I noticed the curse ability is listed before the EE ability and am wondering why it was reversed. Cards in RoJ like Behemoth have the good or evil icon in the ability box mirror the order of the icons in the top left box. As English speakers/writers we tend to read and follow things from left to right, top to bottom. I was thinking that it might flow better for the players to switch the EE to be on top and the curse on bottom.
For what it's worth, my two cents are that in general it's better for the game to keep barriers to entry low. We aren't as established as something like Warhammer where the complexity is half the draw; we can't afford to turn away players who try the starter decks and enjoy them but get overwhelmed by all the crazy and complex abilities in the more recent sets.
I totally agree with both statements!
New players don't know a search ability defaults to putting the target card in your hand and I've seen many players think searching for a character puts it straight into territory
What about "Search area x and add to hand"?
[Calling it "take" is] so so SO confusing, and, more importantly, unnecessary. We just don't need to replace a perfectly functional keyword with one we already have and use. Just errata those usages of "take to hand" with "add to hand". Completely intuitive, no conflation, [...] Problem solved.
Agreed! I object to every change that is unnecessary and complicates that provide no real benefit.
It's just like how abilities that used to say "remove from the game" now say "banish".
Which to me as a newcomer was totally confusing too! "Remove from the game" is pretty straightforward. Everyone get's that. Why say banish instead? It's just unnecessary.
In the end though, no matter what card game you are playing, there will be keywords players have to memorize. The only paper card game I have enough knowledge to comment on regarding complexity is Magic and I can assure you Magic is so beyond Redemption in complexity that any comparison is laughable.
But this doesn't justify
unnecessarily making something more complex than it already is. If we want the community to grow we can't have that because it will turn away potential new players. One challenge I'm facing is how to introduce teens to the game. Especially if their English is bad. A real scenario I am facing right now. They don't know words like "banish". Memorizing keywords is fine but having use a dictionary a lot isn't fun. So this group is already excluded from the game except maybe someone translates this material which is a lot of work!
Newcomers' life will get even harder when trying to get into the game! (Playing I/J starters is still fun and easy and complex enough for newbies - but the next step becomes more and more hard to take!)
For me that transition is only possible because of:
a) Good resources like "Real Rulings" and "Welcome to Redemption"
b) A pretty good understanding of English on my side
c) More seasoned players that come alongside and explain the different concepts and how they work to me.
That's
not a low entrance level for people outside of the US.
I wonder if it will be possible to design new one's that are rather easy to understand but yet take you closer to where the current meta is at. I feel like I'm learning the concepts of Redemption rather well by I/J but "the next step" is a giant leap as the cards from the new sets just are so much stronger.
A few days ago we had a long match basically using RoJ Angels where we nearly spent as many time reading REG, Rulebook, forum and ORDIR as we spent playing. (of course we are no experts but when considering newcomers do know much less this raises barriers!)
Yeah we "played" 3 hours and in the end I was tired, discouraged, confused and had a headache...
Bad experiences like this one will turn players away that don't have to be turned away...
