Now I remember the very specific comments of how a lot of the prize support will turn into non-char cards. However, with less characters going to be available in each set (which may raise their value as well) I feel it's fine again to have a majority of the promos be character cards. It will also compensate the lack of set characters with added diversity, and may help to create a more casual environment that won't turn away lesser players, since only one of the character may be necessary.

The main downside to this being a possible attendance decrease weekly for said reason. What does everyone else think?

DaiAndOh said:

That to me seems like a pretty significant downside, the problem is a lot of these promo cards are really good, which is why people play for them, but when theres 1 copy of chesters in the prize support for example, if you dont win you dont get 1, not to mention 3-4. You only ever need 1 copy of a character card (usually). I would be very happy to see less prize packs with 80-90% characters. Especially if it keeps tournament attendence up.

The main idea seems to be that people should get the best cards out of the packs. If you look at any tournament with a to 8 cut, chances are that at least 6 of the top 8 characters will be promo characters. It really created a huge dichotomy in the power game: Have's and Have not's. With any CCG you can purchase more boxes and get more power cards, but before, if you couldn't make it to a tournament, you didn't have access to the best cards. The hope now is that there will be fewer characters overall and more incentive to play more characters (i.e. better support for each character). It seems like the attacks assets and foundations that we will see moving forward will be more like heel snipe where it's a good card, but not a game breaking card. I think this is actually encouraging to people to show up to more tournaments as they will have a better chance of getting that card that they need. I personally am looking for some more heel snipes and some more new cards!

It's a good thing. With fewer characters, we're {hopefully} less likely to get characters like Rolento, Arthur, either Felicia, Jedah, Lu Chen, Tam Tam, etc. Fewer characters + same level of quality across the board = better characters.

The advantage to having non-character cards in your prize support is, when you have enough prize support to go around, if you have a few players who consistently do well, they won't stop showing up after a few weeks once they've gotten all the characters they want. Your argument that, "You only need 1 character, but 3-4 of other cards" doesn't hold up completely; to build a deck with a given character, you MUST have that character, but to build {for example} an All deck you don't need 4x Tira's Contract -- you could substitute Fast Food Lover. And not everyone in the store is going to want to build an All/whatever deck with Tira's in them, so whoever got one and doesn't need it to go in a deck can trade it away for whatever else.

If a majority of your promo packs is characters, after a couple weeks, everyone in the store will have a copy of every character they want, and any more that show up in the prize pack are dead picks. With foundations/whatever, those cards are still valuable even when they're showing up in prizes five months+ later.

Wafflecopter said:

ook but to build an All deck WITH Tira's Contract you aren't going to run just 1 because thats all you want. You are going to run 3-4 probably, running 1-2 is pointless because you probably wont draw it. I dont remember saying you had to have any one card in every deck. Nor do I remember saying people couldnt trade. The point was that if you decide to add one of those promo cards into a deck, you will more then likely need 3-4, and therefore probably play more to get them.

Steve had said that he wants less promo character because he wants people to be able to play their favorite character with minimal effort or something to that effect. Like he doesn't want some random new player not being able to get their favorite character from the get go cause he feels that its a major selling point to the game. That being said I have NEVER had an issue getting a character card that I wanted. Even when the game was in like set one getting the promos was not all that difficult and after a month or 2 they were really easy to get to the point where 99% of them people would just give you if you asked.

Printing less character ironically means that less fan favorites will get printed, and therefor actually make some character impossible to get, like someone like Birdie is now.

Now I'm all for less character cards to be honest. I would rather have a good selection of quality characters than the few powerhouses we have had that are surrounded by diversity fodder.

I do wonder once we get into the flow with less characters seeing print how that will affect diversity come block 4 rotation. If you get 2 base and 6 smaller sets a year and then the box topper characters that Steve referred to which I have to imagine will only be in the starter boxes, your only going to get something like 48 characters out of packs in a year. Assuming that with promos you may get like one new character a month, and that's being generous, that means you have 60 characters a year, assuming they are all unique and not different versions of the big named guys. Then compound that with the fact that not everyone will be tourney worthy, regardless of how hard we try there will always be characters that are going to be reserved for casual play (read Gaira), and your starting to look at tournaments with 120+ people like worlds with only 40 or so character represented, which means that diversity is going to be a real punch in the face to some people. Block 3 currently has well over 120 or so characters

Protoaddict said:

QFT. I actually e-mailed this very argument to FFG several months ago when I first heard them toss around the idea of 8/5, asking them to look into 10/7 instead, but apparently they didn't think it was an issue? To be fair, your numbers are a bit off because 60 per year means any standard format is going to have at least 80 due to the release of the second base set, but the theory remains the same. Especially if they hope to get Nats/Worlds turnout higher than a hundred or so somewhere down the line.

Although, one possible option might be to pre-watermark some characters so they stay an extra year. Their support would still rotate out, but in terms of the basic goals of keeping people's favorite characters legal and having enough variety in the format it might work.

Cetonis said:

My numbers are just off the cuff. Im not really refering to a full rotation but moreso each "block" that comes out. Part of me also believes that somewhere down the line Block formats will become popular. But the fact of the matter is right now with 140+ characters in rotation (i think that the most accurate number), a good 20 of them are alternate versions of other characters for diversity pourposes, and a few are champion cards that are not easily attainable by a decent number of players. but even considering a good 110 - 120 are unique cards for diversity pourposes, we still see 4-5 characters dominate events and diversity cuts hitting down the line. That and sandbagging.

If we have half the characters and the ratio of tournament caliber character to non tourney worth stays the same were probably looking at something like 10+ people losing out to diversity cuts and not win loss records in worlds.

If FFG wants to make promo character prizes that people actually want to own and dont mind having a few copies, they need to make more characters like the 3 difficulty codys. Character merging is very much an ignored ability and its a **** shame.

The concerns of Diversity being impacted with fewer characters really isn't an issue.

You're still only going to see a top 16 cut. As it is now, typically a major event has may one person cut due to diversity.

I think it's safe to agree that many of the characters now are not playable on a tournament level. Diversity really only becomes an issue if there is a major power imbalance where characters released in a block are just not viable for tournaments.

That being said, I've played Raw Deal for 8 years, the game where diversity originated.

There are significantly fewer characters in Raw Deal, because they only released 3 sets a year, with 8 characters per set. The only time where diversity truly was an issue was during the first block of the Revolution Era when there was only 8 Characters available total <4 of which were promos>.

This year, you'll have the 16 Characters from the 2 base sets, plus an additional 30 characters from the sets alone, baring promotional characters.

Just because I have the data at my finger tips:

Canadian Nationals 2008 - 40 Players in attendance

Characters represented:

1x Abyss
2x Adon
1x Akuma
3x Alex
2x Astaroth
1x Cody
1x Dhalism
1x Donovan
1x Hamarou
1x Huitzil
3x Ibuki
1x Kula
1x Lilith
1x M Bison
4x Mai
2x Nagasee
2x Nakaruru
1x Rock
1x Ryu
1x Sakura
1x Terry
1x Twelve
1x Uyko
1x Vega
1x Voldo
1x Xianghua
1x Yumeji
1x Yun-Seong
1x Zangief

If we go back to May of this year, there were far more then 30 characters in the game.

How many of those characters weren't playable? Ultimately it falls on James's shoulders to ensure that he's creating characters that are tournament viable.

I have to say i think that math breaks down at higher levels. Worlds has 120ish people but at the same time had how many yunsueongs and how many ibukis. The ratios do not stay the same at higher levels and as we all know the goal is to get thoes numbers up.

Also sandbagging will be affected. This year at worlds something like 3 people in the top 16 sandbagged into ibuki and then James himself played her. With less characters in rotation, there will be less characters who are viable to use for sandbagging, and thusly either people arent going to sandbag and just play thier ace characters, which means more diversity, or they are going to pick some other character and hope they would be affected by diversity, which if enough people do you will see crossover and more diversity cuts.

Lets assume for a min that this year UFS EXPLODES and we get 256 for worlds. There will not be 256 characters and you can be **** well sure of all the characters in the game not everyone will show up. Now imagine if its the same story a year from now when all you have in rotation are like 100 character, let alone accounting for the viable ones. It's that occurance that scares me, like going to worlds and seeing 10 chunli players get booted or something.

I think diversity should exist but i also feel if someone wants to play an under represented character they should have that ability and not have to pick one that is utter crap to do so. I played Twelve in worlds teams this year and Talbain in singles and as good as both of thoes characters are I didnt have to deal with too much diversity at all for the numbers, and thats with me picking what I felt were top tier characters.

There are good arguments both for more characters and for more non-characters.

To sum up the above:

A) With fewer in-set characters, we need more promo characters to diversify the character pool, support casual play, and satisfy fans with favorites.

B) One copy of a promo character is usually enough to make anyone happy; they don't want additional copies. Also, a given character often only appeals to a specific subset of the playerbase (different for every character). Also, promos are frequently not as well tested and vetted, leading to worthless characters like the most recent Promo Vega and Promo Tam-Tam, as well as overpowered characters like the original Promo Tira.

I think the solution should be:

Promo prize packs contain 2 characters and 4 non-characters. These should come from a general pool of 4 characters and 4 non-characters. (The 4 characters should each be from different licenses, and ideally from a license that wasn't released within the past 4 months.) The cards should be distinct in every prize pack. If possible, prize pack should be sent out so that multiple prize packs sent to the same store alternate the two characters included.

This way, players are more likely to be able to get playsets of the useful non-character cards, but also able to get their hands on one-ofs of characters that diversify the character pool.

I think the prize pool should rotate completely (new promos in, old promos out) every 2 months.

Any overstock of old promos should be sent out to stores with explicit instructions to distribute them as rewards for purchasing product (something like 1 old promo for every 3 boosters you buy, or 2 old promos with every starter). That way, players who want to finish up incomplete playsets, or players who couldn't quite get their chase favorite character, have a chance to get them by supporting the game financially.

Thoughts?

If there are 100 chracters, and there are 256 players, you're right, there may be 10 copies of .Nina Williams. at worlds.

If the top 16 players, or top 32 players are dominated by Nina Williams, then there are greater balance issues then there just not being enough characters.

Just using Raw Deal to cite numbers on a large scale:

Gencon 2006 Friday - Raw Deal World Championship Qualifier Afterburn Format- 189 players.
They cut to a top 32 because there was only 62 different characters used. (If there were at least 64 different characters present they were going to do one less round of swiss and cut to a top 64) That was out of a pool of 75 characters available.

Gencon 2006 Saturday - Raw Deal World Championship Qualifier All Axxess Format 149 Players, with over 70+ characters represented.

Afterburn is a closer approximation to UFS, because it was the limited card pool / rotational format, where as All Axxess = Legacy

In reality with a 256 player field, you'd be going through what 9 rounds of swiss, and would have to have a record of at least 7-2 to make the top cut.

At that point the issue of diversity isn't going to be an issue for the majority of the players. Yes, one or two people are going to be affected by diversity. I know that personally in both Raw Deal and UFS I have landed on both sides of diversity. (Central Canadian Championships, I squeak into the cut because a Nakoruru player was cut, Gencon I missed the cut because John Macek and I were both running Yun-Seong) As a player you understand that diversity is a factor, and if you want to play a popular character you understand that the only way for you to make the cut is to go undefeated. Build the best deck, be the best player, and diversity isn't an issue.

For UFS this past year at world, when there was a tremendous number of characters available, there was 117 players, representing 58 different characters. <I went and dug in my notes to find the exact numbers>

If more then 50% of the pool of characters is going to be disregarded because they don't cut the muster, why continue to make characters that aren't viable just so there are "a lot of characters available." While the obvious answer is "make more good characters" in reality there are good/viable characters that just won't see play for whatever reason. <How many copies of J.Talbain were played at the various regionals while he was legal? 0.>

I just don't see the need for any more characters. Besides, if 2009 plays out and the developers see going into 2010 that the 8/5 model doesn't work, there is nothing stopping them changing it. There is nothing stopping them from printing more promo chracters, or re-printing older characters with a new watermark just to ensure there are sufficient characters.

On-topic: I honestly think "diversity" is a horrible ruling. Sure, it keeps everyone from playing the same character, but, oh, wait..it really doesn't. I mean, people still play the same character as other people, but get screwed out of a higher placing just because someone else is playing the same character they are. I know I just repeated the same argument many people have said before, but come on, diversity stinks and we all know it.

Completely On-topic: More tournament viable character promos.

Shiros said:

Well promo characters have been looking awesome lately look at all the shadowar promos not a bad one I can find in my opinion.

Maybe 1 a month, but I am all for less characters in packs, it is gonna be awesome. No more opening a box and getting 11 characters, with more Super Rares per box (If FFG keeps their promise this time) and less characters = much greater distribution and pulls from boxes. This might make me buy a box of SC for the first time, will definitly get a box of Shadowar.

Shiros said:

We do? I love diversity. It keeps the tournaments from being nothing but J Talbain. If there was no diversity, there would have been no reason to ban Talbain, as everyone at every tournament would play him, and it would be just like Magic or Vs. where everyone plays the exact same decks with the exact same cards.

I'm less worried about the fact that less characters are being made than I am about the fact that more NON-character promos are being made. I've stated more than once my concerns that if promo cards like Heel Snipe and Chesters Backing keep coming out, where the only chance you'l really have to get them is to win tournaments, the curve between new players and experienced players will widen so far that new players won't want to play at all, because they won't be able to win the cards that make you win, while the players who do win, will be able to win more often because of the cards they've already won. Chester's Backing is a horrendous example of this, with Tira's Contract slowly following.

UFS advertises itself as the 'age-old argument between who would win, character X or character Y", the original sets of Promo characters were exciting, and, to be fair, casual players really don't give a monkeys about whether they are winning or not, they want to play as THEIR character. I did actually send an email to FFG about this before they'd officially stated that less character promos would be made, but obviously they found me to be incorrect, which is fine, but I stand by my original argument that promo characters play an integral part to the growth of the game. I may even send another email repeating my concerns for this. I am willing to bet money that more people started playing UFS because they saw promo characters like Jedah or Xianghua available with 6 boosters than they did when Olcadan's Mentoring was there. I know this because I sold the product that told me this at the time. Now that I no longer work with this sort of thing, I can say from the other side of the fence that promo characters NEED to be made a larger part of this.

How many of you who played back at the beginning when UFSCards.com started to spoil the first lot of Street Fighter/SNK promos? Where each day they'd show off a new one like Ryu, Athena or Nagase? Yes, T. Hawk and Dee Jay were less than tournament-playable, but did you really care? OR did you want one because it was the character you were waiting for? Promo characters are more EXCITING to see than non-characters.

Another exaple I'll give to support my argument is promo Rock Howard abnd Ninon versus Abelia's Friendship. How many times did you see decklists for both of those characters? How many times on these very forums did you see people asking after when Rock Howard and Ninon would be released? A lot. How many decklists did you see with Abelia's Friendship in them? None as far as I know. There was once a curious topic as to when it would be released, but when no-one knew, we shrugged and moved on. People are still asking after those two promo characters to this day. Characters are the backbone of the entire game, why abandon them for a card that people won't want to bother trying to get? The previous argument that not all of the characters are used in tournament play is fine. But I'd love the same people who gave those arguments tell me how many people they know who run Aurelia's Companionship competetively. I'm willing to bet you'd be more likely to TRY and find a way to play Promo B.B. Hood or Arthur (well, not Arthur, nobody really cared about him in the first place ) than they would be to find a way to play that.

I love that less booster characters are being released, because THAT is where the non-character cards belong, in the boosters you pay money to have. I hated pulling character after character as much as anyone else, but I hate that characters seem to be taking such a backburner when the whole point of the game is playing your favourite character and pitting it against others, not plaing your favourite foundation that happens to have a character noone really cares about just for the sake of winning. Since when were ALL UFS players tournament players? Think of the mopre casual players, because thats who we need to be playing this game more often.

Antigoth said:

True Story would have liked no diversity with ibuki before she got banned with 100 ibuki and higher caliber response every time some one breathes.

Diversity is awesome and I love it. Without diversity, this game becomes YGO - the exact same decks making the top cut at every single tournament. That's boring, and also a huge part of why I quit YGO. And you know **** well that's exactly what would happen.

Promos - another interesting example of how you can never ever satisfy people. People complained heavily when promos were mostly characters, saying that we needed fewer characters and more tournament-caliber promo cards. So that's what we were given. And now people are complaining that we're getting fewer characters. Can you hear my eyes rolling...?

Joe - but the same holds true for boosters, doesn't it? People buy those because they want stuff for their favorite character, like their signature move and suchlike. If you make more of the characters promos, that would negatively affect booster sales. And then people would also complain that the promo character they want is no longer available or really hard to get (see Olcadan's Mentoring, or the character that *I* want; which reminds me, we need to do something about that...).

Personally, I don't really care one way or the other. The fewer characters that are released, the better able I am to focus on one character, and creating a great deck for them. On the other hand, the more characters there are, the more things I can do, and the more likely it is for a character to be released with the perfect abilities for my taste. Either way, I win.

Me personally I think that there shouldn't be more character cards and i,ll explain why.

When everybody and their mother has said character cards by winning tourneys,now the remainder of the prize support are characters that no one wants and then that's when most players are thinking "when are they going to make more cards that are not characters cause i,m getting sick of all of these **** characters coming out". When we did have character promo cards coming out how long did they stay in the prize pool ? answer weeks on end cause after awhile no one wanted them but when the foundation promos came out everybody and their grandmother was showing up at tourneys just to get them and that kinda made the experienced players come out in droves just to get them. Now on the other hand I feel what you and Drew are saying cause yeah I personally got into this game when I heard that my fav character was in this game as a promo but at the same time do you really want the prize support to get stale?.

Antigoth said:

Amen to that cause as Geese said then this game would be like Yugioh and then people would quit cause of everybody and their momma running the same **** deck.

deathcritis1 said:

Exactly if there was no diversity then we would be like yugioh and I wouldn't play it to be honest. But with any luck a lot of the yugioh players I am hearing are going to other games a lot too ufs with the big lawsuit with UDE.

Diversity is good, it may need some tweaking but I like the principal. I always felt that pairings should be done against diversity so that if you have 4 undefeated ibukis in top rounds they are gonna get paired, and that after swiss people with perfect records are immune to diversity. Ive been in events before where 2+ players had undefeated records at the end of swiss with the same character, and its just unfair to disqualify one of them because of strength of schedule, which is completley out of thier control.

Personally i want less characters in packs, I just feel like character promos have there place. Instead of being tourney prizes they should be a lot more along the lines of 6Pack promos, Card of the Week promos, box toppers in starters, introduce a player promos, stuff like that, the retailer incentives. That way if a character promo comes out that you want, its not really that hard for a random person to hop to the store and get it, supporting the sales at the local shop and so forth. Everybody wins!

Protoaddict said:

What I would personally love to see:

• Auto-Pairups of duplicate characters toward the final rounds. If there are 3 undefeated Ibukis in round 7 two would face, and if there's still two undefeated ibukis in round 8, they would face. <Similar to what you said above>
• Limiting the number of times you can face the same character in a tournament. Theoretically it's possible for you to face Yun-Seong in round 1, then again in Round 2, and once more in Round 3. That's not fun to play against. in Raw Deal if it was possible to pair you up without having to face a character you've already faced, (with a different opponent), the software would automatically do that.

I would be happy if diversity wasnt based on character but based on character card like if there was 2 ibukis what where in top 8 at cuts and say one was 3 dot and the other 4 dot(i know 3 dot wont be legal for long but for example sake).........then both should make it into cuts

i just dont think its right when your deck is totally different with a different character pretty much to still get kicked out of cuts

A really good example of this would be if someone playing void-mill yun seoung with the promo was to be cut out because of someone playing R momentum yun-seoung off of air.......They are totally different decks right and probably dont even have copies of the same cards but would get knocked out either way