This commentary was long time due and only
thing, that kept me back from doing this, was my love for this awesome game and
my utmost respect for people running Black Chantry, because I truly believe
that they are doing what they feel is
best for the game. They are putting a lot of work into it and they have managed
to revive it when I lost my belief that our game will ever leave torpor again. It
has been more than two years since announcement about V:tES being back in print
ad we had multiple products to play with, as well as some keyword changes and
rules changes. This is just bunch of my personal opinions and thoughts about
what happened since that time.
I still think there was possibility for soft
restart of the game, banning some stuff entirely and streamlining other things,
while keeping most of the game intact. But since that did not happen, let's not
dwell at this for long. I just still see some things that hamper accessibility
of the game for new players that are kept in and let's be honest, V:tES was
never really easy game to get in. So instead let's look at products and changes
that happened in last 2 years.
Product overview
Se first thing we got announced on April 24th
2018 were 5 new products and wow I looked at them and thought they look
awesome. KoT and HttB bundles brought back sought after and needed reprints
while Lost Kindred brought in new cards.
I was sad that we did not have any starter for new players, but I was happy
about what we got and was hoping for PCDs in near future.
After that, we got announcement for Anthology I
on October 21st 2018. Again, it was not meant for new players, which was a
shame. But pure value of the reprints kept complaints down awe enjoyed lot of
those cards.
Finally on 29th of December 2018 we got four
new starters announced. And wow, they were packed. With valuable reprints,
playable cards and even new vampires. They were playable out of the box and
pretty strong at that. I was hyped for
new players with these. One thing bothered me though. It was the choice of
including Nephandi starter with them. I was concerned of high contest rates
with this deck. It looked like you could get cheap Nephandus deck for everyone,
but then everyone would contest Antonio, which is star of that deck. I found
that to be questionable choice. Especially when !Tremere deck is powerful deck
by itself and if they built generic starter , you could easilly switch that
crypt to have 3-4 different crypts and not contest that much. Still, I overall
rated this as great product.
After that on May 26th 2019 we got announcement
of 25th anniversary box and Stanislava starter deck. And man, it was packed
full of value and needed cards. And while it is true that Stanislava deck is
iconic for V:tEs history, I felt strongly that this is big mistake. We got
another deck, that cannot be really modified. You either play it with crypt
relying on Stanislava, or it does not work. If you try to switch it, you lose
some part - dominate, protean, votes or something else. So from what I saw and
experienced - most of the players stripped it for the cards. Which is
understandable, but sad. And the rest? People who played it just ran into
absurd increase in contest rates.
30th July 2019 brought us announcement of First
Blood starters and I thought they are spot on big thing we needed. Low cost and
easy builds that are great for new players. Though I wish they had carton boxes
and second print of them had price increase, I still think these are great.
And these days, we are starting to see previews
of cards from Fifth Edition box set. And while I love a lot of things about it,
there are things I am not fan of. I love idea of selling it as standalone board
game that can be expanded. I love inclusion of new rulebook and edge as well as
counters. Though getting out rulebook while simultaneously testing pretty huge rule change is
unfortunate. But biggest letdown is lack of new library cards. This makes only
small fragment of the cards desirable for older players and lot of them being
just carton. Also this board game has not a small price tag for a new players
to jump in it, albeit cost is justified. Again, decks are constructed well and
there are desirable cards, just not that many of them.
So these are all our new products. At this
point I should also mention I work with a store that sells these products and
not only, I am trying to play this great game, but also market it and sell it.
And let me just say it is not easy and will not be if we continue this way. Of
course each time we order items and sell them to collectors, but it's been
harder and harder to get games going and to attract new players. But also old
players have trouble with it because of issues pointed out.
Lot of people who believed in the game simply
kept their cards, so 95% reprint product is simply boring or straight away
irrelevant for them. Even if they bought products, they were faulty - wrongly
cut corners, empty cards, misprinted cards and blurred texts. We had maybe one
product line that was not faulty in some way? And I am expecting it to be same
for this box set just based on statistics and previous experiences here.
Evaluation
This has already gotten much longer than I
wanted and I could go a while longer, but I think that we have to get a broad
look on all aspects to see where problem with our game lies. We live in age,
where games are competing for customers. Market is changing fast and new things
are coming out on daily basis. V:tES died because it was hard to sell - to
investors, companies and to players. Rigid game which is great for group of 4-5
player and less or more is meh or unplayable is just horrible concept.
And since the game was picked up by Black
Chantry, these problem was never solved. But in addition, other problems were
added. Almost no new cards means that lot of veterans just lost interest. You
can add quality issues on top of that. New keywords such as Lock and Wake have
brought more complications to the game. When I look on all wordings on cards
throughout history of the game, it was mess even before these. Also we had some
card changes that I do not mind, but were unnecessary in my opinion.
Last nail in the coffin for me is the contest
rule. This I see only as a hotfix for Stanislava and Antonio starters not being
thought through. Vtes as a game has a lot of problems, but it being cruel and
unforgiving is a part of the game. Star decks were always risky. Lutz or Arika
are so strong, that risk of their contest is a part of their balance. How many
times you have contested Zubeida? I myself have and had star decks, that were
strong but risky in this area and I lost because of contest few times. But it
was my choice. Every time. I chose to put the vampire in my deck well knowing
what I am risking. I chose to influence him out and contest him. I either asked
around if I would be contesting or I risked it. But each and every time, the
game proceeded because of my decisions. So although game may have problems, being cruel is not
one of them. It was always part of the game. And trying to push this is, at
least for me, only looking like trying to patch Black Chantry's design
mistakes.
Solutions
Quality control. This should be the easiest to
pin down. Make sure you are printing correct stuff without defects. If your
customers don't believe in quality, they will not buy. Period.
Plan ahead please. Starters with high contest
rate are horrible. But from what I understand, new illustrated rulebook is
going to print and we are testing pretty huge rule change. So what now? We get
inaccurate rulebook? Or is the rule already there and testing is just
formality? Oh and please don't give people choice. I don't want to argue that
my tourney has hard contest rules while people who arrived from far away city
prefer soft contest.
We need new cards. I know that testing and
balancing new cards, hiring artists is a pain in the butt and its probably most
complicated thing to do. But I do not want to buy another reprint deck. Lot of
people does not want that. Few new vampires will not suffice. We barely got
here in two years, but not much more farther. Fifth edition is huge letdown in
terms of new cards for a lot of people.
Last few words
I firmly believe there are more things that can
improve V:tES and give it chance to live, but those first three are priority. I
am still little sad we did not have soft restart with simplifying some
interactions and banning some stuff as well as doing some changes right when
the game was restarted. I could see possibility of doing "legacy"
format for older editions which have just confusing wordings or misprints. Just
recently we had again mistake with newer player and jyhad prints of "Venture Justicar" and Blood Rage.
But let's keep that for future debate. Though at this point I am very
skeptical towards game as it is and its future, I will try to do my best to
support it. I will try to get games going. I will attend tournaments. And I
will try to sell and push V:tES. Because I love the game. There is no other
like it. Sorry for me taking this long to spill everything out. I hope I did
not bore you and hopefully we will meet at some random tournament, GP or EC.
Sending my love to community.
Sincerely,
Michal "Regis" Dlouhý
Player, prince , NC, retailer
