we will be implementing significant design changes, but we will ensure that the spirit and emotional impact of Legend of the Five Rings remains intact <snip> by introducing a new mechanical design

This makes no sense. Why buy one of the most beloved games if your planning to change it so much. These designers can not wait to get their mitts on this to make their mark.. but I just do not get it.

I can understand a little tinkering.. like when AEG relaunched DOOMTOWN. but "significant design changes" ..... wow.. .this is scary stuff.

Because if this game was in a good state design wise, it wouldn't be sold.

Yes. Actually there are major design flaws inside the game. One for example is the recources management and the gold curve. Nothing what AEG did fixed this problem. A second one is the deck size and the percentage of card draw necassary as result to it. Than we have the loyality and clan Identity problem. We have a honor vs dishonor problem which leads to the fact that none deck can finish the game in time. We have rule problems the layers are a mess and the zones the game has are too. The resolution zone for example is so bad that it blanks the discard effect of the five elemental Rings. Also mechnic should not force people to play meta cards in every deck cause they can´t do other things against it (yeah I looking at you duelist trait)

there are many design errors which I hope FFG will change and while this will change the game I hope it will be evolve and be better than before. What Important for me is that they don´t change the setting and the story so we can keep our clans and the magical Samurai in this awesome empire called Rokugan but other than that I actually prefer design changes to that what we have now.

Why change it?

Because the only reason AEG was willing to sell it was that the long-term survival of the game as it was seemed to be in jeopardy.

We don't have the numbers, but let's face it- if L5R as it was stood to be profitable for AEG, they wouldn't have parted with it. They took a one-time lump sum payment to let FFG buy the IP because, presumably, things were dire enough that doing so made sense.

Than we have the loyality and clan Identity problem.

The what now?

There were many design aspects that couldn't be let go because it would have essentially invalidated every L5R card made up to that point, and we always tried to take into consideration that fact when deciding on any significant development changes.

FFG has stated they don't intend for their game to be mechanically compatible to Classic L5R in any way, so there are lots of things I am sure they will now have more freedom to address.

It is not scary it is the only way forward at this point. The brand needs to find more/new customers.

AEG tried to simplify the rules to attract them, but we all can see that Ivory backfired.

A re-design and a sales model which is more inviting is very important at this point so FFG makes everything right.

L5R is a fun game at it's core but it has a huge learning curve which is bad for the revenue and bad for the brand.

The economy for the game -stinks- i've loved L5R for years, but the economy stinks. One of the worst for any CCG or LCG out there. Gifts and Favors was a hard fix for it at one point and a card was universally praised for being such a good hard fix. Then it was such a necessity it came with every deck purchased or created. The funny thing is Gifts and Favors was aptly named. It said to me, Rokugan's economy was trashed and you had to borrow from the economy of your enemy just to play ball.

I dont want to get in the name and shame but certain design choices made seemed to be influenced by designers having love for certain factions over others and the power creep was so bad that you ended up with many cards banned or edited in an arc because this and this seemed to slip through, over and over allowing for a Legend of the three or sometimes even two turns one in a while. The game needed to go backwards on the power creep and not forwards, but as each edition cranked out, we just got more and more of it. Maybe not the best example, but it seemed like Clan champs had to be bigger and better than the one from the edition before. Instead of champs being more influential at the table or opening up more strategy, they just became bigger and bigger force/chi/keywords hacks.

So in that sense i'm looking forwards to whatever faceless FFG guy we get at the helm, if GOT has anything to say about how champs will end up.

Now the game had a lot of factions (Clans) and I liked how with each stronghold we often had meta and a playstyle that went with the stronghold or family, like Kakita dueling. But in competitions, Legend Of the Five turns would have match ups, that were so bad, and so meted, you knew you were losing before you even started. Sure you could have upsets on occasion, but many times, even a tier one deck at a Kotei, knew it was going to lose (or win) to a certain match up on turn 2, 3 or 4.

As another poster said above, but I will elaborate more: Duels look like fun when you start playing, but are often one-sided and not interactive at all. They should be a highlight of a game and the idea has the potential (Once in a while they were).

TLDR because a revamp will make better interactive game play, let us not forget ninja blitz, crab zerker blitz, goblin blitz, lion blitz and rat blitz and oni blitz all being in the same edition at one point. None of those decks gave a crap what was on the other side of the table; you either drew what you needed 2/3 times due to crappy economy mechanics and hoped you were not playing against your current meta-deck or you took a ****.

I have always enjoyed the L5R IP and picked up several pieces of the RPG over the years but I have never picked up the CCG. To much history, too many cards, and all the talk of rules issues and problems kept me away. The simple facts of a new starting point, small starting card pool, and the LCG format means you have a new player coming on board. I look forward to spending the next two years studying the clans and world to make more informed choices when the new core set releases.

we will be implementing significant design changes, but we will ensure that the spirit and emotional impact of Legend of the Five Rings remains intact <snip> by introducing a new mechanical design

This makes no sense. Why buy one of the most beloved games if your planning to change it so much. These designers can not wait to get their mitts on this to make their mark.. but I just do not get it.

I can understand a little tinkering.. like when AEG relaunched DOOMTOWN. but "significant design changes" ..... wow.. .this is scary stuff.

L5R is an old game with a lot of baggage. Since AEG didn't want a complete reboot to maintain compatibility that bagage stuck edition after edition. They tried to mend it many times. Just look at all the changes in duelling mechanics, starting gold and first player advantage throughout the years. I liked the game and the community a lot but everytime throughout a edition I lost interest. Which wasn't a bad thing seeing how Lotus ended :-)

The game certainly needs changes. I look forward to playing in the same world with streamlined rules. I hope they do as good a job as they did with streamlining Netrunner and creating a great game like Conquest.

There are kinks, yes-yes. The game would benefit from these kinks being ironed out.

This makes no sense. Why buy one of the most beloved games if your planning to change it so much. These designers can not wait to get their mitts on this to make their mark.. but I just do not get it.

I can understand a little tinkering.. like when AEG relaunched DOOMTOWN. but "significant design changes" ..... wow.. .this is scary stuff.

Don't worry. The FFG L5R LCG is being spearheaded by a man who was part of the L5R team back in it's WotC days. There is no need to worry, FFG love the game just as much as you do. They won't change it to become Call of Cthulhu 2.0 or Yugioh.

Hey that actually is one of the few guys who I would concider not problematic despite beeing conected to the old AEG staff cause I know that WOTC and people who work for it or worked for it kowing how to design rules and card Games. So I don´t fear changes cause I know they will be for the better.

So, basically the answer to this thread is: because the change is needed!

Bah don´t destroy the fun of discussion with simple facts.

Bah don´t destroy the fun of discussion with simple facts.

That all the people who play the game for a long time also speak out for a change is of course helpful, since it makes it clear that the player base want that change. Something AEG could not provide, sinc ethey had always to mind a contuniation, so some sacred cows lived through many editions for the slow iterations of change with each edition could not get rid of some underlying issue that can now simply be thrown out with a re-boot of the game.

This makes no sense. Why buy one of the most beloved games if your planning to change it so much. These designers can not wait to get their mitts on this to make their mark.. but I just do not get it.

I can understand a little tinkering.. like when AEG relaunched DOOMTOWN. but "significant design changes" ..... wow.. .this is scary stuff.

Don't worry. The FFG L5R LCG is being spearheaded by a man who was part of the L5R team back in it's WotC days. There is no need to worry, FFG love the game just as much as you do. They won't change it to become Call of Cthulhu 2.0 or Yugioh.

For those of us who played back during that time this is more a cause to be concerned than not concerned. WotC's run with the game was arguably the worst.

Not really. I can't remember his name, but he's been playing the game for almost 20 years. That's a highly intimate knowledge of the game's mechanics. Add in his years at FFG and their method of designing card games and board games, that is a fantastic skill set to take advantage of.

People hated at first what FFG were doing to Netrunner, but look at it now. ANR LCG was designed by fans of the game and they adapted FFG's methods of development and design to great effect.

This makes no sense. Why buy one of the most beloved games if your planning to change it so much. These designers can not wait to get their mitts on this to make their mark.. but I just do not get it.

I can understand a little tinkering.. like when AEG relaunched DOOMTOWN. but "significant design changes" ..... wow.. .this is scary stuff.

Don't worry. The FFG L5R LCG is being spearheaded by a man who was part of the L5R team back in it's WotC days. There is no need to worry, FFG love the game just as much as you do. They won't change it to become Call of Cthulhu 2.0 or Yugioh.

For those of us who played back during that time this is more a cause to be concerned than not concerned. WotC's run with the game was arguably the worst.

I brought this up elsewhere, but also mentioned it might not be a good forecast for what's to come.

He was also brand manager at AEG when they took over for Gold Edition, which was a very different approach from Jade, from what I understand.

He may have been subject to demands from the bosses at WotC that impacted the game in negative ways.

He also has bosses at FFG, of course, but hopefully the impacts will be different.

Also, I believe his actual job is SVP of Communications or some such, and FFG is a big company. He probably won't do double duty as brand manager. He *is* one of the bosses now, in a manner of speaking at least.

Maybe they'll start handing out those T-Shirts you used to get at L5R events back in the WoTC days. I think I still have that purple Hitomi one somewhere....

Ah yeah WOTC merchandise was great all the time. When I think at Magic i really loved the banners, t shirts and things yout got from prereleases. Allways usefull stuff and I hope FFG will do this too.

This makes no sense. Why buy one of the most beloved games if your planning to change it so much. These designers can not wait to get their mitts on this to make their mark.. but I just do not get it.

I can understand a little tinkering.. like when AEG relaunched DOOMTOWN. but "significant design changes" ..... wow.. .this is scary stuff.

Don't worry. The FFG L5R LCG is being spearheaded by a man who was part of the L5R team back in it's WotC days. There is no need to worry, FFG love the game just as much as you do. They won't change it to become Call of Cthulhu 2.0 or Yugioh.

For those of us who played back during that time this is more a cause to be concerned than not concerned. WotC's run with the game was arguably the worst.

I brought this up elsewhere, but also mentioned it might not be a good forecast for what's to come.

He was also brand manager at AEG when they took over for Gold Edition, which was a very different approach from Jade, from what I understand.

He may have been subject to demands from the bosses at WotC that impacted the game in negative ways.

He also has bosses at FFG, of course, but hopefully the impacts will be different.

Also, I believe his actual job is SVP of Communications or some such, and FFG is a big company. He probably won't do double duty as brand manager. He *is* one of the bosses now, in a manner of speaking at least.

I am fully expecting a different experience from FFG.

Cautious Optimism is the best view.

Anyone who thinks that the L5R LCG is going to be compatable with the L5R CCG is going to be suprised. I expect a complete redesign and evaluation of the game that Honestly AEG could never have done.

- Consider what Wizkids did with battletech when they made mechwarrior. It will resemble the game and be in the same universe but it will not be the same game.