free plays unless they come with a cost and a specific seed location is needed. Card draw should never be seedable, they need to come with the cost of having to draw and play them. Some could be persistent for a smaller amount of draws if you meet some sort of cost as well.
The game's balance has been off for quite some time now, and the cognitive overload has gone a little bit too far for most of my players.

VS.

this year's errata have taken some longtime cornerstones of deckbuilding from us:
- finding a good set of missions that share multiple mission specialists skills is no longer a thing (and the value of decks that re-play Assign Mission Specialists multiple times is diminished).
- decks that can play many romantic couples are no longer relevant.
- AQ HQs have lost their 2 safe card draws from Study Divergent History.
these changes make deck building less enjoyable for me. they have also invalidated many old (unbroken) decks, along with content like videos and strategy articles created around them.

then design has released Superior Surgical BS 1 and 2. these have taken things that have always been purely beneficial, things that i'm always trying to achieve when building a deck: being able to play more personnel, download more personnel, and draw more cards; and they've turned them into tactical choices with a (potential) serious drawback.
the existence of these cards makes deck building much less enjoyable for me. high investment high reward cards based around such things, like Vulcan Database (draw 4 cards) or Retask (download 7 personnel), that have always been achievements to work towards, can now be a *liability*. "cycling" cards that discard cards or kill personnel to draw more cards and play or download better personnel have become much worse.

You know, I sometimes wonder if we're all playing the same game.

I really don't envy design because I'm not sure how they balance these two entirely oppositional complaints.

But like others, Aggro Borg seem like the biggest concern for me. Not because they are unfair (though they probably are), but because like others have said, they are just miserable to play against. It's worse than lockout because everything you do feeds the machine. I do like the idea of Borg as a check on various meta issues, but I'll let people smarter than me decide how to swing the pendulum back.

[stressedoutatumc]

Free plays and card draw. There should not be any free plays unless they come with a cost and a specific seed location is needed. Card draw should never be seedable, they need to come with the cost of having to draw and play them. Some could be persistent for a smaller amount of draws if you meet some sort of cost as well.
The game's balance has been off for quite some time now, and the cognitive overload has gone a little bit too far for most of my players.

That would make the game unplayable; waaaay to slow. "Play one, draw one, your turn" harkens back to the PAQ era and it sucked by comparison. My opinion, anyway.

[stressedoutatumc]

NO. MORE. BONUS POINTS.

The game got waaay more balanced with just a subtle change to AMS. Just imagine if there were NO bonus points and you had to finish a whole other mission. Then, kill dilemma nullifiers for everyone but Borg and then people will actually have to play a whole game to win it. Imagine that.

[stressedoutatumc]

Free plays and card draw. There should not be any free plays unless they come with a cost and a specific seed location is needed. Card draw should never be seedable, they need to come with the cost of having to draw and play them. Some could be persistent for a smaller amount of draws if you meet some sort of cost as well.
The game's balance has been off for quite some time now, and the cognitive overload has gone a little bit too far for most of my players.

VS.

this year's errata have taken some longtime cornerstones of deckbuilding from us:
- finding a good set of missions that share multiple mission specialists skills is no longer a thing (and the value of decks that re-play Assign Mission Specialists multiple times is diminished).
- decks that can play many romantic couples are no longer relevant.
- AQ HQs have lost their 2 safe card draws from Study Divergent History.
these changes make deck building less enjoyable for me. they have also invalidated many old (unbroken) decks, along with content like videos and strategy articles created around them.

then design has released Superior Surgical BS 1 and 2. these have taken things that have always been purely beneficial, things that i'm always trying to achieve when building a deck: being able to play more personnel, download more personnel, and draw more cards; and they've turned them into tactical choices with a (potential) serious drawback.
the existence of these cards makes deck building much less enjoyable for me. high investment high reward cards based around such things, like Vulcan Database (draw 4 cards) or Retask (download 7 personnel), that have always been achievements to work towards, can now be a *liability*. "cycling" cards that discard cards or kill personnel to draw more cards and play or download better personnel have become much worse.

You know, I sometimes wonder if we're all playing the same game.

I really don't envy design because I'm not sure how they balance these two entirely oppositional complaints.

But like others, Aggro Borg seem like the biggest concern for me. Not because they are unfair (though they probably are), but because like others have said, they are just miserable to play against. It's worse than lockout because everything you do feeds the machine. I do like the idea of Borg as a check on various meta issues, but I'll let people smarter than me decide how to swing the pendulum back.

The first opinion describes the game when it died back in the early 2000's, the second describes a modern game in which you can accomplish flow.

Slow games die because they take forever to get the game going. I personally do not want to go back to a "play one, draw one, your turn" kind of game, which is exactly how the first 10 turns of star trek used to be. Play a fajo, draw 3, draw 1, your turn. Report 1 person, draw one, your turn. Play an engine, play 1 person, your turn. Forget that mess.