what is the lf5?

what is the lf5?

Proof that this forum settings don't allow to correct errors in thread titles.

All I could say is that, besides making FFG aware that the L5R Community is pretty protective of the franchise and they should not screw up, judging without basis of scrutiny is pretty useless. I'm seriously praying that this turns out well because I stopped playing for years, and this could be the perfect time to start playing again.

I threw out all my CCG's when I discovered LCG's. L5R one was of my favorite games but I hated the collectible aspect of it. The FFG LCG's have been great, so I am very excited about this!

All I could say is that, besides making FFG aware that the L5R Community is pretty protective of the franchise and they should not screw up, judging without basis of scrutiny is pretty useless. I'm seriously praying that this turns out well because I stopped playing for years, and this could be the perfect time to start playing again.

The absolute best thing that could happen to FFG's L5R for its long term health would be those players who are "pretty protective" of the franchise ragequitting early enough for them to build a playerbase without a decade of baggage and ridiculous expectations from the company.

for its long term health

3-4 years?

I first heard about L5R years ago. I was tempted to play it but never did due to it noting being sold in my area and it was during a time period where it seemed like every week a new CCG was coming out or dying.

It was when the Death at Koten comic came out that I got interested in the game and bought some starters. I instantly fell in love with the game and played for a few years. Unfortunately life came up and my play group went their seperate ways. At the time I was tempted to continue buying but, due to the high costs of CCGs, I just stopped buying it. I still followed it though.

I have no idea of the new version of L5R will go over well with my current group. Knowing the kinds of games they like I am doubtful they will. It is why I really hope that they have a single player variant for this game.

Despite that, if I like this game, I still plan to buy all of the expansions because of the LCG model. If they made it a CCG again, I wouldn't spend a dime. A couple of years ago I decided that I would never invest in another CCG style game. I refuse to even try them to avoid the temptation of buying one starter and a booster. It never ends with one.

Legend of the Five Rings was, and is, a unique beast in that degree. Its factionalism is at once the best, and the worst, part of the game. It creates the amazing community (which still persists!), but it also creates the inherent barrier to entry. What is described as a problem with LCGs is not something inherent to the distribution model. It is partially design, and partially community. And that is the challenge FFG is facing. How do they leverage the power of L5R's factionalism without letting that hold the game back.

One way to answer that would be to ask... what do you think caused that scenario? Personally, I don't think (like other seem to) that the L5R players are somehow made of a better stuff (or just cooler) that players of other games. That's plainly a self-congratulaty notion because most those players do play other games.

IMO faction loyalty boils to three factors: #1) The existence of actual factions, duh! #2) Game interactivity with players, and #3) FICTION! #1 is just obvious, and #2 and #3 reinforce each other. #2 is exactly what happens is any of these crappy reality shows, where you vote week after week for your contestant and you end feeling you have a vested interest in him/her (even years after the show ended). But that alone doesn't cut it, and that's were #3 comes in: Fiction makes that loyalty to pay off. By making you witness of you faction victories and defeats, and presenting conflicting points of view and reactions to an in-world reality, you keep reinforce that psychological bound when it would otherwise disappear. Not that this happens with every player, maybe not even with a majority of players, but at least with enough of them that they create a critical mass of players that keep supporting the game even when all the rest of factors (game play, management decisions, marketing moves, or even outright suicidal PR stances) fail in a way it would kill another game. Again, that critical mass of loyal customers, that would keep buying product (at least to keep up with their faction) even when it was unplayable for several years in a row, is what made L5R viable for so long.

AEG accidentally hit a gold mine with this formula, and this is the reason they were able to keep the game going for so long, being forgiven once and again for egregious mistakes that would have killed other, bigger games. FFG only needs to keep hitting those 3 buttons and they have a guaranteed success. Also they know they will have considerable leeway to make their own mistakes. We can only hope history tells them that leeway is not unlimited.

As an aside, other considerations like release format (CCG or LCG), or a satisfactory competitive scene has no bearing on the issue of faction loyalty. That's not the same as saying those don't matter; they simple run on different vectors. And they are very important too, as loyalty alone won't sustain a game as we well know..

The LCG format gives it a fighting chance in a changing marketplace. It does the work of putting the game in the hands of new prospective players better than a CCG. Leaving aside us, the old players, who will end up buying the required 2-3 core sets (either full-in on release day, or grudgingly over the course of several weeks or months), the Core Set allows an affordable investment to new players. Most of these, hopefully will become commited players and part of the community, but even if they don't, the community will still benefit. I have read somewhere else (I honestly can locate the quote right now; maybe it was in this very forum) that there is a percentage of buyers that will never buy beyond the Core. That's not because they don't like the game; they simply aren't the kind of gamers who commit to one game and go to tournaments; they just will add them to their game library and will play it ocassionally as its own self-contained thing, never once looking at the monthly packs and, only maybe, to the faction centered "deluxe" boxes. This just didn't happen with a CCG, not in any meaningful measure at least. And while you may think this kind of player doesn't add to the community, it is not so. These kind of sales from the Core Set keep happening over the life of the game, and they finance the game line, which ultimately benefits the community.

Also, I hope that the new LCG, despite all extensive and deep fixes it needs, is recognizable as L5R. I can't really say what deal-breaker would be. Would it not be L5R if it was single deck instead of two decks, the three victory conditions, etc? I don't know, really... Probably it would be an accumulation of things. I only want to pass near a table of people playing and be able to tell it is L5R. Otherwise, it would be Another Game Set in Rokugan (which I'd buy into anyway, but it would have no business calling itself L5R). I'm expecting a makeover more in the line of WotC Netrunner/Android Netrunner or AGOT/AGOT2E.

As for the tournament scene, I hope they manage to create a structure that is satisfactory both for casual players who want to compete at their store, anf for those who would are willing (and have the means) to travel to other countries and continents to top level events. While FFG systems don't seem to be yet there, I'm very encouraged to see they keep making changest, and even more encouraged to see they are willing to learn from mistakes and adapt as they go.

As far as tournament structure, I'd be really please if they kept top of Clan prizes or recognition at least.

I also hope it's best 2/3

I also hope it's best 2/3

I agree, as long as the average duration of a game is not over 45 minutes...

[sndwurks's awesome reply here]

WHOAH! This was super detailed and informative. Thank you so much!!!

I agree, as long as the average duration of a game is not over 45 minutes...

Really? I'm rather hoping the average duration doesn't fall under 45 minutes, and even that's sort of pushing it. (One of the frustrating things about going to the two Koteis I attended was facing a couple "I enlighten on turn 5!" Dragon decks.)

I agree, as long as the average duration of a game is not over 45 minutes...

Really? I'm rather hoping the average duration doesn't fall under 45 minutes, and even that's sort of pushing it. (One of the frustrating things about going to the two Koteis I attended was facing a couple "I enlighten on turn 5!" Dragon decks.)

It's not that I want all my games to last less than 45 minutes. My post was answering a post about tournament being best of 3 each round. I cannot agree to that if the average duration of a game is around ah hour...

You cannot compare a number of turns with a duration in minutes. It all depends of flow of the game. I've seen games in AGoT that lasted 3 turns in 40 minutes.

I've seen L5R CCG games with 6 turns in 15 minutes. Personnally, I don't care about playing 3, 4 or 12 turns, as long as a game is not more than an hour. LCG games should only go over the one hour limit when playing multiplayer.

I agree, as long as the average duration of a game is not over 45 minutes...

Really? I'm rather hoping the average duration doesn't fall under 45 minutes, and even that's sort of pushing it. (One of the frustrating things about going to the two Koteis I attended was facing a couple "I enlighten on turn 5!" Dragon decks.)

It's not that I want all my games to last less than 45 minutes. My post was answering a post about tournament being best of 3 each round. I cannot agree to that if the average duration of a game is around ah hour...

You cannot compare a number of turns with a duration in minutes. It all depends of flow of the game. I've seen games in AGoT that lasted 3 turns in 40 minutes.

I've seen L5R CCG games with 6 turns in 15 minutes. Personnally, I don't care about playing 3, 4 or 12 turns, as long as a game is not more than an hour. LCG games should only go over the one hour limit when playing multiplayer.

No, turns don't directly equate to minutes, but the first few turns of L5R are always going to be rather short, as there simply isn't much you can do when the table is empty.

You do bring up a good point about tournaments, though, as I hadn't even considered those. I'd still rather have just one or two long games casually than several shorter games.

You do bring up a good point about tournaments, though, as I hadn't even considered those. I'd still rather have just one or two long games casually than several shorter games.

Well, the people who're more in favor of best-of-three think so because in the L5R CCG, you could get gold-screwed and most of the time, you wouldn't be able to get back into the game against an opponent with a good gold start.

I'm very confident in FFG's capability to design new rules which would avoid that. If you can't get gold-screwed, and your average game is around 30-45 minutes, you don't need best-of-three.

You do bring up a good point about tournaments, though, as I hadn't even considered those. I'd still rather have just one or two long games casually than several shorter games.

Well, the people who're more in favor of best-of-three think so because in the L5R CCG, you could get gold-screwed and most of the time, you wouldn't be able to get back into the game against an opponent with a good gold start.

I'm very confident in FFG's capability to design new rules which would avoid that. If you can't get gold-screwed, and your average game is around 30-45 minutes, you don't need best-of-three.

In card games you can have resource/gold/land screw or just useless/totally wrong opening hand. FFG games use one of the worst mulligan method (replacing whole hand once) and it's only partial solution. It's really disappointing that in top rounds of even continental level tourneys you still can loose only because you're screwed by opening hand. Best of three is an option to minimialize such things.

You do bring up a good point about tournaments, though, as I hadn't even considered those. I'd still rather have just one or two long games casually than several shorter games.

Well, the people who're more in favor of best-of-three think so because in the L5R CCG, you could get gold-screwed and most of the time, you wouldn't be able to get back into the game against an opponent with a good gold start.

I'm very confident in FFG's capability to design new rules which would avoid that. If you can't get gold-screwed, and your average game is around 30-45 minutes, you don't need best-of-three.

In card games you can have resource/gold/land screw or just useless/totally wrong opening hand. FFG games use one of the worst mulligan method (replacing whole hand once) and it's only partial solution. It's really disappointing that in top rounds of even continental level tourneys you still can loose only because you're screwed by opening hand. Best of three is an option to minimialize such things.

Yes, OK, but I still don't want best-of-three if games last each more than an hour.

You do bring up a good point about tournaments, though, as I hadn't even considered those. I'd still rather have just one or two long games casually than several shorter games.

Well, the people who're more in favor of best-of-three think so because in the L5R CCG, you could get gold-screwed and most of the time, you wouldn't be able to get back into the game against an opponent with a good gold start.

I'm very confident in FFG's capability to design new rules which would avoid that. If you can't get gold-screwed, and your average game is around 30-45 minutes, you don't need best-of-three.

In card games you can have resource/gold/land screw or just useless/totally wrong opening hand. FFG games use one of the worst mulligan method (replacing whole hand once) and it's only partial solution. It's really disappointing that in top rounds of even continental level tourneys you still can loose only because you're screwed by opening hand. Best of three is an option to minimialize such things.

In Star Wars: Destiny, you can mulligan 0 to 5 (starting hand size) before game starts. That's an FFG game.

In card games you can have resource/gold/land screw or just useless/totally wrong opening hand. FFG games use one of the worst mulligan method (replacing whole hand once) and it's only partial solution. It's really disappointing that in top rounds of even continental level tourneys you still can loose only because you're screwed by opening hand. Best of three is an option to minimialize such things.

In Star Wars: Destiny, you can mulligan 0 to 5 (starting hand size) before game starts. That's an FFG game.

And in Arkham Horror LCG, which is cooperative. FFG's new mulligan rules in these games show a willingness to learn and grow with the evolving times.

Yeah, this partial mulligan sounds promising. I've enjoyed it in The Spoils for 8 years or something.

Never been a fan of mulligans. I completely understand why people like them and use them but I've always found those underdog victories to be among the most exhilarating.

1 hour ago, TechnoGolem said:

Never been a fan of mulligans. I completely understand why people like them and use them but I've always found those underdog victories to be among the most exhilarating.

Except where most of those games where your opening hand is a bunch of great late-game actions and you lose before you even play. Nothing says you HAVE to mulligan. You play with what you draw, I will mulligan in to a better hand. Good luck with that.

On 1/20/2017 at 11:06 AM, kempy said:

In card games you can have resource/gold/land screw or just useless/totally wrong opening hand. FFG games use one of the worst mulligan method (replacing whole hand once) and it's only partial solution. It's really disappointing that in top rounds of even continental level tourneys you still can loose only because you're screwed by opening hand. Best of three is an option to minimialize such things.

What's wrong with replacing the whole hand once? If you go much further than that, you may as well just let the player select his starting hand.

3 hours ago, TechnoGolem said:

Never been a fan of mulligans. I completely understand why people like them and use them but I've always found those underdog victories to be among the most exhilarating.

I can understand this, but I also know it can be quite frustrating to have an entire game lost from the beginning just because of a poor start.

The necessity of the Mulligan rule goes hand-in-hand with the size of the hand and the curve of the game.

If your resources curve (like in MtG, L5R CCG, Hearthstone,among others), you need to have a mulligan available unless you want players to play only a couple of late game cards in their decks.

If you have a "plot" economy (like in AGoT) where you choose how much gold you have each turn, having high-cost cards in your starting hand becomes more bearable. Of course having an 8- or 5-, or even 3-cards hand makes a lot of difference.

I like to have the option of Mulligan available to me. It's even better if you can have a partial one, but that's another matter.

and of course, you can always lower the necessity of Mulligan when you build your deck better, but that's a debate that could go up in flames as well.

How about we wait on the mulligan rule before debating on it when there's very few leaks so far?