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VS 2PCG Changes Analysis; Discussion of the changes
Topic Started: Jun 4 2015, 06:08 PM (2,331 Views)
BatHulk
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So I wanted to discuss the changes more, how this would affect gameplay and how different this is from Vs 1.0.

I don't really have any concrete whys on the changes but just based this on my speculation.

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WOUNDS INSTEAD OF ENDURANCE
Characters have a new stat called “Health.” When a character gets stunned, instead of taking stun or breakthrough damage, it gains a wound. If it takes too many wounds, it gets KO’d.

Many Characters only have 1 Health so they get KO’d immediately when stunned. This means it is important to protect them, or at least make sure they do a lot before they get taken out.

This is important as it relates to a shift in the win condition (which will be explained in the next section).

Part of the simplification process here is this removes some of the math calculations in regards to endurance. But what it does add is now I believe you have to have tokens to track the wounds on each character (so you either have to have dice for each character or a bag of those stones like in Pokemon).

Not sure if I like this as it adds some mess to the board but I understand it leads to changes elsewhere.
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MAIN CHARACTERS
Each player starts with a “Main Character” in play who works just like regular Characters (called Supporting Characters), except when your Main Character gets KO’d you’re out of the game. Most Main Characters have 5 or 6 Health.

There’s lots to say about Main Characters (like how the box comes with 16 different ones, and that they make a great deck-building hook, especially for new players), but one thing I really want to cover is that unlike in most games where you have a Hero or Avatar, in Vs. System 2PCG your Main Character works exactly like your Supporting Characters: It has ATK and DEF, and some have Flight or Range. It goes in your Front or Back row and you can move it during your Formation Step. It can attack, team attack and fights in combat just like any other Character.

However, there are two major differences: 1) A handful of effects refer to Main Characters specifically. 2) Each Main Character has a Level 1 and a Level 2 version. You start with the Level 1 version, and during the game you can make plays to earn XP and level it up, making it more powerful and unlocking a new Super Power. Each Main Character levels up in a different way (Captain America likes Team Attacks, Thanos wants to KO characters, Loki likes Plot Twists, etc.), so during the game in addition to trying to shore up your board presence or get wounds onto your opponent’s Main Character, you’ll have the additional goal of leveling up your Main Character while attempting to prevent your opponent from doing the same.

Unlike Legends, or even WoW, this main character is a participant in the combat. It also represents your win (or lose condition) as once this character is knocked out, you'rd done.

This is probably the biggest change that affects how your deck is constructed and how you play the game. Rather than protecting your endurance, you have to protect your main character and at the same time, use it to center your effects around.

It will be very interesting to see how this works out as the main character becomes an integral part of deck building and combat strategy.
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FULL RECOVERY
During the Recovery Phase, all of your stunned characters (including your Main Character) will recover.

I like this rule. No more hemming and hawing on which character to recover... just recover them all.

But this also makes combat more important as you have to plan not get enough wounds to KO your characters.
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SIMPLER ROWS AND FASTER FORMATIONS
In original Vs. System, you would place some characters in your Front Row and some in your Back Row, and then decide who was protecting whom. In Vs. System 2PCG, all that matters is who’s in the Front and who’s in the Back. If there’s anyone face up in the Front then all characters in the Back are protected.

This change affects many things about the gameplay, but the big ones are: It dramatically speeds up the Formation Step; it makes Back Row characters easier to protect; it increases the value of Ranged and Flying characters (Ranged characters’ foes only get to strike back if they also have range, and Flying characters can attack the Back Row). There are also more subtle implications such as increasing the importance of team attacks, but you’ll figure all that out when you play.

This is also an improvement. You don't have to worry about putting characters directly behind others... as long as you have a face up Front Row, all of your Back Row is protected.

But there are some nuances here, Danny mentioned that characters in the Back Row can only strike back if they have Range, giving those type of characters increased value.

The question here is since there is no endurance to track and worry about breakthrough, does that eliminate reinforcement? Or can reinforcement be used to prevent wounds?
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INDIVIDUAL TURNS AND NEW TIMING SYSTEM
In Vs. System 2PCG, each player takes his or her own turn. There are several reasons we ended up moving away from the shared turn (too many and too intricate to dive into them now), but one simple reason is that individual turns speed up the game a ton.

The turn sequence is now:

Draw Phase: Draw two cards.
Recovery Phase: Recover and Ready all of your Characters.
Build Phase: Play a Resource, Recruit Characters, Rearrange your Formation.
Main Phase: Start any number of Combats, one at a time.
During your turn, your opponent can only play Plot Twists or use powers during Combat (this change also ups the pace of play). Each Plot Twist and Super Power states during which Phase it may be used, or if you can use it during Combat.

Another great time saver.

One other member mentioned that this would take away being able to interact during combat but Danny specifically says that opponents can play Plot Twists or use powers during Combat.

One other change here is Recovery Phase is now after Draw Phase rather than end of turn. This will be different for most people but this had to be moved due to alternating turns. I'm just wondering why it's done prior to Draw but maybe because it would be too much like Magic. One thing it may do is give you 2 more cards to determine whether or not you want to recover a character (if that's even a choice).
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REVAMPED RESOURCE SYSTEM AND SUPER POWERS
You can still play any card face down as a resource, but the way Plot Twists and Locations work is different. Plot Twists are now only played from your hand. Locations enter play face up and rather than having their own powers, they are “spent” (turned face down) to activate Super Powers, which are powerful effects found on Main Characters and some Supporting Characters.

I've always had issues with face down PTs that I forget to play (or Reservists that I forget to recruit). Maybe that's just me because I'm old and forget what's in my resource row.

But this does cut down on time. I've seen so many player check and recheck their face down cards and that's time I'll never get back. It also reduces the number of decisions you have to make since anything face down is basically dead. I designed a game where your cards had to be played face up in the resource row and then when you used them they were turned face down (a. To help me with my memory and b. once cards are face down you don't have to look at them any more) so I appreciate this change.

The Super Power aspect is interesting. By what Danny is saying, this means that Locations won't have any Activated powers (or ongoing ones) and they are one use only. This also reduces some decision time but makes locations less useful (in my opinion) if they are just one time use.

That's basically it on the Primer. As I stated above, I have questions about reinforcement (if that exists any more) and if the player that goes first has any limitations (like drawing only 1 card). At least you know they can't attack your face because there are no direct attacks but does that mean you put out your main character on your first Recruit phase or is it already out (which means the first player can attack your main on first turn).

Fundamentally, this still feels like Vs to me but I understand there are enough significant changes to say otherwise. I'm really interested to see how combat is with these new rules because I'm all about the Hulk Smash and not the Billy Zonos stall.
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plaid_warlock
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Your main character is already on the field at the start of the game. You never need to recruit it, or at least that's how I read it.
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BatHulk
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plaid_warlock
Jun 4 2015, 06:43 PM
Your main character is already on the field at the start of the game. You never need to recruit it, or at least that's how I read it.
I also think that may be the case.

Which means that first player has a distinct advantage at being able to attack an unprotected main character.

Most likely, the main character will have enough DEF so that a first turn 1 drop isn't capable of wounding it but we'll see.

"My 1-drop 1/1 Black Cat attacks your 9/10 main character Captain America"
"Sure"
"Flying Kick, Flying Kick, Flying Kick"
"Doh!"
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Mordis
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Several interesting points.

Though, it seems inaccurate that the individual turns, in and of themselves, will "speed up the game a ton" as Danny put it. All of the components that took any significant time were simplified/sped up on their own. In fact the shared turn could be marginally faster with Draw/Recovery happening concurrently. The simplified Build phase would likely be unchanged since there is less complexity/strategy in that step, and the combat phase would still be independent and thus unchanged. Not sure how it could be significantly different, other than a bit more difficult to explain how it works. The combat phase likely would be affected as both players would have an opportunity to drop equal strength characters, but I think it's misleading to say that a single shared turn would be significantly slower than 2 individual turns in the new game.

And I very much hope that locations aren't as boring as they seem on paper.
Edited by Mordis, Jun 4 2015, 07:45 PM.
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Xtortion
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Back row characters can strike back if they have range or are defending against a character without range.

Locations don't seem to have unique effects, but it was mentioned that certain cards will have effects in the resource row.
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BatHulk
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Xtortion
Jun 4 2015, 08:51 PM
Back row characters can strike back if they have range or are defending against a character without range.
Not sure about that.

I read it as:

If a character attacks your back row character (either with flight or because you no longer control unstunned front row characters), you back row character can only strike back if it has range.
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plaid_warlock
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Whoever goes first has the chance to strike at an unprotected main character but that main character still has an attack and defense value. There's a high probability that you will get stunned back if you direct attack the opponent's main character on turn one. Jeff mentioned this on the Facebook group, saying that most low-drop characters only have to get stunned once to get KO'd. So your "easy" decision on turn one now became a bit harder of a decision.

Honestly, I feel like while they may have simplified things in some areas, they may have made combat more intricate. As someone who was already a fan of the combat mechanics in VS., this gets me interested.
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Xtortion
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BatHulk
Jun 4 2015, 09:54 PM
Xtortion
Jun 4 2015, 08:51 PM
Back row characters can strike back if they have range or are defending against a character without range.
Not sure about that.

I read it as:

If a character attacks your back row character (either with flight or because you no longer control unstunned front row characters), you back row character can only strike back if it has range.
From the article

Quote:
 
This change affects many things about the gameplay, but the big ones are: It dramatically speeds up the Formation Step; it makes Back Row characters easier to protect; it increases the value of Ranged and Flying characters (Ranged characters’ foes only get to strike back if they also have range, and Flying characters can attack the Back Row). There are also more subtle implications such as increasing the importance of team attacks, but you’ll figure all that out when you play.


I don't believe front/back row positioning has anything to do with striking back. Is that what you were referring to?

edit-

plaid_warlock
 
Whoever goes first has the chance to strike at an unprotected main character but that main character still has an attack and defense value. There's a high probability that you will get stunned back if you direct attack the opponent's main character on turn one. Jeff mentioned this on the Facebook group, saying that most low-drop characters only have to get stunned once to get KO'd. So your "easy" decision on turn one now became a bit harder of a decision.

Honestly, I feel like while they may have simplified things in some areas, they may have made combat more intricate. As someone who was already a fan of the combat mechanics in VS., this gets me interested.


Agreed. I can almost see 1 drop characters acting like burn spells to an extent. Like, if you run your 1 drop into their MC on turn one (possibly with the aid of a plot twist), your character will probably die, but their MC will be at -1 health off the bat.

Main characters and the flight/range changes will almost assuredly make combat more complex. I'm really excited to see how it plays out.
Edited by Xtortion, Jun 4 2015, 10:07 PM.
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BatHulk
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@xtortion:

I think you are right. If your character has range, the opposing character can only strike back if they have range. So that means if your ranged character attacks a front row character without range, there is no strikeback... interesting.

But does range still mean you can attack from your back row, or is that no longer a limitation?

Stuff like this still makes me think there is still enough complexity to make this Vs.
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BatHulk
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plaid_warlock
Jun 4 2015, 10:00 PM
Honestly, I feel like while they may have simplified things in some areas, they may have made combat more intricate. As someone who was already a fan of the combat mechanics in VS., this gets me interested.
I agree.

I think they've tried to remove the time complexities from the other phases but combat is still crucial.

One thing someone noted about dead face down resources is in WoW, it actually took more time to place a resource because you had to decide if you wanted to "waste" a PT by putting it face down into the resource row.

I can understand that because I did have to think about that too, but I think in the end, it's faster once you get used to knowing which cards are dead cards in your hand anyways (like a 1-drop on turn 5), or one of two 4 drops on turn 1. EDIT: And unlike WoW, you draw 2 cards per turn giving you more "row fodder".

Someone also said that alternating turns takes more time but I don't think that is really the case.
Edited by BatHulk, Jun 4 2015, 11:21 PM.
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Xtortion
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I wonder how main characters will be balanced around flight and range. A MC without range could be at a huge disadvantage, since they have to be in the front row, and therefore vulnerable, to attack. Would this type of character have higher than average stats or abilities to compensate?
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BatHulk
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I have a feeling all main characters may have range (if you can only attack from the back row if you have range). If range only affects strikeback and you can attack from the back row regardless, then it may not matter.

I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly but I think in the original Wildstorm game, range had that same effect in regards to strikeback.
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Hank McCoy
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And I am thinking your main character will be more like a 5 drop you start the game with. So there is really not that great a chance of having a 1 drop attack directly and do anything but get themselves stunned, because your main character has Attack and Defense, and odds are they will be higher than a 1 drop, even with power ups and attack boosts.
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Xtortion
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BatHulk
Jun 4 2015, 11:26 PM
I have a feeling all main characters may have range (if you can only attack from the back row if you have range). If range only affects strikeback and you can attack from the back row regardless, then it may not matter.

I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly but I think in the original Wildstorm game, range had that same effect in regards to strikeback.
Depends on if they retain the focus on top down design from VS 1.0. Wouldn't make sense for a character like Wolverine to have range.

I believe range allows you to attack from the back row, and that the new strike back mechanic is just a new bonus. Either way, I hope UDE eventually releases a good meaty rulebook PDF to mull over.
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Mordis
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Maybe there will be a rule specifically for Main Characters that say they always do strike back damage. Thematically I can't see them giving every MC range, but without the level playing field the first player could get a free stun in certain match ups. Though maybe MCs have more defense than attack in their first form.

Also, it'd be fun if a Hulk MC started as Bruce Banner with like a card draw mechanic or something, and when you level up he goes green to beat face.
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