@corranhorn, the OP was talking about making cards less cluttered, I suggested that by boosting stats instead of adding another ability is a way to save on card space but still increase the power level of a figure. I never said that abilities should be completely replaced by higher stats, just that it's cleaner on the card. A figure would lose some flavour, but if they already have 3or 4 stat boosting SA why not take a few of them off and just boost the stats instead.

Yea; card design, right up my alley, discussing powercreep, not so much



The idea of X abilities per commonality needs to be flexible; a "hard" 1 for common, 2 for Uncommon etc is too inflexible and certainly doesn't mirror WOTC (BBSV had 6 SA's and a CE.) Perhaps not the best example but it serves a point, as long as there's consistancy, keep the numbers consistant per the mini's commonality.



But perhaps we're staring at the answer without realizing it. I was looking at a Jedi card and what are the first words I see? "Melee Attack" and Double Attack." just the ability titles with no definitions. We already use titles only on a handful of SA's/FP's and perhaps we need to expand it out to a greater number? If we could agree on a double handful of additional SA's/FP's with the Title only usage.

We use titles only on Melee Attack, Double Attack, Pilot, Force Renewal X and one or two others, perhaps we should add abilities like Stealth, Evade, Cloaked, Grenades ... I realize this might be opening a can of worms, but a Short list might alleviate some of the "Definition Creep" we're moving towards.

Not all definitions, just the 5-6 most often used where the definition is well known by all; do we all Really need to look at the card to find out what Evade mean?

This is all very interesting to read.

I want to start and say the designers are listening. We are currently trying to keep the SA and FP in check so we don't have to make the font as small. We are also starting to use just names of abilities as opposed to the name and definition. Twin Attack is an example where we have started to do this when needed.

Also we are considering looking into changing the number of pieces in each set. Instead of 72 (60 main set + 12 subset) it might be 54 total. There are a few reasons behind this but one item that might be gained is simpler abilities and character designs.

It was mentioned several times about making WOTC better or playable. We are trying to do that. We are also trying to accomplish several other goals all at the same time. We want to make each faction playable. We have repeated this over and over again. It is just tough to do when a faction like Mandos only has a limited number of WOTC to start with. We are also trying to bring playable different squad types to various factions. For example we would like to see the Imperials be able to field a good quality squad that was not based around Thrawn. We are also trying to give you folks what you want. Keep in mind we are trying to do all of this at the same time with 72 pieces to do it.

Sometimes we get it to work. Grievous HoH is an example of this. The community had been asking for a Grievous that could cut through people like he does in the movies and cartoons. The designers felt that the Seps needed something other then lancers or IG86 swarms to play. I think this piece did both of those. However, this is the exception and not the rule. Look it has taken us 5 vsets and the Vong are still tough to use really well.

Since I am helping with vset 6 I can think of at least a dozen pieces that are pretty simple. They have one or two special abilities and that is it. One of those was previewed in MI today. However we are also designing stuff that some might say is complex. One such item which seemed pretty straight forward and simple enough, opened up all sort of timing issues of when X happens how does it effect Y and it happens on Y becasue of the target X can it then go back to X and then again back to Y. Needless to say after several post across multiple V-sets the ability has been changed and we might no have it about right. It only took a year.

I hope I have stayed on topic. I have tried to. I thought about commenting on individual post, but I figure that would do little good other then start an argument.

What should you take away from this? The designers are listening.

I'm very impressed with this thread.

It's hard to keep on track.

I believe the design team is putting too much pressure on themselves. You already achieved what you set out to do. The game is revived; because of the v-set people like me have come back to the game after years. I'm currently playing with about 20-30 cards of all 5 v-sets. I have about another 40-50 cards that I really want to play and try. I don’t think I will be able to until later this year. It's so bad that the other day I posted a thread asking were the old republic set was when in fact I had already picked up the set from the printer and was playing with some figures of v-set 5.

I'm trying to illustrate that part of the pressure to introduce new abilities and ce's to make the perfect is unwarranted. It's now actually having the reverse effect as your finding out yourself. I give you an example.

I always wanted the vong to be better and I was bitter that wotc never finished it. I should be happy now. But guess what. The vong are such a convoluted maze of SA and Ce's that I won’t even try a single squad. You crazy? Who has the time to spend and actually learn the rules interaction with this faction? Even if you get it you will spend hours trying to explain it to someone that doesn’t. Soon the Mandos are going to become the same thing.

All in the quest to tech the squads to tourney level. How can you balance the old with new and try to bring Role Playing Game depths to a game that was designed for a quick skirmish. Then make it balanced for tourneys.

Too much my friend.

You could try and do what all the Video Games do: hot patch.
I printed out V-set 5 in high gloss on heavy stock for less than $10 at my local staples. Please consider doing only mini sets. Put them out when they are ready, don't commit to a timeline. When a large task force focusses on a single task the synergies will make timelines exponentially shorter.

Please guys don't burn yourself out. (I think you guys already have)

Cheers

This post interested me greatly. While I'm sure the V-Setters have discussed this to death when they first created the V-Set card templates, has it been revisited since? When I toyed with the idea (and discarded) of creating my own custom card templates I noticed issues with Text space; too much space and you find a tendency to fill it (too many SA's) and too little text space and the card starts to lose functionality and starts to veer towards cards as Art.

Considering I have been writing up the glossary for the past few Vsets, I think I am quite aware of what is being made. And the size of the template is still a minor issue when you are making abilities that require a paragraph of text.

I don't like abilities that require you to keep track of something with a marker or a piece of paper. -2 defense until the end of the round. 'Burning' or 'corrupted' until you make the save. Things like that. It was fine when there were only a couple, but now there are too many.