Nobody's denying that there are other problems that can end (or decide) a game far too soon, but these problems have to be tackled individually. Nobody's suggesting we don't; this thread is focused on this particular problem but does not preclude others creating more threads for other problems. If we can't solve one problem because other problems will remain unsolved, then we can't solve any problems. And if you consider the bigger picture of games ending too soon, then this discussion can't possibly solve that completely, but will still reduce it noticeably.
Change From Tradition to Better the Game
- Thread starter Slev
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GodBlessAmerica
New Member
I've been suggesting the concept of your opponent taking prizes when you ko a pokemon and vice-versa for a while. I think Battle Spirits is one of the most underrated TCG's of all time, and Duel Masters/Kaijudo is my favorite game to play. These two not only had the element of giving the player that is losing more advantage, but with the way they were designed, no hand was horrible or unplayable. In pokemon you can draw a hand of no energy and draw no energy for several turns, losing you the game. In Magic, even with mulligans, you can see an abundance of lands or a shortage of lands that will lose you the game. In Vanguard, even with the best mulligan system out there, you can still get grade-locked at 0/1/2 and lose the game. If Michael Elliot were designing the pokemon TCG, it would be better than it ever has been.
The people designing the pokemon tcg right now have very little idea of what they're doing, and if they would hire some new people or get help from more skilled game designers, this game would be a lot more enjoyable.
Pretty broad and outrageous statement (I guess for shock value). I, for one, thoroughly enjoy playing the game in its current state. I'd also welcome changes, but I wouldn't go so far as to say the people making the current setup don't know what they're doing. Sounds more like armchair quarterbacking.
losjackal
Technical Administrator
I hate it when threads like this start to turn into players vs. the company. Criticizing people's jobs just seems uncalled for.
I'll test the mechanic firsthand to see what it feels like, but a counterpoint could be that a losing player needs to Catcher-KO something weak on the bench to rip a necessary prize. Otherwise, it becomes a game of sacrificing in order to draw into a needed prize. That seems like a harder scenario to begin a recovery from. At least by taking the cheap KO for a prize, they are advancing their game state toward a win, not the other way around.
I'd prefer if this type of statement was kept out of this thread. It isn't necessary or constructive to the topic at hand.
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I've seen a lot of statements that my examples are outrageous and unlikely. I did note they are unlikely, but situations where players do prize important components of their decks do happen. Prizing 2 tynamos is still a significant problem for a rayeels player. Prizing 2 darkrai is also a significant problem for darkrai decks. I went to an extreme in my op, but the fact that prizes can have such a harsh effect on a game seems terrible.
I believe both players need to start on a more equal footing every game. This is one of the easiest ways to increase that.
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Starting the game has also been brought up. I do believe that is a problem but that should be for another thread. Please keep discussion towards the Prize System.
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I'm really enjoying some of the possible ideas for ways to change the prize system. Thanks for contributing everyone.
The pokemon *s and Ace Specs are very strong cards to where you shouldnt be depending on them anyway. Not seeing them in a game doesnt really make a difference to your core strategy. Theres times where I get annoyed that my Computer Search is prized (and it affects my game) but oh well. No different if I drew Computer Seach turn 1 and had no real plays with it.
All the prize grabing cards either could let you grab Pokemon or it would be at random what your getting. Neither really bothers me considering theres no trainers in this game that you cant run 4 of and never have.
psychup2034
New Member
I largely disagree with your assessment. The key word that you're using is "seems." Prizing 2 Darkrai EXs or prizing 2 Tynamos seems terrible, but is it really? How often does it actually affect games?
I would argue that prizing 2 of certain cards isn't inherently bad or "less fair," as you call it. Both players have an opportunity to prize important cards. There's skill involved in playing around your bad prizes. Bad prizes very, very rarely completely take someone out of a game. Good players design their decks in such a way that the effect of bad prizes is mitigated.
I understand where you're coming from because you believe that both players need to start on a more equal footing, but I completely disagree. As DragonairMaster8 asked you rhetorically, why are you proposing to remove one of the most skilful aspects of the game: playing around bad prizes?
DragonairMaster8 goes on to point out that playing with the knowledge that you don't have access to certain cards alters the way you play the game and adds a dimension to the game that is unique from other games. While DragonairMaster8 doesn't remember a single time in the last 14 years that he was "completely removed from the game" due to my prizes, I do remember that it happened to me once in the last two seasons. The point is that bad prizes end up being a factor so infrequently that the effect is inconsequential.
How about we not try to fix what isn't broken. The prize system is there so when u ko an opponent u are awarded for it "good job, here is one of your cards back". If you cant make a deck to make up for the fact that one or 2 of the cards u beed could b there, then go back to the drawing board. It's not hard to compensate for u possibly having cards u need there, town map to make sure u get what u need, or have another way to get them out of there, not just one pokemon that u rely on, and if it so happens that its prized u lose. That would b your fault, not the games. Y don't we just stack our decks and play with a 60 card hand, there is no strategy in pokemon without prizes
Hikari_Netto
Member
If you're using current or past formats and cards to test reverse prizing it will likely feel awkward. That's of course because the cards you're playing with simply weren't designed for it. New cards and mechanics will have to be designed with reverse prizes in mind, so testing it with what we have wouldn't do a lot of good.
Otaku
Active Member
When someone posts incorrect reasoning, I have a hard time ignoring it. I do need to work on addressing it a fair and polite manner, however. :lol:
Slev brought up a concern of his, and how he thinks it should be addressed. I am not too bothered by this problem, though out of my last three games, my Computer Search was stuck in my Prizes twice and the game where it wasn't I was unable to draw a second Basic Pokémon and my opponent successfully OHKOed my only Active on the second turn... right after I finally drew something else with Tropical Beach. XD
Believing that the Prize mechanic isn't a problem worth discussing may be true. The reasoning you gave for it, lolsjackal, was not. I explained this, and a later post shows something of a change of heart... but without addressing your earlier comments and their implications. I should have still acknowledged said change.
While it stings and may be hard for me to accept, ultimately I do wish for people to correct me if I am in error (e.g. if you are certain your reasoning in the quoted post was spot on, please explain it to me again. :redface
Which reminds me that I should have at least considered addressing this via Private Message; addressing such things directly in a thread can be quite provocative.I thought I did address your concerns already; I made clear that if such a change were undertaken, I would give Creatures, Inc. enough credit to have thought things through and either
1) Cease producing cards that would clash with the mechanic and introduce it after the rotation of cards already in the format that would cause problems.
2) Issue errata for the cards to bring their mechanics in line with the new rules.
Neither is really a "new" thing in Pokémon.
1) I disagreed with your reasons for attacking it, and did not consider them accurate.
2) It seemed an interesting concept that would provide an easy method of keeping score that would also provide a reminder of what was KOed, and ensure that whatever lost element of strategy occurred due to abandoning the former method of keeping score was replaced by something new.
Here is where I definitely was wrong; I did not give your later comments enough weight, and for that I apologize.
I do not agree that "other mechanics" really needed to be "acknowledged"... only when we are exploring ideas and a suggested "fix" would cause more harm due to them. I have been in far too many threads where this kind of topic became almost impossible to discuss due to "sub-conversations" and the fact that in addressing such things the discussion became to broad.
What else removes a player before the game begins, however? Once your Prizes are selected, you can be in an impossible to win or at least highly unlikely position to win if multiple vital cards are "trapped" in your Prizes. This happens before (as an example), you could even be donked.
If it isn't worth arguing about... why address it? Especially when you simultaneously acknowledge my point, state that doesn't relate to your point... and then proceed to confirm that it does.
Just pointing out, I don't know what you are trying to state here.1) First, it was initially suggested actually setting the Pokémon aside, hence I stuck with it since changing that basically makes it a different mechanic.
2) I have a mixed relationship with counters; when a card can do the job, I tend to prefer using the card.
3) While obviously not my chief reason, having a more concrete record of Prizes taken would be nice. It is not unlike the desire for Supporters not to be discarded until the end of the turn, as they used to be... only even less of an imposition. When you KO an opponent's Pokémon, you have no reason not to make sure they place one of the cards that made it up in the Prizes (as per the modified suggestion).
4) A dice is easy to manipulate... including unintentionally. This is one of the drawbacks of using dice as damage counters. It might as well be a piece of paper with tally marks on it. I would not be adverse to that, either, but I come to the next point.
5) A Pokémon being set aside in this manner provides more flavor and more strategy. Obviously, a Pokémon being gone is a Pokémon being gone. It also provides a new, simple method of balancing out Evolutions and Basic Pokémon. Suddenly being composed of multiple cards becomes an advantage for Evolutions, as they can set aside whatever component they need least, while a Basic is simply gone.
You do acknowledge one of the difficulties of the current method, that is, that whether intentionally cheating or erroneous grabbing, a player can mess up their Prize count. This alternate method provides "one better" mechanisms for keeping track of Prizes, especially as a Super Rod can't leave the results so ambiguous.
Again, I owe you an apology, because I was too sharp in my reply. I hope this outlines some of where that came from, and how I am still confused over many of your concerns.
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My first intuition in this thread was that it was about "Whining about losing because of bad prizes." despite what got us here, its a topic I've never really thought about, but needs to be grounded.
OP sites playing other games, then gives horrible examples of why prizes are bad. In payment/cost systems, like MtG and WoW, they have very little draw power (generally speaking). If we assume that Pokemon had the same draw power AND had the chance of bad prizes, then I would be a huge advocate for change. But, being as payment/cost systems have horrible draw power (relative to Pokemon), those games are fairly hard to hit their win conditions. Since Pokemon has insane drawing comparatively, whining about not hitting your wincon every game and then comparing to games that don't hit their wincon every game and calling Pokemon intellectually inferior seems like a horrible comparison.
That is a strange quote coming from someone that plays payment/cost systems because often times, that is the determining factor in losses in most of those games since you can't every get rid of your opening hand.
But, it does bring up interesting ideas...
I've just recently started playing the video games. I'm often surprised by the similarities in the TCG and VGC...and often dumbfounded by the difference. I've never thought the prize system was bad, but I certainly think it can be better now that I think about it. The idea that popped in my head helps with prizes, donks, and even relates to the video game!
My initial idea was this: What if our prizes where a "battle box" of sorts where we searched our deck for six basic Pokemon and set them face up in the prize pool (like a battle box). Then, when we shuffled up and drew seven cards and flipped our prizes face down. Then another idea popped into my head...
What if: We chose our six prizes and put them face down. They could be any cards. Then, we play as normal with a few possible stipulations: First, if we only have one Pokemon in play and it gets KO'ed, instead of losing, we can pick a basic from our prizes and put it in play, again simulating the video game. We then put a random card from our deck back into our prizes. Another possible stipulation is that you can take anyone of your prize cards anytime during your turn, but you have to replace it with two random cards from your deck as prizes.
This reason this possibility intrigued me is because you can really add a lot of skill to the game, keep with the Pokemon theme, and give players good options to prolong games to make them better and have options to have outs to bad hands.
OP sites playing other games, then gives horrible examples of why prizes are bad. In payment/cost systems, like MtG and WoW, they have very little draw power (generally speaking). If we assume that Pokemon had the same draw power AND had the chance of bad prizes, then I would be a huge advocate for change. But, being as payment/cost systems have horrible draw power (relative to Pokemon), those games are fairly hard to hit their win conditions. Since Pokemon has insane drawing comparatively, whining about not hitting your wincon every game and then comparing to games that don't hit their wincon every game and calling Pokemon intellectually inferior seems like a horrible comparison.
you said said:
That is a strange quote coming from someone that plays payment/cost systems because often times, that is the determining factor in losses in most of those games since you can't every get rid of your opening hand.
But, it does bring up interesting ideas...
I've just recently started playing the video games. I'm often surprised by the similarities in the TCG and VGC...and often dumbfounded by the difference. I've never thought the prize system was bad, but I certainly think it can be better now that I think about it. The idea that popped in my head helps with prizes, donks, and even relates to the video game!
My initial idea was this: What if our prizes where a "battle box" of sorts where we searched our deck for six basic Pokemon and set them face up in the prize pool (like a battle box). Then, when we shuffled up and drew seven cards and flipped our prizes face down. Then another idea popped into my head...
What if: We chose our six prizes and put them face down. They could be any cards. Then, we play as normal with a few possible stipulations: First, if we only have one Pokemon in play and it gets KO'ed, instead of losing, we can pick a basic from our prizes and put it in play, again simulating the video game. We then put a random card from our deck back into our prizes. Another possible stipulation is that you can take anyone of your prize cards anytime during your turn, but you have to replace it with two random cards from your deck as prizes.
This reason this possibility intrigued me is because you can really add a lot of skill to the game, keep with the Pokemon theme, and give players good options to prolong games to make them better and have options to have outs to bad hands.
I agree that playing around bad prizes takes a lot of skill, but this doesn't address the fact that two players when they start a game can be on unequal footing based on what players have prized. Good on someone if they can beat it when their unfavorable odds, but ideally that's not how games of skill should start. Games of skill should start on as close to equal footing as possible. Changing the prize system can help push us towards that equal footing in my opinion.
psychup2034
New Member
Players do start on equal footing at the beginning of every game. Both players have the opportunity to get "bad prizes." Some decks are designed to avoid prize problems (playing 3-4 copies of all important cards), while other decks are willing to risk prize problems to run more complex strategies (playing 1-1 lines of situational Pokemon). Most games of strategy have a particular amount of variance, including all trading card games, poker, blackjack, etc. The amount of marginal variance added by the prize mechanic is negligible and mostly inconsequential. You're exaggerating the effect that bad prizes have on a player's performance over the course of a season.
Players are on equal footing in the sense that every player prizes 10% of the cards in their deck at the beginning of the game.
Why stop there? Why not let each player search their decks at the start of the game and select the seven cards they wish to start with? Having a hand of 3 energy, a switch, an energy switch, a Bianca and a Ho-Oh as a starting Pokemon could leave a player on a much less equal footing than the prize system currently can. Luck is part of the game and there isn't much you can do to reduce that, rewarding a player for losing certainly isn't the way to go about it in my opinion.
Prof Clay
New Member
First thing I noticed when I learned to play Cardfight Vanguard was that their damage system is EXACTLY what pokemon should do....
Everytime a Pokemon is KOed, a card should be removed from the top of the opposing players deck as a penalty...Once 6 "damage" have been dealt...game over
This allows both players to have all their cards available for the start of the game...and losinig pokemon also means a loss of other resources.
I would work so well....just like my "I chose you" start varient I came up with Vince on the way to 2009 Worlds that ended up being used later in the Professor Cup
But the general game mechanics will never change...sigh
Everytime a Pokemon is KOed, a card should be removed from the top of the opposing players deck as a penalty...Once 6 "damage" have been dealt...game over
This allows both players to have all their cards available for the start of the game...and losinig pokemon also means a loss of other resources.
I would work so well....just like my "I chose you" start varient I came up with Vince on the way to 2009 Worlds that ended up being used later in the Professor Cup
But the general game mechanics will never change...sigh
Otaku
Active Member
You realize this has been touched upon already, yes?
psychup2034
New Member
You realize that Moothead2 is restating a relevant point, yes?
I find the system great as it is. There hasn't been any complaints on how the system works (maybe by a few), but me and many other players are completely fine by how the game is played. There are reasons why a few cards are released or have been released in the past eg, Azelf (LA), Town Map (BC). The game has been played like this for over 7 years, there's no point in changing how the system is just because you prize a couple cards that puts you to a disadvantage.
baby mario
Front Page Article Editor<br><a href="http://pokeg
I don't really see why a system that rewards players for getting their Pokemon KO'd to artificially boost their chances of making a comeback is desirable.
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