A total revamp of the TCG section.

[CDDRodrigo]

It's time we talk about this.

Have you guys seen that recently, newcomers are being "advised" to not visit the TCG section of YCM because if they have the slightest of the wrong ideas about a card/deck, they'll be insulted and flamed a lot with barely to no punishment? Well, that obviously needs to change, and I have some suggestions as to how to do that. I'm sure Hatcher wants the improvement of her section, but she can't/doesn't want to be active enough for that, so I'm here to help. She does have to handle alone one of the most prone to trouble parts of the forum, so it's understandable. Also, most of the frequenters don't have the habit to use the report button, making it harder for her.

Most of the bigger members of the section are either inactive or just left, and now the section is based on individual card discussions that only bring "This card is good" or "Love that art" posts, or even worse, "(insert usage of the card here) /thread" posts, which totally kill of the purpose of discussion.

This can possibly change if we:
[list]
[*]Allow articles to be posted even if they aren't anything new, as long as they bring a depth of detail to the deck/card/combo discussion. Those kind of threads create the spirit of making good, constructive arguments that the section lacks severely. Individual card posting does not create this scenario and is too prone to small, not so relevant posts that I mentioned earlier.
[*]Creating a tutorial about the advanced bits of the game (and maybe about the basics as well, although this isn't as necessary) that guide the not-so-experienced players onto becoming better and making less mistakes. We have a deckbuilding FAQ (which IS outdated and could use improvements, but that's evilfusion's jurisdiction), so why can't we have a theory and play development FAQ? And IMO, it should stay as an open thread, always willing to be improved by the memberbase itself. The Rulings threads is not enough, and it doesn't cover everything that needs to be covered. The tutorials would bring the insight needed to be able to play this game properly, as well as giving people the idea of what's a good and what's a bad combo/deck.
[*]Harsher punishment to harsher comments. Saying someone is bad, while sometimes true, CANNOT be allowed no matter what the situation. That insults the person and makes it lose interest on improvement (which I believe is one of the main reasons why the section is how it is now). Also, posts like "Because X is a card" should be warnable as well. A post needs to be constructive, it needs to bring more to the thread and the members, and such post does that on the worst way possible, while an explanation as to why X is better than Y (WITHOUT swear words/flaming) makes everyone improve.
[/list]

That should be it for now. This thread is always open for improvement and new ideas to make TCG a great section.

We do not need E-Penis stroking. We need better members and better players.

[This Account is Unplayable]

No because this would require Pika to actually think about how she mods the forum.





The only way I can see people improving, posts and skill wise, is through something like the Tutorial thread, and possibly a tutor system. I for one would be perfectly up for teaching someone the basics and more advanced forms of the game.

I still, however, fail to see how my way of dealing with things is bad, seeing as that's how I learnt, but I guess not everyone can be as good at picking something up.

As for the quality of the posts, what do you expect from a forum designed to discuss single cards, it's a banter forum more than anything else, and everyone that frequents it knows that, for the most part. There will be the rare occasion (See: Number 30 topic) where a good discussion is created, but most of the time opinions won't conflict that greatly and no discussion of a major kind is build, thus the members resort to banter, as the forum has been virtually based upon since before I even joined.

[Greiga]

[quote name='CDDRodrigo' timestamp='1332885814' post='5891473']
It's time we talk about this.

Have you guys seen that recently, newcomers are being "advised" to not visit the TCG section of YCM because if they have the slightest of the wrong ideas about a card/deck, they'll be insulted and flamed a lot with barely to no punishment? Well, that obviously needs to change, and I have some suggestions as to how to do that. I'm sure Hatcher wants the improvement of her section, but she can't/doesn't want to be active enough for that, so I'm here to help. She does have to handle alone one of the most prone to trouble parts of the forum, so it's understandable. Also, most of the frequenters don't have the habit to use the report button, making it harder for her.

Most of the bigger members of the section are either inactive or just left, and now the section is based on individual card discussions that only bring "This card is good" or "Love that art" posts, or even worse, "(insert usage of the card here) /thread" posts, which totally kill of the purpose of discussion.

This can possibly change if we:[list]
[*]Allow articles to be posted even if they aren't anything new, as long as they bring a depth of detail to the deck/card/combo discussion. Those kind of threads create the spirit of making good, constructive arguments that the section lacks severely. Individual card posting does not create this scenario and is too prone to small, not so relevant posts that I mentioned earlier.
[/list]
[b]You'll need to elaborate exactly on what an article is in this case, because I'm thinking that you're referring to discussions about the meta which usually end up like "x is the best deck, format is s***, y and z need a ban" which needs to change which you actually address later.[/b][list]
[*]Creating a tutorial about the advanced bits of the game (and maybe about the basics as well, although this isn't as necessary) that guide the not-so-experienced players onto becoming better and making less mistakes. We have a deckbuilding FAQ (which IS outdated and could use improvements, but that's evilfusion's jurisdiction), so why can't we have a theory and play development FAQ? And IMO, it should stay as an open thread, always willing to be improved by the memberbase itself. The Rulings threads is not enough, and it doesn't cover everything that needs to be covered. The tutorials would bring the insight needed to be able to play this game properly, as well as giving people the idea of what's a good and what's a bad combo/deck.
[/list]
[b]I don't think we even need this if people actually follow what you posted below. If people actually post some good discussion s*** then we won't need a whole theory topic because they're learning how cards work from individual topics. What I do think we should do is try our hardest to bring back the deck alliance and then actually try to keep it alive and store those decks, as well as having the better people in this section post articles o[/b][b]n how to use said decks so that way people know how the deck works as a whole and it also becomes another medium to learn from, instead of making 5 different tutorial and theory topics.[/b][list]
[*]Harsher punishment to harsher comments. Saying someone is bad, while sometimes true, CANNOT be allowed no matter what the situation. That insults the person and makes it lose interest on improvement (which I believe is one of the main reasons why the section is how it is now). Also, posts like "Because X is a card" should be warnable as well. A post needs to be constructive, it needs to bring more to the thread and the members, and such post does that on the worst way possible, while an explanation as to why X is better than Y (WITHOUT swear words/flaming) makes everyone improve.
[/list]
[b]Asking without swear words makes me laugh but whatever.[/b][b] I agree with this statement because what should be happening anyway is that[/b] [b]topics such as discussions should[/b][b] have each comment lead to another question or answer so that we actually have a great topic instead of half of it being random 3 word post bs. Idgi why people hop on the revolution bandwagon when what they posted was actually honest to goodness spam, and also idgi why people are getting warned just because they're good comments are lost in a flood of spam and people flaming each other. If we actually had some harsher punishments for spam and flames then these wouldn't happen.[/b]

That should be it for now. This thread is always open for improvement and new ideas to make TCG a great section.

We do not need E-Penis stroking. We need better members and better players.

[b]my e-peen iz large[/b]
[/quote]

No I'm not back I just had to voice my opinions.

[CDDRodrigo]

[quote name='Chris' timestamp='1332886630' post='5891506']
As for the quality of the posts, what do you expect from a forum designed to discuss single cards, it's a banter forum more than anything else, and everyone that frequents it knows that, for the most part. There will be the rare occasion (See: Number 30 topic) where a good discussion is created, but most of the time opinions won't conflict that greatly and no discussion of a major kind is build, thus the members resort to banter, as the forum has been virtually based upon since before I even joined.
[/quote]

This is why the section is not the best.

Individual card topics do NOT bring good discussions and do not imrpove anything. That's why discussions on decks and how to build them should be more frequent, as well as changing the focus of the section from individual discussion to tutoring and making people better.

[Greiga]

[quote name='CDDRodrigo' timestamp='1332887769' post='5891534']
This is why the section is not the best.

Individual card topics do NOT bring good discussions and do not improve anything. That's why discussions on decks and how to build them should be more frequent, as well as changing the focus of the section from individual discussion to tutoring and making people better.
[/quote]

So if I'm reading this right, you want more archetype and card combo discussions as opposed to single discussions right? Also individual topics can sometimes bring up good discussion especially if it's a hypothetical or a controversial card, although I can't think of any recent ones.

[This Account is Unplayable]

[quote name='CDDRodrigo' timestamp='1332887769' post='5891534']


This is why the section is not the best.

Individual card topics do NOT bring good discussions and do not imrpove anything. That's why discussions on decks and how to build them should be more frequent, as well as changing the focus of the section from individual discussion to tutoring and making people better.
[/quote]

And within a week you're out of threads to make. As I said, for a large part the TCG section is more banter, think of it like C&O really, only not entirely made of spam.

[CDDRodrigo]

The section would still have individual discussions, but we can all agree that it doesn't bring improvement, right?

If yes, then I'd suggest to at least ALLOW decks/combos discussions to bring more ideas and create a better discussion, because as of now we can only discuss individual cards and archetypes for the most part.

[Just Crouton]

What TCG needs is for others to be more open to the fact that not everyone who plays the game plays in the same "metagame," and understand that some people's neck of the woods, burn/stall is tier 1, and form a response to their comment with that in mind. That way, we can have a more diverse range of opinions and not always have topics that are just a collective of sheeps saying "card is bad", "card is good", "terrible, next", and memes. We don't have to agree with "noob" that Winged Kuriboh is a good tech in HEROes, but we can at least go the extra step to get him/her to understand why we think it's a bad tech in HEROes instead of calling him/her retarded and complete the topic ritual of "Being stupid *Z-ONE* is against the rules."

Not pushing this to be mandatory, but TCGers should be encouraged to post an argument about their topic card, promote a possible combo with it, or pose a question to the viewer. For example, making a topic about Pot of Duality and explain why you think it sucks. At least then, the first few comments will be more than "good/bad/you suck."

Most importantly, we need to be more open-minded to other opinions. This is why the section is stigmatized. If someone thinks Magic Cylinder is better than Mirror Force, we should ask them to explain why they think so. They might have an interesting reason.

[Dr. Cakey]

Whenever we discuss combos, we normally just do "Discuss broken combo [Card that is part of combo]" don't we?

[Just Crouton]

[quote name='CDDRodrigo' timestamp='1332888178' post='5891550']
If yes, then I'd suggest to at least ALLOW decks/combos discussions to bring more ideas and create a better discussion, because as of now we can only discuss individual cards and archetypes for the most part.
[/quote]

This should be allowed. Only discussing single cards and archetypes limits the discussion more to "good/bad, now let's post memes."

[CDDRodrigo]

King Crouton got the grasp of what we're trying here.

Pragmatism is killing off the section and scaring members away, while we could have a healthy, growing community that understands all kinds of players: competitive, casual, or beginners.

[This Account is Unplayable]

I still believe that if you want a large number of members, that are willing, to improve then you need some form of tutor system, 1 on 1 teaching is one of the most tried and true ways to work.

Of course, YCM isn't overflowing with good players, but there are enough that know the basics, at least.

[CDDRodrigo]

[quote name='Chris' timestamp='1332889181' post='5891593']
I still believe that if you want a large number of members, that are willing, to improve then you need some form of tutor system, 1 on 1 teaching is one of the most tried and true ways to work.

Of course, YCM isn't overflowing with good players, but there are enough that know the basics, at least.
[/quote]

That could be done as well.

A place where there are available tutors and people wanting to be tutored. There, the tutor teaches the other how things on the game work now. I agree it is a good way to make people better, but having more options is always nice, especially because there wouldn't be available tutors all the time.

[This Account is Unplayable]

[quote name='CDDRodrigo' timestamp='1332889383' post='5891605']


That could be done as well.

A place where there are available tutors and people wanting to be tutored. There, the tutor teaches the other how things on the game work now. I agree it is a good way to make people better, but having more options is always nice, especially because there wouldn't be available tutors all the time.
[/quote]

That all depends on demands. We don't know how much of a memberbase a slightly revamped TCG would bring, or how many it could lose.

Implement things gradually.

I for one would be willing to be in charge of a tutoring system, and as for threads just slightly tweak the rules to make it more about discussion, and that any post that doesn't have on-topic discussion becomes warnable subject to the moderator's judgment, and the same goes for flaming, which it should do anyway.

[CDDRodrigo]

Indeed, implementing things gradually is the best way.

The tweaks on the rules are under my suggestions as well.

[Miror B]

As I told you over MSN, we don't need a revamp of the section, just the members' attitudes when it comes to people who don't quite know what they're saying.

No I'm not talking about your freaking teaching methods I'm talking about how your second post insulted the person because "X is a card" wasn't enough.

[Just Crouton]

Tutoring isn't really needed. If we act in a positive way, and make it apparent what our specialties are, people will come to us. Robot Bowtie helped me out a lot 2 years ago during my Machina craze where I posted tons of Machina deck ideas, most of which were never tested and likely sucked, by making fixes to Machina Gadgets. I've had at least 1 person in the past (circa. 2010) who saw my fascination for the archetype PM me for a Machina deck (I think he wanted the Salvo version.)

Making tutors would give those members more responsibility that they likely can't handle because of their outside life. People can deduce our specialty in the deck section and either pm us or netdeck to learn how to use it better.

Another issue lies in the fact that potential tutors/ good players for TCG have moved on from this site. When was the last time we saw faces like Manjoume Thunder, Fraz, or Stein-Hakase?

[CDDRodrigo]

That's the Mage I knew. Although this alt will get banned, you did bring the good points I expected. Besides the minority ignoring part, that's the opposite of what should be done, the better players should help the smaller ones on becoming better. I admit there's not a single active member of YCM who's at the level of the tournament winners, mainly because of sheer lack of experience on playing at the high levels because DN is definetly not the best place to train randomly.

Yes, the idea of making decks that defeat the Top 3 seems to be one of the best basis. While we're at it, we explain to the less experienced players how the metagame works and how to play on it, while showing how to make decks that counter them. When the format changes, we analise the changes and within a month we'll have the dominant decks, which should give the basis to change the top decks' list.

Despite the metagame though, we could easily have discussions on casual decks, and those are WAY more flexible than metagame-level decks. The casual part of the forum should then become the biggest in terms of activity because that's where more people would post and more discussions would happen.

And yes, describing why "Laggia is a card" is what everyone needs to do and see. Post about it, post about what makes it so good, etc.

[Greiga]

[quote name='Jesse Red Mage']This tutoring idea cannot work for our trade. Mostly because, the only thing you can teach is how to play the game, in the sense of what the rules are. However, how to play the game effectively is never a constant you can "teach" at all times. its a free-market sort of system. You cannot teach someone how to adapt to changes. Yugioh is a collective, the inferior opinions don't need to be noticed. All that matters is what is most effective.

There are, however, guidelines to dominating a meta and how to play in a meta. these can be taught, but not simply through a ten commandments sort of thing. there are too many factors that are at play to be able to do that. not only that, but I don't think anyone here has the expertise to know what they are talking about. Worthwhile discussion? what is there to discuss? oh please don't tell me you think YCM is a source of new information. Byak doesn't post singular card discussions asking people to "discuss". No, he already knows as much as everyone knows. He posts theses and statements.

If you truly want to increase the quality of the player base, then I have a challenge for you. As you know, the meta is based around a "power 3" (I personally don't believe wind-ups should count, but they are technically a thing). anyone can understand that to defeat this meta, is to build a deck that can beat these 3 decks. In about a few months, we must add to this list Heiratics and Lavals. I've never believed these decks to be undefeatable, neither should any of you. That being said, these decks all carry their weaknesses. Rabbit in particular is only good against combo oriented decks like inzektors and wind-ups, and takes advantage of the fact that only 2-3 cards in their hand actually do anything, and the rest are support to make it do what its supposed to. if they get rid of those with a laggia or dolkka, then they will take whatever is left out with trap cards. HOWEVER, if rabbit for some reason can't stop your plays, or if each card in your hand is actually stand alone, then they can easily be defeated. examples of this include frog monarchs, in which almost everything is something you need to negate instantly, and treeborn frog endlessly comes back. Dark Worlds are an extremely powerful deck capable of control and OTKing, yet suffer the major weakness of being easily sided against.

Keeping in mind that every deck can be defeated, and that there is a definitive way to do so, you can actually create decks that aren't tier-1 that can beat tier-1 decks. my challenge then, is to create as many of these decks as possible. My suggestion for doing so would be to create a thread in the tcg section that was similar to the previous Deck Garages, however instead of focusing on storing decks, focus on designing decks from scratch. and not just go "hey I feel like doing Roids, lets make roids tier-1". I'm talking, start with a drawing board. figure out what weaknesses the main decks suffer from. find a deck that works with these weaknesses and work around that, and figure out the strengths of the deck. figure out how you can also strenghten its other match-ups, in addition to the match-ups its already good at.

benefits of trying this out will be:
1) a deeper understanding of the meta, since in order to build these decks, you need to analyze the meta very effectively.
2) a much more competitive and creative atmosphere, as its no longer about bitching about how the format is s***, but rather how to take control of it.
3) a way for players to rise from their current status and become better, and respectable. right now with the singular discussions, the only thing you are showing off is that you know what rescue rabbit does. with this, players can demonstrate their abilities much more clearly and effectively, which also makes sure we don't get DGz style douche bags like Brandon.
4) if people know what they are talking about, they won't need to attack players. They can simply post what is accurate. I know for instance, that anyone can say that dinosaurs are the best target for Rabbit. someone might say that Rabbit is kind of bad because all it searches is vanillas. though, for a lot of people, they don't know how to articulate why rabbit is the best card of the format. If these underlining reasons are more clearly defined, then players won't need to say "lol newfag u bad". or even then, they might get more specific because "lol laggia is a card", but that still doesn't help much. laggia is a card yes, and it looks good, but what of it? what makes it the best card of the format? what is the process by which it wins the game?
[/quote]
[quote name='Jesse Red Mage']see, I'm not a disbeliever in random s*** being really good. I dropped out during round 4 of YCS Long Beach even though I was going x-0, because it was going late. my friend Chris stayed behind because he got a spot in this dude's hotel room. while there, he racked up enough points to go day 2. he beat all his wind-up matches, DW, Infernities twice, but lost all his inzektor match-ups. he could have made it to the top 64 yet he didn't feel like showing up to his final round. Do you know what he was playing? Destiny Hero Dragoon Turbo. with Poly, not fusion gate + Chain Material crap.
[/quote]

Guys, even though you hate Jesse, you can't deny these posts were absolutely brilliant. If you're gonna wipe his existence at least keep these here.

[Catterjune]

[quote]Have you guys seen that recently, newcomers are being "advised" to not visit the TCG section of YCM because if they have the slightest of the wrong ideas about a card/deck, they'll be insulted and flamed a lot with barely to no punishment? [/quote]
I've seen people being advised to not visit TCG, though I can't say I've seen any of this insults and flames stuff. From what I recall, you're not some superdy duper sensitive guy so I doubt our definition of what counts as flames and insults differs greatly.

That being said, I'd be a-okay with punishing when I see insulty/flamey posts, but despite being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, the last one, omnipresence is not one of my superpowers. See, I have other stuff going on in my life ranging from work to raising a kid to other excuses you don't care about. So tl;dr - See something, report it.

I think ultimately the problem is that TCG has some weirdo crazy pack mentality so that all it takes is a well ingrained group of people with large egos and some unwritten pact among them of not ratting each other out.

[quote]This can possibly change if we:
Allow articles to be posted

[...]

Creating a tutorial about the advanced bits of the game[/quote]
Articles and tutorials [i]are[/i] allowed to be posted.

*reads the rules*

The fall under the banner of "guides" in my opinion.

[quote]Harsher punishment to harsher comments. Saying someone is bad, while sometimes true, CANNOT be allowed no matter what the situation. That insults the person and makes it lose interest on improvement (which I believe is one of the main reasons why the section is how it is now). Also, posts like "Because X is a card" should be warnable as well. A post needs to be constructive, it needs to bring more to the thread and the members, and such post does that on the worst way possible, while an explanation as to why X is better than Y (WITHOUT swear words/flaming) makes everyone improve.[/quote]
I know you're talking about that old Gravekeeper's thread, and I know the people you're talking about, but honestly, I've never been a fan of straight up Word Count. That might work for some sections but I don't think it's for TCG. If I can summarize all my thoughts on a card in one sentence ("it's best and only use is to summon [X] and [Y] does it better.") then why do I need to tl;dr about it?

I'm pretty sure "post constructively" is the very first rule of the TCG section. If the thought is "start modding for it", sure thing. Start reporting for it. Despite lying and calling myself God or w/e, I'm just one person. I can ask that you do something, and I can punish you for not doing it, but beyond that I can't change the sections way of thinking. It has to be a communal effort.

[quote]So if I'm reading this right, you want more archetype and card combo discussions as opposed to single discussions right?[/quote]
Archetypes and card combo discussions are allowed.

[quote]Also individual topics can sometimes bring up good discussion especially if it's a hypothetical or a controversial card, although I can't think of any recent ones.[/quote]
Hypothetical cards are also allowed.

[quote]If yes, then I'd suggest to at least ALLOW decks/combos discussions to bring more ideas and create a better discussion[/quote]
Combos are allowed. As for "decks"... what's the difference between that and an archetype? Or do you mean like... decks that overlap a lot of archetypes, like Dandylion, Quickdraw, Debris Dragon, Monarchs, etc etc in a deck? I wouldn't find that to be something that could not be discussed. However, it sounds like a topic better suited for Your Deck, just saying.

[quote]What TCG needs is for others to be more open to the fact that not everyone who plays the game plays in the same "metagame," and understand that some people's neck of the woods, burn/stall is tier 1, and form a response to their comment with that in mind[/quote]
I think it's rather the opposite. Most people when refering to THE! metagame are refering to the regionals/nationals/YCS level metagame. If your metagame plays Vanillas, plays LODT and earlier from a shoebox they found under their bed, plays Chaos No Banlist, that is up to the topic creator to express.

[quote]We don't have to agree with "noob" that Winged Kuriboh is a good tech in HEROes, but we can at least go the extra step to get him/her to understand why we think it's a bad tech in HEROes instead of calling him/her retarded and complete the topic ritual of "Being stupid *Z-ONE* is against the rules."[/quote]
I'm completely okay with that. And how would you suggest writing it as a rule? Or should that little ending section of the rules be a rule as opposed to just a "general vague suggestion"?

[Greiga]

[quote name='Jesse']so pika responds to topic
and doesn't respond to my post
just rodrigos
which I already smashd
:/
[/quote]

No I'm not an alt I just agree that his article is worth reading.

[Catterjune]

I started writing before his post was up. I'll read/respond to it later.

[CDDRodrigo]

The thing is Pika, I'm not a fan of word count as well. In everything I write I try to shrink it the most I can.

But doing that without giving a good explanation without flames or insults is not happening too much.

The main focus of my suggestions are the improvement of the playerbase, so that even if a poster isn't good and always flames, he won't have a reason to flame anyone. The mentality does need to change indeed, you're not the one to do it alone, as it's impossible, hence this thread, for ideas and discussion.

About the Your Deck topics, Your Deck is not the section for discussions, it's only for posting and fixing decks (with reasonings). All discussions fall under your section, so yeah. My suggestion is allowing discussions on decks like Quickdraw that require a lot of different cards.

Then, the tutorial threads. Since they are allowed, I'll start working on those and I'll try to gather more people to help, proofread, etc.

Thanks for the replies.

Also yeah, Mage could've been a terrible member but he brought a great point.

[Catterjune]

First Post: As I stated earlier, I can not personally go to people's houses and post for them. If they do this it's up to them. If they do not, I can't make it a rule that they dissect their deck and post it. In any case, that doesn't even seem to be anything that leads to something that is postable on the forum. "Hey guys, I did a drawing board thing make my Vehicroid Deck." Congrats. There's not much to discuss, no reason to post it beyond just wanting other people to kiss your ass. Speaking of which...

Second Post: Congrats on the X-0 record and on knowing people who play Destiny Hero Dragoon. I'm glad Greiga was around to preserve this for the ages.

[Blake]

It's not really a rule or anything, but why not up the quality of the topics themselves?

I mean, I'm starting to post hypotheticals and random cards that aren't "overdiscussed" in an attempt to get some form of improvement out of the section. It's not much, but maybe if more people actually went with it we could see some actual improvement and not "Let's discuss card X again".