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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

What dont you like about the new TCG

Discussion in 'Archive: Games: CCG, TCG, and Boardgames' started by iwjev, May 6, 2002.

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  1. Bib Fortuna Twi'lek

    Bib Fortuna Twi'lek Jedi Youngling star 10

    Registered:
    Jul 9, 1999
    Some complaints from Decipher's message boards:

    I've tried it before. I can handle the fact that you don't win every time 'cuz of the random element, but I'd rather have an element where I LOSE BECAUSE OF MY OWN ACTIONS (so I can take responsibility for them) rather than one where I LOSE BECAUSE OF A STUPID DICE. I was open-minded when I tried out the game, mostly because it didn't cost me a penny (I've tried it using the current SWCCG form of cutting out a piece of paper containing info...I got it from spoilers and card lists :D).

    It's basic to the point of where your brain is not a requirement to figure it out. Instead of strategy you use dice. I always feel cheated when I have everything set up, and lose on dice rolls. All the game is about is win 2 out of 3 arenas. That 1 is a blatant rip off of Young Jedi. (Which if you're making a case for casual gamers that would be the one to play) 2 is nowhere near representitive of Star Wars. You can't go anywhere, have Han fly the Falcon, or do anything, but build stuff and roll die. They said in there marketing that they would have it to where it would have multiple levels of strategy that would be fun for beginners, and challange the most seasoned veterans. HA!!! I'd like to meet the veterans Wizards play tested this on. They must have been veterans of the card game Redemption! Besides the fact this game is one of the worst ever created it replaces our old SWCCG it has large shoes to fill, and it can't do it.

    except for the fact that it just had to replace to old game. If, like was stated above, they had continued the old game and started the new one as well I would have nothing to say about the issue, mainly because the new game would fail even faster. Jokes on Lucasfilm though, I've heard of more people picking up the old star wars (due to cheap prices) and not even consider trying the new wotc one.

    If I want random luck I'll play Yahtzee or roulette. I loved SWccg because of the skill involved with building a deck that could withstand any potential opponent. I also enjoyed being able to create theme- or objective-based decks, and it doesn't look to me as if WOTC's version can emulate that method.
     
  2. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    Then perhaps it will be three expansions till we'll know the games fate..but it does seem risky to wait so long for that though. YJ had problems after the first expansion...WOTC is gonna wait three?
     
  3. Darksbane

    Darksbane Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2002
    "Then perhaps it will be three expansions till we'll know the games fate..but it does seem risky to wait so long for that though. YJ had problems after the first expansion...WOTC is gonna wait three? "

    Young jedis problem was that the first expansion added NOTHING to the game. All you got was the same characters with slightly different powers and a couple of new battle cards. WotC is planning on having new abilities in each expansion so the game won't stagnate like YJ did.
     
  4. iwjev

    iwjev Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2002
    What do you guys think about the mission/battle cards? besides the fact that you have to build one and not the other I dont see a different. When I was fist told that there was mission and battle cards my first thought would be that one was permenant and the other was an instant. If it was that way I would understand and like the game more but with the way it is now what is the point of having the to different types. Couldn't you just have one type and have some of the cost nothing?
     
  5. iwjev

    iwjev Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2002
    UPDATE TO- What I wish TCG was like.

    1)Make mission cards permanent.
    2)Make battle cards instants.
    Both mission/battle cards should have a
    build lever, even if it is 0.
    3)Add weapon cards.
    4)Add device cards.
    5)Add location cards (used for build points).
    6)Add more cards to each expansion.
    7)I like the stacking (keep it).
    8)I don?t like the dice rolling (get rid of it).
    9)I like the arenas (keep it).
    10)I like the neutral units (keep it).
    11)Let you (stack) certain characters with space cards. Example lets you put a Fett on Slave 1 to increase its speed by 10 and power and health by 1.

    What do you guys think? (Maybe I should make my own SW Card game, 5 different games are not to many... or is it?)

    John
     
  6. Darksbane

    Darksbane Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2002
    "If it was that way I would understand and like the game more but with the way it is now what is the point of having the to different types. Couldn't you just have one type and have some of the cost nothing? "

    Each different card type has totally different timing issues, which if they could be played at different times would make some of the broken.
     
  7. Chrondeath

    Chrondeath Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 9, 2002
    Hmm...I think the best analogy for the TCG that I can come up with is that it's a less-complex version of the Wheel of Time CCG.

    It wasn't too hard to jury-rig WoT for multiplayer (myself and two friends were the only ones who ever played it around here, so we had a lot of three-player games going on), and it doesn't look too hard to do the same for the TCG (modify the setup rules, roll for speed ties on same side, optionally modify the unique rule). I never saw any good rules for multiplayer for the SWCCG, although I suppose I hadn't really been looking (three people means team games are out). That's also what really killed Netrunner around here...we kept up the four-hour-long three-player Wheel of Time games for quite a while after Precedence dropped the game.

    I've been wondering why the use of dice in the Star Wars TCG isn't bothering me as much as I thought it would when I first heard about it, and I think it's because Wheel of Time required about three times as many dice, but I still played that game to death. The die rolls tend to average out when you get past a certain point, and I think both games managed to get near that point....WoT overshot that mark (we'd often end up just counting the dice and doing the final battle statistically), and I think SWTCG tends to fall a little short, but I've had generally good luck assuming my units are going to deal damage equal to half their power. I've been screwed by it, I've seen others be screwed by it...but as I said, you roll so many dice over the course of the game that you're only really out if it happens multiple times or at a key moment. I've just as often seen people screwed by bad draws during setup as by bad rolls during the game, which is saying something considering how many cards you draw during setup.

    The point I don't like dice in the game is the build point roll. It's too important to the game, and a single die will give you the most fluctuations...something like 2d6 / 2 or 4d6 / 4 would be better. Something to move the spread more towards the middle of the roll. A low roll is a death sentence for the player with the worse board position, and I haven't seen enough cards to modify this (Wat Tambor and Amidala don't count, because they just make things worse).

    It's kind of similar to games of Magic that come down to whether you or your opponent can topdeck a particular card. Each card you draw is like an individual die roll, and while it can be fun to see a game come down to a single draw, it's not the sort of thing you want happening every game. The analogy's not great, because you can alter your draw chances in deck construction, but it's there.

    I also agree when someone said that drawing one card per turn seems a little slow, but I think that's just because I've been spoiled by massive card draw in other CCGs. If the build point roll weren't so random, it would just be a matter of coming up with the equivalent of a "mana curve" for build points and force...balance your unit costs, battle cards, and unit abilities so you're drawing cards at roughly the same rate as you gain the resources to pay for them. "Evening up", as someone suggested, puts a huge restriction on the acceleration and free cards that can be printed, as every card essentially becomes a cantrip (a card whose final effect is "Draw a card", for the non-Magic players).

    I was quite pleased to see the initial set was only 180 cards. Much easier to collect, although it does make for a somewhat stagnant playing ground until the first expansion comes out.

    I don't really have a problem with the game initially lacking rules for major events, as in the CCG. I thought the CCG went a little overboard on that, myself. I can see how the TCG could get monotonous with nothing but battles, but there are plenty of other card games for which that has worked fine.

    I wouldn't put it past WotC to have something up their sleeve for that, though. If you think about it, I don't know that there's any major events that wouldn't fall directly into one of the existing arenas. Pe
     
  8. Ocelot_X

    Ocelot_X Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2001
    iwjev: I htink you make some very good points about what should be added to the game. If WotC introduces a few of these over a couple of expansions, it could keep the game fresh for quite a while and establish a solid player base. Here's a thought about a few of your specific ideas: instead of eliminating the dice (from what I understand, you'd be making a whole new game if you did that), how about making more ways to control the rolls? I'm not sure what all is already in the game (I refuse to look at the cards until after I see Episode II; I won't have my months of running out of movie trailers be put to waste by some silly cards!), but how about having the weapon cards do stuff like add 1 to a characters attack rolls, or some other ways of keeping the randomnes from being all THAT random? Like maybe you could decrease speed to add to attack rolls through some card, to simulate taking time to aim (you wait longer to set up the shot, but once you do, you're more likely to score a hit)? Again, I don't know if cards like this already exist or what, but I think they'd be good to have.

    Darksbane: Sure, Mission and Battle cards play at different times, but couldn't they be one type and jus say when they play? That might actually be easier because then you don't have to remember when each plays, since the card says. That was one of the best things about Jedi Knights. It may have had its failings, but the Event card type was just so versatile, representing both temporary and permanent effects, and being capable of representing virtually any element of the Star Wars universe. Such a versatile card type precludes the need for new card types (which to me seems sloppy most of the time), which can make learning the game much less intimidating for new players, even if it doesn't realy make it any easier.

    Bubba: I didn't mean to say it should be *like* the CCG, but something new and exciting ought to be offered by each new expansion, especially early on. And I was just using the Death Star as an example, that doesn't have to be the first thing they do (although it would be cool). It could be something else, but it can't be nothing. Podracing, carbon-freezing, dueling (I sort of imagine the character arena to be a "dueling" arena of sorts, but a specific dueling mechanic would be nice), or anything else they can come up with. They say they have tricks up their sleeve, and you take their word for it, which is fine. As for me, I'll believe it when I see it. But going back to the Death Star example, I think that it has to be done right. In SWCCG, the introduction of the Death Star provided new and interesting gameplay possibilities, but they weren't very effective and as a result saw little play until recent years when helper effects and objectives were introduced, and even today they don't make the best of decks (though they do make some of the most fun decks). In Jedi Knights, the Death Star was nothing more than the most powerful starship in the game. Sure, it was a good card, and a lot of decks used it, but it failed to add anything new and exciting to the game, where it really had the potential to. In my opinion, even though the JK Death Star was more useful in gameplay than the SWCCG Death Star, it just wasn't as good because it wasn't really anything special. Though the SWCCG one wasn't great either, since it could do cool stuff but it was damn near impossible to get it to do so for quite some time. SWTCG needs to do it better than JK and make the Death Star something special, but at the same time it should do better than SWCCG and make it something useful. If they can do that for the most important parts of the movies, I think the game will do well for a long time. And of course the Death Star did more than just get blown up. How about having it let the Dark Side player clear all units (for both players) out of the ground arena to simulate blowing up a planet? That would be too powerful if it just let you, but if you had to accomplish something (preferably non-battle-related IMO) to activate that ab
     
  9. 1stAD

    1stAD Jedi Youngling star 5

    Registered:
    May 10, 2001
    I want to see LAND in this game. Maybe something that you must build initially, but can later tap for more build points.
     
  10. BigPoppaJabba

    BigPoppaJabba Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 4, 2001
    Ocelot_X, you can get spoilers without pictures at the deckbuilder program. I think it's in Darkbane's (SP?) sig. You can get pictures from the program, but you don't have to.
     
  11. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    >> never saw any good rules for multiplayer for the SWCCG, although I suppose I hadn't really been looking (three people means team games are out).<<

    There are ways of doing it..I've found that in a 3-player situation, it works best to do a 2 players w/one deck vs 1 player w/two decks.
     
  12. Darksbane

    Darksbane Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2002
    "Ocelot_X, you can get spoilers without pictures at the deckbuilder program. I think it's in Darkbane's (SP?) sig. You can get pictures from the program, but you don't have to."

    yep I have full text spoilers in the deck builder and no flavor text so there isn't as big of a chance of getting a movie spoiler.
     
  13. Darksbane

    Darksbane Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2002
    "Darksbane: Sure, Mission and Battle cards play at different times, but couldn't they be one type and jus say when they play? That might actually be easier because then you don't have to remember when each plays, since the card says. That was one of the best things about Jedi Knights. It may have had its failings, but the Event card type was just so versatile, representing both temporary and permanent effects, and being capable of representing virtually any element of the Star Wars universe. Such a versatile card type precludes the need for new card types (which to me seems sloppy most of the time), which can make learning the game much less intimidating for new players, even if it doesn't realy make it any easier."

    Perhaps but both types of cards have other differences than just the timing. They use totally different resources and in general do different things. By having two card types it saves them the trouble of having to explain the timing on every card (because they would have to)

     
  14. iwjev

    iwjev Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2002
    If you ask me Magic the Gathering is the best card game ever made. With that in mind it would not be hard to make a Magic the Gathering like StarWars card game. I mean think about it. there are lots of different ways you could make the different card colors. you could have the empire/dark jedi, redels, jedi, gungans, ... This way you would not be required just to play light vs dark (which if you ask me can get old after a little while). It would also be really easy to now play multi player games.

    I was thinking about how hard it would be to add land/location cards to TCG. All you would have to do is us your CCG location cards and black(or any other color) back card holders. Then use the force bars as build point and force points all in one.

    How would you make the current TCG into a multi player game? So far the best multi player card game that is close to StarWars is the Star Trek CCG.
     
  15. Artie-Deco

    Artie-Deco Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 23, 2001
    Huh? Star Trek CCG is not multiplayer. At least, not by design...

    SW:TCG could be multiplayer through use of teams -- 2 LS players vs. 2 DS players. Could be interesting ... do you use all your teams build points on your unit, or do you let your partner have some ....

    The only way to do 3 player games would be to have LS, DS and Independent players, like Jedi Knights had. LS decks can only have LS units, DS can only have DS units and IND only IND units. The way the game is today you'd have to let each deck contain IND battle & mission cards, though.


     
  16. Chrondeath

    Chrondeath Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 9, 2002
    > SW:TCG could be multiplayer through use of
    > teams -- 2 LS players vs. 2 DS players.
    > Could be interesting ... do you use all your
    > teams build points on your unit, or do you
    > let your partner have some ....
    >
    > The only way to do 3 player games would be to
    > have LS, DS and Independent players, like
    > Jedi Knights had. LS decks can only have LS
    > units, DS can only have DS units and IND
    > only IND units. The way the game is today
    > you'd have to let each deck contain IND battle &
    > mission cards, though.

    Not at all. I noticed in the reports of the TCG games at Celebration II that they were allowing Dark vs Dark and Light vs Light matchups, with a die roll to determine sides in homogenous games. This solves most of the problems...heck, if you wanted to, you could even allow dark/light mixed decks.

    Hmm...determining your build order and tie resolution by the percentage of dark/light cards in your deck...I like that...doesn't really fit with the story, but it should make for a good game.

    Setup changes a bit, you'd start with the "most dark" player and each other player would get over his total, then the player with the highest total would become the next mark. Uniqueness may or may not have to be dealt with...they've already got rules for bidding on contested uniques, but conflicts are much more likely if two or more players are playing the same side. Possibly just open uniques to one per player.

    My point was that the TCG has a lot of room for multiplayer variants, which some other card games (like SWCCG and Netrunner) lack.
     
  17. iwjev

    iwjev Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2002
    I know this is not a Star Trek board but since Artie-Deco asked...

    You cam make it a multi player game by setting the locations up in a triangle, square, ... you get the point. One cool way to do a 3-way game is to arrange the locations in a peace sign.

    John
     
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