4 hours ago, Moto Subodei said:

I pointed it out to him on twitter that it was O-Ushi, and he replied to me with caps of "NOPE" . This was before the reveal so I call shenannigans!

Maybe she is Hida U-Oshi now. Anyway, I like the picture.

19 hours ago, judoka13 said:

4. This is the same thing UDE just did with Vs. Take a game that works and screw it up to the point where it's unrecognizable. Why?

At least FFG was upfront about reimagining L5R. True, we didn't know thee exact how.

UDE outright lied about bringing back VS System. Then switched to VS2pcg.

My initial thoughts were similar to yours. I hated most the changes. After reading 1/3 of the comments here my position has softened.

There is much I don't care for... I realize I need to play it first... I am leaning towards just making fun decks with thee older stuff...

I played dragon enlightenment. That's all I played. So this was a let down.

Game of thrones is on its second edition. L5R will probably get another edition in a couple of years.

...and we haven't seen everything yet. If there is no way to enlightenment, that would be a **** shame.

"Game of thrones is on its second edition. L5R will probably get another edition in a couple of years."

if couple = a decade then you are probably right.
GoT CCG started in 2002...

"I played dragon enlightenment. That's all I played. So this was a let down."

There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.
-Bruce Lee

I like and are encourged by what they've shown us so far.

Battle resolution not destroying personalities or the province I think is a great addition to avoid "1 battle" games.
The Rings dictating the affects of battle resolution makes conflicts useful even if you don't have the strength to break a province
I like the changes to gaining and spending/losing honor and how they are tied to your card draw
If seems like dishonoring a personality is now a very important mechanic and form of control, and could potentially swing a battle
I like that there aren't 3-4 deck types for each clan - just clan decks

I love the card design and artwork (that we've seen so far)

14 hours ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

Can you explain what you feel the difference is? I'm not sure I understand. And let's be sure we're all treating each other with civility - we all want a great gaming experience!

So, where to start... maybe some bulletpoints:

Fading

The Fate/Fade mechanic is what really turns me off.
L5R was a game of conflict. A game where Samurai had presence on the table, where armies clashed for Provinces. Now that is lost. Your personalities will have a finite time on board and board presence will be frail.

Also, it will devalue weapons, spells and everything else you can put on a personality. Why investing slots in your deck for weapons that will also have a finite life because your personalities will? And Spells? Why even bother wasting card-slots for something that will work a number of times as much as you paid for your personality to stay in the table? Why me, as a competitive player, would waste that slot in a weapon/spell when I can waste that same slot in more actions to use on "fodder" personalities, that's what the game promotes now?
Where is the sense of Personalities? There is none! They come, they do, they walk away... why to waste Fate on a costly Personality when I can use the same Fate for a much lower Personality with same stats but less keywords/traits/triggers?!

With this rule the game lost its sense, its "art of war" and it turned into something that is more adequate to AGOT where a character can come and go and make a few things while on board... alas, I think this game is more into AGOT than L5R, if you cut the theme and present the game as it is I would say it looks more like a AGOTish than L5Rish (mechanicaly, of course).
So, no more building armies, fighting armies... it will be more like fodder, fodder, fodder... and that's it.

Also, this cuts the wide game, it doesn't encourage a player to go wide and spam lots of personalities and followers. Weenies are gone, long live rush and fuel. Playing a low-cost personality and putting all your Fate there. And that's it. I don't see better strategies to follow, honestly...

This, IMO, looks like a poor design choice to correct some problems L5R had, with the build-up and turteling and OTK games. But it will allow a different kind of turtelling, a Fate turtelling where the one who accumulates more Fate to develop a One-Turn board and fuel it, wins.

I can go on all day on how this mechanic is bad. Even M:TG had it one time and never went back for it again.
Players want to play their cards and keep their cards on the table and this game does the opposite. #seemslegit

Bet & Draw

Another one that got me off...

So, you're giving a player in a game that is driven by Action cards to win conflicts the chance to draw less cards than his opponent?! Really?? You think any seasoned player will draw less to accumulate Honour?! Oh, c'mon!!
In any card game, any, there's a thing called Card Advantage, and as the name states is an Advantage to win a card game, any card game.

This will open a precedent, there will be no Honour:0 Clans (clans that don't lose by Dishonour), because if there will ever be I want to play with them and draw 5 cards per turn.
"But hey, you're giving your opo too much Honour" - right, and there will surely be cards that will "burn" direct Dishonour. If so, I'll play them!
"But hey, they didn't told you if you can or cannot bet any amount of Honour or just up to the amount of Honour you actually have" - and that's the main issue here... I still don't know how this work and if this will work this way, but prolly is due to the information on their website. So, Honour and card draw will keep trading back-and-forth... if so it will promote the "I'll always draw 5 scenario" because the opo will think "he'll always draw 5 and I can't draw less".

It's still too early to talk about this and the real repercussions in the game but... I can speculate and it will be as bad as it were in Conquest bidding for planets. Also, this is another port from another LCG into L5R that didn't had to occur, only because "we must do it and a dial must take place in the game".
I was expecting an Honour dial in the same manner as the Threat dial in LOTR, but this dial and betting is too far-fetched for a competitive card game.

Conflicts

Another port that came strickly from AGOT, where you have three types and can battle one per turn.
Also, as in AGOT, each type has its own effect/claim.
Instead of Military, Intrigue and Power L5R has Military and Political. Instead of claims it has Elemental effects associated with the Rings.

I can't say I dislike this, because I don't. I don't dislike it in AGOT. I dislike it in L5R.

Also, conflicts now won't penalize the losing player. Instead of losing the army and possibly the Province providing resources, now everyone comes back home to drink some kombucha after losing a battle. And guess what?! Provinces still keep working and providing resources!! WOW!!

Honestly... this is card-game-lite! A game where a conflict won't penalize a losing side is an anecdote.
L5R was one of the most penalizing games I've ever played, when a game was decided in a right-wrong decision. And I know because of this nature the game was tense and turtelling in such way a player wouldn't commit until he knew he had to.
The game lost its strategic depth with this Lite version where there's no arm done and armies will fight another day... if they still have Fate, of course!

Removing the penalization was not a great move. It makes me think if FFG was really adapting L5R or was just remaking a game with a pseudo-japanese style to compete with other crappy japanese cardgames that kids these days play, and by having a less tense game, Lite, not much penalizing, will attract those kids who play those crappy japanese games into this one.

Rings

Well... everything was said about the Rings.
No more Enlightenment as we know. No more presence in the deck. Rings become something ethereal that "is just there"... and the effects... c'mon! Some effects are just... yup!

I just wanted less AGOT and more L5Rings in this aspect of the game.

The Bambu

We still don't know what it is but we suspect that... wait... is another great port of an LCG into L5R!! Hurray!! Let's give an Influence a-la A:NR into L5R, because reasons! Because we can. Because why not! ...

The Aspect

Card are great. I was more into a design like LOTR instead of a design like Conquest. But they are ok, more space for artwork and grouped icons. Some cards feel a bit bland, a bit naked.

Tokens are horrible.
Sorry for you sensible guys but I dislike pinky-flowery tokens. Gold coins? Why not! But no, pinky-flowery tokens, yay!

So, these are my main issues with the game.

I'd like to sum it up with this thought:
-what's the most played and most successful LCG?
It's Android: Netrunner!

Android: Netrunner was a straight import of a game into the LCG range. The design team made every single thing well done. They polished the game, gave it a theme, remove randomness, remove the bidding mechanic (that was later ported as Psy mechanic in Jinteki). The game remained intact when FFG announced it. It was not a huge imediate success but it passed through the test of time.

FFG then tried Star Wars. Failed.
FFG then tried Conquest. Failed.
FFG tried AGOT2. Is failing, because AGOT1 was the most played LCG and AGOT2 is now below A:NR.

This is a reflection of, when you have a formula of success, you should not ruin it, you just keep the formula and upgrade the igredients.
L5R needed a brush, only a gentle brush. A reboot in the theme. Polish over some of the instances of the game. But keeping its essence intact.
L5R essence was the 2 decks. Ok here. L5R essence was 4 win-cons. Not ok here, for now. L5R essence was armies battling for Provinces that provided resources to keep fighting. Again, not ok here.

FFG messed with the formula. I may say that they failed. Others may say "hurrah, best game eva". Let's see what Time has to say!

PS. sorry for any mispel or exquisite interpretation... English is not my native language.

As someone who has never played L5R, I looked at the rules for the game when this was first announced. In order to bring me in, L5R needed a major overhaul. FFG can't cater to the hardcore who have continued to play L5R when it has dwindled to non relevance.

24 minutes ago, oDESGOSTO said:

While I agree to some of your observations (bidding for honor in particular), I think you're drawing too many conclusion, since we haven't see the rules and the full card list yet.

30 minutes ago, oDESGOSTO said:

So, where to start... maybe some bulletpoints:

***

One moment while I feed the troll. He is apparently hungry.

A lot of people would say that L5R at the end of when AEG had it had also already failed. Not everyone. A number of people still played, but I do know that Ivory killed L5R locally for me (I think the various network of players went from something like 20-30 to 4 diehards). It even got to the point where at least one of my friends vowed to never give AEG money again.

That being said, you can buy AEG L5R pretty cheaply and continue playing all you want! Have fun! You an even house rule dueling so that it is more or less broken than you want!

I personally like the changes, and look forward to what they do. I think that they kept most of the flavor of the game while improving a lot of what were overall a generally negative experience, even if it was "core" to L5R. It has a chance to flop, but it also has a chance to be quite good.

One thing I notice is these cards are a lot brighter than the ones I remember from back in the day. I played from about 1998 to 2003, and the color scheme was a lot more grimdark back then. Black bordered cards with dark art were pretty normal. The new cards make everything look light and airy. Not a criticism, just an observation.

31 minutes ago, Mirith said:

but I do know that Ivory killed L5R locally for me

As someone who has never played Ivory Edition I am curious, what was it about that edition that killed the game scene do you think?

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

So, where to start... maybe some bulletpoints:

Fading

The Fate/Fade mechanic is what really turns me off.
L5R was a game of conflict. A game where Samurai had presence on the table, where armies clashed for Provinces. Now that is lost. Your personalities will have a finite time on board and board presence will be frail.

Also, it will devalue weapons, spells and everything else you can put on a personality. Why investing slots in your deck for weapons that will also have a finite life because your personalities will? And Spells? Why even bother wasting card-slots for something that will work a number of times as much as you paid for your personality to stay in the table? Why me, as a competitive player, would waste that slot in a weapon/spell when I can waste that same slot in more actions to use on "fodder" personalities, that's what the game promotes now?
Where is the sense of Personalities? There is none! They come, they do, they walk away... why to waste Fate on a costly Personality when I can use the same Fate for a much lower Personality with same stats but less keywords/traits/triggers?!

With this rule the game lost its sense, its "art of war" and it turned into something that is more adequate to AGOT where a character can come and go and make a few things while on board... alas, I think this game is more into AGOT than L5R, if you cut the theme and present the game as it is I would say it looks more like a AGOTish than L5Rish (mechanicaly, of course).
So, no more building armies, fighting armies... it will be more like fodder, fodder, fodder... and that's it.

Also, this cuts the wide game, it doesn't encourage a player to go wide and spam lots of personalities and followers. Weenies are gone, long live rush and fuel. Playing a low-cost personality and putting all your Fate there. And that's it. I don't see better strategies to follow, honestly...

This, IMO, looks like a poor design choice to correct some problems L5R had, with the build-up and turteling and OTK games. But it will allow a different kind of turtelling, a Fate turtelling where the one who accumulates more Fate to develop a One-Turn board and fuel it, wins.

I can go on all day on how this mechanic is bad. Even M:TG had it one time and never went back for it again.
Players want to play their cards and keep their cards on the table and this game does the opposite. #seemslegit

I appreciate your opinions and I appreciate that you took the time to clearly articulate them; I'd like to offer you a slightly different perspective.

All of us are coming to this with two understandings: 1) We love the world-building and everything that's been invested by the players in L5R; and 2) This game was going to be completely different from what we were used to.

That being said, I'm concerned that you may not be giving the new game a fair shot - it's a new game concept, it's a re-set mythology, and we won't really know how well it plays (or what metagame will emerge) until it's actually released.

Fate/Fading: So, this seems to be a change that a lot of people are still wrapping their heads around. Yes, , our characters will be dying at a steady rate, and whether you're looking at that from the flavor perspective of them aging and life being ephemeral or the mechanical perspective of it's a new resource to keep watch on and have to account for, it's a big change. Here's my response: battle resolution doesn't wipe out entire armies any more. Players can't turtle up any more. You've now got a mechanical (and flavorful) reason to make a grab for glory or risk being left behind. To me, it adds a sense of urgency to the gameplay, one that I'm actually getting pretty excited about. As far as your concerns about characters feeling like fodder, think of them more like personalities and followers - followers were very fodder-like, and your personalities were the big guns. From the (very few) preview cards out there, it looks like "named" characters have much more Fate at the outset, and remember that you can always spend more Fate on a character (when you bring them out) to keep them in play longer (which could help with your reservations about putting attachments on characters as well).

For Fate Turtle-ing, well, we'll have to see how the game shakes out. I know that it's not a philosophy I'll be following, at least based on the gameplay descriptions - I'm going to want to have characters in play, fighting to win conflicts, not holding back to build up a bunch of fate.

(And actually, Magic's gone to that well twice, once with Fading and once with Vanishing. It's actually a very cool mechanic, as it makes multi-turn decision-making matter more than reactive play-making).

Players do want to play their cards and keep them on the table - however, knowing that your guys are going to be brief flashes of glory instead of steadfast walls leads to a very different play experience. I can understand why that might not be your cup of tea, but I'm really looking forward to it. Did you ever play the Decipher LOTR game? All of your actions as the Enemy had no lasting board-occupancy - you played your goblins, your uruk-hai, or your ringwraiths, they battled your opponent's fellowship, and then they were gone from the board forever. It led to, again, that fun sense of urgency, that feeling of "if I don't do it now, it's never getting done!", and I'm hoping that's how this game shakes out.

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

Bet & Draw

Another one that got me off...

So, you're giving a player in a game that is driven by Action cards to win conflicts the chance to draw less cards than his opponent?! Really?? You think any seasoned player will draw less to accumulate Honour?! Oh, c'mon!!
In any card game, any, there's a thing called Card Advantage, and as the name states is an Advantage to win a card game, any card game.

This will open a precedent, there will be no Honour:0 Clans (clans that don't lose by Dishonour), because if there will ever be I want to play with them and draw 5 cards per turn.
"But hey, you're giving your opo too much Honour" - right, and there will surely be cards that will "burn" direct Dishonour. If so, I'll play them!
"But hey, they didn't told you if you can or cannot bet any amount of Honour or just up to the amount of Honour you actually have" - and that's the main issue here... I still don't know how this work and if this will work this way, but prolly is due to the information on their website. So, Honour and card draw will keep trading back-and-forth... if so it will promote the "I'll always draw 5 scenario" because the opo will think "he'll always draw 5 and I can't draw less".

It's still too early to talk about this and the real repercussions in the game but... I can speculate and it will be as bad as it were in Conquest bidding for planets. Also, this is another port from another LCG into L5R that didn't had to occur, only because "we must do it and a dial must take place in the game".
I was expecting an Honour dial in the same manner as the Threat dial in LOTR, but this dial and betting is too far-fetched for a competitive card game.

I've actually talked about card advantage vs winning game mechanic in another post, but the TL;DR version of it is that any card advantage mechanic built into the game design itself (that's available to all players) should be fairly well balanced-out during play.

I'm sorry the dial wasn't what you were expecting, but a dial's a dial to me - it's a tracking component, nothing more. Certainly nothing worth expending emotional energy on! I lost my dial from LOTR and usually use a piece of paper. It doesn't have an effect on my enjoyment of the game.

I dig the Fading mechanic just because it adds a greater sense of "History" to the game for me, with multiple generations fighting for the clan.
One generation sets the stage, founding the clan, eventually to fade away and be replaced by their descendants fighting for the glory of the clan, paving way for future generations to eventually end the fight.

It makes the whole thing feel more epic to me. More like a grand tale being told over multiple generations.

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

Conflicts

Another port that came strickly from AGOT, where you have three types and can battle one per turn.
Also, as in AGOT, each type has its own effect/claim.
Instead of Military, Intrigue and Power L5R has Military and Political. Instead of claims it has Elemental effects associated with the Rings.

I can't say I dislike this, because I don't. I don't dislike it in AGOT. I dislike it in L5R.

Also, conflicts now won't penalize the losing player. Instead of losing the army and possibly the Province providing resources, now everyone comes back home to drink some kombucha after losing a battle. And guess what?! Provinces still keep working and providing resources!! WOW!!

Honestly... this is card-game-lite! A game where a conflict won't penalize a losing side is an anecdote.
L5R was one of the most penalizing games I've ever played, when a game was decided in a right-wrong decision. And I know because of this nature the game was tense and turtelling in such way a player wouldn't commit until he knew he had to.
The game lost its strategic depth with this Lite version where there's no arm done and armies will fight another day... if they still have Fate, of course!

Removing the penalization was not a great move. It makes me think if FFG was really adapting L5R or was just remaking a game with a pseudo-japanese style to compete with other crappy japanese cardgames that kids these days play, and by having a less tense game, Lite, not much penalizing, will attract those kids who play those crappy japanese games into this one.

I think the AGOT and L5R conflicts will feel different in gameplay, but they're certainly not much different than the "conflict" systems seen in a bajillion other games to this point. I'm fine with it; I think it's too bad that you're finding a reason to dislike it in the Rokugan setting.

I think it's actually a positive to have players not get "snowballed" by multiple province-losses. There's a point in every L5R1 game where a player can look at the board-state and think to themselves that there's no reason to play it out. I like that there will now be some hidden information, some combat tricks, and some military or political actions that can keep late-game states close. Keeping the provinces providing cards helps prevent that awful feeling of helplessness and allows a player who's fallen behind to have a chance to catch up. Catch-up mechanics, while not terribly fashionable, do make games more fun... and isn't that what a game should be?

I've got to think that your other comments are coming from an emotional place, rather than a logical one. I'm not a huge fan of the "kiddie japanese" games either, but I don't think that's what we're looking at with L5R2. It seems like it's got a strategic depth to it - it really doesn't look like a "whoever plays the power card first wins" game.

5 minutes ago, Wispur said:

I dig the Fading mechanic just because it adds a greater sense of "History" to the game for me, with multiple generations fighting for the clan.
One generation sets the stage, founding the clan, eventually to fade away and be replaced by their descendants fighting for the glory of the clan, paving way for future generations to eventually end the fight.

It makes the whole thing feel more epic to me. More like a grand tale being told over multiple generations.

I've been trying to get my head around lack of combat in the game. Sounds like your just comparing numbers to try and break a province. After you compare, both sides go home. Its weird to think that my army would just go home and let the winning army sack their home land. They should be standing their ground and fighting to the bitter end. With that in mind, I've been trying to think of some sort of abstract way the units are fighting. Maybe the two armies did clash, and the survivors are the ones heading home at the end of the turn...

Reading Wispur's quote above helps with the abstract thinking. Many pros and cons with all of this.

L5R doesn't really feel like a fighting game, more of a story game. If they took out the military conflict and just did political, the way they made the game totally makes sense.

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

Rings

Well... everything was said about the Rings.
No more Enlightenment as we know. No more presence in the deck. Rings become something ethereal that "is just there"... and the effects... c'mon! Some effects are just... yup!

I just wanted less AGOT and more L5Rings in this aspect of the game.

The Bambu

We still don't know what it is but we suspect that... wait... is another great port of an LCG into L5R!! Hurray!! Let's give an Influence a-la A:NR into L5R, because reasons! Because we can. Because why not! ...

The Aspect

Card are great. I was more into a design like LOTR instead of a design like Conquest. But they are ok, more space for artwork and grouped icons. Some cards feel a bit bland, a bit naked.

Tokens are horrible.
Sorry for you sensible guys but I dislike pinky-flowery tokens. Gold coins? Why not! But no, pinky-flowery tokens, yay!

Again, without playing the game, I can't really speak to the Rings concerns. I'm cautiously optimistic, though - they seem like they're more intertwined with the setting and gameplay than we've seen yet. Same with the Bamboo - since we don't know what it is yet, let's not drive ourselves crazy with negative speculation.

As far as the card frames are concerned, I think they're very nice. Different strokes for different folks.

And tokens... well, again, personal preferences. I don't mind having Fate represented by the falling petals of ephemeral flowers... it's kind of a nice reminder of the fleeting nature of life.

2 minutes ago, Hound Archon said:

I've been trying to get my head around lack of combat in the game. Sounds like your just comparing numbers to try and break a province. After you compare, both sides go home. Its weird to think that my army would just go home and let the winning army sack their home land. They should be standing their ground and fighting to the bitter end. With that in mind, I've been trying to think of some sort of abstract way the units are fighting. Maybe the two armies did clash, and the survivors are the ones heading home at the end of the turn...

Reading Wispur's quote above helps with the abstract thinking. Many pros and cons with all of this.

L5R doesn't really feel like a fighting game, more of a story game. If they took out the military conflict and just did political, the way they made the game totally makes sense.

Yup, pretty much this ^

Armies gather around a province, play some cards (or some gö to be more in-theme), they decide who won and who lost and got home to drink some kombucha.
Also, the province... no worries, it will keep providing resources to the local Daimyö. They just planted a banner there, saying "this one is done, next one please".

Logic? Not for me... with or without abstraction.

48 minutes ago, Sithborg said:

As someone who has never played L5R, I looked at the rules for the game when this was first announced. In order to bring me in, L5R needed a major overhaul. FFG can't cater to the hardcore who have continued to play L5R when it has dwindled to non relevance.

Exactly. FFG didn't want to merely continue L5R; they wanted to grow it and bring in new players!

58 minutes ago, oDESGOSTO said:

So, where to start... maybe some bulletpoints:

Fading

The Fate/Fade mechanic is what really turns me off.
L5R was a game of conflict. A game where Samurai had presence on the table, where armies clashed for Provinces. Now that is lost. Your personalities will have a finite time on board and board presence will be frail.

Also, it will devalue weapons, spells and everything else you can put on a personality. Why investing slots in your deck for weapons that will also have a finite life because your personalities will? And Spells? Why even bother wasting card-slots for something that will work a number of times as much as you paid for your personality to stay in the table? Why me, as a competitive player, would waste that slot in a weapon/spell when I can waste that same slot in more actions to use on "fodder" personalities, that's what the game promotes now?
Where is the sense of Personalities? There is none! They come, they do, they walk away... why to waste Fate on a costly Personality when I can use the same Fate for a much lower Personality with same stats but less keywords/traits/triggers?!

This is a bold claim to make with so little information. Yes, personalities will have finite time on the board, but who knows what cards may allow us to add Fate to get a little more time out of them? Without having seen all the spells and other cards, how can you know that spells/weapons will always be a waste, even if they did only stick around for one turn? There could easily be effects that would make them worth the cost, depending on how much similar effects cost or whether you can even get the same effects other ways.

In regards to paying more for a personality with more keywords, isn't that just a trade-off? If you don't have need of the keywords or traits, of course you won't buy him! But if you have a good card that only affects Scouts, say, you may consider paying a little more to get out a Scout who can use it!

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

With this rule the game lost its sense, its "art of war" and it turned into something that is more adequate to AGOT where a character can come and go and make a few things while on board... alas, I think this game is more into AGOT than L5R, if you cut the theme and present the game as it is I would say it looks more like a AGOTish than L5Rish (mechanicaly, of course).
So, no more building armies, fighting armies... it will be more like fodder, fodder, fodder... and that's it.

Also, this cuts the wide game, it doesn't encourage a player to go wide and spam lots of personalities and followers. Weenies are gone, long live rush and fuel. Playing a low-cost personality and putting all your Fate there. And that's it. I don't see better strategies to follow, honestly...

This, IMO, looks like a poor design choice to correct some problems L5R had, with the build-up and turteling and OTK games. But it will allow a different kind of turtelling, a Fate turtelling where the one who accumulates more Fate to develop a One-Turn board and fuel it, wins.

I can go on all day on how this mechanic is bad. Even M:TG had it one time and never went back for it again.
Players want to play their cards and keep their cards on the table and this game does the opposite. #seemslegit

I guess I view it as actually allowing for greater strategy. If I just need a character briefly for a turn, I can buy him just for the turn. If I think I'll have need for him in the future, I can pay more so he'll stick around. One character could be played multiple ways, as the situation demands! I'm sure the strategy you describe will certainly see some play, but it seems a bit early to claim that's the only viable strategy possible.

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

Bet & Draw

Another one that got me off...

So, you're giving a player in a game that is driven by Action cards to win conflicts the chance to draw less cards than his opponent?! Really?? You think any seasoned player will draw less to accumulate Honour?! Oh, c'mon!!
In any card game, any, there's a thing called Card Advantage, and as the name states is an Advantage to win a card game, any card game.

This will open a precedent, there will be no Honour:0 Clans (clans that don't lose by Dishonour), because if there will ever be I want to play with them and draw 5 cards per turn.
"But hey, you're giving your opo too much Honour" - right, and there will surely be cards that will "burn" direct Dishonour. If so, I'll play them!
"But hey, they didn't told you if you can or cannot bet any amount of Honour or just up to the amount of Honour you actually have" - and that's the main issue here... I still don't know how this work and if this will work this way, but prolly is due to the information on their website. So, Honour and card draw will keep trading back-and-forth... if so it will promote the "I'll always draw 5 scenario" because the opo will think "he'll always draw 5 and I can't draw less".

It's still too early to talk about this and the real repercussions in the game but... I can speculate and it will be as bad as it were in Conquest bidding for planets. Also, this is another port from another LCG into L5R that didn't had to occur, only because "we must do it and a dial must take place in the game".
I was expecting an Honour dial in the same manner as the Threat dial in LOTR, but this dial and betting is too far-fetched for a competitive card game.

I think how many cards people draw will often depend greatly on the board situation. In many cases, it may be better to draw more, but what about if I'm already at my max hand size? Is it worth drawing five cards if there's a very real possibility that I'll just have to discard five of them? I'm sure there will at some point be cards that play from the discard or grant a bonus while they're in the discard, but that's unlikely to be the majority of the deck, especially this early in the game's life!

Not only that, but we don't know how common honor/dishonor effects will be. Gaining four honor or forcing the opponent to lose four honor could itself be a rather game-making-or-breaking play, in certain circumstances! We'll just have to wait and see what sorts of mechanics interact with honor before we badmouth it too much. Though personally, I'm rather glad to see honor/dishonor playing a more active, strategic role rather than simply being a number to track.

(Also, your rant loses a bit of impact when fully half the section is in regards to a strictly hypothetical situation which we have no reason to believe will ever happen in the game. I'm not saying Shadowlands won't make an appearance, but if they ever do, I would bet they interact with honor/dishonor differently from the other clans.)

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

Conflicts

Another port that came strickly from AGOT, where you have three types and can battle one per turn.
Also, as in AGOT, each type has its own effect/claim.
Instead of Military, Intrigue and Power L5R has Military and Political. Instead of claims it has Elemental effects associated with the Rings.

I can't say I dislike this, because I don't. I don't dislike it in AGOT. I dislike it in L5R.

Also, conflicts now won't penalize the losing player. Instead of losing the army and possibly the Province providing resources, now everyone comes back home to drink some kombucha after losing a battle. And guess what?! Provinces still keep working and providing resources!! WOW!!

Honestly... this is card-game-lite! A game where a conflict won't penalize a losing side is an anecdote.
L5R was one of the most penalizing games I've ever played, when a game was decided in a right-wrong decision. And I know because of this nature the game was tense and turtelling in such way a player wouldn't commit until he knew he had to.
The game lost its strategic depth with this Lite version where there's no arm done and armies will fight another day... if they still have Fate, of course!

Removing the penalization was not a great move. It makes me think if FFG was really adapting L5R or was just remaking a game with a pseudo-japanese style to compete with other crappy japanese cardgames that kids these days play, and by having a less tense game, Lite, not much penalizing, will attract those kids who play those crappy japanese games into this one.

Have they actually said that conflicts won't penalize the losing player? I remember them saying you wouldn't lose your entire army in resolution, and that broken provinces still produce, but I don't recall them saying there would be no negative effects whatsoever! Card effects could trigger off of broken provinces, or maybe when your province is broken you can no longer use the Ring associated with it!

Also, the penalty of losing provinces wasn't always a result of making an incorrect choice. One of my friends regularly played a Unicorn deck that would routinely use cavalry and Heavy Infantry Dojo (force pumps holding that doesn't require "Opposed") to take at least one, and often two, of my provinces before I could get enough personalities to defend everywhere. So, the entire rest of the game I was down to at most 75% of his production capacity just because I couldn't get four personalities out by the end of turn 2. Making it so that broken provinces still produce probably doesn't mean that there is no effect whatsoever; it just means that you can't immediately kill your opponent's economy just because he didn't have a lucky draw.

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

Rings

Well... everything was said about the Rings.
No more Enlightenment as we know. No more presence in the deck. Rings become something ethereal that "is just there"... and the effects... c'mon! Some effects are just... yup!

I just wanted less AGOT and more L5Rings in this aspect of the game.

Personally, I welcome this change. Some decks used the Rings a lot, but others hardly used any Rings, and even the Rings they threw in sometimes never saw the light of day. It's rather strange that the Rings often had so little part to play in a game called, "Legend of the Five Rings." Making them an always-present aspect actually improves the theme of the game, in my opinion.

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

The Bambu

We still don't know what it is but we suspect that... wait... is another great port of an LCG into L5R!! Hurray!! Let's give an Influence a-la A:NR into L5R, because reasons! Because we can. Because why not! ...

So, you're going to get upset about a game mechanic being included when we don't even know what it does yet? Seems logical.

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

The Aspect

Card are great. I was more into a design like LOTR instead of a design like Conquest. But they are ok, more space for artwork and grouped icons. Some cards feel a bit bland, a bit naked.

Tokens are horrible.
Sorry for you sensible guys but I dislike pinky-flowery tokens. Gold coins? Why not! But no, pinky-flowery tokens, yay!

I agree that some of the cards could use a bit more flavor text.

As for tokens, though, what's wrong with the flowers (cherry blossoms?)? If you're only concerned with fighting, and not at all with art and beauty, you're probably more of a thug than a samurai. Why, even in the stance of a skilled duelist, one can see the graceful elegance of a true artist!

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

So, these are my main issues with the game.

I'd like to sum it up with this thought:
-what's the most played and most successful LCG?
It's Android: Netrunner!

Android: Netrunner was a straight import of a game into the LCG range. The design team made every single thing well done. They polished the game, gave it a theme, remove randomness, remove the bidding mechanic (that was later ported as Psy mechanic in Jinteki). The game remained intact when FFG announced it. It was not a huge imediate success but it passed through the test of time.

FFG then tried Star Wars. Failed.
FFG then tried Conquest. Failed.
FFG tried AGOT2. Is failing, because AGOT1 was the most played LCG and AGOT2 is now below A:NR.

This is a reflection of, when you have a formula of success, you should not ruin it, you just keep the formula and upgrade the igredients.
L5R needed a brush, only a gentle brush. A reboot in the theme. Polish over some of the instances of the game. But keeping its essence intact.
L5R essence was the 2 decks. Ok here. L5R essence was 4 win-cons. Not ok here, for now. L5R essence was armies battling for Provinces that provided resources to keep fighting. Again, not ok here.

FFG messed with the formula. I may say that they failed. Others may say "hurrah, best game eva". Let's see what Time has to say!

I just find it interesting that you're already declaring failure and saying we should wait to see what time has to say when the game's only been out for....negative-a-few-months, now? Also, from what I've seen on this message board and from talking to other players I know, the response has been overwhelmingly positive to the news! Some people are a little skeptical about some of the details, but they still have favorable outlooks towards the game overall. If you and the other naysayers don't like the way the new game looks, that's fine. But to claim that it's already failed just because a few people dislike it, when many times more people do like it, is simply dishonest! If you're not lying to us, then you're lying to yourself!

1 hour ago, oDESGOSTO said:

So, these are my main issues with the game.

I'd like to sum it up with this thought:

-what's the most played and most successful LCG?
It's Android: Netrunner!

Android: Netrunner was a straight import of a game into the LCG range. The design team made every single thing well done. They polished the game, gave it a theme, remove randomness, remove the bidding mechanic (that was later ported as Psy mechanic in Jinteki). The game remained intact when FFG announced it. It was not a huge imediate success but it passed through the test of time.

FFG then tried Star Wars. Failed.
FFG then tried Conquest. Failed.
FFG tried AGOT2. Is failing, because AGOT1 was the most played LCG and AGOT2 is now below A:NR.

This is a reflection of, when you have a formula of success, you should not ruin it, you just keep the formula and upgrade the igredients.
L5R needed a brush, only a gentle brush. A reboot in the theme. Polish over some of the instances of the game. But keeping its essence intact.
L5R essence was the 2 decks. Ok here. L5R essence was 4 win-cons. Not ok here, for now. L5R essence was armies battling for Provinces that provided resources to keep fighting. Again, not ok here.

FFG messed with the formula. I may say that they failed. Others may say "hurrah, best game eva". Let's see what Time has to say!

PS. sorry for any mispel or exquisite interpretation... English is not my native language.

Interesting thoughts on Netrunner. I think it's important to remember that they inherited a system invented by Richard Garfield that was darn-near perfect. I still play "old" Netrunner! And they did tweak a few things with the rules - it wasn't a straight port-over with new pictures - but they kept most of the system because there really wasn't much to improve on.

Has Star Wars failed? I thought it was still going. And Conquest was tied to GW, which is a gigantic can of licensing worms that we don't need to re-open (other than to say, "you poor, poor licensees"). And Game of Thrones is still going strong, I thought. I'll have to brush up on those.

We knew from the start that they were going to make an entirely new game. I'm honestly a little surprised at how much has been kept the same - 2 decks, 3 (instead of 4) built-in win conditions, warring over provinces. The paint's changed, the setting's been re-booted..l. and that's okay, because it's a brand-new game.

When you have a formula for success, sometimes it makes sense to change it. Sometimes you wind up with New Coke. Sometimes you wind up with the current incarnation of Apple. We don't know which this is yet, but I'm coming at this from a place of hope. Like you said, time will tell.

Chin up! I'm glad to have any game at all, and one that looks as good as this one is cause for celebration, not misery. Don't get swept up in the minutiae when the broad strokes are more of what we all love about this world (and the games that brought us there).

1 hour ago, Ryric said:

One thing I notice is these cards are a lot brighter than the ones I remember from back in the day. I played from about 1998 to 2003, and the color scheme was a lot more grimdark back then. Black bordered cards with dark art were pretty normal. The new cards make everything look light and airy. Not a criticism, just an observation.

Interesting - I hadn't looked at it that way before! Nice catch!

2 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I just find it interesting that you're already declaring failure and saying we should wait to see what time has to say when the game's only been out for....negative-a-few-months, now? Also, from what I've seen on this message board and from talking to other players I know, the response has been overwhelmingly positive to the news! Some people are a little skeptical about some of the details, but they still have favorable outlooks towards the game overall. If you and the other naysayers don't like the way the new game looks, that's fine. But to claim that it's already failed just because a few people dislike it, when many times more people do like it, is simply dishonest! If you're not lying to us, then you're lying to yourself!

Curious that the same happened with 40K Conquest, that was sold on these same boards as the next big thing to come. Others, experienced xCG players, said what they said and were also labeled naysayers.
Even before the announcement the game had already fell. The announcement was just the cherry on top since the game was lacking players, being the least played LCG.

2 minutes ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

Interesting thoughts on Netrunner. I think it's important to remember that they inherited a system invented by Richard Garfield that was darn-near perfect. I still play "old" Netrunner! And they did tweak a few things with the rules - it wasn't a straight port-over with new pictures - but they kept most of the system because there really wasn't much to improve on.

Has Star Wars failed? I thought it was still going. And Conquest was tied to GW, which is a gigantic can of licensing worms that we don't need to re-open (other than to say, "you poor, poor licensees"). And Game of Thrones is still going strong, I thought. I'll have to brush up on those.

We knew from the start that they were going to make an entirely new game. I'm honestly a little surprised at how much has been kept the same - 2 decks, 3 (instead of 4) built-in win conditions, warring over provinces. The paint's changed, the setting's been re-booted..l. and that's okay, because it's a brand-new game.

When you have a formula for success, sometimes it makes sense to change it. Sometimes you wind up with New Coke. Sometimes you wind up with the current incarnation of Apple. We don't know which this is yet, but I'm coming at this from a place of hope. Like you said, time will tell.

Chin up! I'm glad to have any game at all, and one that looks as good as this one is cause for celebration, not misery. Don't get swept up in the minutiae when the broad strokes are more of what we all love about this world (and the games that brought us there).

I'm not into the FFG board but regarding the strenght of the IP and the sales numbers and player base, Star Wars is a fail.
Decipher's Star Wars competed directly with M:TG, in a matter that WOTC pulled the wallet and bought the game from Decipher.
So, why ain't this SW LCG directly competing with M:TG? When it can't even compete internally against AGOT, being the now-least played LCG.

L5R was as perfect as C:NR (Classic: Netrunner) was. It was a game, it had flaws. C:NR was also limited and straightforward as now people claim L5R was, with only one way to win. But now A:NR has a lot of ways to win, Fast Adv, Fortress, Tag&Bag, Big Rig, Blackmail (now killed by the new MWL)... and only with a few touches here and there, nothing was rebuilt or absurdely changed.
L5R has changed a lot. It's not the fact that maintaining 2 decks, provinces and 3 wincons that makes the same game, it's the same as I'm saying that Pokemon CCG and M:TG are the same game because both have one deck with cards, creatures, energy/mana, attachments... no, this L5R will be really really different from the old L5R. For some it can be a good sign, but for those, who played Classic Netrunner and went into Android: Netrunner with no questions asked, probably will not do the same in L5R.

5 minutes ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

Fate/Fading: So, this seems to be a change that a lot of people are still wrapping their heads around. Yes, , our characters will be dying at a steady rate, and whether you're looking at that from the flavor perspective of them aging and life being ephemeral or the mechanical perspective of it's a new resource to keep watch on and have to account for, it's a big change.

35 minutes ago, Wispur said:

I dig the Fading mechanic just because it adds a greater sense of "History" to the game for me, with multiple generations fighting for the clan.
One generation sets the stage, founding the clan, eventually to fade away and be replaced by their descendants fighting for the glory of the clan, paving way for future generations to eventually end the fight.

It makes the whole thing feel more epic to me. More like a grand tale being told over multiple generations.

I don't envision it quite on that scale of time; rather than years or decades, I think of weeks or maybe seasons. A personality leaving due to fate may simply be him being called to court, recovering from an injury, or going to attend his child's naming ceremony. If/when the personality returns to play later, that responsibility has been fulfilled and they are able to return to duty in the field.

"Curious that the same happened with 40K Conquest, that was sold on these same boards as the next big thing to come."

Conquest did NOT FAIL...the IP went away.
GoT is very healthy and L5R looks to be more successful.
you have made a number of pronouncements based on very little information.
if you think this sucks so much please go play some other game...your baseless negativity is not needed.

1 hour ago, Mirith said:

A lot of people would say that L5R at the end of when AEG had it had also already failed. Not everyone. A number of people still played, but I do know that Ivory killed L5R locally for me (I think the various network of players went from something like 20-30 to 4 diehards). It even got to the point where at least one of my friends vowed to never give AEG money again.

To be honest people who dispute that ivory killed L5R are deluding themselves. It was a bad edition full of bad rules changes that i know for a fact went through over the objections of a number of experienced CCG players and tanked the game. They could have renamed every card in samurai edition, nerfed a handful of the problem cards from that arc and released it nearly unchanged and it would have been better for the game than Ivory was. AEG could have stuck with the design philosophies of Diamond or samurai edition, looked at those cards and strategies and kept near to that and we probably wouldn't be seeing FFG have it today.

This, honestly looks so much better than the Ivory arc, that even if I don't have the time to play with any seriousness i might pick it up on the off chance i do get time eventually.

2 minutes ago, Hidatom said:

Conquest did NOT FAIL...the IP went away.

It was taken away.