Penfold said:

That's a pretty blatant exaggeration. <shrug> Maybe I wasn't that good at doing it, or your area wasn't as good at stopping it, or your local meta didn't believe in using a few high-point Agendas to limit the agenda density in their deck, but I never found it to be all that dominant. It was far too easy to see developing, and even easier to shut down by walling up R&D and the Archives.

That was actually one of the brilliant parts of Netrunner - the limited actions meant that it was very hard to ambush with something like that. About the time you drop the second Interface, if not the first, every piece of ICE I've got is going over R&D and the Archives, until it's nicely walled up. There are also plenty of meta options available to punish the Runner for such tricks.

I never played the old one enough for there to be any meta, or a good sense of what strategies might have been overpowered. But you know what? I'm not sure it matters anymore. This is the new game with rules changes, card changes, factions, etc… I'm pretty certain that Big Dig and others, if they exist, won't be the same as it used to be.

Surreal said:

It's not about drawing your big card, the reason I say it takes more skill is that you actually play what comes from your deck. Not necessarily having a copy of each card. It may be a flavor aspect, but I felt it was more like being a runner, stumbling over what programs one could find. Same with resources. and the like.

Buhallin said:

Maybe, but this is an example of what was being run in tournaments back in the day on the West Coast:

10 R&D Mole
8 Bodyweight™ Synthetic Blood
7 Top Runners' Conference
4 Loan from Chiba
3 Fall Guy
3 Militech MRAM Chip
2 Time to Collect
2 MIT West Tier
1 misc.for-sale
1 Codecracker
1 Pile Driver
1 AI Boon
1 Enterprise, Inc., Shields
1 Mouse
1 Mercenary Subcontract
1 The Deck

And if you were playing Classic it was some variant of this:

13 R&D Mole
10 Top Runners' Conference
10 Bodyweight™ Synthetic Blood
5 Militech MRAM Chip
2 Rent-I-Con
2 Loan from Chiba
1 misc.for-sale
1 Rush Hour
1 Mercenary Subcontract

I am not saying these decks were unbeatable, but facing them or playing them against a deck that didn't have the right cards (read as rares or extremely sought after uncommons) in similarly large numbers pretty much meant you got crushed.

Penfold said:

Ah, here's a big part of our disconnect on this. Our area never got into NetRunner huge, and we actually never had serious access to Proteus, none of our local stores ever got more than a single box in. I've read a fair amount of griping over the balance in Proteus, and tend to agree.

So to the extent I used and saw this, it was with R&D Interface, not the Mole. Being able to install a bunch of them without the Corp knowing what is coming, and double the hit when you do get through, is what breaks it IMHO, not necessarily the concept of heavy HQ access, and not necessarily the card limit. Give the Corp the opportunity to see it developing, and it's both a balanced and interesting interaction.

I will freely admit that without a card limit, the designers have to be far more attentive to balance. SWCCG had the same issues - a base set called Limited Resources would hit your opponent for 2 Force (cards, losing 2 from a deck of 60) or 4 if their hand was at 2 or less. It's a cool concept for a card - until you get hit with 10 of them all at once.

Card limits make a very convenient way to stop that sort of thing, but they're by no means the only way to do it. In these cases, a simple "You may only play Limted Resources once during each of your turns" would have fixed it, and avoiding the idea of Hidden Resources entirely would have fixed the Mole.

True, but not you are using a large restriction on design space (and card text) to do something that could more elegantly be done with the base rules of the game. It is all about design philosophy, but I see it as being a lot easier to test the power of a card when it appears x3 in your deck, knowing that the very probabilities of drawing a key overpowered card, in fact acts as a limitation on it, versus trying to figure out if the card is fine at x7 but broken at x9 and therefore needs limiting text.

To be clear, I don't see anything is fundamentally wrong with the other way, it is just not my preference, especially when it is a matter of $$$.

In terms of design space, I see it as the opposite. Limiting card counts takes away an entire selection of abilities which would rely on multiple copies. Mostly this covers areas where cards are inherently weak, but groups of them would build power geometrically, or you have lynchpin type cards that take an otherwise relatively useless card and improve it. Leia leading Rebel Troopers goes nowhere if you can only have 3 Troopers in the deck, but without card limits it becomes an interesting synergy that can truly compete.

I certainly acknowledge that it makes testing easier if you limit the card count - which is actually why I think it's a cop-out on the part of the designers. I also agree that if you're in a collectible environment, that has to be considered. I'll again point to SWCCG as one that did it right - Leia may have been a rare, but the Troopers were common. IMHO that's the balance you should aim for in a synergy like that - 1 or 2 of the rare card, and the others common and easy to find.

Buhallin said:

And the point is that we're not in a collectible environment. We're in an environment where you can buy exactly what you want. If there are no limits on card count then you're back to "he with the most money".

I think both sides have some merit. The example about weak cards that gain power together has trouble existing in a 3x copy environment. But unlimited copies of cards also opens up potential for abuse of powerful cards and makes deck building decisions less interesting when you aren't faced with some design constraints.

More importantly, unlimited copies of cards makes the game much harder to test. You can view that as a cop out, but I think there's a tendency for people to assume that ANYTHING involving "more work" on the designer's part is free, no matter how large the effort is. Designer time is not free. If it takes them twice as much time to test every new card because they want to allow unlimited copies - that directly translates to a lack of time to do something else. They can do it a variety of ways - new cards come out at 1/2 the rate, poorer balance, higher cost, less interesting cards that are easier to test, etc… Also in an LCG you really don't want unlimited cards anyway, the expectation by the customer is that he can buy his monthly pack and be done. It's a tradeoff I'm more than willing to make to free up those developer hours to be better spent on other things. Opportunity cost, man.

Aahzmandius_Karrde said:

I know we're not in a collectible environment any more. But that's not the same thing as "He with the most money wins". If anything, money should be LESS of a factor in a fixed environment. CCGs get expensive because of rare, hard-to-find cards. If you can play your entire decks with commons, cost isn't really an issue. As has been discussed over in the distribution thread, we expect that there will be a mix of distribution - 3/2/1 - in the core set. This assumes that the devs don't make the cards you'd want a lot of the "rares" in the set. If you're going to get wrapped around the axle on that, then you should probably head on over to the distribution thread and get a word in there - because them making you buy three core sets to get the triple copy of that "rare" card is exactly the same as you having to buy three sets to get the 9 of that common you want to spam with.

@db: I do appreciate the extra effort for testing. Software guy, remember? But I don't honestly think it's that much. Most of the time, it's not really all that much extra effort to ask yourself how the card could be abused in volume, or at least it shouldn't be. Something like Limited Resources shouldn't have needed a player to say "I wonder what happens to my opponent if I just hold 6 of these until he happens to discard to 2 cards and then play them all at once…" Likewise with something like the R&D Mole - especially building on the testing experience from the R&D Interface in the core set, someone should probably have said "Hrm, what happens if we let the runner use this as an ambush?"

Honestly, I think that in each case it's a sign of more general testing failures which weren't necessarily related to the card count. SWCCG had several other problems relating to playing the same card over and over, and I think the entire structure of Hidden Resources was problematic. That's why I think it's a cop-out. Even if it is extra effort to consider the impact of multiples, it shouldn't be all that much extra effort.

In terms of design space, I see it as the opposite. Limiting card counts takes away an entire selection of abilities which would rely on multiple copies. Mostly this covers areas where cards are inherently weak, but groups of them would build power geometrically, or you have lynchpin type cards that take an otherwise relatively useless card and improve it. Leia leading Rebel Troopers goes nowhere if you can only have 3 Troopers in the deck, but without card limits it becomes an interesting synergy that can truly compete.

Not at all. All of the LFG games use traits/tubtypes that are distinctly different from a cards title. This fills that exact design space and is infinitely more flexible. "Leia Organa gives all Trooper characters +1 strength." This works for Rebel Trooper, Rebel Sniper, Alliance Guard, and Rebel Officer, who could all have the Trooper trait. On the other hand because each is a specific card that can only be in the deck x3 by name each one can fill a slightly different design space some being much more powerful than you could otherwise have in a deck because you don't need to fear a deck running 12 of them.

I certainly acknowledge that it makes testing easier if you limit the card count - which is actually why I think it's a cop-out on the part of the designers. I also agree that if you're in a collectible environment, that has to be considered. I'll again point to SWCCG as one that did it right - Leia may have been a rare, but the Troopers were common. IMHO that's the balance you should aim for in a synergy like that - 1 or 2 of the rare card, and the others common and easy to find.

What!? A cop-out that you acknowledge that something is going to be difficult? You realize that M:tG has a large professional team of testers cards are in development for 3-4 months easily and they still have cards that receive errata or get banned. That entire point of view completely ignores reality.Cars are safety tested by computer, in lab, and on the track for over a year before they ever see the inside of showroom let alone your garage, and we still have car recalls, mechanical, technical, electrical, and god be merciful safety flaws that get reported on a regular basis, and they have divisions of hundreds of people and millions of dollars testing every aspect of the car.

And SWCG hardly did it right. It did it in a fashion that some players found acceptable. Given the size of the property the fact that it was fifth or sixth inpopularity and people who didn't like it panned that game repeatedly (and yes the unlimited format was key amongst those complaints) I would hardly point to it as a model to follow in anything. Ever.

And, this is not a collectable game. Every card has the exact same rarity outside of the Core Set.

What I am getting here is that you like what you like and attribute those games mechanics as being good design and others being bad design. This is just wrong. Are there any games with an unlimited restriction on cards that is still in print?

Buhallin said:

Having to buy 3x Core is a one time quirk of the distribution model. Just about any competitive player is going to do so. The point of limiting any card to a fixed number is that there is a cost celling. Buying any more than 3x Core doesn't provide you any benefit (for an individual deck). Buying more than 1 chapter/expansion pack doesn't provide you any benefit. There is a know maximum cost at any point regardless of what cards are or aren't "broken".

Take you example even further and suppose that "killer" card was a 1x in the core. If it's permissible to have as many copies as you want can you sustain buying 9x copies of core. Yes 3x Core is an annoyance but it's one and done, not a continuall struggle of do I need 3x or 4x of this months expansion to keep competitive. Since there's a limit of 3x per deck and there are 3x copies of a card in an expansion the decision is simple, I just need 1x copy of this months expansion to stay competitive with everyone else.

Penfold said:

Well, yeah - that's kinda the definition of "cop-out" in these discussions. "This will be hard and I don't want to do it, so I'm going to find a shortcut."

Penfold said:

Well, gee, how many games with card limits have gone out of print? That's at least as valid a metric - that is, not at all. The vast majority of CCGs have failed, trying to create some sort of causation to support this is meaningless.

Happening to think a game can survive without a card limit is not some horrid apostasy. I'm also not sure that I've held anything up as "good" or "bad" design. Yes, there are other ways to get the effect I'm suggesting, such as keywords (which is in no way unique to or even originated by FFG's games). But that also has other design issues to it, because it's not a much broader pool of cards you have to worry about, and there's a greater potential for interaction. Two things that affect "troopers" now have to be considered each time, for every new "trooper" that you introduce. In my own experience with CCGs and other tabletop games that use similar mechanics, it's interactions that cause a problem, not just a direct card. Trying to do the same thing by creating 3x3 different cards introduces a greater risk of unexpected interaction that just allowing 9 of the same card.

I'm not holding SWCCG up and going "Look at the AWESOME!" - it certainly had its failings, and I was as vocal as anyone for pointing them out (Mark Tuttle once threatened to sue me for libel on their mailing list, so yeah). But it is still a game that made 12 releases, which is WAY more than most CCGs did. And even if people didn't like the lack of card count limits, anyone who actually played the game knew that the count limit wasn't one of the core problems with the game (at least it wasn't by around the time of the Special Edition expansion, which was when I gave up on them). If you look at the world championship decks, they generally conform to a card limit, and the cases where they don't substitutions would be possible to keep the same general effect. The big exception is the Operative stupidity from the SE, which is a completely different issue.

Aahzmandius_Karrde said:

You're missing my point. Supposing the "killer" card is 1x in the core is the problem, and that' something that can be controlled by the developers. If they choose to make a high-powered card rarer to get, that's a choice no matter what the distribution model is. A lack of card limits in the deck don't inherently mean it's a money race.

And yes, with the limit in place, you'll only ever have to buy one. But you're playing extremes. Say you do have the occasional card you want 9 of - that's not going to be every month, and even then it's only two more packs. I don't really consider that a case of buying the win.

One last point, so we can hopefully stop a little of the hyperventilating:

I'm not necessarily saying either system is "good" or "bad". What I'm saying is that I think that unlimited card counts enable gameplay elements which aren't possible with limited card counts, and the impact to the game both in terms of testing and cost to players is manageable. That doesn't seem like all that extreme a statement to me.

Buhallin said:

Buhallin said:

Buhallin said:

Actually I do think it is a bit of an apostasy, at least in regards to an LCG. That is what we are talking about isn't it? I mean if we are just talking about CCG's in general then no, a terrible terrible idea, a horrid design choice, and doomed to eventual failure without massive amounts of card errata, clarification, restriction, banning, and printing of numerous silver bullets in comparison to a game designed with limits. SWCG did have an advantage in that the system was a closed system, your cards were essentially everything. Limitations would have forced players to make much harder deck building decisions and I have a feeling the people who fell in love with that game would have resented having to make those decisions.

This is where we start having problems though… recognizing what is a well designed set of rules for a game, good execution of a game, and good follow through with a game, and of course poor versions of those things. It is possible to have one be very good and one be mediocre and one be very poor and end up with a game that is still popular. Or obviously any mix of the above.

The idea of unlimited cards is not inherently bad from a core game design principle. It is at best a mediocre choice to make when it comes to execution and has always presented itself to me as extremely horribly poor in follow through.

And those are not kywords by FFG's designation, keywords have a specific meaning in relation to the rules of the game. Traits and subtypes are simple designators and other cards will reference them or create a rules state.

Buhallin said:

Nonsense. You could easily have multiple cards with different names that inhabit the same design sphere that give the same deck building advantage as having no limit. There is no such way to scale design backwards though in a game that has unlimited numbers of cards except to never print the cart or otherwise alter the ability on the card or availability to a player (as in ban). Making it rare simply means whomever has the necessary money to spend has the strategic advantage.

The cost for testing or purchase is not at all manageable, and the very fact that you stated you think it is makes me question whether you are even trying to engage in a serious conversation. I'm sure the wayback machine can pull up some quotes on the econdary card markets for sought after rares from unlimited card games. What do you think they will show? Your statement would dictate that the rares should be easily affordable in any given quantity for a casual player to afford so are you willing to have a discussion about these numbers?

"Good question. I say we even it up by looking at the percentage of the two. It isn't meaningless, it is just difficult to parse the information. Don't cop-out. "

If you have any clue about empirical analysis, it IS meaningless. Even if you could prove correlation (which I doubt you could do), you're trying to argue causation. The vast majority of CCGs have failed, regardless of what the card limits are. That says that there are massive other factors which contribute to it. That's not a cop-out, it's a simple knowledge of statistical analysis. We don't even know what half those factors might be, much less what the values are for each game we might have to consider. Call it a cop out if you want, but I'm not the one making the assertion here - you are. You're claiming that a lack of card restrictions contributes to a game's failure. That puts it on you to support your claim. Not that you could, since you don't seem to have the first clue about empirical analysis.

"Making it rare simply means whomever has the necessary money to spend has the strategic advantage."

Really? I mean, seriously?? I've argued in every single post from the very first time I realized that it was the R&D Mole that touched you in the bad place that part of the key to making unlimited counts work is that cards that would function well should NOT be rare, and this is something developers would have to consider. It's one thing to hold up a straw man, but you're actively fighting against the exact opposite of my actual position.

"I posit that because the increased expense for both the publisher and the customer that unlimited format customizable card games have by and large failed because they were created an imbalance that was fiscally prohibitive to correct for both groups."

For your consideration:

http://www.decktech.net/starwarsccg/articles/articles.php?id=6364&view=2

That article includes 5 years of SWCCG World Championship decks. There aren't a whole lot of cards which are used more than 4 times (the standard limit of the day, thanks to Magic), and of those that are, LITERALLY only one is rare - the rest are uncommon or lower. That's with a pool of somewhere around 1300 cards at that point, in a situation where top regional qualifiers were flown AT DECIPHER'S EXPENSE to the world championships. It's a comprehensive a meta as you could possible find, so it would seem very possible that you can allow unlimited card counts in a deck without it seriously distorting the power:money relationship.

Now, just to summarize:

You claim that unlimited card counts are bad. I think they're just a different design choice, and allow some interesting options in deckbuilding. You think they contribute to the failure of games. I think my stats teacher is probably somewhere right now crying because of that assertion (although I cannot prove that as a causal relationship). I've addressed your concerns with counterexamples of a game which was widely considered to be successful, you've done nothing to address it at all except to point out that you didn't like it because of the very issue we're trying to discuss.

But hey, I'm not interested in serious conversation, because you really, REALLY don't like the design choice I'm supporting.

Yeah, I'm done here - congratulations, you win the internet.

It is all a design choice if you want to make the game with or without card limits. No limits just requires more planning from developers but the result is a way more freedom with deck building. Both solutions can work amazing. There is so much design space with card games anyway and I hope there would be even more games with unique design choices. LCG model works better with card limit tho.

I don't think it is valid point to say that all no limit games are dead now. CCGs come and go and very few last for longer. Games without card limits which are Vtes, Netrunner, SWCCG for example had a very long lifetime for a CCG (minus the netrunner) and they still have many active players.

Here is an example of a winning deck from the last Vtes European Champions half a year ago with 118 players:

http://www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=7739

That deck uses only one copy of each rare included in the deck and the deck has 79 cards (+12 crypt). This is in a game without any card limits.

EDIT Another example from same tournament http://www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=7744 This tournament is top 25 highest ranking players in the world. That deck has 3 copies of same rare card but all other rares are 1-2 copy and 20 out of 90 cards in the deck are rares (but almost every rare reprinted in many different expansions and starters).

Buhallin said:

Is it a cop out? Without the analysis we cannot determine whether or not any usuable information can be gleaned. So it basically boils down to you saying that you don't believe the expenditure of time and energy is worth it when there is no guarantee of the desired answer being arrived at… hm… that sounds somewhat familiar.

Buhallin said:

Sometimes it seems like you exist in your own world. I know you have played CCG's before… you have to understand why they have rarity from a marketing level. You are suggesting bucking that trend and making the useful and powerful cards commons… At which point you've taken the biggest step possible to creating n LCG without addressing the distribution/quantities issue.

So now we have the power cards easily available to everyone… what next? You realize this was not the thrust of my argument, it was a facet. You can try and elevate it as much as you want but no one is picking up what you are putting down.

Buhallin said:

Pointing out a single game that was a fiscal success doesn't prove your point. You toss around "empirical" when trying to refute my points but then provide empirical evidence when it supports you. *sniff* Mmmm… I love the smell of hypocrisy. Of course it still boils down to a single game based on what is arguably the most well known IP in all of fandom, in a system that was regularly ranted against as being unbalanced with Decipher making the bizarre decision not to ban broken cards or combos but by releasing silver bullet cards that effectively shut down the entire tactic based on the card. I wouldn't even dream of basing an entire argument around that.

And as I alluded to in another post because the system required you to burn cards from your deck for… well nearly everything, the number of a specific card you had in your deck was not particularly helpful. The entire format of the game minimized the benefit of having high card quantity counts of rare cards. Which of course could be done by other game companies… except they also recognize how ridiculous the entire idea is to design a "feature" of the game one way and then counter that with three other features that minimize the importance of the first.

Surreal said:

But there really isn't. There is less freedom with design because every card has to be looked at with the knowledge this card could be easily available at any given time and played repeatedly turn after turn, or several times in a single turn. This means you have to design the card itself with specific limits that reduce the use of the card (making it situational or less powerful, or both) or by forcing a limitation on the game state (take Ashur's Tablets. The card requires you to have three in play to trigger it, as opposed to knowing the card is only going to be able to be drawn so many times and therefore is able to be used with each of them).

As to freedom in deckbuilding when you have to face specific degenerative builds or certain effects that vastly skew a game in one direction or another or minimize or otherwise alter some fundamental part of game play you either play a deck that includes cards that fight against it, duplicate it, or just use those same exact cards. The more "auto includes" required in a deck the fewer choices you have. This is a feature of games in general as each player seeks to find the most efficient build and ignores all the other cards, but when I can find the single most efficient card for draw I can include that specific card in my deck only a certain amount of times in one format and must rely on other cards to generate similar effects in one format and need to include absolutely nothing else in another and that means a single card is going to dominate a larger percentage of your deck than it would otherwise.

That feels like freedom, but it is really forcing you down a very narrow path. It is the illusion of free will. Now I'm not saying that placing restrictions is more free will, just that it creates a more diverse play environment and most people recognize on a fundamental level that the more of your cards you can use in putting a deck together the greater variety of cards and effects you use in a game the more enjoyable the experience is.

Anyway. I think we are all bored with the topic and are not going to agree with each other so letting it drop is a great idea.