Lets all go back to playing Yu-Gi-Oh!!!

Don't get me wrong, I'm one of those casual VS players that play it to have fun, buy boxes from my local stores, staff my local PTOs events to make sure the players have a good event and play at my local store's Hobby League. I'll just keep supporting the product and weather things out until things start looking up again doing the things I do for the game.

I wonder where Yu-Gi-Oh! would be if VS never showed up.

Yes, and this is how a PCQ should be. I'm not going to go easy on someone at a PCQ just because they don't know what they are doing. A lot of us WANT that sort of competition. It's why we play the game. Sometimes I do extremely well, other times, I end up with a losing record. Most times, I'm just above .500. That's fine by me, it's the competition that is fun.

I tell all new players who want to try the tournament scene the same thing: Go to a Sneak Peak. There is a good level of competition, but it isn't nearly as cut throat as a PCQ. If you enjoy it, then try the PCQ.

That would be great, but I'm not convinced just yet. In post after post, people are saying the same thing - "we don't have hobby league in my area, only PCQs." There seem to be a myriad of reasons for this. In my area, we used to have a decent hobby league, with 8-12 people showing up on any given week. The store has continued to order kits (and we actually get them), but most people just don't want to pay $5 for an EA when there are only 3 or 4 people showing up. Maybe the new format options will draw more people, but I'm not counting on it, especially since now everyone seems bummed out that it seems VS is going to die.

A good point.

Casual players as a whole do not necessaryly choose to play non-competative level because they are stupid, they are usually interested in a hobby by which they can have a social interaction and relax through. You know, have a little diversion and fun. Wow, no one ever wants to have fun, that just a sign of stupidity. Not!

For example, we have a Computer Game Designer, A Controls Contracting Estimation Engineer, a Graphic Designer, a Subcontracting Firm Supervisor, a Mechanical Engineer and many other professionals as well as young players and fathers, brothers, etc. that have been numbered amoung our group. Our numbers have slumped many times because we lose people to moving on to other colleges and outof town careers, since alot of our players are university students and such. However, these are all casual players. Three of them are past pro players that find it more to there liking to relax and have fun. Soem of them are active judges, one of which has judged on a PC level. VS is not their only focus in life and they want and enjoy balance in the many things they choose to do. Just because you play for fun, doesn't mean you are stupid...that is just narrow minded and smacks of a knee-jerk reaction reflecting your aggenda or some other misconceptions. I have met many interested potential players and their reluctance to get involved in the game has come from other concerns besides the complexity. In fact, that issue has really never come up.

Companies and player communities that ignore the Casual market are doomed to fail.

Have a nice day

I agree. Everyone doesn't need to always win, but nobody wants to feel like they have no chance coming in. Part of the solution can come by better players toning in down a notch in demos and local tournaments (although, for some, being allowed to win feels worse then just losing).

The rest depends on the game itself. The absense of brokenness helps, a decent balance helps, competitive decks that don't require many money rares helps, and a significant luck factor helps.

WoW, for example, has all of those things: there's nothing completely stupid going on, there are lots of viable decks, only one Epic card is actually necessary to a major deck, and the die roll is really important. At thestart of Vs, it had all of those things but the significant luck factor - you could just lose by missing drops, but if you were a better player you should find a way to win anyway.

The difficult requirements that a new player sees when they look at this game...the money needed to buy in to a reasonable play set is the most frequently sighted complant right now for prospects I meet. The other comment I get is eventual realization that their favorite headliners don't have solid decks.

Wow this is a looooong thread that I read through 25 pages of...

First of all let me say that Jeff is the man. Out of all the games I have never seen anyone from a company address a situation with more honesty and balls. Jeff comes off very real about everything while also trying to address everything.

My take on this whole situation is up in the air. I started in gaming with Heroclix. This may not be as a competitive game as the TCGs out there, but man did my friend and I want those LEs so bad that it became a competition. Then VS came out and we all mostly if not all switched over completely to it. The game was just better and they promised cash give aways. We played for three years... we sucked... but we kept playing because we love comics and we loved the game. Then Dreamblade came out and I was coerced into it. That game I too love. The big thing that I noticed about it was that I was finally able to make money at it. Within 2 months I had made more playing it then I ever did at VS. Why? Because their payout system (at the moment) is way better then VS has ever been. Going to a PCQ and only having one player win $250 is pathetic. I think that Dreamblade is doing so well (which is suprising considering how much it costs) is due to the fact that at each 1K at least 4 players walk away with money! I myself have won $600 in the past 6 months playing. I think that's the way to go if your trying to get players to big events.

I myself am going to stick with VS, but I also realize that a lot of people will not. My friends and I have all noticed a smaller turn out in the past 6 months to events for this game. There are a few reasons for this:

- Lots of players left after Golden Age was retired and they no longer could count on their ridiculous decks winning all the time.

- Players started to notice that it was a lot harder to get points and make money then they initially thought.

- The last four sets (Heralds, Legion, Marvel Team-Up, and Worlds Finest) are pretty much all rehash sets. A bunch of us thought it was a little to soon to start cranking out remakes. This just goes to show that UDE did not have the money for awhile to license new characters and had to rely on the licenses they did have at the moment

- There are just way too many new games out there. The market is flooded! UDE defends themselves when it comes to WOW, but everyone knows that this just drew players away from VS who are interested in making money! This I've heard has already back fired because most people who bought these cards were only interested in the redemable online stuff for the video game and not interested at all in playing the game (we already have a Magic game who needs another one?).

UDE has a great game that they just need to figure out how to support it. They don't do enough advertising in comic stores or cons for sure. They need to learn how to support these events financially with prize support. If Heroclix (a really bad gaming system) can survive then VS most definitely will!

In the mean time I will continue to play and collect this game whether there is competitive play or not!

This is primarily addressed to En-Kur I just want to confirm that Donkey Club will be at Indy in full force so that I won't be remembered as a paper champion. I imagine a touching moment in the finals of me v. The Dave Spears and as I play that key Flying Kick FTW we both get a little tear in our eye as we embrace for a moment and forget about the world around us the cheering friends, the dying game, and the jealous wife.

And on a serious note I remember when En-Kur got me in this game I read realms daily and at that time the overwhelming sentient was PCQs suck, points should down, Doug Tice always wins the money. Now that those people are getting what they wanted it seems like nobody is happy. I feel no PCQs may help more of the "casual" players get qualified to play in bigger tournaments if they choose. And anybody is going to be more interested in a game that pays them even a little more for having fun. Plus you get in Gen Con free( I hope).

I'm a newbie to VS, although my friends have been playing for years now. I just started playing about two months ago when a friend lent me a golden age Teen Titans deck to play at my first PCQ, then offered it to me for $60 bucks. They used to be into Yugioh with me, but dumped Yugioh after the banlist changed too drastically, and gave up on trying to compete with the 1 or 2 CC decks. Their claim is "Yugioh's for children", which is true for the most part, but they deny that Yugioh's fun on the casual level. I still play cause I enjoy the casual atmosphere. Yugioh caters very well to the younger kids and casual settings, making good combo sets, but with only 1 or 2 competitive cards. The competitive setting in Yugioh, however, still needs to take a lesson from VS. too many staples in yugioh.

BUT. Yugioh offers fairly easy rules (that become extremely complicated and annoying the more advanced you become). Yugioh has many different types/attributes, but not as many as VS. VS just starts right off at a steep grade hill you have to climb. No shortcuts to make it easier to learn, nope. It's an all or none type of thing. It gets even worse when your favorite superhero deck is Teen Titans, one of the most complicated friggin decks out there. Here's what made it difficult to jump in the VS pool, from a N00b's view.

Things I dislike about VS:

The reason I avoided VS for so long is how complicated it is. It's fun to watch two pros go at it with two well built decks. To join in and play, however, was a brain burn. It's hard enough to play your own deck, let alone follow another deck's complicated combos.

1) Too many teams with names I didn't know. Who are half these people? Give me more names I recognize! And give effects that make sense for the character to have. I don't understand why some characters have a Cosmic ability, that's magically lost when they stun and recover.

2) Complicated rules/costs for characters & PTs. Exhaust this, Stun This, Pay That, and, eventually, you get an effect. I like how there's very few one-for-one trades, unlike Yugioh, but I don't like how complicated it is to even pull of the simplest of combos. Even morlocks was a difficult deck for me to use. Make more SIMPLE effects. Something like "Pay 1 Endurance, Attacker or Defender gets +2/+2 this turn". I dislike the effects that only happen during attack, or only when defending.

3) Uniqueness Rule. I absolutely hate that. I always, always forget the uniquesness rule, and it makes it no fun to play a deck based on popular super(hero/villain). Doom did it right, with many ways out. Why can't they give more cards with text like "This card does not check for uniquesness untill the end of the combat phase", allowing for fun Spidey combos, but not too broken as to allow 5 or 6 spideys in one go. Let one play off another.

3) Less keywords, or keep printing keyword meanings on the cards. That was a big hurdle for me to cross to even begin to understand VS. There must be over 10 keywords to remember! Once crossed, it gets easier, but I was apprehensive to even bother.

4) Too Expensive. some decks, like Teen Titans, were too expensive for me to get into. The only deck I was interested in cost well over $150. Yugioh released structure decks and reprints sets, why can't VS? Reprint golden age stuff! I woulda joined in earlier if Teen Titans went under $50 to construct.

5) Complicated playfield. Front Row/Support row brutalized me because I didn't put one crucial character behind another. I lose half my games due to one mistake in the recuit phase.

6) Too many sharks in the water. Around where I live, the people were more competitive, and had all the money rares for their teams. It's hard to get into a game where to make a mono-team work, you gotta pick a team you don't like, or pay hardcore for 30 or 40 rares that encompass your entire deck. Luckily, my friend would often lend me a whole deck to play.

7) Make more strategies for a single team. From what I've seen, most teams have a single strategy, and revolve around it, with no way to expand or move away from it without using team-up cards. give gives multiple strategies. (This may be my newby-ness showing up, though. I've not seen or played as many decks as you guys)

Now, remember, a lot of those are opinion, and are biased based off of my view from an outsider's perspective.

Things I like about VS:

1) Strategy is key. You gotta build your field from the get-go. No OTKs or FTKs. No lucksack draws that end a game on turn 3.

2) Cheaper than Yugioh to get into. You can trade 1 Yugioh card for many VS cards. Rares generally run ya about 1-2 bucks.

3) Games don't go for more than 8 turns, most of the time. Even stall doesn't seem to go past turn 10.

4) All the teams have very unique strategies and approaches to the game. Green Lantern is a good example. I like the Willpower Scheme. I hate the Cosmic scheme. Willpower just gives you extra effects. Cosmic is usually one time use, unless you support it majorly. not everything is "I'm bigger than you, so I win". Checkmate was fun to watch!

5) Draw TWO cards per turn. One of my favorite things about this game, is how it encourages combos by giving you more cards to pull it off. You don't even have to lay a resource if you don't want to.

Straight to UDE: If you want to cater to the HL, make it easier for a casual gamer to join in! Make starter decks that are worth playing. Put more brand names on packs. As someone suggested, make the sets more VS like, such as tying in to Spiderman3 with a set or starter called "Spider-Man VS Venom". Throw some more ads around. Make easier effects (Like the "pay X ATK" effects). Give Flight and Range to characters who deserve it. Give powerups when two characters are on the field at the same time. Don't make it so you HAVE to team up in order to have a decent deck.

2 Noob pennies in the pot.

My vote for best first post ever.

I too play Yu-Gi-Oh!, but consider it to not even be close to Vs. in terms of competitve level. Possibly because Vs. so difficult a game to master. I personally love that about Vs., but I could see making things simpler without dumbing the game down. No need to retool the whole thing as people have stated.

As an aside, my LGS's website has a Vs. Product named "Spider-Man vs. Venom" in its "Coming this Summer" page. A mistake? I hope not.

Do you feel like the casual player has been ignored in this game? Curious, because I feel like UDE has gone above and beyond to make the casual player feel welcome and still there isn't a casual player base. I think a lot of you "casual" players fail to understand the barriers this game has for the average gamer. I regret that I posted that paragraph and that I called most gamers dumb. While I do feel that way for 90% of the players I meet, I understand that such a broad generalization of the casual player base is absurb. I will retract that statement and say this.

The average ccg player just wants to have fun playing a game. They want simple mechanics, smooth game play, and minimum decisons. They want to play cool dudes and turn them sideways or make really cool combos that have little chance to go off but when they do , they are spectacular. Unfortunately, even a simple game of Vs is a lot more than the average gamer wants to undertake. You can play a game with the starters that have minimum text and vanilla characters and even that is overwhelming for them. Two hands essentially, the ability for your opponent to attack almost anyone of your guys, two formation rows where almost every placement is critical, and the need to sometimes under drop at a given resource level simply to maintain your board when on defense. These are all basic requirements to play this game at the entry level. And most players don't want to be bothered with it.

Say what you will about my arrogant statement before, but understand that if we do not find a way to make it fun and easy for these type of players to embrace this game it will be nothing more than a niche for the select few of casual players that break from the mold and actually want to make some effort at having fun. I don't consider the dedicated casual Vs player, one who fights through the game's complexity in order to have fun, your average ccg casual player. I feel that you guys are competitive enough (even if it is just competetive in that you want casual fun but do not want to be bored with simple game mechanics like Magic and WoW have) to continue playing this game despite the fact that you know that you will probably never have anyone but the select few of your friends that think like you. Unfortunately, that will not do it for the game. There are too few of you. If that were not the case, a game as amazing as Vs would continually grow it's player base both casually and competively and we would not be where we are now.

A number of my fellow players have discussed among their friends an idea that we felt would bring in new players. Now, I will say this is not in my control to produce the product solution suggested here...its just a idea and you may have you own take and other ideas as well. I only bring this up as a way to stimulate ideas.

We felt that if there existed (UDE started actually producing such an idea) Pre-Constructed 60 Card Entry Level Tournament decks based on a solid design (I am not suggesting Tier 1 decks but not poor starters either) selected from exisitng released cards (over many sets) that featured favorite teams and comic book headliner heroes..well these type of decks would make a great way to introduce and attract new players (as well as more established ones as well, I'm sure). It gets a whole set of playable cards for a real 60 card deck into there hands. It would not have to be expensive (No extra features or special accessories, just a deck, the rules and a small box). This would not be as uninteresting and weak as the so called starter decks of the past that were not even able to build complete 60 card decks from. Now I know that I could buy cards and pre-build such decks and give them away, but I would go broke quickly enough.

We liked the idea that you could have preset-constructed deck tournaments or demonstration tournaments, or whatever based on a nice selection of these pre-constructed themed decks. Training would be easy and the decks would be more satisfying for new players. New players would feel like they actually owned playable decks and they would address the flavor they were looking for from comic bok heroe based games. Once into the community they could be introduced to draft and sealed. They could start buying into the play sets needed for Modern Formats. The path would be easier and less painful on the pocket book then the current way.

With Advertising from UDE, we could easily bring in a larger casual and competative hopeful player base then we can now.

However, as I pointed out...UDE does not currently provide such a solution, but such a thing would be interesting to discover how well it would work given the current climate of the game.

Have a nice day.

Here is the thing:

Assuming [admitedly, it's a big assumption] that Vs. can survive as a small niche product with a reduced prize pay out would that be such a bad thing?

Does it have to compete on the same level as Magic or go down trying?

Just posing a hypothetical. If the only way for Vs. to succeed is to basically eliminate most of why people play it in the first place, and replace it with something very similar to other succesful games out there ... is it even Vs. anymore? Would Vs. be suceeding, or would it be a new game that is succeeding?

Some people may not be on board for 'saving' the game if doing so involves a full body transplant.

So you reiterate that you still think most players are dumb, but you want us to pretend you didn't say it?

Minimum decisions? CCGs are typically strategic in one form or another. If people really wanted minimum decisions, then why isn't there a Pro Circuit for this card game?

I really didn't find any of that too hard to understand. I bought the MXS starter deck as my entry to the game, and I played it with my roommate. We understood reinforcement wrong at first, but that's really it. We had a blast.

Another thing is: Formation is only crucial when you're playing against someone who knows how to take advantage of it. If you're teaching a game to someone, I wouldn't expect you to wreck his formation apart on turn 3 unless you just wanted to be a jerk. "Well how else is he going to learn?" you say. Time and patience. Just hit him head on, don't wreck the formation, play the game as if you were a newbie too. Then, the next time you play, when he forms up, point it out to him, "Hey, let me show you something. If you form like this, then since my guy has flight, he's going to knock out your back row, and they won't be able to reinforce this little guy. Here, try this..."

Edited by myself. I didn't like my own attitude. Just know that the rules are in there for a reason. Otherwise the game would be far more out of control. If you want specific examples feel free to ask or PM me.

Not only do I think that, but it is one our number one complaints from players in the area. It's not my oppinion alone. It is their perception that this game is and has been focused on Pro Circuit level play. While we have had programs for local level play and hobby organized play, it is my opinion and most of our other players in our community that the real support and focus was the competative market, with its PCQ's 10K's and PC's. Now maybe our problems in our small market differ from your market, but UDE has had regular issues in the weakness of their support and treatment of the casual market for us. We have good store operators and a great PTO, but their efforts alone without sufficent proper focus on the part of UDE has in part allowed the casual market to slump. If you don't see this in your area, great. In our area, its a real issue. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. But thanks for your observations and input.

However, having said that...I will not disagree that we can increase the player base to a broader spectrum if we improve the game play to a smoother and less complex level. I will conceed that it does preclude some if not many players not interested in a complex playing experience.

I still stand by my statements and contend that a game that ignores the casual player is doomed for failure. I also say not all casual players are stupid.

Have a nice day.