SET ROTATION!!: The Seven Deadly Sins of TCG Design Part 1

most trading card games last only two years time and time again we see them make the same mistakes and crumble for the same reason falling victim to the seven deadly sins of trading card games oh boy i just had to make a list of seven deadly trading card game sins and it just had to start with probably the most divisive subject in all of trading card games set rotation set rotation is a practice employed by many trading card games where the cards released for play essentially have a shelf life of about one to two years where they are considered legal for use in official tournaments leagues and events after which they are rotated out and can no longer be used in standard play there are several reasons that might be given when introducing set rotation to keep the number of options manageable to sell more cards to allow problematic or failed gameplay experiments to expire naturally to sell more cards to prevent some antsy deluvian combo made with cards printed 20 years apart to sell more cards to maintain a flattened power curve and of course to sell more cards and people hate it yeah they do you do even if you say you know you do people get invested in their collections and to hear that what they have is now basically worthless doesn't make them happy the only time people are really happy when rotation comes along is when a particularly problematic card or element is removed from the game pool and honestly isn't there another way to handle that so as you can see it is very very easy to get set rotation wrong magic the gathering themselves actually got it wrong the first time they rolled it out and in their history have twice essentially doubled the lifespan of each of their cards first basically right away in the second time when they introduced a format called modern which was so popular that the pokemon trading card game copied it too and people love it because it extends the lives of their collections so why despite all of the obvious peril do so many games just getting off the ground implement set rotation i mean aside from trying to sell more cards it's done in an effort to look legit a rite of passage to finally join the set rotating big boys and be just like magic huh a lot of games try to be just like magic now that i think about it you can stop now no really you can stop but predictably this frequently backfires you see a lot of new promising card games fall victim to something that i call the two-year curse where the game shuts down and ends production or at least shrinks to the point of irrelevance after roughly two years of existing it's a phenomenon i've talked about before the two-year curse can happen for a number of reasons usually involving a combination of the game's novelty wearing off and a failure to innovate and in this case set rotation can only do harm you see when a hyped up new game is released it tends to be the base set that sells the best among any other sets and when the base set gets rotated out along with the vast majority of the cards you've sold that's what a lot of the stragglers still playing take as their queue to leave hence why rotation after the first year can lead to death in the second not to mention if somebody hears of your game and then buys a bunch of cards only to discover they're worthless or soon will be worthless that's a good chance that you just instantly lost a player but to a lot of people designers included card games rotate sets because well that's what card games do i should hopefully not have to tell you how thin that sort of logic is let alone the fact that yu-gi-oh one of the three biggest trading card games in the world has never used set rotation at all their success with that is debatable but there is something to be said for the fact that a card that i bought almost 20 years ago is still legal for play although put a pin in this one now is set rotation really as i've implied just a cash grab that has been normalized by time of course not set rotation does have its benefits by constantly refreshing the lineup of cards a game can avoid a phenomenon called power creep where more and more powerful and effective cards are produced in order to encourage people to keep buying cards rather than settling on a strategy if cards keep rolling off the end of the belt the game can level itself off back to a flat line more naturally the designers of magic the gathering even have a little fun with this bumping the power curve up a bit only to bring it back down once the next core set drops it also opens up design possibilities of wide-ranging and game-changing mechanics as if an experimental mechanic doesn't work very well or works too well it will go away on its own allowing for wide-reaching gameplay ideas and changes that level themselves out after a while giving a more seasonal or art feel to the game however if you are doing neither of these things you should probably think twice before implementing scent rotation so let's look at some alternatives yu-gi-oh instead maintains a banned and restricted list sure and the game has had such insane power creep that it is unrecognizable from how it started yes but another thing they do is sometimes let some of their older archetypes essentially surf on this wave of rising power creep it is a very common occurrence for yu-gi-oh to revitalize their game by giving an old archetype a new lease on life a lot of archetypes from the game's history such as heroes light sworn gladiator beasts and even the very oldest blue eyes white dragon and dark magician have gotten new cards down the line to keep them competitive this not only gives new and current players something to be excited about but can even encourage retired players to dust off their old obsolete decks if the new support makes them viable again as their old cards are all still legal for play if your game is built around archetypes and specific cards that work and trigger off of each other this sort of system might be a decent alternative to set rotation dragon ball super and games like it also do not use set rotation instead backfilling archetypes with more basic cards in order to generate decks with higher consistency i'm also gonna reach a bit and cite hearthstone and their basic set this is a set of cards that no matter how many times rotation happens will always be legal and available for play and purchase so you know your investment will never go to waste if you buy from the basic set granted the game has the luxury of being digital and thus not having to continuously do print runs of a set that all players will eventually get a complete set of but it does create an interesting balance between a reliable set of cards that will always be around and a vibrant series of rotating options specifically designed to navigate around that so let's unpin this now that we're finished discussing everything else now i did mention that i bought this copy of bluewise white dragon when the game was first introduced but i'm sure a lot of you are thinking that card you're holding is printed before i was even born how's that fair to me and other players who are just now getting into the game and to that i say konami's got you covered konami is a huge fan of reprinting their most important and staple cards where their starter decks these days are more like half a set of new toys and the other half an assortment of staple cards everybody should own blue eyes white dragon is one of the most reprinted monster cards in the game and it doesn't just work for yu-gi-oh reprints are a vital part of any trading card game whether they use rotation or not at the same time that magic the gathering introduced their revised version of set rotation they also unveiled the unlimited system known today as the yearly core sets where a number of important iconic and staple cards are kept in circulation by being printed in newer sets that are still in legal standard well-made games with rotation don't just rip the rug out from under you they rotate off the set yes but drop you onto a nice cushion of staple cards that you can continue to use this really takes the edge out of rotation because if a lot of your collection can still be used then that feeling of investment sticks around the pokemon card switch which i would say is the single most balanced card in the entire game has never been out of circulation from the very first time it was printed over 20 years ago it might not even be a bad idea to do the sort of unlimited run featuring a ton of cards from your base set the same way magic the gathering did bringing forward the cards people enjoyed and perhaps leaving behind the stuff that didn't work out so well or is ruining your game like those lotus cards up don't even try it i see you there and people love it when cards get reprinted i remember a while back when magic the gathering reprinted the classic lightning bolt card and it caused a bit of a shock one and a half shocks to be precise hey card humor it lets old players wax nostalgic and show off cards from their collection and gives new players a chance to wield the powers they've only heard of in legend you can get new artwork and proper errata text pokemon actually does an entire set at the end of the corresponding generation of video games which is sort of a greatest hits lineup in order to give those cards one last hurrah although quick caveat here it's time for another good idea bad idea good idea reprinting an old card in a new set bad idea reprinting an old card with a new name now of course there will be speculative buyers out there who insist that the idea of reprinting cards is detestable as it lowers the value of their collection ignore these people they aren't paying you to keep that card out of print the way hundreds of people will pay you for a chance to get the card for themselves if you don't believe me magic once made something called the reserve list to try to appease speculative buyers and they consider it the worst decision they have ever made yes worse than jace the mind sculptor creating him banning him either way not as much regret as the reserve list i mean don't overdo it all things in moderation chronicles taught us that lesson you can make it a rare in the reprint sets or tie it to a special bundle or something now aside from the fact that it allows older players to be nice and snooty over the fact that they have the original print runs of these cards research by magic the gathering themselves actually uncovered that in more recent times when they reprinted an older card the value of that older card actually went up because now it was legal for play again and thus was in higher demand and just because a guard gets reprinted doesn't mean it's going to drop all of the other versions of that card in value the card effect veiler is a common yugioh staple so prevalent it's basically printed in every starter deck and yet the ultimate rare version of it is still valued at about a hundred dollars buyer complaints about reprints are bogus but that's why it's important to consider whether set rotation is the right thing to do for your game rotation isn't a monetization tool a cure for stagnation or a rite of passage what it does is it enables game designers to again try something really out there with their game design if your game is stagnating and you are considering set rotation try something absolutely crazy in your next set now is not the time to be playing it safe throw around a new card type a new mechanic or region try something risky or even something foolish pokemon and magic are constantly trying out new things confident in the knowledge that anything unpopular or overblown will just lapse and be done with doesn't stop them from cherry picking the ideas that work properly and continuing to use them down the line though so yeah game designers and players set rotation is not the monumentous occasion you might think it is if you engage in it without a plan you are dooming your game to failure you have to understand how games with rotation use that rotation to constantly try out new things to shake up the status quo and how games that don't use rotation leverage reprints and additional support to keep old cards in the game so yeah set rotation is not a cure it's not a rite of passage it is just a tool keep that in mind and you too can avoid falling victim to one of the seven deadly sins of game design [Music] you

Channel: Kohdok

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Id: JR2tVSC-sng

Length: 12min 48sec (768 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 19 2020