I can see your friends point of view, but don't agree with it on the whole.

1. There have been some "you lose" cards in the past, and will probably be more in the future, but in general it seems Caleb & Matt put a lot more thought into the encounter deck and look for interactions that hurt the players rather than a single bad effect.

2. Because this is a game where the encounter deck cannot react to what the players are doing per se, the designers must meta-game the encounter deck to beat the players. If they didn't the game would grow stale quickly. Of course this does have the effect of making the players change their decks (and buy more cards), but the overall business model is still very favorable to the player compared to the CCG model. (Who wants to play the same deck through the entire standard season anyway?)

I'm glad you're still playing!

Oh, I still love the game! When I have free time I play it every chance I get (really loving the Silvan concepts right now). I understand the financial end of things for my friend because he is definately having some hard economic times right now. As for my other two friends, I really don't understant the resistance to modifying your decks for the particular quest you will be playing against, but I have beat that horse to death with him and I have grown tired of his refusal to accept that as a reality of the game. My last friend who quit because of getting screwed over by one card......I have tried to explain to him the game has changed quite a bit under Caleb and it alot more fun than when we played with the will power quest, battle, defense, rinse and repeat. I have even mentioned easy mode to him and he has sounded like he is more willing to try the game again. But I doubt he will get heavily involved like he did in the first cycle of expansion releases.

veteran players prefer MECCG because it did it much better anyway.

MECCG is not only a better game it is one of THE BEST card games ever made.. and that has nothing to do with it being LoTR. I'm not a Tolkien fanboy, but man that game is GOOD!

Ahh, no. edit, IMHO.

Though an enjoyable game for the most part, I have to - reluctantly - agree with the person who said the biggest block to buying into the game is the unique design. Because its a cooperative game centered around a new encounter, customers get half the persistent value with this game compared to other lcgs. For the most part, the quests are playable only a handful of times, and there's zero incentive to double up on packs for 1-3 specific player cards when at least 50% of the deck is redundant (read:worthless) in multiples.

For Tyberius: your friends are correct. One-card random flips that wreck the whole game IS shoddy design, but I haven't seen that happen in a while. My guess is it was probably due to a lack of adequate playtesting, or perhaps a philosophy that screwing the player should just be part of the challenge.

Looking at FFG LCG plays this month on BGG you get:

Android: Netrunner: 2158

Lord of the RIngs: 994

Warhammer Conquest: 613

Star Wars: 275

Game of Thrones: 122

Call of Cthulhu: 56

People are playing LotR more than everything but Netrunner. They just may not be playing at a store near you. The lack of a competitive game scene may mean everyone is playing at home.

At my Spanish local store, they told me this game is doing quite well - the most sold Lcg, only after A Game of Thrones.

I have asked this question already but perhaps something has changed:

does anyone have the latest FFG In Flight Report? It was available for the previous years, but this year it seems FFG is unwilling to post it online (despite presenting it on one of the major game conventions)

I have asked this question already but perhaps something has changed:

does anyone have the latest FFG In Flight Report? It was available for the previous years, but this year it seems FFG is unwilling to post it online (despite presenting it on one of the major game conventions)

TC has it

http://teamcovenant.com/blog/2014/08/25/fantasy-flights-inflight-report-2014/

I think it's the difficulty. In order to progress you need to spend more time working on the perfect deck than you do actually playing the game; and this is what is causing my weekly group to start looking at other games, even though we are less than half way through the stuff we have bought.

this is what CCGs are all about. spending more time building decks than actually playing. tabletop RPGs are very similar - you spend more time thinking about character creation, leveling up, etc, than actually playing.

if you complain about the deck building aspect of a game based on cards, then IMHO, a CCG is not the right type of game for you.

Whilst I agree it depends what you define as a deck building aspect. I love deck building but by this I mean the refining/constant scrutiny of the two decks I play with and that I'm always trying to upgrade/improve them with new cards that are released or even older cards I've finally decided to use.

This takes a lot less time and energy than building a new deck for every quest that's released or building new decks every time you play and is also very different.

Also I spend far far far more time playing the game than building decks considering I use the same two decks always and only sometimes will make changes to them.

Personally I would find it incredibly boring to play the same decks all the time. The deck building is a major plus for me as I love playing a scenario blind and getting stomped, trying to think about what I need and hanging the deck to make it a little farther before getting stomped again and repeating until I can beat it.

I have to agree with 7theye, Dain Ironfoot. I would go absolutely bloody crazy if I played the same two decks every game. (plus or minus the 3 cards you swap out) Makes me think of the 'other games' and the 'must win' each time mentality. I love banging my head into the wall now and then. That's how you learn. Well, most of the time.

Having said that - I like what you have put together and actually am going to use them. Once or twice. Then go back to banging my head against the wall until I get it right; a different way. I'm not nagging on you, seriously, but I don't see the point. To each his own, and I can fathom your happiness with your creations. But why, oh why, in bloody hell did I buy all the rest of these cards.

Enough of that.

I think for all we mid-aged, or in my case a might bit older, that the game fits us. And not 'all' of us are older. Go over and listen to the guys on "The Grey Company Podcast.." Younger folk with a great love of the game. I think it really 'is' healthy.

I think the developers have done a wonderful job, except forgetting to play-test the Hobbit Sagas. But recently they have really hit the nail on the head. TBR is absolutely fantastic.

I'm done here, other than to say; our niche will continue to buy and play this game until the the last spider in Mirkwood is under our boot.

Cheers.

FFG forgot to play-test the Hobbit sagas?

FFG forgot to play-test the Hobbit sagas?

Disbelief or sarcasm. Hard to tell. I'll go with sarcasm.

Yep. IMHO. Some nice cards. Some of the worst scenarios I've seen. But then again, while I can beat 'most' scenarios after the head banging, I also have a tendency to get smashed by The Dead Marshes. Don't ask me why. It just doesn't like me. I also haven't played Osgiliath, Laketown, or the other that escapes me right now. The Morgul Vale kicked my butt for some time too, but as I stated, these last sets have been a lot of fun, though I'm not a fan of Amon Din or Blood of Gonder.

Cheers.

Haven't played the Hobbit Saga… but I've never lost to The Dead Marshes. It's the only scenario I've never lost so far (have played the Core and Mirkwood scenarios well over 200 times now). But that having been said, I have yet to play anything beyond the Mirkwood cycle.

Given your poor record vs. The Dead Marshes, dizpatcher, I can only hope that maybe I'll have exceptional luck when I finally get around to playing the Hobbit saga quests… :-)

I'm a solo player. That (and that it was Lord of the Rings) is why I bought the game because I can sit at home on an evening or rainy weekend and play. I probably only get a multi-player game once or twice a year at best because most of my friends aren't interested. They would rather play Magic or Star Wars LCG.

I am one of those players who wants to build a single deck and run through everything with that deck. When something fails I do swap cards out but I try to keep the same heroes only swapping out when/if they get get killed but I succeed at the quest. I know its not the best way to do it but it feels thematic.

As for the scenario difficulty I still feel that for solo play many of them are just crazy. I have only beaten the Hobbit troll quest (name escapes me right now) once solo since that box set came out and that was purely by luck. I still can't complete Escape From Dol Guldor. I appreciate that FFG need to keep challenge up and that they focus more on the multi-player balance but it is still frustrating.

These days I tend to test out potential house rules to make solo play both fairer and more interesting while trying to maintain some level of challenge. What I have now works well for my play style but would be too easy for most I think.

Beating We Must Away, Ere Break of Day is easy. Beating it while obtaining the treasures is hard because it's heavily dependant on luck.

I have asked this question already but perhaps something has changed:

does anyone have the latest FFG In Flight Report? It was available for the previous years, but this year it seems FFG is unwilling to post it online (despite presenting it on one of the major game conventions)

TC has it

http://teamcovenant.com/blog/2014/08/25/fantasy-flights-inflight-report-2014/

Great! Many thanks to you, 7theye.