Right, I didn't realise you were talking a full 14 factions. Then it makes sense.

I can't see them 'continuing' or 'returning' to anything. I expect it will be at some random point in the future so everything that has happened so far is very distant past. They can then do what they want with the story including the odd Easter egg for long term fans (oooo they found a black scroll).

why make things more complicated? Any player distressed by this would probably ***** about any reset in current history anyway so make a clean slate and move on.

2 hours ago, Fumi said:

Because LCG's release much fewer cards per cycle than CCG's, which means that in order to fit in 14 factions there would have to be an awful lot of common cards. Having only a few faction-specific cards per clan would rob the clans of a lot of their character. Even I don't think the benefits would be worth that cost. I just threw the idea out there because I thought it was interesting, not because I want to see it implemented.

14 factions?

7 Original Clans and Mantis
Shadowlands/Spider

Then you might have Ronin/Toturi's Army/Imperial which are all basically the the same faction under different names.
Brotherhood could be its own thing, but I see no reason not to roll it up with the Ronin and Imperials. Just make it an alternate win path besides ashigaru attack or imperial favor abuse honor running.

Ninja maybe? If you wanted to make them distinct from "Spider Clan", I guess.

Maybe Naga and/or Ratlings? Spirits? (though what would be the point?)

Unless you split the Shadowlands, Spider and Ninja into different factions and really wanted to keep the Brotherhood as its own thing, I just don't see getting to 14 factions.

In fact, I would make Naga and Ratlings part of the same "faction" even though Ratlings fear Naga-- just different strongholds for that faction specialize in a particular nonshadowlands nonhuman.

@TheHobgoblyn The "14 faction" idea was about an asymmetric game (like NetRunner of Star Wars), one side being Rokugan (the clans) and the other being the Shadowlands (so the main conflict wouldn't be between the clans). To oppose the 7 Rokugani factions, you'd need a nearly equal number on the Shadowlands side (I'd say at least 5), so some splitting is called for. But such a high number of factions is unlikely for several reasons:

1. The maximum number of factions in an FFG LCG is 9 in a symmetric game (Conquest) and 7 in an asymmetric game (Netrunner).
2. More factions are more difficult to balance.
3. Assuming a 3 copy limit (which is pretty much standard with FFG, though there are exceptions), monthly packs (of 20 distinct cards for a total of 60 - the total is constant across the LCGs) cannot readily accomodate more than 9 factions (maybe 10 if neutral cards are really rare), because they need to contain new cards for every faction.

If we assume a symmetric game, then we might get 1 or 2 extra factions along the way, probably Shadowlands (or Spider) and Mantis, but not more.

Well said, Khudzlin. Yeah, it's an idea better suited to a spinoff of some sort than the main card game.

On 3/3/2017 at 7:39 PM, BlindSamurai13 said:

In retrospect, this video feels sorrow, like it is saying "goodbye for now."

I really feel sorrow. Not for the game, but for what AEG has became.

1. Assuming a 3 copy limit (which is pretty much standard with FFG, though there are exceptions), monthly packs (of 20 distinct cards for a total of 60 - the total is constant across the LCGs) cannot readily accomodate more than 9 factions (maybe 10 if neutral cards are really rare), because they need to contain new cards for every faction.

Since I don't think they will release more than 9 factions, remember that L5R is a neutral card heavy game, you don't really need to release a clan specific card each pack to support each faction, you can support several of them with neutral cards.

Just to remind you: AGOT is a game with 8 factions fully supported with the LCG system. This means results on each faction getting 2 new cards per moth, usually one character plus other (location, event, whatever). If, just for the discussions sake, we assume the new L5R gameplay is going to be similar to the old one, most non-character cards will be "neutral", so that could easily leave room for a couple of characters per clan (7x2) plus 6 neutral cards per chapter. Again, because there is so little we know, I'm defaulting in the old model until we get additional info.

This is in the land of rank speculation, but from a game design perspective and based on my impression of FFG's LCGs, I would guess that faction alignment will not be limited to Personalities. There is no inherent mechanical reason for it to be so limited. And there are a variety of game design issues that arise from lots of neutral cards, starting with the greatly increased opportunity for more particularly powerful cards to appear in almost every deck. From a flavor and theme standpoint, it makes sense that certain locations, objects, techniques, spells, etc. are as tied to their home clans as the characters are. AEG L5R already had some of this, with certain cards that would only attach to an X Clan Personality, or were effectively only playable by a certain faction. With a brand new game (and no need to sell as many boosters as possible), the game could simply identify these as faction-aligned cards from the get-go.

I say there is no inherent mechanical reason for lots of neutral cards, but a potential limiting factor is the card pool. I would expect that, regardless of the overall design philosophy, the core set will have a relative lot of neutral cards. I wouldn't expect that to be a necessity after the core set, but of course I'm not designing the game so I don't know what its needs will be.

I agree with Daramere: FFG games tend to have all card types divided into factions. Take AGoT, for instance. In the CCG and first edition of the LCG, agendas (probably equivalent to sensei), plots and events (equivalent to strategies) were always officially neutral (though they were sometimes limited to one House), while characters, locations and attachments usually had a faction; in the 2nd edition of the LCG, plots and events can now have a faction (it's very rare for plots, but very common for events), leaving only agendas as always neutral (for now, at least, they could create factioned agendas). AGoT monthly packs usually come with 2 cards for each faction (1 character and 1 non-character), which leaves room for 4 neutrals (usually at least 1 plot, often 2).

They might give us lots of neutral cards or provide a way to make alliances between clans like they did in AGoT.

This game cannot survive without new players.
This game cannot get new players with 20 years of story baggage from the old players.
AEG saw this and realized they could not keep the game going.
SCC and the Clan Wars are great iconic stories that give people exactly what made L5R so popular.
A soft reboot wold be great, allowing story changes that keep the old player base interested and still keep the feel of the universe.

I still think a 2-dimensional set of factions is a good idea, and a way of expanding the usability of cards in multiple decks:

Clans (6 or more) and elements (the 5). Strongholds get a clan and an element, other cards can have clan and/or element, and count as in-faction if they match at least one of the keywords on the Stronghold. Thus, a Crane clan duellist may have the Fire trait as well, and thus be playable within, say, a Phoenix stronghold.

I hadn't thought of using the rings as a faction modifier.

That'd be neat. Fire crab. Water unicorn. Earth dragon. Etc

2 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

I still think a 2-dimensional set of factions is a good idea, and a way of expanding the usability of cards in multiple decks:

Clans (6 or more) and elements (the 5). Strongholds get a clan and an element, other cards can have clan and/or element, and count as in-faction if they match at least one of the keywords on the Stronghold. Thus, a Crane clan duellist may have the Fire trait as well, and thus be playable within, say, a Phoenix stronghold.

It would be a bit difficult to see that every faction could support every ring equally. No matter how you make the rings, some will just have more synergism.

We have already seen that with Sensei and Winds, both of which were basically what you are proposing here.

12 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

It would be a bit difficult to see that every faction could support every ring equally. No matter how you make the rings, some will just have more synergism.

We have already seen that with Sensei and Winds, both of which were basically what you are proposing here.

While you're right, I don't see that as a bad thing.

Complete balance in a game is not interesting. Otherwise rock, paper, scissors would be more popular.

There has been a lot of discussion on this topic with the fighting game renaissance.

9 minutes ago, BayushiCroy said:

While you're right, I don't see that as a bad thing.

Complete balance in a game is not interesting. Otherwise rock, paper, scissors would be more popular.

There has been a lot of discussion on this topic with the fighting game renaissance.

Okay, but here is why it is a bad thing....

Let's say that, based on tradition, Ring of Fire makes you a better duelist.

Well, there are about 3 factions that can seriously duel. Crane, Dragon and Phoenix. Well, and Ninja (so, I guess, one particular flavor of Spider) and maybe Scorpion if they pull some tricks.

Now, it would be one thing if you could say "Well, let's add Ring of Fire to Mantis or Unicorn or Crab and then they can do it", but that's not how it is going to work.

What the result will be is that the decks already good at dueling will now get super charged. The result will be that only a similarly supercharged deck with stronghold/ring synergy is even going to remotely stand a chance against it. That severely limits the number of competitive decks in the format.

And the fewer competitive decks there are, the fewer cards in the set are going to fit into those decks. Nevermind trying to run a deck that is thematic or has some fun gimmick-- you will lose the game so fast that you effectively won't even be allowed to play. A good portion of the cards in the set will just be rendered complete kindling because they don't fit into one of the 4 ultra charged synergized decks and thus can only be put in a deck that is going to lose on turn 3 or, at least, have everything they put on the board instantly destroyed before the opponent declared victory.

And chances are that the majority of the factions won't even have one of these synergized ring/stronghold decks available to them meaning that whole factions are rendered useless.

Basically, by introducing some bonus factor on top of the basic faction abilities, you are not adding variety and diversity to the game-- you are structurally removing it and narrowing down the field of what is even effectively playable. By "playable" here I mean "not only doesn't have a chance to win, but can't even interact to the point of pretending to be a competitive match."

And I really don't know how on earth you would tie that back to fighting games. In a CCG/LCG, you are making your own deck from a wide assortment of options to suit you. In a fighting game, each character is a prearranged package designed specifically to be balanced with one another. Particularly in modern times when the games can be constantly patched, if they accidentally give one character too much, they can remove that ability just from that one character. Or, if one is not up to par, you can make certain moves of theirs faster or more powerful. There is no effective way to do that in a card game. You can't say "these cards are banned but only if you are playing this stronghold with this ring" nor "from now on this card comes into play for less gold and has more force, but only if you are playing this stronghold with this ring."

I just don't see any possible up-side to this proposal. Sure, I can see how on the bare surface if you don't consider the consequences, it could seem like a good idea-- but the end result is the exact opposite of what you are aiming for.

Talking to you is useless. Anything someone says is always wrong.

You are excellent at slippery slopes.

What I said was interesting was using the rings as a modification. I meant similar to senseis in aeg l5r or banners in agot 2.0

Am I reading you wrong or did you say that more deck possibilities leads to less diversity?

You just read into what you want me to say. What if the rings opened up the cards you can play in the deck building options. This mechanic would allow people to have to learn meta and the card pool which rewards understanding.

You're right, if you take a vague idea and make it bad, then it will be bad. You got me.

47 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

It would be a bit difficult to see that every faction could support every ring equally. No matter how you make the rings, some will just have more synergism.

We have already seen that with Sensei and Winds, both of which were basically what you are proposing here.

The Clans would not necessarily have to support each Ring equally.

I am also hoping the Rings are not Cards that can be optionally played in decks.

11 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

And I really don't know how on earth you would tie that back to fighting games. In a CCG/LCG, you are making your own deck from a wide assortment of options to suit you. In a fighting game, each character is a prearranged package designed specifically to be balanced with one another. Particularly in modern times when the games can be constantly patched, if they accidentally give one character too much, they can remove that ability just from that one character. Or, if one is not up to par, you can make certain moves of theirs faster or more powerful. There is no effective way to do that in a card game. You can't say "these cards are banned but only if you are playing this stronghold with this ring" nor "from now on this card comes into play for less gold and has more force, but only if you are playing this stronghold with this ring."

i'm not gonna address why the rest of your stuff is confused, but for this bit, he was referencing the fact that in some fighting games, the idea of "everything must balance perfectly" has basically been abandoned. they don't even try. and those games aren't a joke, they aren't a failure. its a design choice, not a mistake.

Should the Rings be cards that each player sets aside, and are put into play when a player fulfills their condition(s)?

1 minute ago, Builder2 said:

Should the Rings be cards that each player sets aside, and are put into play when a player fulfills their condition(s)?

I hope the rings are used somehow.

I kept the full bleed promos from the old game to proxy into this one. I selfishly want to use nostalgia bling

45 minutes ago, BayushiCroy said:

Talking to you is useless. Anything someone says is always wrong.

You are excellent at slippery slopes.

What I said was interesting was using the rings as a modification. I meant similar to senseis in aeg l5r or banners in agot 2.0

Am I reading you wrong or did you say that more deck possibilities leads to less diversity?

You just read into what you want me to say. What if the rings opened up the cards you can play in the deck building options. This mechanic would allow people to have to learn meta and the card pool which rewards understanding.

You're right, if you take a vague idea and make it bad, then it will be bad. You got me.

Okay, let's try to go over this slowly. Because you just don't "get" it, clearly.

If you make a whole lot of choices but among those choices there is one that is simply vastly superior in achieving the result of a victory, then you haven't actually created any choices-- all you have done is set a trap for players unfamiliar with the game to screw themselves before drawing their very first card. Even if the deck is perfectly fine in every other way, they have already lost if they choose the 4 incorrect rings.

Now, you might not have noticed this, but the factions are not just random colors slapped on the cards. A "Hida" card is not identical to a "Bayushi" card in all respects but with a color and art swap and a different clan allegiance printed on it. There might be a case where you can find a 2/2 with no abilities for 5 gold in both clans, but for the most part-- it just isn't the case. If you try to play a Crab Clan Shugenja Honor running deck, you will fail. You won't find the personalities to even fill out the slots in your dynasty deck and even if you did, they are not going to allow you to gain honor at the same rate as one of the clans that specialize in that. Furthermore, you will be far more vulnerable to every other deck type.

Already right there baked into the game you have each faction specializing in a particular mechanic. It is the thing they do-- whether it is dueling or it is cavalry or navy or tactician or what have you... each faction is built so that they something particularly well and have some particular weakness.

If into that set up you decide to throw this other thing-- in addition to your stronghold that already limits the kinds of cards you can play and makes you streamlined to be good at a particular mechanic, you add a second card that gives you a huge boost to some particular mechanic.... you haven't added any diversity at all!

Choosing the card that enhances the mechanic that your stronghold and available personalities already effectively make your mechanic and play style is always going to be the wrong choice-- every other one is going to be the wrong choice, especially the one that enhances the mechanic your clan is designed to simply not use.

So all this "diversity" you think you added is actually simply a trap for unfamiliar players. You have 3 wrong choices, one just outright stupid choice and 1 choice that enhances your faction to make sure you beat all those who made one of the wrong choices hands-down.

Moreover, not only is each faction going to singularly benefit primarily from one of the rings well above any of the others, certain personalities printed are going to benefit from it a lot more than others. Those personalities now become the effective right personalities for a player to run while all the others become wrong choices that ensure your deck will not be competitive.

Also, because there are more factions than there are rings, there are 5 factions that are going to primarily benefit from the rings well above any other naturally... and any additional factions will simply no longer be comparatively competitive.

There is simply no way to do what you are proposing without this being the end result. Remember-- with sensei, at least the last version of them, they all deducted something from your stronghold and REPLACED your Stronghold ability and could only be played with the 1-4 factions the card was designed to be played with. If they simply gave you an extra ability on top of your standard ability with no cost, they wouldn't have been balanced. Not unless the ability was so mundane and unimpactful that in most games it could be ignored.

But saying "Here is your faction card, this limits the personalities you are allowed to recruit and in turn the mechanics you specialize in and what your strengths and weaknesses are." and say "In addition, choose one of these 5 cards that makes you unbeatable when you use certain mechanics", you are simply not going to increase diversity-- you are going to effectively decrease it instead.

I have seen things like this be attempted before, this is not some new original idea. But by all means... try it for yourself.

Set up a day of L5R games with your friends. Maybe use "Modern" format and use this rule-- all players get to choose 1 ring to put into play immediately at the start of the game. And try playing the same faction using different rings each time. Maybe build decks and play at least 3 games with each ring with your faction. And when you are done, try to still claim in all sincerity that choosing every single ring is a "valid" choice and that there isn't one very clear cut winner for the faction... and that when this rule is in effect that there are a large number of personalities you would no longer even consider putting into a deck simply because other personalities have abilities that synergize with the vastly superior ring to use with the faction than those personalities.

I bet, if you are pretty good at deck building, you can pretty quickly narrow it down to the specific narrow correct set of personalities one should even bother putting into a deck out of the whole pool once you have this rule into effect. This isn't a slippery slope-- you can literally try this out for yourself today with the card pool available and you'll find that this is the result. That even among a small handful of players playing a small handful of games, this result will rear up very quickly.

Even if one tries to build the entire game around trying to account for this extra complication and tries their best to try to make every single faction be able to utilize every single ring and tries to make every single personality still somehow contribute to a deck under every single ring... its just not going to be possible and it is going to come at the great expense of actually developing each faction at all, because the more different the factions fundamentally are, the more there is going to be a "correct" ring to choose to make your deck the best and the more the pool of effective printed personalities actually usable in a competitive deck will be narrowed. Particularly as the power-level of each faction goes through the roof once the perfect synergy is found.

Literally the only way you could have this be the case where allowing someone to choose 5 rings is not going to have a clear favorite is if every single faction has the same pool of personalities printed with the same numbers and just the color and artwork and clan symbol gets changed and the "stronghold" or other faction markers don't have any abilities. In which case the identity of "faction" simply becomes a meaningless choice, the actual mechanical choice is going to be entirely based on the ring.

Not sure why you wouldn't have a card or mechanic in the game for each of the Rings in a game called Legend of the Five Rings lol. In my opinion, they need to make the rings even more prevalent than in previous editions.

Also why does numerical symmetry matter at all in the clans they release?

Man just... Keeping saying things I didn't bring up. You building a farm other there with all those straw men?

My original statement, which you took issue with, didn't even propose a solution or a design. Only

"what if your paired a ring with a clan? "

Literally everything you've argued against you've invented yourself.

My original statement was entirely thematic in proposal.

Also, typing more doesn't make me agree more.

5 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Set up a day of L5R games with your friends. Maybe use "Modern" format and use this rule-- all players get to choose 1 ring to put into play immediately at the start of the game. And try playing the same faction using different rings each time. Maybe build decks and play at least 3 games with each ring with your faction. And when you are done, try to still claim in all sincerity that choosing every single ring is a "valid" choice and that there isn't one very clear cut winner for the faction... and that when this rule is in effect that there are a large number of personalities you would no longer even consider putting into a deck simply because other personalities have abilities that synergize with the vastly superior ring to use with the faction than those personalities.

I have NEVER seen one ring in any versions of the game stop every deck, having played 'The Remote Monastery of the Dragon Frequently' and losing about the same as any other deck, I'm not sure your logic is sound. Why are you assuming that rings in any incarnation, card or mechanic, would be so unbalancing?

1 minute ago, Silverfox13 said:

I have NEVER seen one ring in any versions of the game stop every deck, having played 'The Remote Monastery of the Dragon Frequently' and losing about the same as any other deck, I'm not sure your logic is sound. Why are you assuming that rings in any incarnation, card or mechanic, would be so unbalancing?

He wants to be right so he is inventing his own arguments to beat down.

He is only loosely basing his statements on things they have actually been said to him.