Is skill being removed from vanguard?

[M4tt]

So recently, over the past week, I caught myself rewatching Season 1 in all it's dubbed glory (because I had already watched the subs the first time around) and really observed how much the game has changed from way back then. Mostly 10k vanguards, heavy costs, and ultimately, strategies were  a lot harder to pull off. But now (especially with legion) I just feel like you don't really have to think to play. Before, you had to carefully decide when the right moment to activate a units skill, but now it just feels so autopilot to me.  To me it's like people are playing..... well stale. What are your thoughts on this? Is vanguard becoming too easy? How do you personally feel about the legion cards (or even break rides and limit breaks)? Are they effecting the game too drastically?

[FTLol]

Alright, lets start from Limit Break. Limit Break activates at the late game (4-5 damage), because of this, most big plays will be done at the late game. So if you want to use your cards strongest skill, you most likely wont guard early so you can save your hand and use the big skills. Because of this, you most likely wont be doing anything much early game, you attack your opponent, your opponent just take the damage, the opponent attacks you, you just take the damage. You will start guarding most of the attacks late game, and use big skills late game too, thus dragging the game to the late game. When Limit Break first come out, although being a little bit better than the non LBs, the non LB can still fight them just fine. But right now,The Limit Breakers are simply a lot stronger than the non LB, thus making them look a little bad.

As for Breakrides, I have nothing much to say. The strategy will be more or less the same as LB. The only difference is it only activates when you ride a card on it and it can only be activated once, except if you ride a breakride again. So basically, its just an on-ride Limit Break.

Now comes Legion, a brand new mechanic that functions very differently from Limit Break and Breakride. Legion is activated by returning 4 cards from your Drop Zone back into the deck. This encourages you to guard early, so you can both activate Legion and take the stronger Legion attacks later. So I'm assuming this is meant to drag the game back to the early game. While that is all good, it kind of kills Limit Break, because if you guard early, you wont be able to activate Limit Break. And if you're using Legion and fighting a Limit Break, you can take on the huge attacks late game because you guarded early. So for now, Legion is a bit better than Limit Break IMO.

So does this affect the game drastically? Yes, yes it does. Right now, Legion can be considered a little bit too strong. When all clans got Legion, i think Legion will be a little bit more balanced. But when all clans got Legion, what will happen to Limit Break? As the game progress, stronger Legion will appear, thus completely overshadowing Limit Break, then Legion will become the new Limit Break, and Limit Break will become the new non-LB. So in time, everyone will switch to Legion. And I'm rather sure when a new mechanic appeared it will overshadow Legion. So basically, its simply the game progressing, it is nothing unusual, and happens in other card games as well.

[M4tt]

OMG! That wall of text! Lol. Well, you're absolutely right. The game is simply progressing in different types of gameplay by adjusting how the cards function and their individual style. I understand that. The game needs to progress, and progress it shall. Maybe it's just me. Lol. It's just... I feel like this new mechanic is borderline breaking the game. But you brought up another valid point: that other clans are going to get legion too. So hopefully that will provide the balance I'm looking for. But it's not just balance I want. I'm concerned about how easy it is to get such high-level power. To me, it's like the cards have been dumbed down. Idk lol. I'm weird. :/

[FTLol]

OMG! That wall of text! Lol. Well, you're absolutely right. The game is simply progressing in different types of gameplay by adjusting how the cards function and their individual style. I understand that. The game needs to progress, and progress it shall. Maybe it's just me. Lol. It's just... I feel like this new mechanic is borderline breaking the game. But you brought up another valid point: that other clans are going to get legion too. So hopefully that will provide the balance I'm looking for. But it's not just balance I want. I'm concerned about how easy it is to get such high-level power. To me, it's like the cards have been dumbed down. Idk lol. I'm weird. :/

No you're not. Yes, it is easier to make big plays right now than back when there aren't any LB or Legion, so maybe the cards are a bit dumbed down (assuming thats what dumbed down means). As for high power, guarding early already solves that. What I'm actually concerned about is the crit-gainer Legions, especially Mega Flare. And I wont say Legion is breaking the game, when you compare LB to the non-LB, you will find the LB are a bit better. The same can be said to Legion, it will feel better than LB, its always like that with every new mechanic (that isn't named Pendulum Summon).

And I wont call that a wall of text lol .

[M4tt]

Lol. By "dumbed down" I meant that the skills were so easy a caveman could do it, literally effortless.
And I know exactly what you mean:

What I'm actually concerned about is the crit-gainer Legions, especially Mega Flare.

Try to survive Shin Buster break riding over DaiKaiser.

I think I might be stepping out of the Vanguard scene for a little bit and just watch from afar to see how all this turns out. Lol.

[Devour]

You're absolutely right, Matt. It does take far less effort than it did before. During the first few sets, up to Limit Break, people actually won due to skill and well, luck at times. Decks were almost always different because you couldve tought of combos with cards that aren't even used today. With Limit Break introduced, it kinda changed. It became obvious that you should let yourself get to 4 damage by turn 3-5, but there were still a lot of combinations to pull off. I personally think the game got weird with breakrides. Thats pretty much the 3rd season, where you had builds that were already OP, and people just boarded the OP train, and thats the reason why the memorize the process of how to play that deck by heart and it's basically "Do this, then that, and now this". Of course, it's not always the case, but it's well known to be true. Legion might actually balance this out, because the decks change, and the people that netdeck and whatnot have to build it from scratch, so the autopilotism is kept to the minimum, since there's the different deck choice, combining with LB/BR/whatnot, and the choice when to pull Legion off is also there. However, it'd be way better if Legion had a restriction of sorts, for example 1-3 Legioning per game, since it's obvious we'll be Legioning every time we get a Legion in hand. But well, the game changes and we have to change with it.

[M4tt]

You're absolutely right, Matt. It does take far less effort than it did before... But well, the game changes and we have to change with it.

I know

I hope I don't sound like I'm out to get legion or anything. Because I'm not. Lol.

It's just, I started playing vanguard because I admired how much effort you had to put in to pull off the right combos. But now it's just.... You can do anything you want with little to no set-up, and I really wish it wasn't like that. Well, a man can dream. Lol ^_^

[NextGenNick]

I agree, the game requires a lot less skill than it required originally, granted the abilities to a degree where easier to pull of compared to 4 damage Limit Break and both players needing a grade 3 and 4 in drop for legion but still, Vanguard lacks a lot now and has lost the reason I started playing.

I think, with the creation of Break Ride, Limit Break and Legion, Bushi wanted to bring out new interesting mechanisms for the game to add more diversity, but the problem with that is that they need to shine above the old cards, so, as the new cards steadily got stronger, old cards began to be ignored.

Solution? originally, I was going to say re-release the older cards with new or edited abilities that can keep up with the current meta but would that really fix it? Yes and no, it will help make a more diverse pool of deck builds but helps kill off the roots of the game, although it would create the diversity competitive players want it also destroys the reasons we got into the game.

I read, on a different site, a person suggested that bushi should release weaker cards and the game will level out as Cardfight!! Vanguard is becoming Cardfight!! Yu-Gi-Oh! and I agree, but the problem is the meta still would go back to limit break and legion, it would damage bushi's sales and be the end of the game as the young children who want the new cards will be getting destroyed at locals, regionals and nationals.

it's sad but we have to accept the sad fact that the game requires less skill now, I am hoping season 4 and 5, with this legion mechanic, will somehow resurrect the need for skill and my predictions for it come true, although it will kill of about 75% of season 3 cards and all that about 95% of season 2 and 1.

[M4tt]

It really saddens me though to see so much potential in a card game slowly start to break. I guess I'll just have to force myself to adjust because unless Bushiroad starts pushing out generic support with higher than 10000 shields, I'm almost hopeless when it comes to defense. Senitels only take you but so far, and the best method of counter is early guarding. But both of those come with a cost.

*Sigh*

I think I'll just hibernate for the next few seasons and wait for something to work itself out. Lol

[Sandy]

I think it's a bit quick to state skill's being lost in a game that already was about 60-70% based around luck anyways. I don't care what anyone else says, three things make you great at this game, card selection, knowledge of how/when to use those skills and luck in drawing what you need/want. I've seen experts fall to beginners because they were either grade locked or in a trigger drought.

[M4tt]

I think it's a bit quick to state skill's being lost in a game that already was about 60-70% based around luck anyways. I don't care what anyone else says, three things make you great at this game, card selection, knowledge of how/when to use those skills and luck in drawing what you need/want. I've seen experts fall to beginners because they were either grade locked or in a trigger drought.

True, this game is heavily based on luck, and granted, any beginner COULD take out even the most skilled players because of it. But (and a big one at that) the depreciation in how complicated it is to use newer support is very apparent and that is what I ment by skill being removed lol.
It doesn't matter what cards you use if you don't know how to use them, but currently, cards are becoming simpler and easier to use.

[Magus TSS]

It's honestly really hard to say at this point. I really want to believe Legion is going to open up new potential for vanguard and yes a lot of the skill's feel quite overpowered but I feel like it's too early to really judge Legion. Legion only barely got going so it's really unclear where it will go from here. I have to look at the small bright side though. At least the new cards for these Legion units allow for more Flexibility as a lot of them are not restrictive to having x vanguard or archetype. It was difficult to find that Flexibility with Limit Break units or their support.

[aeee98]

The learning curve needed for the newer cards is undoubtedly much lower as compared to season 2 and before. I would say that the amount of skill needed for one to fully utilise a card from season 1 and 2 is almost the same, dropping a little in season 3 and alot more the start of season 4. I am still waiting for a high skill-cap Legion card to come out before I actually try Legion. (I haven't played a single Legion deck yet, even on Area) That will be when more skillful plays are executed.

As for overpowered, I would dare say it isn't at the least OP, but rather too lenient.

[Incursio]

I do think Legion wasn't the right way to proceed with Vanguard, the mechanic itself isn't really that bad but the new skills on the units are far too powerful that you can't even compare them to the previous archetypes (see Seekers and Brawlers, etc).
Top that off with Legion having a ridiculous amount of power every turn, and you have complete power creep from the previous season.

[Sendo]

Things surely are easier to do now, but... isn't it the evolution of the game? When I mean "easier" I mean "cheaper". Like Gildas getting any Seeker for CB1 when you Perform Legion, or Youjin retiring a frontrow for free when you perform Legion. But, hey, maybe that's not a bad thing. Being able to do more stuff for less means you can do more things (damn, that's redundant, but you guys get what I mean). Being able to do more things, as long as it doesn't break down the game, isn't a bad thing is it?

About the high power thing... I try to see it as everyone being a Round Table Alfred pre-Limit Break with an extra skill. Or a King Alfred without the CONT skill blocking the boost and an extra skill. Without the option of lowering the power my destroying the field, of course. So... I don't really fear the power. What I think is really strong about Legion is the returning trigger part, all the other stuff is just, you know, making things easier so you can do more things.

And while it might reduce the amount of skill needed to do the skills, I guess it requires more skill to guard. Guarding skill might always have been important, but I think it gets more important now. It's not just "guard so you don't take damage", it's "guard right with the right cards, this way you'll have good cards in the Drop Zone". It seams kinda the same saying like that but... I don't know, I really think you need more guarding skill than before.

But, hey, maybe I'm just optimistic about that or maybe I just trust Bushi will do something nice out of this. haha