Perhaps everyone already knows this but just an FYI for the people that don't, I sent:

!

26 minutes ago, Chakan99939 said:

!

Metal... Gear?

Was in shock, this is awesome

Seriously? I don't really care in 'power' terms, but FFG really needs to sort its **** out in regards to the rules. What the **** is their definition of 'manipulate'?

DICE POOL

Dice in a player’s dice pool can be manipulated (removed,

turned, etc.)

DICE ON CARDS

These dice are not active, cannot be manipulated, and none

of their sides are considered to be showing

So does 'etc' means 'stuff we don't want to bother defining, except not the stuff that doesn't count as manipulate'?

Seriously, it shouldn't be this hard. I know FFG have never been great with rules, but the rules in Destiny are worse than any of the LCG games I've played, and the games wants to cater to the larger CCG market?

30 minutes ago, Abyss said:

Seriously, it shouldn't be this hard. I know FFG have never been great with rules, but the rules in Destiny are worse than any of the LCG games I've played, and the games wants to cater to the larger CCG market?

You provide both problem and cause in the same sentence.

FFG did the same thing with X-wing. In their view, short and simple is the path to mass-market success. Clarity and completeness just add complexity, which nobody wants (in their mind).

45 minutes ago, Abyss said:

Seriously? I don't really care in 'power' terms, but FFG really needs to sort its **** out in regards to the rules. What the **** is their definition of 'manipulate'?

DICE POOL

Dice in a player’s dice pool can be manipulated (removed,

turned, etc.)

DICE ON CARDS

These dice are not active, cannot be manipulated, and none

of their sides are considered to be showing

So does 'etc' means 'stuff we don't want to bother defining, except not the stuff that doesn't count as manipulate'?

Seriously, it shouldn't be this hard. I know FFG have never been great with rules, but the rules in Destiny are worse than any of the LCG games I've played, and the games wants to cater to the larger CCG market?

Or, instead of insulting people working hard on the game, you could understand that "manipulate" and "choose" are two completely different verbs in English, and thus it's legit dice manipulation actions are a different kettle of fish? I honestly think it's embarassing thinking that "manipulating" something it's the same as "choosing". Homework: write 10 sentences with the verb "to manipulate" and 10 with the verb "to choose" and see if the two are synonims

EDIT: just to add to the difference, imagine wedding vows starting with "I MANIPULATED YOU" instead of "I chose you". Good grief

Well said Julia. I feel some rules lawyers want the entire English dictionary included in the rules set for them because understanding words is too hard.

Welcome to FFG game This will be 4 years we deal with these kind of thing in X-Wing Miniature...

And Julia, I would not call that insult toward the Dev of the game, this is still pretty tame with some stuff I seen on the X-Wing miniature forum...

Edit: Yes in this case it seems clear that choosing should not be seen as manipulation, but you should see what is seen as manipulation in the X-Wing Miniature, you would be flabbergasted.

Yeah, but still, you can express your disappointment in a more civilized manner. I work as rules editor, and editing a rulebook it's one of the most difficult things you can do for a game. Especially if there's a growing card pool as in Destiny or any LCG, and the game is complex like most of FFG games. You need to keep into account the weight of thousands of different things (including the use of prepositions, formatting, conjunctions, structure of the sentences and so on), you usually have a very limited time frame to do the job (because deadlines to respect, production chain that cannot be stopped, and so on) and in the end there's a lot of different people working on the same game. A good rulebook must

a) be consistent
b) present the information in a logical way, i.e. you cannot talk of object B if object A has not been defined before
c) the format needs to be understandable by the public: if you need to be a lawyer to understand a game, then, there's something that went wrong along the way
d) you need to keep in mind that you're not writing a rulebook for what a game is, but for what a game CAN BE, so that the wording you use needs to be consistent with possible expansions about which you have no clue at the moment you're doing the editing

I'm not saying the Rules Reference for SW:Destiny is perfect (and constructive criticisms are really welcome because they help me with my job, I need to understand the errors I did in that edit to provide higher quality standards for my next edits), and I'm sorry if some parts are not bulletproof as they should be, but please keep in mind we're all working together (editors, testers, designers, and players) to create something great. Once a game is released, the number of games played and interactions tested becomes infinite times greater that what could have been tested before, and this clearly brings up new problems (or not). Lukas is awesome because he covers all the questions, and this will help hugely at improving the quality of the game. But as said, folks, be polite.

Thanks for understanding, and have fun playing Destiny

I give it to you he was rude, but I don't put that in insulting, he did not call them name. Someone sounding angry and someone telling you your are an **** is not the same thing... I can sound really calm but particularly insulting when I want...

Anyway, I agree that the job is not easy. But on the complete range of possible result, FFG is often more on the bottom then at the top. Sure, not everyone can have the high quality of templating of a game like MTG. They have way more money and a long history behind them. (And they are good only from the last 8-10 years, they had their share of bad template before that)

But at the same time, they seems to not even have a bare minimum of template sheet reference. (I work in game design too, I know what a template reference sheet is and what basic error it prevent)

1 hour ago, Julia said:

Or, instead of insulting people working hard on the game, you could understand that "manipulate" and "choose" are two completely different verbs in English, and thus it's legit dice manipulation actions are a different kettle of fish? I honestly think it's embarassing thinking that "manipulating" something it's the same as "choosing". Homework: write 10 sentences with the verb "to manipulate" and 10 with the verb "to choose" and see if the two are synonims

They need to work harder, something you may or may not realize they're getting paid to do; the onus falls on all of FFG, so maybe they should bother investing in more staff while they're at it. There's absolutely no excuse why the rules should be this much of a s**t show after nearly half a year, not with an entire marketplace to draw inspiration from. What's truly embarrassing is the notion that I should have to rely on an English dictionary for a complete set of rules. Can we assign FFG homework too?

Yet everyone is still here, go figure!

I don't think anyone believes it's trivial.

But writing decent rules is pretty much what every one of us pays FFG to do. I write software. Most would accept that large modern software is hard. If my stuff breaks, nobody wants to hear about the complexities of build systems or regression testing on 50 different phones, they just care that my stuff broke - and they're right.

Even then, there was obviously a decision made to give Destiny a much lighter rules touch than even FFG card games. There are no timing charts, there are very few strict definitions, and any number of card interaction questions simply cannot be answered by the rules as they're presented. Maybe my software background skews my perspective, but that's baffling to me. If you want a card to do something, you look at the rules framework and fit it into that - you don't just write it and throw it out there. Blackmail is a great example - is rolling simultaneous with activation? What does "rolled" even MEAN? I'll grant it's hard, but given that Destiny is a dice game, how do you not have strong definitions for what it actually means to roll dice??

Yes, I'll agree that writing rules can be hard. But there's "We missed this regression that happens with the setting nobody uses on that one unpopular device" hard and there's "Well, yeah, I didn't bother to actually run the app before we shipped the new version and now it crashes on startup" hard. Weird interactions that take two or three cards under the right circumstances are one thing. "What does it mean to roll dice?" is something else entirely.

This one still tickles me: "We couldn't come up with a good definition for 'game state' after several months, so we reversed our previous ruling instead." What a cop out.

8 hours ago, Julia said:

Or, instead of insulting people working hard on the game, you could understand that "manipulate" and "choose" are two completely different verbs in English, and thus it's legit dice manipulation actions are a different kettle of fish? I honestly think it's embarassing thinking that "manipulating" something it's the same as "choosing". Homework: write 10 sentences with the verb "to manipulate" and 10 with the verb "to choose" and see if the two are synonims

My apologies if it came across as rude but I enjoy the game and I'm frustrated at how poor the rules are, and I think FFG needs to see this is an issue for people. If it's too hard to make complex rules - stop making complex cards that require complex rules. Streamline everything, make it intuitive, have everything use the same language, and if new mechanics get introduced put them in the FAQ and explain them. Stop doing stuff like 3-PO or Cargo Bay or Carbon Freezing Chamber that need specific ruling due to their interactions.

As for manipulate vs choose, they are two different things. One is targeting, the other is what you do to the dice - look at Loth Cat and Mouse, which uses 'choose' to determine the target for it's effect, and then 'remove' (manipulate) for the actual effect. The issue is that apparently 'not being able to roll a dice' doesn't count as manipulating it?

To further underscore why this is an issue: How does this apply to Prized Possession? This has the same effect (removing a character dice and preventing it being rolled), but different targeting (remove an opponents character dice and place it on the card). So can you remove dice that aren't in the pool with PP or not? Do we have two cards with the same basic effect that work in different ways, or is PP one of the cards that falls into the 'secretly not dice manipulation' category?

12 minutes ago, Abyss said:

My apologies if it came across as rude but I enjoy the game and I'm frustrated at how poor the rules are, and I think FFG needs to see this is an issue for people. If it's too hard to make complex rules - stop making complex cards that require complex rules. Streamline everything, make it intuitive, have everything use the same language, and if new mechanics get introduced put them in the FAQ and explain them. Stop doing stuff like 3-PO or Cargo Bay or Carbon Freezing Chamber that need specific ruling due to their interactions.

As for manipulate vs choose, they are two different things. One is targeting, the other is what you do to the dice - look at Loth Cat and Mouse, which uses 'choose' to determine the target for it's effect, and then 'remove' (manipulate) for the actual effect. The issue is that apparently 'not being able to roll a dice' doesn't count as manipulating it?

To further underscore why this is an issue: How does this apply to Prized Possession? This has the same effect (removing a character dice and preventing it being rolled), but different targeting (remove an opponents character dice and place it on the card). So can you remove dice that aren't in the pool with PP or not? Do we have two cards with the same basic effect that work in different ways, or is PP one of the cards that falls into the 'secretly not dice manipulation' category?

I'm the OP who sent the question. I had the same reservations as you but honestly it is internally consistent. The rules say dice not in the pool cannot be removed or manipulated. Prized Possession removes the die so you cannot do that until it enters the pool. Carbonite Chamber, and other cards in the future that may say "choose" on them, can choose dice on your cards.

What's the confusion with C3PO or Cargo Hold? I don't want to open a can of worms but for a game this complex, the rules are actually beautifully simple.

I didn't realise this was a question. You choose a dice. Next turn it's not rolled. Why would it have to be in the pool. It's not effected in any way in the turn freezing chamber activates.

21 minutes ago, Hurdoc said:

I'm the OP who sent the question. I had the same reservations as you but honestly it is internally consistent. The rules say dice not in the pool cannot be removed or manipulated. Prized Possession removes the die so you cannot do that until it enters the pool. Carbonite Chamber, and other cards in the future that may say "choose" on them, can choose dice on your cards.

What's the confusion with C3PO or Cargo Hold? I don't want to open a can of worms but for a game this complex, the rules are actually beautifully simple.

So simple that we don't even have a basic definition for 'roll,' just like Buhallin said. Do you realize that with the current rules you can legally do whatever you want with your dice? Nothing says that the outcome has to be random, and there are no provisions in the tournament regulations for handling them at all. That's kind of a huge oversight for a competitive game.

There are other games with beautifully simple rules, they just happen to have enough of them to cover every possible scenario. So why do we, the consumer, get short shrift from FFG in exchange for our continued loyalty?

8 hours ago, Hurdoc said:

I'm the OP who sent the question. I had the same reservations as you but honestly it is internally consistent. The rules say dice not in the pool cannot be removed or manipulated. Prized Possession removes the die so you cannot do that until it enters the pool. Carbonite Chamber, and other cards in the future that may say "choose" on them, can choose dice on your cards.

What's the confusion with C3PO or Cargo Hold? I don't want to open a can of worms but for a game this complex, the rules are actually beautifully simple.

To me the intuitive and logical thing is that manipulating a dice = effecting a dice in some way. Turning a dice, rerolling a dice, removing a dice - all effecting a dice, so all manipulating it. Apparently, 'choosing it not to be rolled' is not effecting it, so it's not manipulating it. Okay, I can understand that logic (though I don't like it), but what I don't like is why we're in this situation in the first place. Did that effect *need* to be in the game, in such a way that we need to have a specific ruling from the creator of how it's meant to function? Why have two cards that conceptually do the same thing (prevent a dice being rolled), but worded different so that they operate in two different manners? Did they not consider how that would lead to confusion? Why not fix Carbon Freezing Chamber so that it works like Prized Possession? Did they not realize they would work differently, and have only made a decision in hindsight?

(also, I think focusing on the 'choose' part is a mistake - I don't think that's why it works, again Loth Cat and Mouse uses choose in a similar way).

It's a similar issue with Cargo Bay and 3PO. Cargo Bay has the confusion with moving not checking play restrictions; it's consistent with the rules but why design the card that way/did we really need a card like that early in the games life?

3PO just opens up lots of questions about how resolving dice as something else actually works; most of these were covered in the FAQ but I'm honestly still not sure 100% whether you're meant to be able to resolve a blank as something else (general opinion seems to be that you can, but I'm like an actual ruling). There was ways that it could have been done slightly differently, but would have been much simpler - e.g. 'Remove this dice to turn a dice to another side, and then resolve it' would still be a great effect, and it wouldn't have required any kind of extra clarification because it's simple and follows the sames rules as everything else.

The other big issue for me, is that many of the rulings feel like a coin flip. We've already had one reversed ruling. While some of the confusing cards can be worked out within the rules, many of them just feel like 'It works this way because we say it works this way, but maybe next time it'll be slightly different and it won't'.

14 hours ago, Abyss said:

To me the intuitive and logical thing is that manipulating a dice = effecting a dice in some way. Turning a dice, rerolling a dice, removing a dice - all effecting a dice, so all manipulating it. Apparently, 'choosing it not to be rolled' is not effecting it, so it's not manipulating it. Okay, I can understand that logic (though I don't like it), but what I don't like is why we're in this situation in the first place. Did that effect *need* to be in the game, in such a way that we need to have a specific ruling from the creator of how it's meant to function? Why have two cards that conceptually do the same thing (prevent a dice being rolled), but worded different so that they operate in two different manners? Did they not consider how that would lead to confusion? Why not fix Carbon Freezing Chamber so that it works like Prized Possession? Did they not realize they would work differently, and have only made a decision in hindsight?

(also, I think focusing on the 'choose' part is a mistake - I don't think that's why it works, again Loth Cat and Mouse uses choose in a similar way).

It's a similar issue with Cargo Bay and 3PO. Cargo Bay has the confusion with moving not checking play restrictions; it's consistent with the rules but why design the card that way/did we really need a card like that early in the games life?

3PO just opens up lots of questions about how resolving dice as something else actually works; most of these were covered in the FAQ but I'm honestly still not sure 100% whether you're meant to be able to resolve a blank as something else (general opinion seems to be that you can, but I'm like an actual ruling). There was ways that it could have been done slightly differently, but would have been much simpler - e.g. 'Remove this dice to turn a dice to another side, and then resolve it' would still be a great effect, and it wouldn't have required any kind of extra clarification because it's simple and follows the sames rules as everything else.

The other big issue for me, is that many of the rulings feel like a coin flip. We've already had one reversed ruling. While some of the confusing cards can be worked out within the rules, many of them just feel like 'It works this way because we say it works this way, but maybe next time it'll be slightly different and it won't'.

https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/affect-effect/

On 5/16/2017 at 4:11 PM, Hurdoc said:

I'm the OP who sent the question. I had the same reservations as you but honestly it is internally consistent. The rules say dice not in the pool cannot be removed or manipulated. Prized Possession removes the die so you cannot do that until it enters the pool. Carbonite Chamber, and other cards in the future that may say "choose" on them, can choose dice on your cards.

What's the confusion with C3PO or Cargo Hold? I don't want to open a can of worms but for a game this complex, the rules are actually beautifully simple.

I agree that the rules work as written. People want to read between the lines a lot. I'm also sure some things slip threw the cracks. This is new and will take time to see the public's influence and world tournaments will shape the future. But hey isn't the sky falling.