Most games now allow players to learn the game through playing. It provides tutorials that are easy to learn and digest. While for non-digital TCGs, one has to read the rule books and learn at a much slower pace. I opened the rule book and read: "In order to play this card, you must send this number of cards from your stock into your waiting room" -> What is a stock? What is a waiting room? What is a level? I tried watching videos of other people explaining and it felt like some weird 5000 IQ card game.
Recently, I found an app on itch.io where someone created a Weiss Schwarz Card Game Simulator and I decided to challenge myself a bit: How long would it take for me to learn Weiss Schwarz from the ground up using an itch.io app?
It turns out, contrary to my previous belief, this game is actually super easy to play and feels very similar to Cardfight Vanguard. Stock is a resource you gain from attacking, and cards cost stock to pay so you have to manage resources decently, it is just the typical mana system but given another name. And then there is the "8 Climax in your deck as a max" system implemented to the max as there is RNG involved in getting damage which is similar to Vanguard’s Damage check. Even behind you can still win with just about any level 0 card because the damage is the same you just go down in Card Advantage when you lose fights.
Of course, there is the cookie-cutter "If this specific card is in climax zone, you get an ability". The game is just screaming at you: “Put these two cards in the same deck, now!” It is the type of design that has the upside of making new players’ experiences very friendly, but the downside of making some players feel like they have zero deckbuilding agencies. I... think unfortunately it did make my experience so much easier despite how I sometimes am a critic of these sorts of designs myself.
Learning with a computer system is much simpler because there is no need to have a 100% understanding of the game to play it. If there are any rules that the player have a misconception of, trial and error will teach it (You cannot play LVL 1-3 cost cards if Level up zone doesn't contain a card with the same color) IRL wise, even a Mythic Arena player can fumble when it comes to the basic rules of how Magic the Gathering works when playing in person.
When I am reading the rule book, I have to be perfect about it. For some reason, they don't explain that clearly in the rule book that: Yo you can use Stock for paying the cost of your cards. They only explain it in the "Cost" section but I believe it should be explained in the Stock section as well. I get that maybe "repetition" can be bad but I think most people don't read from one paragraph to another or remember them well enough that any sort of "nagging" is too annoying.
When playing the simulator, I didn't understand color restriction, how Climax works, how Reversing an opponent character doesn't discard them right away, how the Soul system works when it comes to dealing damage, but I still was able to get through the game properly and win against the AI often. Playing IRL, playing with friends who know how the game works is very important for learning, and the effect of “domino” is stronger than online games.
The Domino effect that I am talking about is how popularity breeds popularity. When a game is more popular, it has a player base that can make the game experience simpler, fulfill human needs for companionship, players that can provide valuable feedback… As a loner, it is impossible to learn Weiss Schwarz by myself in real life, and that is probably the same reason why many other people also couldn’t get into it despite the game containing their favorite anime characters.
The player base increase makes it easier to get into the game, which is why despite some Indie games being really fun to play and well designed, they are victims of the domino effect.
Weiss Schwarz’s Abstract Rule Design
The interesting thing about Weiss Schwarz is how "unpractical" they are. All the characters come from a different universe and there is no real way of comparing them or letting them fight, so the game itself is very detached from reality in comparison to classic TCGs such as Magic the Gathering.
There is no death, there is no injury, but they are replaced with words such as "Waiting Room" or "Memory". Yes, if A has more power than B, B is discarded while A wins. But it is hard to compare it to reality the same way Magic can. Even though in Magic, a thief probably wouldn't beat a warrior in a real fight but the latter still feels more "realistic" since Magic utilizes our reality to ease player’s learning experience, famously the addition of the Flying keyword because birds can fly (seems really damn obvious now but hard as a creative).
The typical health system is replaced with Level. Reaching level four represents you losing the game instead, but the non-JP TCGs typically use our health dropping to zero, our own mortality to represent a loss in the game.
To get the people to play something so convoluted and awkward, the fandom, themes, similarity with other franchises are all very important factors. But perhaps using these abstract rules can facilitate bringing universes that have nothing to do with each other, together, or that it is simply an evolution from Yugioh and other existing card games.
Anyhow. Da Capo girls. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Never played the Visual Novel but loved one of their OST very much: Small Cherry ~promised bell~. The randomly created music deck also felt really fun and simple, with lots of power boosts and soul damage. The victories against AI helps me move onto another week of watching my coworkers getting harassed by customers <3