Rogue30 said:

Not really - I just usually don't quote someone 100 times and systematically refute every piece of it. Which, to your credit, you didn't do the second time

Easy though Rogue and HK - you certainly have the right to be disappointed and voice your opinion...did anyone say you didn't even the harsher posters? We also have the right to disagree. Neither your case nor ours have been proven by stats (i.e. how many errors/bans FFG had in the CCG era, how many they have compared to MTG or AEG or whomever prints YGO - those are the only games with the staying power of aGoT so far), so agree to disagree!

I luckily have played this game since the DAY it came out, and I just don't think it is any worse - balance or error-wise - as it had been, plus I have played probably 20 other CCG/TCG/LCG's and seen the sheer # of bannings/erratta on those (including the 'professionals' at Magic who have banned cards before anyone has played with them), so personally I think FFG is doing a good job *shrug*

rings said:

Well, I just look at arguments, think about them, and I write if I agree or not, and give my arguments. I guess people just hate my sarcasm.

rings said:

I understand. But can it be a proper estimation judging by history? FFG employees has come and gone (I hope marketing guy responsible for KotS was just fired ). I mean we observed bad moves (i.e. regarding gameplay, otherwise: good job FFG!) in short period of time (comparing to whole history or LCG era). This can be alarming, no? If they got a person responsible for checking card text, then they should fire him. If they don't have such person, then they should hire someone. Also, maybe more playtesters? Maybe better playtesting process? (and yes, I know it's extremely tough process). I just don't buy arguments "every company makes mistakes". So why bother with correct and clear card word templates. Why bother with playtesting at all? Just print whatever cards and then make players as playtesters, and then you only need to update FAQ and case closed.

I have no problem with people voicing their concerns about cards, or the game (I do it all the time).

However, while complaining may help point out the problems, but it doesn't do much towards solving them. Posts become easier to read when they have constructive criticism, and FFG tends to listen much more to what is being said.

And all sarcasm is lost on the boards without a "~", and even with it sometimes...

Deathjester26 said:

Outfox, in-House cancel, more recursion/play access to dead (and maybe even discard) pile for Baratheon >> (neutral, anyone can use) NE

The First Snow of Winter >> Venomous Blade

Martell gets awesome stuff when they lose as a DEFENDER >> Martell gets awesome stuff when they lose or just flat-out awesome stuff (i.e. BotS)

More in-House draw and card advantage effects (i.e. in-and-out of play tech for Targ, better draw when burn for Targ, dead pile access for Bara, unopposed/pump draw for GJ, search for Stark, etc.) >> Val

Defined, SHARED vision and themes for Houses (i.e. Lanni INT-power House, Stark MIL-power House, etc.) >> "Are they just making up something every time it's time to make a new cycle, or do they have the next several cycles planned out?" not defined and/or not shared vision.

in-House and neutral-themed-base (i.e. Brotherhood if you have no power on your House..., Wildlings if you control X or more Wildings...) distinct, thematic, flavorful cards >> bland, everyone can use, "you're foolish to not run this in just about every deck" neutral cards. Basically "greying" the environment is boring (and in my opinion bad).

Good, one-time ban/errata and earlier ban/errata >> Multiple, insufficient ban/errata, later or no ban/errata, and waiting potentially 6 or more months for "answer" cards that may or may not solve the issue; thus upsetting environment and tournament seasons.

I can't get much more concise and constructive than that

As far as editing goes, lets try to keep it in perspective:

• Do we, the players, find everything the first time we read the cards? The entire community took at least 6 months to realize that Alannys Greyjoy had a potential problem. Even longer with Dragonstone Port. Why would we assume editors and playtesters are perfect?
• The number of things that get through really isn't huge when you think of the volume of card text there is. How much are the playtesters and editors catching? We'll never know. Any miss becomes pretty memorable.
• Not everything ends up being as bad or having the anticipated effect when we first "break" the spoiler. What happened to the predictions that MWnK would make every neutral character and location useless?
• Do things change after playtesting or editing is over? (Historically speaking, I have heard a playtesters say "we never saw that" when cards come out.)
• Ultimately, FFG makes certain decisions. They may choose to put particularly powerful cards into the environment. I doubt the playtesters missed TLS/Val. But FFG may have made a choice to go ahead with it anyway. I'd imagine sometimes these choices turn out fine, sometimes they don't.

ktom said:

This one always makes me laugh To Lars' credit, had FFG continued to release reinforcement-traited cards, and had some of those been much stronger/worth playing, splashing MWNK wouldn't be the worst thing in the world (though still an expensive option for removal).

Twn2dn said:

ktom said:

All you said is true and wise (no sarcasm here).

But by this logic I (or anyone) could never complain. Everytime I would see wrong/confusing text and I would want to say something, someone would just say "oi! errare humanum est".

We judge by facts, right? What is your personal opinion about NE reprint? If we go with engineer example, then if this engineer makes wrong product with error sent to production, and then makes this error again, then he is simply fired.

You are right, that you can't catch everything (I know something, actually a lot, about it), but how do you explain when something was removed by purpose? Or maybe someone accidently pressed d-elete or something? Twice??

Not looking far for example, there is a polish translation for A Game of Thrones book with outrageous 3 or 4 little parts of text when reader says WTF! And it's not that it's bad translation - it's simply gibberish! It doesn't happen to me in any other polish book I've read. Is that mean I can say "well, it's awesome story, so I don't mind, that I don't understand what's going on, because everyone can make mistake"?

And playtesters argument - FFG is responsible for playtesting NOT the playtesters. Just like Dobbler is not responsible for his card. FFG is.

~And Dragonstone Port never needed errata at my tournaments - just written as intended.

ktom said:

Yeah, sorry...didn't mean to single him out, I just remember him being most vocal. I heard one of the MN guys had a pretty frightening MWNK build, so it seems like it could be great in the right deck. Actually, I think MWNK could be competitive within the right metagame, which is what I think Lars and others were saying. If you played in a meta where Brotherhood (or even wildlings?) ran rampant, MWNK could be a great answer to Beric,etc. The problem is that it's not consistent enough against non-neutral-heavy builds, whereas Wildlings were pretty much competitive against every build.

Rogue30 said:

I was trying to point out other factors that never seem to be considered when people start complaining about individual cards or situations. That's why I said "keep it in perspective." I wasn't telling people not to complain; I was asking people to see more than their individual issue. There is a middle ground between "always complain" (aka, "these guys have no clue what they're doing and shouldn't have jobs") and "never complain" (aka, "nothing is ever wrong"). It's called "constructive criticism."

Rogue30 said:

Rogue30 said:

I know you put the tilde in front of that, but are you ever going to admit to understanding what so many people - including Nate - really said about that situation? When someone explains themselves, repeatedly, and you still bring up the misunderstanding, repeatedly, it stops being funny even as sarcasm.

ktom said:

We are still talking about editing, right? I would like to see Dobbler's self-portrait. (joke!)

ktom said:

Only a joke, cause people usually say "never needed errata for me" and it was written the way no one found the problem for long time.

I'm going to say this clearly, your comments didn't come across as saracasm to me, or helpful, they came across as mean, uninformed, and entitled.

You can discuss how much you dislike a card, but as ktom said, when you start calling on people to be fired or disparaging the entire team at FFG because you don't agree about a card, you've crossed the line from being funny and constructive to being a nuisance.

I remember people asking for neutral draw. I remember people complaining about Valar. The fact that people are now upset that they got what a another group of players asked for, is pretty much a sure sign that even if you and Fatmouse were in charge of R&D that there would be just as many people complaining about what you were doing and the way you were doing it. You can't please all the people all the time. Everyone makes mistakes. These are truisms. You can either accept them, live a happy life, and be helpful and moderate in tone when things you see as problems arise, or you can go the route you are currently on. Or anything in between, but guess which end of the spectrum is more likely to get you written off by a number the players here? Guess which one is likely to convince FFG that you aren't some obsessed fanboi, but a conscientious and well meaning-player who should be taken seriously?

Penfold said:

I think you've read too much from my comments. Look, if someone gives solid argument that FFG failed and then someone gives argument "everything is ok" (very general argument, which proves he doesn't see or doesn't want to see FFG mistakes), then what option is left for you? Only sarcasm. I thought it was obvious.

It wasn't and you haven't proven anything. You've stated your opinion, one which many people disagree with on different levels. I didn't read anything into what you wrote, I looked at your wording choice. If you meant to be sarcastic rather than personally insulting to the designers and developers you failed.

Personally I try to live by my own variation of the Google Creed. Don't be a ******. That means not insulting people behind their backs. Not ranting in a public forum for people to be fired because of mistakes that every single game company in existence makes.

Let me pose it to you this way. Have you written these words in this exact form to Nate and Damon? If you ran across them at Gencon would you go up to them in person and say these things? There is probably some policy that prevents response (not to mention it ultimately not deserving one) but insulting people who are unable to defend themselves is, well... pretty low.

You could have said everything that needed saying without personally insulting the people who are responsible for the game we all love. That is where you crossed the line in my eyes from being sarcastic to just being mean.

Twn2dn said:

There's enough of a build for some Houses. GJ and Martell really get the most out of Seasons and Lanni and Bara (and Martell to a certain extent) get the most of out Shadows, but i wouldn't consider either mechanic having gotten continual support in the blocks after their debut. At least I don't consider ~12 cards that interact with Shadows (nearly half are non-Shadows crest) outside of the King's Landing cycle to be a serious continuation of support. Outside of the Season cycle, we've seen a total of 6 cards that interact with Summer and 15 cards with Winter, 21 in total (mind a couple overlap between the two). Considering the ~670 cards that have been printed since A Time of Ravens and ~550 printed cards since King's Landing, that's pretty poor support, in my opinion. When we start seeing 5% (or more) of new cards supporting Seasons and Shadows (10% total), we can begin talking about (real) continued support.

ktom said:

I wasn't active in the game when MwnK first came around, so I can't really comment much on that discussion. I will say that had FFG continued making more (good) Reinforcement events, there's a decent chance it would see more play; especially whenever the environment is neutral/OOH heavy. At moment though, it's really too inefficient to run in a competitive deck.

To be honest, I would argue the "problem" cards often tend to be the ones that don't get much initial chatter. A lot of people didn't see a problem with the Wildings or Fear until people really started abusing them. I think NE is the same. When it was spoiled, there didn't seem to be much fuss about it, but once people started playing with it discussion began...now we're here

ktom said:

If that's true, then Design should really stop doing that (if they still are). The company has play testers for a reason, and to not use them is a waste of a valuable resource. Not to mention, if they really are just a bunch of non-paid volunteers, I would think many of them would feel cheapened by such tactics. To donate your time to a project and then have the people in charge just do whatever they want (whether it's good or bad) without even asking your opinion - not very nice (or wise) if you ask me Although, it would explain why cards like BotS make it to the printer...

ktom said:

"Ultimately, FFG makes certain decisions. They may choose to put particularly powerful cards into the environment. I doubt the playtesters missed TLS/Val. But FFG may have made a choice to go ahead with it anyway. I'd imagine sometimes these choices turn out fine, sometimes they don't."

That is true, and perhaps there really is a distinct dichotomy between the play testers and designers. Maybe the play testers often feel a certain way about something, but the designers decide to go against the sentiment for whatever reason. Sometimes those reasons might be good, other times they might be bad. Either way, I recognize FFG isn't a machine; it's made of real people and real people aren't perfect and make mistakes - no matter how skilled or good their intentions are. I really don't care about mistakes being made though, I'm more interested in what FFG does when something does go wrong.

Dobbler might work at the best engineering firm in his area, but when his firm finishes a project and there's an error, does it tell its clients, "Deal with it," (leave problem as-is) "Give us ~6 months and we'll have a solution for you then," (printing "answer" cards) "Sorry, we'll take care of that right away," (ban/errata) or "We understand this isn't perfect; however, given our resources this is our best temporary solution. We will provide better support in the future." (communicating with the community about certain realities)

If the designers communicated more with the community, I'd probably be much more content with their decisions; regardless of whether or not I agree/disagree with them.

EDIT: Bad forums edit function! Bad!

Penfold said:

I don't know if either you or Rogue30 were around then, but this actually happened to an employee of FFG right at the start of the LCG era. And nobody was asking for anyone to be fired, they were just vocally upset that some promised events/support did not happen.

FATMOUSE, as far as playtesters saying "I never say that," I think it more in reference to a combo/interpretation/effect that the playtesters and designers didn't see, not that the card changed. Though I suppose that could have happened. I just keep thinking back to to Magic's first Mirrodin block, and they ended up releasing several cards that created a broken combo and led to multiple bannings, and WotC's excuse was that the playtest/R&D team never caught the issue.