LOL. Repped for making me ROFL.

En-Kur, I agree that the game has a rather steep learning curve if you want to compete, but the starter decks are too complex?!? Come on now. If you want to play a TCG, even just casually, you have to put at least SOME effort into it. Otherwise you end up playing dschneider's game LOLOL.

Mods, can we just get a sticky for Dave Spears' posts...seriously. If he's going to continue to stick his foot in his mouth with his head up his arse and continue to insult the "casual" players out there, something needs to be done.

Originally Posted by ChaosKitsune

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.


1) I'm not knocking new characters, I just wish that more emphasis was put on the big names. I'm glad they cater to little-known characters! It helps fill out the game, and make it more robust. But why dedicate entire decks to a side character, or side villain that wasn't much popular or well known? I've no examples, but I also don't know much about the Marvel/DC universes. I hear many names floating about, and more than half I don't recognize. I'm working on it though! I'm reading more comics and trying to watch more DC cartoons. ;)

2) The powerups or effects don't have to be powerful, just easy to understand. Make it similar to "target Character gets +1/+1 during 1 attack or defense. Exhaust that character during recovery." Make the effect easy to do, and the cost easy to pay for afterwards. The problem I found was that after all was said and done, and all costs were paid for a PT, my combo was ruined because I forgot about a costly cost, and I couldn't pay for another. My only example I can reference to is "Heroic Sacrifice", which has two costs. I'd forget one, which prevented me from playing "Now you See Me". Add into it that fact that most TT powerups only work well when attacking, and the defensive PTs merely hide my characters, or have brain-hurting costs.

3) I'm wasn't meaning for UDE to throw Uniqueness out the door altogether. I meant that UDE should bend the rules for some newbie decks. Make it so some new cards they create based around more famous superheros have clauses that allow them to be played easier for newbies. start off with 1 drops with no uniquesness (army). Make a two drop require a 1 drop, but still have army. Make a three drop non-unique for a turn. Etc. Give the new player a chance to build his strategy slowly, as well as learn the rules. I hope I explained that well. It's hard to explain myself when my knowledge base in the given subject is limited to Yugioh, and spatterings of Magic and WOW.

Did you actually read his post, or did you just see the word "dumb" again and lemming yourself off the "bash En-Kur" cliff?

Clearly you missed my points entirely.

I guess we all have different perceptions in what is wrong with the game and what needs to be done to change it. Unfortunately it's pretty much a dead issue. The game isn't going to get any easier, UDE isn't going to continue to throw money at a game that failed to deliver the Magic killer, and for the most part causal players are going to give up and go play Xbox.

I see all these people up in arms about how arrogant I am but not one of you really feel the need to address that glaring fact that out of the 60 or so people that played in the first pcq in Knoxville, probably only ten of those people still play. Or that despite the fact that there are participation prizes, and amateur awards and product basically given out to entice the casual players, hardly any show up for pcqs. Or that UDE's FNM program had such better prizes than WOTC and still no one showed up even back when the EAs were groovy and were shipped on time. Or that the fun Sneak Preview tournaments gave away so much stuff for free and still the attendance was awful. The average casual Magic player is willing to go to a Magic pre-release, pay $25 and get about five packs. Most don't get anything else because all the "pros" win the flights. Yet, 100-500 people show up all the time. A casual Vs player can pretty much expect a playmat, many packs, a deck box, and EAs almost every time. Yet we get 10-50. Why?

Where are all of you causal players supporting the wonderful OP programs that UDE offered? What made you not show up for sneak previews and PCQs knowing that you were pretty much guaranteed good prizes and fun times. Why has Hobby League tanked? It doesn't matter that some random pro won all the time. If it was done right, it was generally free and everyone got an EA.

A lot of pro players try very hard to grow this game simply because they want to continue to make money at it. Regardless if you feel that is selfish or not, they still pour their heart into it to keep it thriving. Unfortunately it requires a lot more effort than that. It requires people taking advantage of OP, people supporting their local game stores by buying product there and showing up for Hobby league. Unfortunately none of this was happening.

Why?

Where is this huge casual player base I keep hearing about?

What is it going to take to get them to continue playing?

UDE pretty much just screwed every professional player playing Vs for the good of the game. What now can they do make the casual player come out of hiding?

Most of the professional players will problably go back to Magic or Poker and we will be left with the small casual player base that hasn't been able to support the game at this point. I say that this does little to impact the overall playerbase and that without growth, without the ability to capture and keep new players, the game will probably die. Yes, a lot of resources were spent to keep these professional players interested. But a lot of those resources also targeted the casual market.

I stuck my foot in my mouth enough for one week. I am done participating in this epic thread. Some of you have made very good counter points to my posts and I appreciate that. Unfortunately most of you blindly fail to see the slow death of this game and refuse to do anything about it. You are kidding yourselves if you think a million dollar reduction in OP is going to save the game. What is needed is a way to grow the playerbase in a market where the game's target audience just isn't capable of making the effort that is required to play it.

QFT.

I agree with En-Kur.. Vs. is a niche product. I also agree with WalterKovacs in that changing the game extensively will make it not the same game that I enjoy, anymore.

Niche products can survive and even thrive, but they have to be handled correctly. I think Vs Online is a better environment for a niche product like Vs., and hopefully they can handle it right to make it grow.

Online, you can have communities (of more than your local 3 guys) who are at the same level of play you are. Online, you can create structured tutorials (or a single player game) that step you up through more and more advanced play. (for those that know game design, that's the essence of a video game anyways.) Online, you can segregate yourselves from those of lower skill if you're an elitist goon.

To be perfectly honest, a game that requires this much effort on the part of the players to keep alive is growing in the wrong space. People should want to play a game because it's fun, not because 25% of the players are recruiters. It's a game, not a cult/organized religion.

So much good stuff! :classic:
So much fighting! :cry:


I still want to somewhat refute the complexity issue. I am not interested in listing them all but anyone here who knows Magic knows keywords...lots of keywords. Tons of keywords. And if you are telling me that "hidden" is more complex than "shadow" and "substitue" is more complex than
time shifting" or whatever that is called then I seriously have to ask what you think makes it harder? I think a lot of us came from other games like Magic so those terms and phrases within those games seem easier than the ones we are learning now. Not to mention that Magic has had ten years to work on their engine...and last time I checked there are still some issues.

Is there complexity? Yes. Is it TOO complex? Uhm...I cannot play Magic to save my life sometimes...but I have been to a Vs. PC. I am a superior Vs player over my other CCG skills. And I played Magic for 8 years. Some of that is spatial thinking. Some of that is circumstance and some is just good teaching.

Vs is different. Thats the point right?

I feel like we are all at a point where we can help guide the next age. People point at Magic as the premiere success story. I lived in Seattle and live near it still. I watched the World Championships fizzle, the tournament center close and...oh yeah Wizards was bought by one of the world's largest corporate entities...pretty sure that was due to some financial issues. TEN YEARS of gaming since inception they have a stable tournament environment. And at least here in the heart of Magictown (Seattle metroplex) many big events have nothing to do with WOTC coordinating them. Event groups and people do.

Its been said. We can HELP. We are not soley responsible. UDE can help but they are not soley responsible for the success of their game in that after they make the product we have to buy it....they can't force us.

My group of players consist of refugees from Magic, Yugioh and video gaming. I have friends that have better PC finishes then those of us who are experienced CCGers and they have only ever played Vs. The game can be taught to anyone. The game can be accessible. If we know how to do it we can help each other and if UDE hears our concerns then they can give us the product to help.


No shops? That sucks. Is there a college nearby? Got a big enough kitchen table? The movement to get people to play doesn't have to start in a store. Support for competition does but I am pretty sure that we can each pony up one name for each state on the Realms here and we can start to coordinate creating a central hub for each area if we cannot fid enough people in the immediate area. I was once willing to drive thre hours for a PCQ. If the City Championships are the same thing basically why not invest the same effort? Why not run other formats and tourneys that are non sanctioned. Win a box! Win Enemies! Win Beatdowns! Win PirateDevon's 100+ Superman collection...uhm wait. I

F you have a community of six people and they need to shell out the prize support for a local tourney and you have the decks and resources to get 6 more people to play (for little to no money on their end that first time) that can be a big draw. I have seen my VS. community start at two and fluctuate to as many as 20. And most of them aren't playing right now because of things not relating to Vs at all. These are all semi-competitive players but we loved the game first and loved the swag second. Hey I want 20 grand to use General Zod and scream "Son of Jor-El kneel before Zod" in a PC final...and maybe I will only get 5 grand to do it...but if I keep playing...if I love this game and show people why...I may still get that chance (And hopefully Zod will get a good reprint :shudder:)

We can create tools for our own success. We can generate the buzz we need. I just told a friend of mine about how much this whole discussion has honestly impacted my day to day. He picked up a bunch of Vs cards this morning! And yes we can vocally identify our concerns and present them to UDE in a way that makes them listen and care. They know they are losing players but as I said in my last post they obviously don't want to lose us all. Lets show them what it will take.

Awesome post. It provided a much-needed pick me up. Cheers.

Seems to me like everyone just sees Dave's posts and get "arrogant and condescending" from it, but if you really look into it more, you can see he makes some good points. He and erick have similar views on this and I think it's because they are card store owners. They look into this from another angle. We (the customers) look at this from another point. I think that is what is causing disagreement and we'll just continue going around in circles.

The problem for me was the tool box decks. It destroyed the game for the casual player. The casual player generally has read comic books since he was a young kid. He knows the characters and how they should be. He wants to build decks of the Green Lantern corps to see if they can stop the Emerald enemies or vice versa. The tool box decks have taken away all the years of back story the comic books have. It's just a hoge poge of characters who could have any name attached. I can play Magic and have that same type of deck.
I have gone to PCQ's and to Hobby Leagues and its all the same. Let's have hobby leagues where you have to play the characters in the faction they have printed. Play DC vs. Marvel. Anything that brings the back story back to the game. Even with the new WoW, you have to play either Horde or Alliance and the ability cards are mostly specific to the class you play. Thats what Vs. needs more of for the casual player to come back. That and more stores that support Hobby League. I'm in Columbus, Ohio, a hot bed of card play and not one store that supports hobby league for Vs. and i could myself bring 6 a week. I hate to the see the game fading because i love the Hero genre and have been reading comics since the late '60's. It's great to see a game modeled on the comics that had a lot of potential. But some overpowered cards and tool box decks took the fun out of it. Oh well, the ramblings of the casual player. I sunk a lot of money in this game and i was not the one winning the PCQ's or getting to play at a hobby league. But i bet i spent 5x's as much money as any of the "pro's" did on the cards. I and others like me are the reason games like this make it or tank. I play the PCQ's when they are in town but i don't travel to others. I know i am not going to win because i build my decks to represent the characters i'm playing. I don't build hoge poge decks that get netdecked and everyone then plays. I play for the fun of it and i spend my money for the fun of it. I hope the grass roots efforts work and maybe then they can get the game to what it should be. I don't want a Magic knock off.

Seeing as this page grew 30 pages since I last looked, anyone care to cliff note it? No, seriously someone do it.

People really care about this game. They have differences of opinion about where it is and where it is going. Many are angry and many are excited. Some are ready to take the new OP changes and run with them, vowing to do whatever it takes to keep Vs. System alive for a good long time.

okay. I havent read anything since probably around page 20. What new updateds have we gotten from UDE?

None, and we don't need any. We have what we have and we are working as hard as we can to make it fly. They got some excellent suggestions, some curses, and some very encouraging enthusiasm. Now we get to see if it works.

That's pretty much the issue. However, its not a huge casual player base right now, the lack of casual players is the problem.

In 2004 and 2005, we had a player base at my small store I support of about 12 to 20 players coming out at any one of two nights every week. As the game progressed into the end of 2006, we were down to 4 players one night a week. There are several reasons for this, but much of it included turn off issues from casual players.

The question is how do we get new casual players into the game and recapture the old ones again. As to the pro players, I think that as we build a foundation that is solidly based on casual players we can support a full pro level system again. But I really wonder how 300 to 500 pro level players can support VS alone. I also wonder how a game that does not have the way being inspired and lead into creative levels by the pro level type players will attract the attention of a broad player base. Face it pro's are the super stars of the game and allow decks to be pushed and explored to a level of admiration that casual players don't perform at. They show they way and illustrate the potential of the game. They show case the thrill of the game. I always loved following the pro circuits and the top eight decks, the coverage as though I were following a sporting event. Many casual players may not have the time or the where with all to be a pro level player, but we enjoy a good high level sporting event and then go back to playing what was discovered from the PC or the 10K. Having said that without a large player base to support the game for UDE financially it will not succeed. Classic gaming models show that casual players are the largest potential market to tap into. At one time, this was a present in larger numbers in VS, but now it has lost players. Enough that UDE has many concerens that effect how they can support the game.

This can be over come in my humble opinion.

Have a nice day.