I understand what you’re saying, don’t get me wrong, I was just kinda hoping, probably too romantically, that they could make a game that didn’t rely on these sorts of regulations to keep players competitive with each other.
If you wanted to just buy a core set and go to world’s, you could do well with just those cards. Limiting power creep and publishing updates that allowed creativity and new ways of playing that were technically no better or worse than the core set is what made this whole model work in my mind.
I think people underestimate how hard it is to balance a game and check all possible card interactions for abuse, loopholes, inconsistencies and timing issues. It would be great if that was possible, but it’s just not.
I disagree with this. Plenty of people will be at World’s this weekend who own all the cards and don’t do well. While I’m a firm believer that the pilot has a huge role to play, the deck does its fair share too. I agree that there are some strong cards in core, but a deck comprised solely from that set will bomb. I think someone recently had middling success with a core only Gabe deck, but the Corp sucks without some of the newer toys.
There is a lot of ways that FFG could have handled rotation while still adhering to the core concept that once you purchase a card it will be legal forever. Phasing out cards seems like a strange solution. Also if they want to lower the barrier to entry how about slowing down the release schedule and providing entire cycle boxes at a lower price point?
I agree completely and not arguing that point, you have to have all the cards AND play well. This is demonstrably the case and cannot be argued against in the first place.
I was hoping when I started playing Netrunner, based on my understanding of the LCG model, that it would always be significantly skewed towards the latter. I was hoping that my assumption would prove true, but it didn’t.
Could it have been managed and designed around this idea? Regardless of how hard it is, I think professional game designers with sufficient play testing should’ve be able to do it … Not doing so screams of profiteering to me, so my original statement about a money lunge.
The anti-logic from FFG is, unless we power creep, and force people to buy the new stuff to stay competitive, people won’t collect. I think this attitude is provably wrong, but decisions have now been made and presented on powerpoint. And NEH is already printed.
It’s 2020, and you’re newish to Netrunner but ready to compete. As you assemble your new deck, you realise Plascrete is the optimal card. Unfortunately, that data pack hasn’t been (re)printed in a long, long time and very few stores stock it. In fact a lot of old, really important cards are hard to get hold of and cost a lot of money to acquire. It looks like this is a card you’ll have to substitute for something inferior. You just hope you’re not competing against people with bigger wallets than you…
This isn’t crazy. I started just after C&C appeared, and it was really hard to find copies of some of the early Genesis Cycle datapacks.
I don’t see how you can rotate and let all cards remain legal forever - what do you envisage here?
Any situation in which all cards remain legal fails to alleviate any of the problems that set rotation is intended to solve, namely: barrier to entry (financial and intellectual investment) and testing all possible interactions within the environment.
Well you bite the bullet and run Crash Space, from the core set, and find room in your influence for it, because crash space is the core set standard for dealing with meat damage.
I’d prefer equal access (or at least, more equal than that) to the card pool. One thing I hate about the Magic scene is how your financial investment affects your competitiveness. But maybe our priorities differ.
I envision a a fixed amount of cycles say eight full cycles and a system where only 5 cycles would be legal for the tournament season and they would rotate each year. As far as new content, FFG could focus on just releasing big boxes and then maybe phasing out the big boxes if needed.
My argument is that printing a card like plascrete carapace nearly squashed crash space, and that shouldn’t of happened… Crash space should’ve remained the best meat damage prevention there was for the rest of the games lifespan.
So you mean maybe for one season an old cycle comes back and a new one disappears temporarily? It could work, but then it still needs everyone to have access to every card somewhere down the line and for the play-test team to be able to explore every possible interaction.
It might make for an interesting play experience, but I don’t think it solves any of the problems they’re trying to address. Much better to simpy reprint cards that you want to remain in the environment.
Well precisely because everything was balanced against a card that wasn’t in a big box or the core set. That is the design error that caused rotation in the first place.
Crash Space was never the answer to meat damage. It was a trap right from day one. It basically only saves you in the situation where the Corp needs to use all three clicks to kill you (SEA-Scorch-Scorch for example). It’s a resource, so the Corp can just trash it before laying on the pain if you’re tagged.
What I would agree on is that Plascrete became ubiquitious in Runner decks for quite some time. It’s taken a temporary back seat while Weyland disappeared at the start of this cycle, but with Blue Sun now in the frame I’d be surprised if we don’t see a re-emergence - at least until someone finds a way to make large hand strategies viable and/or Noise finds a way to viably play without running.
They would probably have to make functional reprints so that everyone has access to Essential cards like Jackson Howard or Plascrete Carapace. They are going to have to reprint those cards anyways once genesis and spin disappear. Like I said before though, if they would find support for a legacy format then I wouldn’t even care about rotation and I do see why rotation is necessary.
That’s the point isn’t it? If they supported legacy no one would care about rotation and standard wouldn’t be a thing. In order to further the game and grow the player base they have to rotate, otherwise players like you (and me if I’m honest) will be the only ones left in the game in a few years and that will doom the game to contract in size.
Doesn’t even have to be a functional reprint - they can reprint it as is if they like. They didn’t rule that out in the Q&A session last night. This is also away of making errata more accessible - reprinting the same card with revised text.
Decoy is core set too … If you are that worried about being sea-scorched, run decoys … Making plascrete created an ultimate crutch that severely effected balance in the game, because it wasn’t a core set card … Now all meat damage decisions have to be balanced against it, and it is these sorts of cards that have forced rotation on us.
Like I say, I’m just playing the romantic devil’s advocate, and trying to highlight ways the game could’ve been balanced without the need to print crutch cards like plascrete and jhoward.
I can see why you might hold that opinion. Did you actually play the game when only core was available? It was a very different experience to how it is now. Plascrete and J-How were answers to specific problems. I agree Plascrete became a bit of a crutch, but J-How was necessary not just to solve the problem with Noise, but also to make more Corp strategies viable and to speed up they way they play (which they desperately needed).
Do you have any proof for this? I have heard from couple of sources that Core+Genesis was tested together and formed a uniformed card pool. Which makes sense with powerful and simple cards in Core+Genesis (when compared to many weird and corner case cards from the Spin). I don’t understand the issue with Plascrete. I think it is a good design and a balanced card which forces more thinking for Ta&Bag deck.
Making balanced and changing metagame with just releasing expansion is almost impossible game design. Even MTG can’t do this and they have a longer experience and probably much more (and capable) play testers. You can really change the metagame by set rotation or banning/restricting (which I see more as a emergency switch). Meta really evolves when old cards are removed, not so much when new cards are added. I would like to see Core/Deluxes rotate someday also because I am not looking forward always seeing Astro+SanSan+Biotic+Fast Track