I know this is future think considering the game isn't even released yet, but I've been thinking lately on once we get a few cycles in how hard it will be to convince a new player to join. You're going to tell him to drop $90 on 3 cores and then $90 on each cycle that has come out since and maybe a deluxe box.

What if after the release of the sixth dynasty pack in a cycle, FFG stopped selling any dynasty packs in that cycle (so you don't have 1000 skus) and instead sold Cycle Clan Packs. Each pack would contain a playset all of the cards of that clan that was released in that cycle as well as a selection of neutral cards that were released in that cycle that relate to the clan. The neutral cards would be divided in such a way that when you bought all 7 clan packs you would have a single full playset of all the neutrals. These packs would retail for about $13 each so that all 7 would cost you roughly the same as all 6 dynasty packs. The advantage would be for new players. After the new player has his core and gets a feel for which clan he likes you can tell him to go buy his clan pack (and maybe a deluxe box if one exists for his clan). This way the new player doesn't have to drop hundreds on the outset to build a current competitive deck, they can start with the clan they enjoy the most and build from there.

The neutral card division won't work. Inevitably there will be a card that you want to build into your deck that isn't typical for your clan that means you have to buy into another clan box to get one card. Or even worse several boxes to get several cards. As well as determining which neutral is appropriate for which clan is hard. Cloud the Mind, for example, is a strong utilitarian card that looks like it will see at least some play in many clans. The point of neutrals is that they work well with more than one clan, so it's pretty hard to divvy them out by clan.

If you're trying to convince a new player to stick with the game, the best way is card pooling. It helps create community, it helps create clan faction loyalty, and multiple people going into purchasing dynasty/core/deluxe boxes is very cost effective.

I am hoping there are some sort of clan "catch up" type packs that will allow a player that is looking to get competitive, with a particular clan, and is somewhere in between rotations.

Alt art in the core sets could be neat for each rotation.

I thought 3 cores was $120 and each monthly pack was $16-$20?

4 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

The neutral card division won't work. Inevitably there will be a card that you want to build into your deck that isn't typical for your clan that means you have to buy into another clan box to get one card. Or even worse several boxes to get several cards. As well as determining which neutral is appropriate for which clan is hard. Cloud the Mind, for example, is a strong utilitarian card that looks like it will see at least some play in many clans. The point of neutrals is that they work well with more than one clan, so it's pretty hard to divvy them out by clan.

If you're trying to convince a new player to stick with the game, the best way is card pooling. It helps create community, it helps create clan faction loyalty, and multiple people going into purchasing dynasty/core/deluxe boxes is very cost effective.

I'm not sure why a neutral card division won't work. Maybe there is a card that isn't in your clan's deck and you need a different clan for it. So you buy that clan's deck also. You've still payed less than buying a dynasty pack for a single card and now you have 2 full clans to play with. You could also split a playset between multiple clans. Its not ideal but it gives you a start towards your deck. I want to point out that I'm not talking about touching the core or any of the deluxe boxes. I'm talking about the dynasty packs. The 20 card packs that retail for $15 a piece and 6 make up a cycle. I'm talking about when the cycle is finished you take those 120 playsets of cards and divide them into 7 clan packs for future sales with the point of lowering the cost of entry for new players.

Also, how do you card pool with a new player in an LCG? You only have 1 playset of cards making every card effectively a rare. Are you going to give your playsets to a player who may or may not be back?

Honestly I wouldn't mind if every 2 years they reset the game. 2 year story arcs, climax, new core (with new clan champs, characters, etc) .

3 minutes ago, Shu2jack said:

I thought 3 cores was $120 and each monthly pack was $16-$20?

Maybe I have my estimations wrong. I was thinking each core was $30 and each monthly pack was $15 with the set of 6 costing $90. Regardless, my numbers were just for example. I would price the clan packs at a price of (cost of the dynasty pack) * 6 / 7.

What about influencing other clans?

19 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

I'm not sure why a neutral card division won't work. Maybe there is a card that isn't in your clan's deck and you need a different clan for it. So you buy that clan's deck also. You've still payed less than buying a dynasty pack for a single card and now you have 2 full clans to play with. You could also split a playset between multiple clans. Its not ideal but it gives you a start towards your deck. I want to point out that I'm not talking about touching the core or any of the deluxe boxes. I'm talking about the dynasty packs. The 20 card packs that retail for $15 a piece and 6 make up a cycle. I'm talking about when the cycle is finished you take those 120 playsets of cards and divide them into 7 clan packs for future sales with the point of lowering the cost of entry for new players.

Also, how do you card pool with a new player in an LCG? You only have 1 playset of cards making every card effectively a rare. Are you going to give your playsets to a player who may or may not be back?

I'm using core box, because that's the only way I can think of to provide card examples, I understand that you aren't talking about Core. What happens when you want a card like Cloud the Mind, and you're Crab, you have to buy the Phoenix box. Then a card like blackmail, so you buy the Scorpion box. You're now buying boxes for one card. It isn't cost effective. I'm now spending 23 dollars for 6 cards. I have a whole lot of extra cards that I don't have anything to do with. Now I want to splash Crane into that, because you like a card like Above Question is something you want. So you spend another 13 on a box for max 10 cards. that's a lot of wasted cards, and each of those cards you bought for are now more expensive.

What you are describing is a cheap way to just buy you're clan, and to play the clan the way FFG thinks it should be played. But if you want to do anything other than what that clan box wants you to do, you're now paying 13 dollars for very few cards.

I look at card pooling differently than you. To me, the cards are effectively common. I can be assured of my ability to reacquire something I've lost.

1 minute ago, Sparks Duh said:

What about influencing other clans?

Then you buy the clan pack for the clan you want to influence. Remember, my purpose with this idea was to help a new player get a start when there several dynasty packs released. Let me use AGOT2.0 as an example. Lets say you have new guy who bought just the core so far. He really likes Tyrell. Instead of telling him you need to buy the 6 Westeros chapter packs, the 6 War of the Five Kings chapter packs, and the 5 chapter packs from blood and gold, you can instead tell him to buy the 1 Tyrell Westeros cycle pack and the 1 Tyrell Wot5K cycle pack. He can then buy the 5 blood and gold chapter packs now or wait a few months and get the Tyrell Blood and Gold cycle packs. This way he can build a competitive Tyrell deck for say $113 vs $270. If later he decides he wants to play another faction or splash a faction he can pick up the faction cycle pack for that faction

This of course assumes every person who buys things does that kind of long term cost analysis. New players aren't going to spend 13 dollars on a box of cards for 1 playset of cards.

2 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

I'm using core box, because that's the only way I can think of to provide card examples, I understand that you aren't talking about Core. What happens when you want a card like Cloud the Mind, and you're Crab, you have to buy the Phoenix box. Then a card like blackmail, so you buy the Scorpion box. You're now buying boxes for one card. It isn't cost effective. I'm now spending 23 dollars for 6 cards. I have a whole lot of extra cards that I don't have anything to do with. Now I want to splash Crane into that, because you like a card like Above Question is something you want. So you spend another 13 on a box for max 10 cards. that's a lot of wasted cards, and each of those cards you bought for are now more expensive.

What you are describing is a cheap way to just buy you're clan, and to play the clan the way FFG thinks it should be played. But if you want to do anything other than what that clan box wants you to do, you're now paying 13 dollars for a 5-10 cards.

I look at card pooling differently than you. To me, the cards are effectively common. I can be assured of my ability to reacquire something I've lost.

And how is that any different then the current dynasty packs. Lets say in your example cloud the mind is in dynasty pack 1, blackmail is in pack 2, and above question is in pack 3. You now have to spend $45 for those 3 cards (+ your 6 crab cards) but you still need to buy pack 4, 5, and 6 just to finish your crab set. So now you've spent $90 as a brand new player just to get all your crabs

3 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

This of course assumes every person who buys things does that kind of long term cost analysis. New players aren't going to spend 13 dollars on a box of cards for 1 playset of cards.

I'm not sure what you are getting at here. My point is a set up that allows you to buy all your clan cards for a little less than a dynasty pack. If you buy all 7 proposed clan cycle packs you'll have the exact same thing as if you bought all 6 actual cycle packs for about the same cost. I'm also not saying release the dynasty packs initially as clan packs. I'm saying AFTER the cycle is complete, stop releasing the cycle and ONLY release these clan packs. Existing players will have built themselves off the normal cycle packs while NEW player can build themselves off the clan packs later.

In the CCG days, when you had a new player what did you do? Did you give him a bunch of cards from a single clan or did you give him every possible case he might want to play from that clan? I'm guessing the former. What I'm proposing is the similar thing for an LCG. Giving clan packs for the cycle packs after they finished so that a new player has a low price point of entry and can get started playing the game. Two years down the line when you try to convice a new player to join, whats going to be easier, telling them they can be competitive for $360 as they need 1 or 2 cards from each of the 24 dynasty packs released or they can be competitive for $52 as they only need to buy 4 clan packs to START.

Instead of theorycrafting, look at examples. How easy is it to get into ongoing LCGs? (Note: I don't know the answer - I'm asking...)

I've heard some people say it's hard to bring new people in to Netrunner due to this issue, but that's also why FFG has introduced cycling cards. Anyway, what is it like for ongoing LCGs? Are they able to bring in new players? Anyone know?

7 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

I'm not sure what you are getting at here. My point is a set up that allows you to buy all your clan cards for a little less than a dynasty pack. If you buy all 7 proposed clan cycle packs you'll have the exact same thing as if you bought all 6 actual cycle packs for about the same cost. I'm also not saying release the dynasty packs initially as clan packs. I'm saying AFTER the cycle is complete, stop releasing the cycle and ONLY release these clan packs. Existing players will have built themselves off the normal cycle packs while NEW player can build themselves off the clan packs later.

In the CCG days, when you had a new player what did you do? Did you give him a bunch of cards from a single clan or did you give him every possible case he might want to play from that clan? I'm guessing the former. What I'm proposing is the similar thing for an LCG. Giving clan packs for the cycle packs after they finished so that a new player has a low price point of entry and can get started playing the game. Two years down the line when you try to convice a new player to join, whats going to be easier, telling them they can be competitive for $360 as they need 1 or 2 cards from each of the 24 dynasty packs released or they can be competitive for $52 as they only need to buy 4 clan packs to START.

In the CCG, I gave them those cards for free. I didn't charge them money, and then they could have access to ALL the neutrals to build their deck. Which is the biggest problem, your idea severely limits the access to neutral cards, unless you plan on buying heavily into the game. Any one clan box will only have a 1/7th of available neutrals, that's incredibly small amount.

As a buyer, people weigh cost on individual items, versus the long term analysis you keep pointing out. We as collectors know this cost up and down the path because we are determined to purchase a full playset and all these dynasty packs. As a new/casual player, they will be looking at each individual purchase as "is this worth it to me". At which point, 6 playsets for 15 dollars is a better deal than 1 playset for 13. This is how a buyer thinks, 9 times out of 10.

While you're idea is great to get a clan into a persons hand, but they will never buy any other box for only 1 set of cards. This means they're game will be stifled. They will feel frustrated at lack of versatility within what they can do, and probably be beaten, a lot, but won't want to spend 13 dollars to buy a 1 or 2 sets of cards to help improve the game. Instead they'll just put the game away and move on.

(To you're previous response, that example does provide you want all you're crab cards.)

You could not have the neutral cards in any clan box, and sell them separate, but I'm unsure how well that would work.

I truly think that you're idea is a good launch point for getting into a clan, but in the long term only hurts. The new player has severe cuts of their card pool, and its bad for FFG from a financial point, which means they are spending more money for less return, which is worse L5R as a whole.

Honestly, for any game that's had numerous expansions, it's pretty unreasonable for someone to expect to have a fully competitive deck for really cheap. If a new player is has his heart set on playing a championship-winning deck right from the get-go (after the game is well established), he needs to be prepared to spend money.

If he doesn't care about being super-competitive, then it suddenly gets a lot less expensive, anyway. Once there are multiple cycles out, you don't necessarily need three cores. Just get one and a couple packs that appeal to you. Also, why buy the cycles that are about to rotate out? Just focus on the most recent cycles and new cycles going forward, instead.

I don't see that we need to have a whole new set of products just because some people want to have a shortcut.

15 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

In the CCG, I gave them those cards for free. I didn't charge them money, and then they could have access to ALL the neutrals to build their deck. Which is the biggest problem, your idea severely limits the access to neutral cards, unless you plan on buying heavily into the game. Any one clan box will only have a 1/7th of available neutrals, that's incredibly small amount.

And any one dynasty packs will only have 1/6th of the available neutrals and 1/6th of each available clan card, that's still an incredibly small amount. My idea is not limiting access to neutral cards practically any more than dynasty packs already will.

17 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

As a buyer, people weigh cost on individual items, versus the long term analysis you keep pointing out. We as collectors know this cost up and down the path because we are determined to purchase a full playset and all these dynasty packs. As a new/casual player, they will be looking at each individual purchase as "is this worth it to me". At which point, 6 playsets for 15 dollars is a better deal than 1 playset for 13. This is how a buyer thinks, 9 times out of 10.

You aren't comparing fairly. If we assume that dynasty packs follow the same distribution as AGOT chapter packs then you will have 2 clan cards for each clan and 6 neutral cards. If you assume all neutral cards are useful for you, then you are getting 8 playsets for $15 vs 5-6 playsets for $13. This comes to $2.53 per playset in the clan pack model and $1.88 per playset in the dynasty pack model. This only looks at neutral cards in off clan packs. When you look at on clan packs you have 17-18 playsets per pack which comes to $0.76 per playset.

26 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

While you're idea is great to get a clan into a persons hand, but they will never buy any other box for only 1 set of cards. This means they're game will be stifled. They will feel frustrated at lack of versatility within what they can do, and probably be beaten, a lot, but won't want to spend 13 dollars to buy a 1 or 2 sets of cards to help improve the game. Instead they'll just put the game away and move on.

If they wouldn't want to spend 13 dollars on 1 or 2 sets of cards (as well as get a whole new clan to play competitively), why would they want to spend 15 dollars or 2-4 sets of cards (or 90 dollars to fill out the clan).

18 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

You could not have the neutral cards in any clan box, and sell them separate, but I'm unsure how well that would work.

I don't think this would work. First, it would have to have a higher price point as it will have 3 times the number of cards as the clan ones. Second, I think you would have the same issue that you had back in Ivory with mantis starters as existing players buy them out to have extra copies for extra decks.

20 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

I truly think that you're idea is a good launch point for getting into a clan, but in the long term only hurts. The new player has severe cuts of their card pool, and its bad for FFG from a financial point, which means they are spending more money for less return, which is worse L5R as a whole.

But isn't that how you get a new player into the game is to get them playing? I'm sure each of us started with one clan and playing and either stuck with that one clan or moved to a different one or ended up playing multiple. In the long term it doesn't hurt any more than the current system, in fact it hurts less as you now have more players which is better for FFG and L5R

1 hour ago, Shu2jack said:

I thought 3 cores was $120 and each monthly pack was $16-$20?

MSRP Yes, but you should be able to get stuff for cheaper. I know my FLGS regular sells FFG stuff at about 75-80% MSRP.

Though the big question is what will FFG do about this, and have they tried to do anything about this in the past? How would this be different than some form of Lannister catch up mechanism or an Anarch catch up mechanism in existing games? Does it make sense for them to do this? Creating different additional products is not very cost effective for them. And stores often don't like to carry a bunch of different products, especially redundant ones. I think they intend for new players to either buy all sets, or do their own research and buy the ones they need.

2 minutes ago, Mirith said:

Creating different additional products is not very cost effective for them. And stores often don't like to carry a bunch of different products, especially redundant ones. I think they intend for new players to either buy all sets, or do their own research and buy the ones they need.

This is the one issue I thought this might have and I don't have the experience on it. That's why I said to stop selling the cycle when you switch this one. That way FFG still has the same product on the shelves, its just packaged differently. The number of SKUs would temporarily increase but then drop to relatively the same as the dynasty packs are no longer offered.

1 minute ago, JRosen9 said:

And any one dynasty packs will only have 1/6th of the available neutrals and 1/6th of each available clan card, that's still an incredibly small amount. My idea is not limiting access to neutral cards practically any more than dynasty packs already will.

You aren't comparing fairly. If we assume that dynasty packs follow the same distribution as AGOT chapter packs then you will have 2 clan cards for each clan and 6 neutral cards. If you assume all neutral cards are useful for you, then you are getting 8 playsets for $15 vs 5-6 playsets for $13. This comes to $2.53 per playset in the clan pack model and $1.88 per playset in the dynasty pack model. This only looks at neutral cards in off clan packs. When you look at on clan packs you have 17-18 playsets per pack which comes to $0.76 per playset.

If they wouldn't want to spend 13 dollars on 1 or 2 sets of cards (as well as get a whole new clan to play competitively), why would they want to spend 15 dollars or 2-4 sets of cards (or 90 dollars to fill out the clan).

I misread your numbers, it was not intentional to compare unfairly. But, you keep mis-understanding my point. You keep looking at a Macro, buyers look at Micro. It is the individual purchase, not the whole. you keep going back to that 90 dollar price point, when most buyers don't even think about that. They think about what is the product in their hand is worth.

15 dollars and you get 2 playsets is 2.56 dollars a card. 13 dollars and you get 1 playset is 4.34 dollars a card. The buyer sees that as paying twice as much for half the product. They don't ever think about the cost before, or the cost after. Only cost in the moment. That 17-18 playsets for each clan only matters if you want that clan. If you don't want to play Scorpion, then those are 17/18 playsets aren't worth anything.

Quote

But isn't that how you get a new player into the game is to get them playing? I'm sure each of us started with one clan and playing and either stuck with that one clan or moved to a different one or ended up playing multiple. In the long term it doesn't hurt any more than the current system, in fact it hurts less as you now have more players which is better for FFG and L5R

You can get a new player into the game, but you aren't going to keep him, is my point. On top of that, you're asking FFG to make more product that appeals to far fewer than the core or even Dynasty packs. They will make less money doing what you want them to do. And certainly not enough money to really be worth making those extra boxes just for possible new player.

If game of thrones and netrunner has taught us anything about how LCG expansions work, its usually 1-2 per faction in a pack and a neutral card. Premium box sets tend to be two factions (like netrunner) or can even be a single faction focus BUT even those has mixed cards from other factions, but obviously have more of the faction it is featuring.

1 hour ago, JRosen9 said:

This is the one issue I thought this might have and I don't have the experience on it. That's why I said to stop selling the cycle when you switch this one. That way FFG still has the same product on the shelves, its just packaged differently. The number of SKUs would temporarily increase but then drop to relatively the same as the dynasty packs are no longer offered.

Except they don't cycle stuff out for 3-4 years? Unless that has changed since I last looked. In which case stuff I don't think goes out of print, since that, to me, goes against their business model (Cards always available to everyone evenly). I know some of the older packs become hard to find, but I don't think its because they are "out of print". And stores may protest. They have a limited amount of shelf space. You might have trouble getting a store to go in on buying 3 copies of each clan when they already still have 2 copies of each dynasty pack sitting on their shelves still.

My main point though is, I think it would be nice, but I doubt it will happen.

2 minutes ago, Mirith said:

Except they don't cycle stuff out for 3-4 years? Unless that has changed since I last looked. In which case stuff I don't think goes out of print, since that, to me, goes against their business model (Cards always available to everyone evenly). I know some of the older packs become hard to find, but I don't think its because they are "out of print". And stores may protest. They have a limited amount of shelf space. You might have trouble getting a store to go in on buying 3 copies of each clan when they already still have 2 copies of each dynasty pack sitting on their shelves still.

My main point though is, I think it would be nice, but I doubt it will happen.

I don't have the figures but I'm sure FFG does. I'm sure there is a sharp decline in sales of a chapter pack some time shortly after its initial release as most of your current players have the pack. After the 6th chapter pack when this sharp decline happens you stop making the chapter packs and switch to clan packs. Maybe to alleviate shelf space you offer a buy back (i.e. for every 6 chapter packs of a cycle you send us, we'll send you a set of clan packs for that cycle). This way they could simply repackage the cards. This keeps the number of SKUs and shelf space relatively equal.

Another issue I see is that there have always been some clans which are more popular than others, and I expect this will only increase now that those who don't really care about clan loyalty will be able to switch clans without a major reinvestment. If, during a particular point in the game, a clan is particularly unpopular, we could easily end up with stores having excess of unpopular clan packs which would be bad for the store and frustrating for the players looking for other clans.

By packaging the clans together, you may still have some packs being more popular than others, but I imagine every pack will have at least one or two cards that SOME clan wants, and there will likely be less dead product overall.