I am considering getting into netrunner but there are a few things I need to find out.
First is how the online community is towards new players
Second is what things do I need to get started beyond the core set.
Are there any good sites that give descriptions of each faction and play style?
Thank you for your help and I know these questions get asked all the time
Take a look at cardgamedb.com (now owned by Fantsy Flight), it has answers to all these questions and more. You may also be interested in looking on https://boardgamegeek.com/forums/thing/124742/android-netrunner . And to a lesser extent take a look at the Team Covenant website http://teamcovenant.com/read/ . I recommended reading quite a bit before taking the plunge and also ensure there is a dedicated play group in your area.
I live in Portland Oregon. There are events going in everywhere it seems. . .
Any thoughts on the difficulty of each faction?
The factions play very differently, and there's a lot of variation within each faction, plus the lines are blurred even further by the ability to mix and match out-of-faction cards to shore up your weaknesses. So bear in mind when we talk about styles, we're talking about strengths and weaknesses within the faction card pools, not necessarily decks built from that faction.
So, broadly speaking:
Anarch tends to be a bit low on cash flow but focuses on monkeywrenching the corp's plans. If a card just blows up a corp card either in hand, out of the deck, or off the board, that's probably Anarch.
Criminal tends to play a bit more controllish, by denying the corporation resources, stealing their money, and shutting down the cards they paid to activate. They can often shift their angle of attack fairly dramatically depending on how the corp reacts.
Shaper is fairly straightforward. They build a rig of solid cards and then go kick down the corp's door with it. They specialize in tutoring and recursion of those solid cards, to keep their rig in top shape.
Weyland: the corporation that hates you unconditionally. More than any other corp, they like to just straight up murder the runner. When they're not blowing up city blocks or sending hired goons, they defend their servers with beefy barriers that tend to be expensive no matter what rig you have.
Haas Bioroid specializes in cash flow and time efficiency. Like Weyland, they have relatively beefy protective cards, and also have the most recursion from the archives.
NBN is hard to pin down. Tagging the runner and sheer speed are their strengths, though possibly more than any other corp, what use they put those abilities to is very dependent on what they bring in from outside.
Jinteki is somewhat inscrutable. The most difficult faction to truly play well, they specialize in wasting the runner's time, and then taking advantage of those delays to score their points. While this requires a lot of thinking ahead and exquisite timing, the result is a maddening experience for the runner...who can wind up dead if they're not careful, and give the game away if they're too careful.
Overall, one aspect of Netrunner that isn't always present in other games is amount of "Player Agency" it presents. You have options galore. In Magic, or Hearthstone, or Game of Thrones, what plays are open to you and what the good move would be is usually apparent.
In Netrunner, you can draw more cards at will, play cards in anticipation of potential threats, choose where to attack and where to defend, gather resources at will. And what the correct play is can shift in a moment if your opponent does something unexpected between your last turn and your next. I find it very exciting and mentally stimulating
I have seen that issue in MTG. Being able to predict plays or what will occur in the next few turns is not hard to do.
So netrunner mitigates that by adding in actions, choices, consequences, and bluffing. . .
Relatively good if a little bit dated. Caissa programs turned out to be pretty unimpressive, but good flavor.
If I object to anything, it's that the post blurs the lines between the mechanics vs. the theme of the various factions.
For example, the runner factions by theme are grouped by motivation: Anarchs view the corps as an enemy to be fought, Criminals are in it for the money, and Shapers are striving for technical achievement and a love of problem solving.
That lore does inform the mechanics of the various factions, but it doesn't translate directly in all cases.
Relatively good if a little bit dated. Caissa programs turned out to be pretty unimpressive, but good flavor.
If I object to anything, it's that the post blurs the lines between the mechanics vs. the theme of the various factions.
For example, the runner factions by theme are grouped by motivation: Anarchs view the corps as an enemy to be fought, Criminals are in it for the money, and Shapers are striving for technical achievement and a love of problem solving.
That lore does inform the mechanics of the various factions, but it doesn't translate directly in all cases.
I know where is a netrunner wiki on the lore. Is there any other good areas to look for lore wise?
The Android board game and novels.
The Netrunner community is world-class. I have seriously never met a more welcoming online community. I have seen disagreements and the like, but generally it is handled with a lot more dignity than you tend to find on the internet. Every event I have gone to has been welcoming and friendly. I have even seen videos where a new player made it to the camera match and the announcer went "Woah, he doesn't have this promo yet. Let's find a way to get him a playset of those".
If you want to learn a lot about the game quickly I recommend the Netrunner reddit and Stimhack. They are great resources for discussion and top tier play.
The Android board game and novels.
Mostly the novels and there are some tidbits and story in the expansion packs.
I have stumbled upon this one YouTube channel that does some Andriod lorewalking.
Its the best (bluff) card game i ever played (not counting tradicional card games of course). I played the old Wizards version with a couple of friends since its launch and we never stopped. A couple of months ago we moved into this one. The old system was based in Cyberpunk 2020 from R. Talsorian Games RPG (which i also played) but since FFG bought the license they adapted it to the Android universe (which fits nicely). You will love this Lyraeus.
Edited by KentaresHave been testing the waters of the various FFG LCGs and this post, and its responses, have me wanting to give Netrunner a go.
Funny enough a friend of mine just asked me to start this with him today, so this thread was useful. I'll check out the recommended links
Willingdone has some good videos on YouTube that are newbie friendly. Especially with the learning curve and complexity so high it is nice to have a step ladder to explain some of the bassics of NetRunner that is not covered in the tutorial video or rulebook.