(MORE INPUT NEEDED see post 126) - Does Pokemon Need to go Back to Basics?

RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Thanks for the insight celebi, what your saying makes a ton of sense. I will continue working on this and tell you when I get a good idea.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

How are you going to be able to give these kinds of cards out to play test with in real life? Are you going to start mass producing these cards or something? Or are you just going to give them out to people you know? This is what I mean by looking into the future.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not an idiot and actually have thought about something as basic as that. I've put a lot more work into this project than, "hur hur imma make kewl spoilerz". :p

As I said, scans of these cards will most likely be put up on PB's main page. People can simply print out these cards in the same way they would print out proxies and stick them in a card sleeve in front of a basic energy or other card they don't need. After they print and sleeve 60 proxies, they have a deck to play with at no expense to me and minimal expense to them (about 10 sheets of printer paper/ink, way less than the cost of making an actual deck).
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Well, I'm glad you have. I guess I'm done asking questions. Good luck with this.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

If you expect people to actually print out 60-120 cards on their printer, you should definitely make two versions of the cards; One with the artwork for the people that do want to use a ton of ink and basically card spoilers but in JPG form for easy printing.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Cinema said:
If you expect people to actually print out 60-120 cards on their printer, you should definitely make two versions of the cards; One with the artwork for the people that do want to use a ton of ink and basically card spoilers but in JPG form for easy printing.
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A lot of people print out proxies in just black and white, to save money and ink. I do it with all the proxies I print - because yes, ink is expensive!
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

I do too but I've never printed more than maybe 10 proxies at a time. 120 or even 60 is still a lot, but I guess there's not a real solution right now.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Celebi23 referred me here via PM so I think I should post my thoughts re:the current game.

From what I can see the power creep is nothing more than a marketing technique, and a recurring one at that. In regards to the raw gameplay numbers (HP, damage etc) it has increased every generation and I strongly believe that the only reason people appear to favour one band over another is down to the era they recall playing the most. I can understand this - if you last played during the Neo days then see cards with 170 HP and attacks doing 120 a turn it's natural to wonder what the blinking hell is going on.

But the designers have to do everything they can to make old cards obsolete. For the competitive players the Modified format does this on its own, but competitive players are a small minority of their target market. They have to give the average player who plays against his friends here and there a reason to buy new cards - and the power creep works. Sure, you may have a well built fully functioning LBS deck, but the minute your mate gets his hand on a Mewtwo-EX you're good as screwed unless you update yourself. By increasing power levels, casual players are discouraged from settling on a deck and staying dormant, but instead continually buying into new sets as they are released. More power = more monies.

In regards to pacing, the game is much faster now. This is what has been mentioned before, and why I think this project is (from a faking point of view) a pretty good idea. But again, the fast pace is another marketing technique - did you guys ever have the misfortune of being put up against a younger player at a league or whatever back in the ex-series days? You may have a wonderful strategy planned out, but it'd take a while to set up. Meanwhile, young kid is getting bored and is losing interest. Sadly, these young kids are a significant part of the target market, and the game needs to maintain its appeal to said young kids to continue to sell. The idea of a game which revolves around who can put three energy cards on their Mewtwo first may sound absolutely preposterous to us, but to a young kid it's much more entertaining than trying to work out complex strategies.

So yeah, I know I've more or less echoed what Celebi said in the OP, but I think players do need to accept that it's Another Set, Another Planet for the official series. I wish you guys the best of luck with what is looking to be a very creative project indeed.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

^Yeah, that's one of the reasons this project could work so well. We don't have to worry about marketing at all, and we're geared toward competitive players instead of little kids. So we don't have the worries the card creators do. We don't really care whether the game sells to random collectors and casual players, and if little kids are getting bored with our sets, they don't have to use them.

Also, is it okay if I post our whole PM conversation here? I think it would be good to clear some things up I didn't make clear in the OP.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Can do!

Celebi23 said:
Flame Claw said:
Celebi23 said:
Hey, I've heard/seen that you guys are exceptionally good at making fake cards. I'm working on a project where I actually need some fake cards made, and I was wondering if you guys could help out. Full details about the project can be found here, but if you're not in to competitive TCG you might not get the details.

Basically in summary, I'm trying to create an alternate version of the TCG that's geared toward competitive players, since the official version seems to be more geared toward the little kid/new player. Needless to say, I'll need cards made. Basically, I'd hand you guys spoilers of cards and you'd turn them into actual cards. Really simple. The artwork on the cards doesn't even have to be complex; it could even be as basic as a sprite of the Pokémon.

What's in it for you? Well, first of all you could give yourself illustrator credit for every card you design. If this game takes off (based on the enthusiasm most members showed about the idea combined with PB front page support, I'm assuming it will), that's a great way to get your name out there. People all over the country could be playing with cards that have your name/forum username written on them! Also, I'm not sure if it's relevant to you or not, but you would get an early look at all the cards being designed. You'd also be helping me out a lot, and the website as well, considering this will probably (hopefully) end up being PB sponsored.

The workload wouldn't be too much. You can always turn down anything I ask you to do if you're too busy, of course. There's no commitment attached to helping out. We're hoping to make about 100-card sets, but we'd start the game out with a double-set of 200 cards so players have more options to work with from the get-go. We'd probably release a set every 2-4 months. I'm still waiting to hear back from various people to know who can do it, but we'll probably end up with 5+ developers, so you're looking at making less than 1 card every 2-4 days.

Let me know if you're interested or have any questions. Thanks!
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Firstly interesting point you made about the power creep; I only brought that up at Acanthite a short while ago and I think I'll respond more in detail about that in the thread itself.

Should firstly say that I'm sorry but I can't involve myself with this project; nothing against your concept, but I'm simply too involved with both the Acanthite TCG and some personal projects as well as an increasing amount of schoolwork to be able to offer more of my time.

Judging by this I'm guessing you're not too familiar with the card faking way of life, so for your benefit I think I should clear a few things up. Firstly I think the idea of working without worthwhile art is going to put a lot of people off; personally I would feel embarrassed to present a card which just had a sprite or something on it because sprites on cards = hideous. Secondly, when designing cards I like to have at least a small amount of creative input in everything I assist with (as do most people) - while this can be a simple "yeah, I like this" or "nah, we should change x", but it needs to allow for a personal view. I worry that your plan so far could be seen as "here's our card spoilers, can you make them for us?". This is a shame because there's definitely thought behind your proposal, yet it's coming across the same as any of the other hundreds of "can you help with my project" requests which we all get every week.

Also on the artwork note... giving the card creator Illus. credit when they didn't draw it is a big no... this is art theft - it's taking credit for someone else's work, whether that be Sugimori/some fanartists if their art is used, or GAMEFREAK's graphic designers if you use the sprite idea. Ideally the card creator shouldn't take any credit on the card itself because additional writing off of the card's essentials looks tacky.

Also you may want to rethink your scheduling. 100-200 cards in 2-4 months? Good luck buddy. Unless you take on 10+ people to put cards together graphically this isn't going to be possible, as it takes a fair deal of time to put cards together, especially if you want them to look somewhat presentable.

On another note, don't let anything think far ahead. I will honestly say that no matter how much you have planned out for the project, if you take on 10 graphics guys to make cards, in three months about 7 of those will have lost interest and moved onto something else.

Hope this advice is beneficial, and I wish you and everyone else involved the very best of luck with this :D

- Flameh.
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Yeah, that was beneficial for the most part. Most of that was stuff I had already started thinking about, but I just hadn't put together a physical idea for it yet.

I definitely understand that doing this without art for it is going to turn people off. However, most of the competitively-minded players don't care about how cards look. They care about the game they can play with the cards. This is my target audience, so while having art for it would be great, if it slows every set down by 2-3 months, I worry that my target audience would lose interest. After all, nobody wants to play in the exact same format for half a year.

Obviously if somebody gave me good advice, I would take it. I don't know a lot about the faking system, but I was worried that if I made my project come across as, "I need you guys to design a bunch of cards for me - make images, help out with attack names and effects, etc." people would be turned off by the workload. I'm not closed off to advice at all, I just didn't want it to seem like I was incompetent doing my part of the project and needed others to do all the work for me. I have no problems with people giving me creative input for the cards.

Throwing in spoilers would be a last-ditch attempt. If all of the cards could have unique artwork, I'd greatly prefer that. And yeah, I'll make sure nobody takes Illus. credit for a card they use somebody else's art for.

I am planning to have a solid 7-10 people working on this, if possible. I want to start with high expectations and slow down from there. I worry that if I don't push the limits, the project won't reach its full potential. Thanks for the heads-up, though. I have no idea how time-consuming it is to make fakes, so hearing that my current goals might expect too much before we've even started working is certainly helpful. I'll probably end up rescheduling very quickly or try to recruit more artists.

The loss of interest issue is something I've already experienced many times on this site, so I was expecting it for this project as well. I'm hoping to be able to cycle people, but it's a lot harder to find a new artist than a new moderator. I like to be an optimist, though, so I'm not going to worry about people losing interest until I see it happen. If it happens and I can't find replacements, I guess I'll either have to scrap the project or do more of the work myself, at the cost of the quality of the art. The unfortunate thing about people losing interest is that there really isn't a good solution. :/
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In regards to scheduling, I'd go the other way to be honest - start out small to get people's interest, which will hopefully inspire more ideas; people are much more likely to look in detail at the potential usability of twenty cards than one hundred cards. This inspiration of ideas will hopefully make the current release more of a talking point so more people become inspired to take part. Let's be honest - if you see a post with over 100 links to different cards from a set, you're not going to honestly go through the strengths and weaknesses of each card but are instead likely to just click on the Pokémon you like and overlook everything else.

Personally I would be inclined to borrow the formula we use at AC where we release a few cards each week; that way they can each be analysed by the community rather than be one big release a few months later when everyone's forgotten about everything :D
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Actually, that's a great idea. I think I've even overwhelmed my very enthusiastic beta testers by presenting them with about 90 cards at once. It also allows us to work on a somewhat less tight schedule, since being one or two days late for some mini-sets is a lot better than having all of the "lag time" build up and releasing a full set a couple weeks late.

I do have a few concerns with that method, though:

1) If I released combos in the same 20-card set, they would be much more obvious than I want them to be. However, if I release them at separate times, a lot of cards end up being filler until cards they combo with are released.

2) WPM might not want to have that many updates on the front page.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

I wouldn't worry too much about updates; I don't really think he'd need to mention every single update on the front page - if you have the majority of the postings in a forum thread, then WPM could just update whenever a set is completed.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Going to go read that giant PM log in a bit; for now I'd like to address something.

Flame Claw said:
But the designers have to do everything they can to make old cards obsolete. For the competitive players the Modified format does this on its own, but competitive players are a small minority of their target market. They have to give the average player who plays against his friends here and there a reason to buy new cards - and the power creep works. Sure, you may have a well built fully functioning LBS deck, but the minute your mate gets his hand on a Mewtwo-EX you're good as screwed unless you update yourself. By increasing power levels, casual players are discouraged from settling on a deck and staying dormant, but instead continually buying into new sets as they are released. More power = more monies.
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I actually do not mind power creeps that much. Like you said, they have to do something to get people to buy the newer cards, and they do that by making them substantially stronger than the old ones. I was playing a few newcomers at league, and one of them was using old cards in his deck, from as far back as Base Set. (The other was just a person with what looked like a tweaked starter deck.) And I was playing my V-Donk deck. I felt really really bad playing against them, because they didn't even have a chance.

Rambling aside, the problem I have with the current power creep is that evolutions are not affected by this very much at all. The Stage 1s and 2s have roughly stayed in the same place since the DP days or so - and even now there aren't a lot of good Stage 2s that can hold their own. I've chosen Vanilluxe as mine, and he's working pretty well, but to see Vanilluxe have an identical HP amount to the ludicrously common Terrakion and Zekrom, and then see the new Pokemon EX have 30% more HP than that...and Stage 2s don't get any real bonuses? It makes me sad.

Problems like these will probably get fixed around the time of this year's rotation, thankfully. Collector will be gone, Dual Ball will probably be gone, which leaves us Pokemon Communication, Level Ball, and Heavy Ball. And out of the latter two, the only big powerhouses they can yank are Zekrom EX and Terrakion.

tl;dr version: I want evolutions to get a buff from the power creep, not just basics.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

While a power creep can be a good thing for keeping the game fresh, we've seen the effects a long power creep can have on the game. I've been restructuring the sets to be released in 20-card blocks more frequently instead of in 100-card blocks. In doing so, I've been focusing on making a complexity creep like in Magic. I'm making cards better designed and introducing new mechanics/"chain reaction cards" instead of making cards more powerful. I feel like this is the better route since it's easier to reset and creates a more interesting game.
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

I would love for Pokemon to go back to basics. I played heavily back in the EX era of the game, and loved how equal the cards were, and how there weren't any overpowered cards such as Mewtwo-EX. Back then, there also wasn't a BDIF because so many good cards were created.


If I was in control of the game, there were two things that I would do to help Pokemon get back to the basics.

1) Change the Rare Candy errata back to how it originally was so Stage 2s would be more playable.

2) Stop making very high HP basics.

What do you guys think?
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Yeah The HP and Attack is ridiculous I remember when it was hard to get a LV100 now thats the norm for a uncommon what next lv100 caterpie's ?
 
RE: Does Pokémon Need to go Back to Basics?

Celebi23 said:
While a power creep can be a good thing for keeping the game fresh, we've seen the effects a long power creep can have on the game. I've been restructuring the sets to be released in 20-card blocks more frequently instead of in 100-card blocks. In doing so, I've been focusing on making a complexity creep like in Magic. I'm making cards better designed and introducing new mechanics/"chain reaction cards" instead of making cards more powerful. I feel like this is the better route since it's easier to reset and creates a more interesting game.
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As a somewhat competitive Magic player, I would love this. As far back as my days of playing Yu-Gi-Oh I thought Pokemon could use "reaction" effects. I've never really been a fan of doing nothing on my opponents turn.

As far as power creep goes, I can definitely see it happening. I just returned to the game from a LONG hiatus. My newest deck primarily consists of Team Rocket Returns cards. It was a tournament winner in its day, but stands virtually zero chance against modern decks.

I would like a power reset, but I'm probably only one amongst very few...
 
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