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. :D"

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.

Penfold said:

This is getting old.  I'm really trying to walk away from this, but I don't appreciate your ongoing dishonesty concerning what I'm trying to say.  If you have an actual counterpoint, fine, but stop misrepresenting my point.

The point which was made by Aahzmandius was that unlimited card counts make the game more about money; specifically, "If there are no limits on card count then you're back to "he with the most money"."  The counterpoint was that cards which work well in multiples can easily be commons - NOT that every powerful card should be a common, and every rare card useless, which is what you're trying to represent.  Star Wars did exactly this - powerful rares existed and flourished just fine, but synergistic strategies which relied on cheap cards could work well.  In an environment with an unlimited card count, it did NOT develop into "He who can afford the most copies of Darth Vader wins".

And claiming hypocrisy just REALLY shows that you don't understand empiricism.  There has been a claim - that unlimited card counts inherently drive a game to be more expensive.  I've provided a counterexample, as has Surreal.  That's how you disprove claims in an actual logical discussion - by providing counterexamples.  Your next step in this process would be to provide something that refutes MY claim.  Something relevant, that is.  Whether the game is based on Star Wars, or whether or not Decipher chose to ban cards or use silver bullets is pretty irrelevant to the claim at question here.

Of course, you took the hard road - you and Aahzimandius made a rather absolute claim that unlimited card counts are untenable.  Several counterexamples have been provided to that claim, thus disproving it.  To the extent that you've put forward claims for me to try and disprove, you've chosen untestable claims.  "Unlimited card counts increase the cost as people need lots of duplicate rares to compete" is testable, and disprovable.  "Games with unlimited card counts fail because they have unlimited card counts" is neither testable nor disprovable, for exactly the reasons I laid out before (which I'll point out you agree with - my entire point about the testability has to do with other factors.  In trying to dismiss the SWCCG as only successful because it was Star Wars, you're claiming those other factors).

I get that you don't like unlimited card counts.  But there's a vast difference between disliking it, and it actually destroying the game.  You're claiming the latter, and doing so badly.  For all your hate for the SWCCG, none of your points have anything at all to do with the card counts.  You even acknowledge that they DID have a system which worked with unlimited card counts.  Which is the point I've been making all along - that it really is possible to do.  Whether you like that system or not, it's very possible for one to work.