14 minutes ago, Daner0023 said:

I've watched Conquest, that game has an involved Battle system that could be morphed into a L5R Battle system.

Same way as L5R/LBS system morphed into Conquest one.

At the beginning there was a speculation that newL5R will be based on Conquest becasue of incoming doom of the game (after Asmodee fusion and total slowdown of 40K releases). Even Conquest's LD (Brad) was probably moved into L5R team.

Anyway, i'm against any copying of other mechanics even if i've found Conquest most enjoyable of all FFG card games.

Keep it similiar as original as it's is possible or do something completely new.

1 hour ago, kempy said:

Anyway, i'm against any copying of other mechanics even if i've found Conquest most enjoyable of all FFG card games.

Keep it similiar as original as it's is possible or do something completely new.

seconded. if they don't go the netrunner route and LCGize the original mechanics, then i'd hope they do something totally different.

1 hour ago, kempy said:

Same way as L5R/LBS system morphed into Conquest one.

At the beginning there was a speculation that newL5R will be based on Conquest becasue of incoming doom of the game (after Asmodee fusion and total slowdown of 40K releases). Even Conquest's LD (Brad) was probably moved into L5R team.

Anyway, i'm against any copying of other mechanics even if i've found Conquest most enjoyable of all FFG card games.

Keep it similiar as original as it's is possible or do something completely new.

Conquest has shared planets for military battles and resource procurement.

We know that doesn't feel like L5R, but Objective Cards in SWLCG does feel like Provinces.

Conquest's Battle System does look a lot like something L5R's reiteration could use to some extent.

We certainly don't want a watered down Battle System like MTG.

Well, to be honest....

If there are things that all FFG card games have in common, and those elements work very well, and the designers know how to handle those elements quite well-- I would say it is quite likely we will see those elements repeated in the design of this new version of L5R.

And, similarly, if we see that all FFG made RPGs have some similar elements, and those elements work well and the designers have a good handle on how to do that... I imagine we will see such things repeated in any new L5R Rpg.

I just don't see a whole lot of benefit of making the game massively different from what the designers of the game do and do very well. If they try to do mechanics that are well outside of their wheelhouse, those will be unintuitive to them and may do a poor job as a result-- understandably so. Since the game is supposed to start really being released in about 6 months, I am sure that all the decisions regarding how the game will function at its core have already been made.

I do wish we had a better idea on what the system might look like at this point. Right now all guesses on the system have to either be based on the old system... or have to assume it will be just like other FFG card games.

50 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Well, to be honest....

If there are things that all FFG card games have in common, and those elements work very well, and the designers know how to handle those elements quite well-- I would say it is quite likely we will see those elements repeated in the design of this new version of L5R.

And, similarly, if we see that all FFG made RPGs have some similar elements, and those elements work well and the designers have a good handle on how to do that... I imagine we will see such things repeated in any new L5R Rpg.

I just don't see a whole lot of benefit of making the game massively different from what the designers of the game do and do very well. If they try to do mechanics that are well outside of their wheelhouse, those will be unintuitive to them and may do a poor job as a result-- understandably so. Since the game is supposed to start really being released in about 6 months, I am sure that all the decisions regarding how the game will function at its core have already been made.

I do wish we had a better idea on what the system might look like at this point. Right now all guesses on the system have to either be based on the old system... or have to assume it will be just like other FFG card games.

I think we will start to see some articles and images in April or May.

I think to your point, if we look at what L5R was and what FFG currently does, it's likely we could speculate with some accuracy what they intend to do with the LCG. I think we can more accurately predict the gameplay mechanics than the storyline or relevance the story will play with Organized Play.

Daner0023, I agree with your assessment that FFG will use what they have learned from their other games and incorporate some of those mechanics into L5R. AGoT was my first thought as well.

A great example of this is what they've done with Arkham Horror. It's easy to see some of the similarities it shares with LotR, yet it is not the same game while being a much better game, imho, by using what they've learned.

About the only thing I'm not convinced of the idoneity of FFG's formula for their LCGs is that usually the cards in their core and deluxe sets are designed to be "eternally" legal. I hope they have taken L5R storyline based peculiarities into account so that, for instance, long dead champions and other named characters don't remain in the pool forever. I mean, I know that under AEG we got characters dead right at the beginning of an arc (even before the set they were printed was released), being still played three years later, but we knew they would be gone eventually, come next arc.

It wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me, but still I'd rather they realize that, unlike AGOT, where they keep (and probably will keep) printing versions of dead characters like Eddard Stark, because they are just borrowing from a story that is being told in another media, the L5R card game should be the original source of stories and, as such, card legality/rotation should try to follow that storytelling logic.

I wonder how all these FFG enthusiasts who blamed AEG for drastic gold system changes in Ivory (to the point they left game) will swallow a fact that such familiar system will be probably also part of newL5R (this time with tokens instead holdings)?

3 hours ago, kempy said:

I wonder how all these FFG enthusiasts who blamed AEG for drastic gold system changes in Ivory (to the point they left game) will swallow a fact that such familiar system will be probably also part of newL5R (this time with tokens instead holdings)?

I think the important thing is a stable Gold system that accelerates the game into mid game quickly.

Games where you are Gold screwed or Editions that had slow Gold ramping could create negative play experiences.

44 minutes ago, Daner0023 said:

I think the important thing is a stable Gold system that accelerates the game into mid game quickly.

Games where you are Gold screwed or Editions that had slow Gold ramping could create negative play experiences.

These people were not afraid of gold screw/overflow, they played that game before when such things were much more common, they were upset of whole gold pooling idea.

Forgotten Legacy stabilized gold system to the point it was not a problem anymore (mechanically, i'm not talking about specifi cards that degenerated it).

17 minutes ago, kempy said:

These people were not afraid of gold screw/overflow, they played that game before when such things were much more common, they were upset of whole gold pooling idea.

Forgotten Legacy stabilized gold system to the point it was not a problem anymore (mechanically, i'm not talking about specifi cards that degenerated it).

I understood what you were saying.

The point I was making is that easy to understand, stable resource production is more important than traditional mechanics.

If players don't want to play because the game isn't an exact replica can continue to play Big Deck or something.

The important thing for FFG is to create a game that the rules get out of the way quickly so that card interactions and player skill determines the winner.

Modern game design is based on easy game systems with high level strategy functions.

I'm going to boldly state, right now for the record, that the cards will be printed on some kind of thin cardstock, almost certainly colored with a variety of printed inks, and contained in a box largely made of cardboard. There may - or may not - be tokens included.

Not to brag, but I'm sure I'm right about this.

To be fair, I think a rework was needed. My opinion, based on having played virtually every major arc besides Emperor Edition, and having kept up with the game (and metagame) for the duration of its history, is that some of the mechanics were simply too difficult to balance around effectively.

An example of this can be found in what I call the "first province dilemma". Anyone who played through Ivory Edition, after power levels dropped considerably, knows that when all power levels of cards are equally low, the first person to take a province wins. This was a fundamental "problem" with the mechanics of the game for pretty much the entire run of the game.

In the first incarnation of L5R, there were some solutions to this dilemma. Cards like Iaijutsu Duel ensured that even if you lost the first province, you could get enough value from one action to counteract the snowball effect of reduced resources from your provinces. The problem was that some of the cards during this era were COMPLETELY overpowered (Inheritance, Crushing Attack), which led to ubiquity of play. I can remember days where you said "I'm going to play an attack deck", and you pulled out Inheritance, Imperial Gift, 3 Small Farms, 3 Merchant Caravans, 3 Sneak Attacks, 3 Deadly Grounds, 3 Crushing Attacks, and your clan sword and Armor, and said "OK, now what?"

I think the design team intended to temper the value of those particular cards, but instead of making viable secondary alternatives, they just reduced the number of powerful cards altogether. Instead of creating a more diverse metagame, this just made cards like Overwhelmed the "new" ubiquitous cards. And the whole time, the problem was the same, and players were just using whatever tools they had to fix it. This is true for every arc that I can think of. The fundamental problem was always "How do I stabilize if I lose the first province?"

My hope is that the new design doesn't have such a striking, fundamental disadvantage inherent to the game's rules. Anything else will be gravy for me.

21 minutes ago, Nickciufi said:

An example of this can be found in what I call the "first province dilemma". Anyone who played through Ivory Edition, after power levels dropped considerably, knows that when all power levels of cards are equally low, the first person to take a province wins. This was a fundamental "problem" with the mechanics of the game for pretty much the entire run of the game.

Personally, one of the solutions I hope they go with is removing Province destruction as an aspect of the game. This ties into my desire for a centralized victory condition, i.e. Honor. You win a battle at a Province with enough force to take it? Discard the card in it, destroy any Holdings attached to it, and gain some Honor. It slows down their production by destroying Holdings (which should all be attached to Provinces, or something like that), and it caps their Dynasty deck's potential by discarding the card in it. On a small deck size, say 30 or 35? Losing that card a turn hurts.

I think a step the game will need to take is attaching all Holdings to Provinces, and then removing the destruction of the Province. It prevents the game from losing momentum in the late game, and allows the blitz to keep its pace. By tying Holdings to the Province, you give your Military factions reasons to defend certain ground.

5 hours ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

I'm going to boldly state, right now for the record, that the cards will be printed on some kind of thin cardstock, almost certainly colored with a variety of printed inks, and contained in a box largely made of cardboard. There may - or may not - be tokens included.

Not to brag, but I'm sure I'm right about this.

I liked your post, then unliked it, then liked it again, since FFG Forums don't allow multiple likes.

1 hour ago, sndwurks said:

Personally, one of the solutions I hope they go with is removing Province destruction as an aspect of the game. This ties into my desire for a centralized victory condition, i.e. Honor. You win a battle at a Province with enough force to take it? Discard the card in it, destroy any Holdings attached to it, and gain some Honor. It slows down their production by destroying Holdings (which should all be attached to Provinces, or something like that), and it caps their Dynasty deck's potential by discarding the card in it. On a small deck size, say 30 or 35? Losing that card a turn hurts.

I think a step the game will need to take is attaching all Holdings to Provinces, and then removing the destruction of the Province. It prevents the game from losing momentum in the late game, and allows the blitz to keep its pace. By tying Holdings to the Province, you give your Military factions reasons to defend certain ground.

This.

18 hours ago, sndwurks said:

Personally, one of the solutions I hope they go with is removing Province destruction as an aspect of the game. This ties into my desire for a centralized victory condition, i.e. Honor. You win a battle at a Province with enough force to take it? Discard the card in it, destroy any Holdings attached to it, and gain some Honor. It slows down their production by destroying Holdings (which should all be attached to Provinces, or something like that), and it caps their Dynasty deck's potential by discarding the card in it. On a small deck size, say 30 or 35? Losing that card a turn hurts.

I think a step the game will need to take is attaching all Holdings to Provinces, and then removing the destruction of the Province. It prevents the game from losing momentum in the late game, and allows the blitz to keep its pace. By tying Holdings to the Province, you give your Military factions reasons to defend certain ground.

I don't disagree with you that taking resource snowballing off of provinces is a solution. Personally, I think a lot of design space was left on the table in fixing the problem, as most of the attempts to fix it were either destruction cards or "half-measure" fixes. Why not print a Stronghold that gives all of your personalities and followers a force bonus equal to the number of provinces you've lost? Or grants an additional gold from your sh and each of your holdings for every province lost? Maybe a reaction ability that reduces two of an opponents' provinces to 0 strength after they take one of yours? I'm just spitballing ideas here, but I'm sure there's something out there which would have made sense. Spilled milk now, I suppose.

I'm actually kind of sad to see the old mechanics go, as problematic as they may have been. I hope that whatever mechanics they chose FEEL like L5R. I didn't really dig Conquest's mechanics.

22 hours ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

I'm going to boldly state, right now for the record, that the cards will be printed on some kind of thin cardstock, almost certainly colored with a variety of printed inks, and contained in a box largely made of cardboard. There may - or may not - be tokens included.

Not to brag, but I'm sure I'm right about this.

Really going out on a limb, aren't you?

I don't know what's the problem. For some reason people played this mechanic (in various edition variants) for 20 years. In my opinion the problem was always behind some bad designed cards or toxic synergy between others. I could easily find many holes in cards/ruleset design of all LCGs i played. So for me mechanically L5R was completely ok, it just needs plenty of creative cards to use.

Not so long ago, back into Emperor Edition you had stabilized gold from the start. A problem was a there were enough cheap cards that you didn't require any other Holdings in your deck except Small Farms.

7 hours ago, kempy said:

I don't know what's the problem. For some reason people played this mechanic (in various edition variants) for 20 years. In my opinion the problem was always behind some bad designed cards or toxic synergy between others. I could easily find many holes in cards/ruleset design of all LCGs i played. So for me mechanically L5R was completely ok, it just needs plenty of creative cards to use.

Not so long ago, back into Emperor Edition you had stabilized gold from the start. A problem was a there were enough cheap cards that you didn't require any other Holdings in your deck except Small Farms.

I agree. I actually liked Emperor Edition a lot, and our local playgroup seemed to be most numerous at that point. Ivory seemed to reduce the power level significantly, but not in terms of holdings. Ivory holdings were both more efficient and more powerful than EE holdings. The focus of deck building (especially for tournament decks) moved to focus on the economy first and the other stuff second.

I agree. For as much as people complain about EE it was definitely my favorite arc out of EE, IE, 20F

Yep, update official EE banlist with Foothold of the Mad and you got really funny fast paced edition.

Emperor Edition had 2 of my 3 favorite spider strongholds of all time (TSL and Steel Soul Dojo, the third being Kyuden Suzume), and some really fun themes. Spider was pretty garbage, tier wise, but i enjoyed it far more than ivory. people like options and power. it takes a more active hand to make sure that things don't get out of hand in terms of combos and meta, but it was a great edition. my only complaint with it, in retrospect, is that ivory got all the themes i wanted, while emperor had the better design and power level. if we'd gotten susumu and spider duelists in emperor, i'd have flat out died.

Susumu courtiers in Emperor Edition sounds like... Aggressive negotiations. I would have dug that.

49 minutes ago, BayushiCroy said:

Susumu courtiers in Emperor Edition sounds like... Aggressive negotiations. I would have dug that.

ironically, we actually go one of the better susumu ever carded in emperor, but no theme to back her up. Susumu Kuroko is a freakin' beast, but without any kind of political theme to back her up, she wasn't too useful, and that 3 ph made her a sitting duck target for dishonor, and her honor req was just dumb.