Redemption discussion

[TheHobbit13]

     
I have been playing Redemption for five years now. My father and I would often go to tournaments in Rochester or outstate tournaments. Through the blessing of God and our wonderful church,  the gang here in Minnesota has been able to organize a highly functional play group.
Redemption has been a really good thing for me because not only do I get to play a Christian card game ( a previous Oxymoron) I get to be apart of a Christian community were I have found many good friends. In the Redemption community in  Minnesota everyone is included, no one is rejected, judged or turned away for their appearence or how they act. Sadly this is not the case in the rest of the world. At schools and the workplace people are constantly being rejected, slandered and ridiculed for who they are. You might say I have been spoiled to have a chance to participate in such a loving friendly community, and you would be right. Unfortunately this is usually the exception and not the rule  :- . I love the game of Redemption because it has helped me to grow in Christ and to see what fun and fellowship is really about bringing me to realize how perverted the world really is. Because of Redemption I have a deeper understanding of of who God is , I have many friends (true friends), and I have grown closer to God through this amazing experience  .Thank you Rob Anderson for making this game to glorify God. I hope you know how many lives you have changed.  Thank you.

    Over the years I have experienced new set after new set and I have been unimpressed by the power curve these sets have introduced. I think that the game has gone away form the classic game play standard that is actually quite fun.  Classic battles for lost souls are to few and far between for my liking. Currently Redemption is a game of the draw ( when two experienced players meet) and not surprislingly. When the cards virtually have no cost and when you have such potent drawing ( primarily the built in 3 card drawing mechanic) there is no question what so ever why this game is so random (once you get to a certain level). Not to mention the fact that lost souls are easlly hidden in the deck leading to NPE situations. New cards like Jacob , uzzah, trembling demon and Garden Tomb etc... destroy the very hope of every having an epic battle again (for me any ways).   The Zero tolerance of banning cards only makes the situations worse, creating an unbalanced CCG. NPE decks run rampant when there are no banned cards, it happens. It is natural to make mistakes and to mess up the intention of the card (that is COMPLETLY OKAY) but you cant always put a band-aid on the wound, sometimes you have to pull things up by the roots to fully fix the problem. I am fully aware of the alternative ways of balancing cards such as making counters or making an errata. But frankly a one or two card  direct counter is far weaker than the card that is being countered, in fact in most cases it is better to not use the counter at all.  Lastly I am not a fan of making cards that undermine old tactics. Garden Tomb is a perfect example of this.  Ever since I have been playing I have been taught to keep evil characters in my hand. The Garden Tomb completely undermines this tactical manuever. I am not convinced that this is a terrible thing but I do question the thought process behind it. You can spew and spount and get your feathers in a bundle, but if their is no real  proof of these things affecting the game it is futile. Unfortunately their is plenty of proof.

      Type1. Type ! is the most popular catagory of Redemption, and rightfully so. In past years I remeber the scores being closer together than they are now. There used to be alot of 5-4 games. 5-4 games are awsome! Now with the recent sets out, the scores in Type 1 games are getting farther and farther apart.  The last tourney I went to I cant tell you how many 5-2 and under games their were. Having a "easy" game for someone doesn't help any one. The winner  isn't helped because his game skills don't improve and the loser is just plain frusterated because he knows that there was nothing he could have done. I am not refering to the games were you just get slaughtered fair and square. I am refering to the luck of the draw games  that can be so frusterating sometimes. With every card game there is a luck of the draw factor, I understand that much, but what I don't understand is why----- when there is so much of a luck factor incorporated into the foundation of the game----- cards are still being made to take advantage of this luck. factor.  With that all being said I enjoy playing type1 and there is and always will be a deck builder, but I think there needs to be more work done ( I know there has been positive efforts) to try and balance out the cards, perhaps it is to late but I still think that the game has the potential to be so much better.


Continued post coming soon.

[TheHobbit13]

Type 2. Type 2 focuses on far less luck than Type1 (which is why I often defer to playing Type 2). This is mainly because of the amount of cards in the deck and the sheer numbers of the power cards you can play with. Still I have my frustrations. I love the fact that type 2 is a tactical beast, but I dislike the fact that there are so many play-first characters and enhancements/CBNs being abused (you have to abuse them to stay competitve). Not to mention the plethora of auto block baddies. All these things take away from an epic battle that could be experienced. The fact is that in type 2 you don't get to play your cards when you play a NPE deck because of the extreme power that is running around ( pre- block ingnores, horses, The Garden Tomb, etc). What fun is that? Who cares if you lose? However if you lose and don't get to play your cards that is a second , undeserved slap in the face. That totally defeats  the purpose of playing a CCG. I really like type 2 don't get me wrong, but it has gotten to be, build a NPE deck or lose.


 I wanted to post this to have an intelligent discussion, not to ripe on Cactus. Rob ,Shaef, Justin, Bryon etc...  have formed a wonderful game with solid mechanics and awsome gameplay and I am really grateful. Every game however isn't perfect and is inclined to hear constructive critisism from its players. This post is intended to portray constructive critisism to the design team in hopes that Redemption can become the best CCG around. I  love Redemption and I only want what is best for it.

 What does every one else think ? Do you agree or disagree? Your thoughts are welcome.

[redemptioncousin]

I hear what you're saying... I'm not sure if I agree with all of it though.  I think the best thing that Cactus does is come up with cards that counter current strategies.  Now people will argue with me about how speed hasn't been countered successfully, and for the most part, I would agree with them.  However, speed is such a dominate archetype that you don't want to completely get rid of it through the creation of one card...  This is what happened to FBN decks.  They came up with so many counters to it that the decks see almost no play nowadays...

Type 2 is a behemoth.  I agree that it consists of more strategy as far as deck-building goes, but to me the gameplay is very boring.  You simply watch as your opponent pulls off one unstoppable combination after another and applaud him for his cleverness to come up with it.  Then you go ahead and do the same thing to him/her.  I would argue that T2 is more luck of draw based (over the entire game... not the beginning hand) then T1.

Other than that, there are only two cards that I don't like.  One being New Jerusalem.  The other being the Garden Tomb.  Not that I don't like the way they are played (I use both of them in my decks).  But a card like the Garden Tomb creates a two card combo that can go into any deck... no matter the color.  and NJ... well that was just plain unnecessary.

Just my 2 cents.

[Gabe]

Nate, great job communicating your thoughts and feelings on this subject in a polite and respectful way.

I understand where you're coming from and I agree that there are less "epic" battles because of the nature of some of the new powerful strategies.  Epic battles still happen, just not as often.  I do agree that it's fun for both players when we both play a few enhancements during a rescue attempt.  But I also enjoy being able to render your entire defense useless with cards like TGT or Jake + RTC.

I actually experience more 5-4 games now than I used to.  A few years ago it wasn't uncommon for me to win several games 6-0 or 6-1.  Granted, we don't play past 5 now (in T1) but I don't see as many games ending 5-0 or 5-1.  A lot of that depends on the opponent though and what deck they're playing.

Overall I think that Redemption is getting better.  I like the additional strategies that are available now that weren't a couple years ago.  I like the way that it's not about just tossing all the power cards into your deck anymore (although that's still surprising effective).  I think that the cultural themes they're pushing in each brigade are fun to build a deck around.

Despite being small, Treasures from the Past is going to give us some solutions to the "problems" you mentioned.  They aren't just counters either, but cards that will be useful against most decks because of their versatility.  There's still going to be a new card that everyone comlains about.  From what I've seen in the past few years I've played Redemption, that's pretty much to be expected though.

[TheraxC]

I agree with the Hobbit.

I have not played Redemption in about 8 months now, and some of the people I used to play with have moved on.
Redemption at its core is becoming increasingly difficult for new players to start playing, as the cost of a competitive deck seems to have risen, at least in our region. It doesn't help that the new cards are completely geared to type 1, while we here play almost exclusively type 2. No new players and the loss of old players is adding up to no tournaments in our region, which is the only place I have played in the past year. The game is no longer fun casually for me, even if I could find someone to play with. I cannot find a reason to continue buying product to stay tournament competitive if I never play casual games.

The biggest flaws I see in the game are a lack of set rotation; leading to massive power creep in the new sets as the only way to sell new cards is to make the old unplayable. The lack of a cost to playing a card has lead a game where the winner is determined by the luck of the draw. Often the winner is determined by who starts, as they get to both draw first and rescue first, hence win first.

[Lamborghini_diablo]

the only way to sell new cards is to make the old unplayable.

I disagree, the new sets have quite often made OLD cards useful. Take for example the #1 complained about card reciently... TGT. Would you EVER have put some of those older heroes that can use TGT in a deck?

The game does a very good job of making older cards useful if you ask me. Besides, if you looked at some of my decks, you'll find a lot of older and underused cards in there.

[BubbleBoy]

Another good example is Windows of Narrow Light.

[Alex_Olijar]

Simeon.

[The Schaef]

I just played a local tournament using a deck setup that I doubt most power players would even want to try.  I won two rounds out of three, my second game required me to use every single trick in the book to stay ahead of the opponent's FBN offense and pull off the win, and my loss in the final round (to the category champion) came down to my opponent having SoG/NJ in his second or third turn, and my not having a critical card I needed until halfway through the deck when it was too late to matter.  For all of that, I was still able to hold him off for a long time, and claw my way to three points before he just overwhelmed my defense.

After the tournament, I sat down with the second place finisher since we did not play during.  Both of us decked out and continued to play for another 5-6 turns before he finally beat me, again 5-3.  And that was a situation where I had wiped out his defense and could have walked away with all the points I needed, but he did some masterful manipulation of his Lost Souls to keep me from running him down, and keep me scrambling on defense.  Also, despite having a Genesis offense, he never once considered using a zero-hand Zebulun ignore against me because he knew it wouldn't work.

And no, this was not a tournament consisting of me and 9 other 10-year-olds.  Some of the best Ohio players were there, as well as Kirk Dennison (though not in my category; he was busy showing the Type 2 players how a pure orange defense can give you fits).

I can't say I agree that there are no more epic battles in the game, nor that it is unbalanced.  In addition to which, the new cards will only help more against the cards that are problems for some now.

As for whether new players can come in, I invite you to look at what this particular local was all about:
http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/index.php?topic=15566.0
We held this tournament at a card shop that holds Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments every Saturday.  We taught the game to numerous kids who showed up before their tournament started, and two of them even ditched the YGO tournament to play in Type 1 that same day!  I think people sometimes get a little tunnel vision about the complexity of the game when they come on here and try to puzzle out one-in-a-million combos when you have these two cards against this guy on the second Tuesday of the month if the moon is full.  A lot of the basics of the game have remained just as they are, and to this day teaching initiative is still the single biggest hurdle to getting the game across to new players, imo.  Most of the basic powers I find are easy to sum up in ten words or less, if you don't bog it down with the miniscule details.  What we found yesterday was a lot of enthusiasm for a new game with a low cost of entry and some generous hosts; we gave out half a dozen commons-only decks that were reasonably competitive and enhanced by cards from the packs they opened.

[The Schaef]

Also, you might want to define the term NPE at least once in your post, since not everybody knows what it means (I would in fact suggest that most people don't), and it's important in a discussion like this for everyone to understand exactly what is being said up front.

[Kingsman08]

yes wat is NPE? 

[TheKarazyvicePresidentRR]

Would you EVER have put some of those older heroes that can use TGT in a deck?

Never...ever...count.

Another good example is Windows of Narrow Light.

Not only that, Check out Hidden treasures, Judges seat, Genesis heroes, etc.

Despite being small, Treasures from the Past is going to give us some solutions to the "problems" you mentioned.  They aren't just counters either, but cards that will be useful against most decks because of their versatility.  There's still going to be a new card that everyone comlains about.  From what I've seen in the past few years I've played Redemption, that's pretty much to be expected though.

Dude. Cept... Philistines... *Shudder, Shudder, Shudder*

I just played a local tournament using a deck setup that I doubt most power players would even want to try. 

You gotta tell me what it was

The biggest flaws I see in the game are a lack of set rotation; leading to massive power creep in the new sets as the only way to sell new cards is to make the old unplayable. The lack of a cost to playing a card has lead a game where the winner is determined by the luck of the draw. Often the winner is determined by who starts, as they get to both draw first and rescue first, hence win first.

I will start out first and foremost saying I do NOT play with normal decks and use a very odd playing style. People have taken my deck ideas before and cannot use them due to them not having my play style. That being said. I have a TON of epic battles but that is of cuz I use a very large defensive decks and try to be different. You see there are tons of viable uses for cards, it just requires thinking and creativity, and as with all games a lot of players just will throw all the strongest cards in and get high ranks. It happens it doesn't make a game good or bad. I played yugioh, they have a "top deck type" and the rest are "inferior" its going to happen. Redemption has done a great job of it all honestly. Also T2 is very luck driven, my ANB deck proves that as is T1 but I prefer T1, My decks dont get shut down turn 5 in t1. Honestly, If more people were willing to break from the norm (and if they don't. Pfft they will hate the new set) you would see alot more epic battles. Most people just use heavy offense to quick win, if others used heavy defense it'd really even the playing field.

/EndRantAboutPlayingOdd

Signed,
Someone Who Never Counts.

[Captain Kirk]

I get to take part in tons of epic battles when I play Redemption as well.  However, alot of that goes back to what Josh stated.  Like him, I don't use run of the mill decks.  That gives me a huge advantage playing against all the overused strategies referenced in this thread.

There is also one simple solution if you think that certain strategies are throwing the game out of whack.  Simply play the counters to them.  That is what I do, and I can count the number of times one one hand that I have lost to any of the deck types that you have mentioned.  I am not trying to take away from the fact that certain strategies are very powerful.  However, there are plenty of counters that lay a knockout punch to these strategies.  The biggest problem is that many players simply refuse to change their deckbuilding habits.

Kirk

[STAMP]

There will always be a measure of luck involved in Redemption.  That being said, I gave up playing T1 this year just for the very reason that I could (and did) lose a game in the first three turns.  The game lasted all of 5 minutes and it only lasted that long because it was on RTS.

What I have noticed is that the game is still VERY strategic.  I will agree that the emphasis has switched away from the battle phase of the current turn.  Most of the strategy now takes place in different phases and different turns.  I really like this aspect.  Some very famous battles in human history experienced very little actual fighting as there was excellent preparation performed by the leaders.

I will always be a Type 2 player.  If a solution for the five minute 5-0 T1 games is ever found, I may switch back to playing Type 1.  Until then Type 2 and Booster draft will keep me playing for years to come.   

[Lamborghini_diablo]

If a solution for the five minute 5-0 T1 games is ever found, I may switch back to playing Type 1.

Try a 30+ card defense. 

[TheHobbit13]

Also, you might want to define the term NPE at least once in your post, since not everybody knows what it means (I would in fact suggest that most people don't), and it's important in a discussion like this for everyone to understand exactly what is being said up front.

NPE= NO player experience

[TimMierz]

One of the big strengths of Redemption as a game has been the battle system. In some other otherwise games, you might just choose attackers, choose targets, and compare numbers and powers. The system of enhancements being played on the "current loser" and interrupting other cards played against you (or even by you) is neat. But all along the way there have been things that lessen the experience.

The Era of Few Abilities: Base Set through Women. Very few abilities, numbers ruled the school. Enhancements were pretty boring, only a handful per brigade even with an ability, often not even good ones. Banding, discarding, capturing, healing, ignoring brigades, and a couple (at the time) oddball cards like Repentance and Obedience of Noah were about all you'd see for abilities. With so few negate/interrupt cards, once a "battle winner" was played, that likely ended the battle. Without the battle winners, you had the opportunities for some lengthy battles of number comparison, but there's just something missing.

The Era of Negation: Warriors set up several new dynamics. Besides just adding more abilities and types of abilities, the flow of battle significantly changed with the introduction of a number of interrupt, prevent, and negate cards. Now there could be more "Take that!" "Oh no you don't!" "Well how about backup plan G?" "Oh snap!" moments. This added some variety and what others are calling "epicness" to the battle phase, which was fantastic. However, a few things ended up causing more harm than good, and the effects are still being felt a decade later. The most prominent was the introduction of BTN characters, probably intended for adding another source of versatility in each brigade (so a Blue offense could stick in an Ira for tough situations), but often used en masse to remove options from the other player. And therein lies a problem that we still see - it is effective strategically to limit your opponent's options, but it hurts the game as a whole to cut back on the interactivity of battles. This also brought the introduction of Fortresses and Artifacts. Extra factors were added to battles, whether changing numbers with Elijah's Mantle and Crown of Thorns or limiting the power of Great Image and Authority of Christ with some limited protection via Goshen or Kingdoms of the World.

The Era of Correction: In the next few sets, a couple cards were released to stop the powerhouses that kill interactivity: "cannot be negated" cards. Now your Benaiah doesn't bother me, because Balaam's Disobedience can't be negated, so ha! I'll attack with Thomas so that King of Tyrus doesn't kill all my fun! Unfortuntely, this swing in the opposite direction caused the same effect - while they did do their part against BTN, they also stopped battles dead in their tracks most of the time. In addition, there were more ways to win a battle before it began, with, for instance, Unholy Writ and Three Nails. Also some cards were made whose intentions were one thing but their abilities were another, like Ethiopian Treasurer and Household Idols. It's no surprise that the ones that do what they weren't supposed to ended up being the most widely used. Part of this stems from a rules and wording system that was not consistent or simple, and by a ruling system of exceptions and corner cases.

Wait, We Meant This: Kings and Angel Wars were the expansions that "should have been" Warriors and its immediate successors. "No no, you don't negate everything, just non-warrior things." "It's not an unstoppable card, you just can't prevent it." As for Angel Wars, very few of those cards see much use, because with the card base there is, "not broken" cards aren't going to get used as much as "broken" cards. Battle interaction stayed at about the same level.

Let's Take It in a Different Direction: Priests and the tin sets have tried to make every card usable, after sets like Angel Wars and Apostles contained gobs of "lame" cards. A couple things have been latched onto, like a resurgence of ignore abilities, again the ones that limit battle interaction. Redemption walks a weird tightrope: The game shines with battles, and the best decks eliminate battles. Therefore, the best decks make for the worst games. As a result, it's more fun to play just casually, without any "experts." The catch 22 is that to play correctly, with the mess of rules that the game currently has, you pretty much have to be an expert or at least have one at the ready. It's frustrating.

[The Guardian]

Tim makes an excellent point about eliminating battles. When I'm playing T2 my number one goal is usually to just not let my opponent play his cards when he wants to. If I know I can't get around him, I don't attack. If I know I'm gonna get torched by blocking (and it will affect future turns), I don't block.

I played a T2 game against SK the other day. I'm fairly certain he did not play a single evil enhancement the entire game either because he couldn't or because it wouldn't do anything, but if you think that means I crushed him, it was still a 7-5 game. There were many instances where he "blocked" simply by having the right cards in his hand so that I would not attack him that turn.

I think the underlying purpose of Nathan's post is that he just wants Urim and Thummim banned...

P.S. excellent discussion everyone...wish more discussions were this civil...

[SirNobody]

Hey,

Epic battles are fun.  But to top players, epic battles are not desirable.  In order for a battle to become epic it can't go smoothly.  In order for me to play a second enhancement in battle the first enhancement had to fail in its goal of ending the battle.  As more cards become available top players will find more ways to make battles go smoothly which will decrease the frequency of epic battles.  It seems somewhat inevitable to me.

In Type 1, I see the epic battle ideal being replaced with an epic game concept.  Rather than going back and forth within a battle the players go back and forth over the course of a game.  It is a change, but it's a change I think is acceptable.  The potential flaw is when there is no viable counter to something, when the "back" is unstoppable there can be no "forth".   I think the two color set-asides and The Garden Tomb are as close to having no viable counter as we've seen since choose the blocker in 03-04 or possibly even since Fight-by-the-Numbers in pre-2nd Edition 2001.

In Type 2, the build an NPE deck or lose mentality appears very sound in theory, but consider the fact that I won Nationals with a deck last year that primarily came at my opponents with a Captain banding chain and dared them to stop me.

I agree that Redemption's level of player interaction is no longer what it once was, and that is something that the playtesters can hopefully improve upon in future sets.  But I also think that there is an approach to playing Redemption that circumvents the fun-sapping strategies you have mentioned.  Kirk and Josh have hinted at this different approach, and I like to think that my method of game play utilizes it as well.

But even if the Redemption isn't fun the fellowship will always be there.  I have been to a lot of Redemption tournaments where I didn't really enjoy any of the games I played.  But there hasn't been a single Redemption tournament in the last three years that I've been to that I didn't have a blast at, because of all the awesome people I get to hang out with at tournaments.  You just need to start wearing crazy outfits and bringing dinosaurs to tournaments.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

[TheKarazyvicePresidentRR]

And weird hats!

[The Guardian]

Dinosaurs for the win.

I agree with Tim and Tim. The epic battle has changed to the epic game. The usage of Forts and Arts, the manipulation of Souls and the ability to catch an opponent off-guard are what make most games epic to me these days. If I have a super-powerful offense (especially in T2) that my opponent's defense has no realistic chance at stopping, but through his use of Artifacts and manipulation of Souls he is able to fend me off, that's epic. If I find some crazy combination of Artifacts and Heroes to keep his beefy defense from touching me, that's epic. And all this is not to say that epic battles are completely gone. Sometimes a battle is epic just in the way it turns the game around. A surprise Women as Snares to cripple a loaded defense, a couple Plots to shut down a huge offense or finding the one way to play the one card you need to despite your opponent's best efforts to stop you--those are all epic.

I'm so in the mood to play T2 MP right now...I find many of those games to be epic. 

[sk]

I'm willing to have another go at the multi-hour AIM T2MP game we tried with Kirk that one night.  Although I had a headache the next day from keeping the location of about 300 cards straight, it was a blast.

If only there was a way RTS could manage multiplayer games...

[Captain Kirk]

We should try to play one of those games next weekend.  That was super fun.

Kirk

[TheHobbit13]

Dinosaurs for the win.

 the manipulation of Souls

These are 3 apparent problems that Redemption has.
1
The Huge problem with redemption is the natural manipulation of souls.  IMO it would be better to start out the game with all the lost souls in your deck and put them in your land of bondage and let the strategic elimination of lost souls go from there. Let's face it when your opponent draws  little to no lost souls and walks all over you in ten turns, there is no skill invovled. The game would be much better off because you would be able to take out of your deck  a few previously needed staples. However one of the major issues with this is that site deck would be in a load of trouble. No body would play site decks maybe, and then we wouldn't need the one to 2 staples of site access in each deck! It is a win win  Another problem would be that the Games Would go much quicker and the victories potentially more lopsided.  Fail.

What if an extra Ls pile was made, taking all the lost souls in the deck (at the begining of the game) out and putting it in an area out of play. Every 2 turns  a player would then select a LS form his or her pile and place it in his or her Land of Bondage.  This would leave cards like hopper, AS and harvestime still playable but not neccesarily worth of a staple spot in a deck. A major issue would be that  heroes such as  hur,  and seeker wouldn't be as powerful (finally) not to mention all of the cards that this change would effect ( I cant think of very many off hand) and strategies. The pros probabley wouldn't  out weigh the cons in this situation, but their has to be some way to correct this.  In Every other major ccg ( to my knowledge) you can successfully work towards the game goal each turn, of course their are minor exception but redemption doesn't even come close to this.
2
Don't get me started yall about the diminishing Redemption battle phase. Pokemon has a better, cooler battle phase then Redemption.... That is rather sad.

3. The overload of drawing abilities is gross. The combination of excessive turn based drawing and many draw cards make the game of Redemption more random.  ( I am not even going to talk about searching) The ability to get your power cards that fast is unheard of in all the other major CCG. I personally don't think people really understand this. In EVERY major CCG the drawing is limited so that the game will not become broken, and it has a cost.  Pair massive drawing abilities/search  to no cost cards and you have recipe for disaster.

[The Schaef]

I don't know why it's sad that one of the most popular card games on the planet, backed by one of the largest entertainment companies on the planet, would have a good battle phase.  I don't begrudge them that.

Limiting draw cards stops games from breaking, and no cost is a recipe for disaster.  Is Redemption broken, and/or is it in a disastrous state?