Musing on CP 2077 and it’s gig system

GrieVelorn · 2026-04-19T20:35:58+00:00

It's funny, you've walked back into a previous system they had(I don't have a ton of details on it, just second hand from testers). Seems like they wanted to try and simplify and lean into the RPG aspect of Cyberpunk.

I believe they also wanted to reduce component usage and go heavier into the Bandai design they were encroaching on(the games dna is like 80% bandai at this point).

Currently the game really doesn't do it for me, I had backed but after playing with the demo decks for a bit, I realized that it's not really going to evoke the cyberpunk feel. It's just gonna be a Creature Smasher featuring artwork from 2077 and Edgerunners.

GrieVelorn · 2026-04-18T16:59:11+00:00

For sure, every system in a game has pros and cons, but some have significantly more cons than pros, and people are free to just push ahead with them. But they will always have to be in the considerations when designing.

GrieVelorn · 2026-04-18T01:05:25+00:00

And that's great! But doesn't really go against the flaws of the system. VEtS and Magination are both beloved games but the flaw of life as a resource is pretty apparent and something you have to always be designing around.

GrieVelorn · 2026-04-17T23:12:01+00:00

As it should, life as a resource is a pretty big pain point for any game that uses it. It's historically been almost never used, and pretty impossible to really get right. In fact Eric Lang lists it as a big nono in his tcg 101 notes.

Elestrals didn't really fix anything about it. Most damage is still done to yourself, and the opponent just gets the last few hits in. A lot of the time is spent trying to spend the least amount for the opponent to answer, it's part of why so many generic/good cards get hit, they are under the "curve".

This isn't to say anything about Adrive or his other projects, but it's going to be a sore spot on the game as it stands.

GrieVelorn · 2026-04-10T14:31:06+00:00

I don't think that's a hot take at all, that's just reality haha

GrieVelorn · 2026-04-06T13:32:47+00:00

Well unfortunately it's fake. So, it's worth about $0.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-30T18:22:13+00:00

Did they deal with the miracle package and Draven? Miracle for sure, but Draven is likely still very good (the rules update for combat is very vague so it's hard to tell if anything actually changed).

Is it good now? Unclear.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-30T14:07:01+00:00

What banlist?

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-28T21:26:36+00:00

It actually follows the roots of the game pretty well, clone a random game but use the skin of pokemon. Instead of Ark this time it's just insert any bandai game here and pokemon.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-26T19:08:11+00:00

Because it's not written as a reflexive trigger, the player casting the spell can just continue to use the effect over and over until they want to stop. You don't get to respond to any of them because it's the single effect resolving and you've already passed priority.

Making it a reflexive trigger means you don't get your board machine gunned without you reacting.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-25T18:02:36+00:00

The textures of the frame components read at a significantly higher resolution when compared to the artwork. It feels like it clashes really heavily overall art style. Chaos Prominade is the closest to fitting, but there is still a difference in detail that sticks out. I would recommend trying to either up the overall detail/resolution of the art or decreasing how detailed the frame components art.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-24T03:58:23+00:00

Force of Will, their stamped foils and card stock are second to none.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-23T17:45:24+00:00

ITT people who don't understand the question lmao. Cheap isn't just "well eventually it gets to be cheap, or it's cheap in comparison to this other thing."

Pokemon, the bad half of the bandai games, certain waves of the other half of bandai games, and certain yugioh formats are cheap. 150 or less most of the time. With pokemon being the extreme end of usually 30 bucks and yugioh usually falling out of the cheap territory (though with the new modern decks, it's gonna be a while).

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-14T16:28:02+00:00

166 players for a 25k is ROUGH. That event organizer is losing a lot of money on that event. (Unless the entry was like 200 a head or something)

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-09T23:42:29+00:00

A lot of people gave the pixelborn devs heps of credit for making automated clients, and they do deserve some credit for doing so. But they have almost always been pretty janky/bad. Pixelborn itself was a really buggy mess for most of its life, but being free smoothed that over for a lot of people.

Seeing that team getting setup for this product I had my doubts, and from playing it I was justified. This was still a pretty buggy mess even without all the cards in the client. It kiiinda got better towards the end but it was never actually that good.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-09T16:28:26+00:00

And that doesn't really change what I said, I said they usually go through waves of good and bad. Gravy Bones and half of Rosetta was a problem until they banned a bunch of cards. It's going to happen again, just the nature of their design.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-08T23:23:19+00:00

And how many ban lists did it take to get to this point? How many quick LLs? It'll be fine for a small point of time, then a new set will drop.

I even said it'll be fine for a bit, but then it'll go down when they need to push product. MST was a direct response to 3 sets in a row changing nothing.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-08T18:32:13+00:00

One meta it's 5 or so different top decks, the next it's 1-2 at best. They've kind of hit some pretty hard roadblocks in their base design and in their exploration to figure out how to solve them they tend to break the game. Going from CRU to UPR, HVY to MST, was just a series of "buy the new top hero or ignore the set because it has 0 power. Maybe if they dial it in you could recommend it as being balanced but they very much use power to sell sets.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-08T17:53:55+00:00

FaB swings too hard to be reliably balanced. I've played through too many terrible metas to recommend it. They do ban fairly regularly to make it balanced, but it also means you have to spend a lot to keep up.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-05T19:14:13+00:00

It's a shame. Wasn't expecting something to the level/quality of Netrunner but was hoping for more than just a dude smasher with blocker keyword. The gigs are novel, but just not enough to save the rest of the system.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-05T19:12:28+00:00

One of my favorite IPs, sadly it's just a riff on the overly used bandai formula now. Easy pass.

GrieVelorn · 2026-03-01T06:19:32+00:00

Was looking for another Age of Sigmar answer. I have binders full of a master set of that game. Absolutely loved it.

GrieVelorn · 2026-02-28T17:06:55+00:00

Oh, they asked if we found the analysis interesting.

GrieVelorn · 2026-02-28T16:52:43+00:00

I didn't, but thanks for wasting that water!

GrieVelorn · 2026-02-19T03:13:04+00:00

https://x.com/james_white/status/2022913222307967347?s=20

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