4 minutes ago, fyrm said:

Also, keepers get more fate over all. Seekers will only ever get max 2 fate. Keepers will get a fate every time they successfully defend their ring. That can add up, especially with phoenix shenanigans. It is why I wouldn't mind losing Void Seeker in Phoenix, if we instead get a Keeper.

I would argue that the Seekers will get more fate than the keepers. Granted, I haven't played a game yet, but I think unless you need a specific ring for victory, you just don't declare attacks with the ring that give them fate. (Unless of course you know you can win that attack).

2 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

I would argue that the Seekers will get more fate than the keepers. Granted, I haven't played a game yet, but I think unless you need a specific ring for victory, you just don't declare attacks with the ring that give them fate. (Unless of course you know you can win that attack).

Or said ring has a few fate piled onto it. It's a choice.

2 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

I would argue that the Seekers will get more fate than the keepers. Granted, I haven't played a game yet, but I think unless you need a specific ring for victory, you just don't declare attacks with the ring that give them fate. (Unless of course you know you can win that attack).

Elemental Furry, plus phoenix shenanigans, plus forcing your opponent into situations where it is that ring or a ring that won't help them at all. Ya, I can see it happening enough.

2 minutes ago, fyrm said:

Elemental Furry

Yep, those guys are definitely going to **** some **** up...and look, there's even 5 of them, one for each ring!

1 minute ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Yep, those guys are definitely going to **** some **** up...and look, there's even 5 of them, one for each ring!

Lol, my fingers tend to type faster than my mind, so those sorts of things happen a lot to me. Unfortunately, this is one of the few cases where spell check won't help me at all.

21 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

How exactly does it promote clan loyalty, though, unless the person would have been loyal to begin with? Presumably, the prizes are awarded when the position is won, and while the perks probably appeal to some, others won't really care about them. The Emperor's Favor bonus, in particular, is going to have small meaning to someone who doesn't care about clan loyalty in the first place.

If they absolutely don't care, then they won't care. But it gives them another reason to stay with a particular clan and continue playing it for some time. It doesn't actually punish them for leaving (they give up added stuff), but does encourage them to stay.

This of course assumes no significant real money is on the line, in which case that will trump all.

2 hours ago, JRosen9 said:

Except for the line about certain cards that only work if you have a seeker or keeper role

It seems like that is only referring to the Keeper/Seeker Initiate - are there other restricted cards I've missed?

1 minute ago, YasukiKaito said:

It seems like that is only referring to the Keeper/Seeker Initiate - are there other restricted cards I've missed?

Nothing that has been revealed up to this point, though it's possible there will be something in the unrevealed neutral cards in the core set which will have that restriction. Presumably, future events/releases/expansions will feature additional cards with the keeper/seeker restrictions.

54 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

I'm just gonna leave this here:

He can help, but it doesn't help when you both have 5 on the dial or you somehow get 1 less. He's also just 3x out of 40 cards so there's going to be instances of not having him in play.

Things like Duelist Training look better and better just for the dial reset/redo.

Going onto the Keeper/Seeker roles, it seems like whether or not they will be worth it will depend on the clan pools and strategies. The Keepers give you a generic +3 influence, which is a nice bonus for anyone. The Seekers seem to be much more highly dependent on the value of provinces available.

Just the core set alone, getting the ability to use 3x of both Let Go and the Tattooed Wanderer is nice. Shugenja based decks may also prefer the bonus influence in the future.

Also, am I the only one somewhat bothered by the fact that the Gen Con tournaments will only allow you to collect up to 6 of the 7 extended art"Way Of" cards? Unless you were lucky enough to get into both tournaments, anyhow. I don't mind missing out on "completionist" things I have no chance of getting, but to be handed an incomplete set with the only option to complete it being to buy the missing piece(s) at whatever cost...irks me a bit. #firstworldgamerproblems

1 minute ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Also, am I the only one somewhat bothered by the fact that the Gen Con tournaments will only allow you to collect up to 6 of the 7 extended art"Way Of" cards? Unless you were lucky enough to get into both tournaments, anyhow. I don't mind missing out on "completionist" things I have no chance of getting, but to be handed an incomplete set with the only option to complete it being to buy the missing piece(s) at whatever cost...irks me a bit. #firstworldgamerproblems

Nah, sort of bummed me out too. Decided I'd give the non-Phoenix ones to friends who couldn't make it since I won't be getting a complete set.

20 minutes ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Also, am I the only one somewhat bothered by the fact that the Gen Con tournaments will only allow you to collect up to 6 of the 7 extended art"Way Of" cards? Unless you were lucky enough to get into both tournaments, anyhow. I don't mind missing out on "completionist" things I have no chance of getting, but to be handed an incomplete set with the only option to complete it being to buy the missing piece(s) at whatever cost...irks me a bit. #firstworldgamerproblems

Just give away your garbage crane ones. Problem solved.

As a L5R newbie, I kind of like how this works. Of course, a lot will depend on the cards that support the Keeper/Seeker mechanic.

1 hour ago, SHARKOSAURUS said:

Nah, sort of bummed me out too. Decided I'd give the non-Phoenix ones to friends who couldn't make it since I won't be getting a complete set.

I was going to offer to not trade if they, like me, wanted to try for a full playset. Just make sure to ask politely and if they want to trade, don't try to talk them out of it.

10 minutes ago, Mirith said:

I was going to offer to not trade if they, like me, wanted to try for a full playset. Just make sure to ask politely and if they want to trade, don't try to talk them out of it.

Oh, I'll ask. Obviously 3x of Way of the Phoenix is incredibly important. The other three are fair trade.

So we know the Scorpion starting honor now BTW. That was news to me.

I like that people are already getting salty about people making poor choices on the Role selection. Made me laugh. Who cares. It's only for one tournament season and you have to change it each time. I like this system a lot. It is something I was asking for this game to attempt. It's shaking up the tournament meta each season. That is a very good thing for an LCG.

I don't recall reading anything about story prizes. Did I miss something or was that absent from these articles. I guess you can't really announce that ahead of time without spoilers.

12 minutes ago, phillos said:

I don't recall reading anything about story prizes. Did I miss something or was that absent from these articles. I guess you can't really announce that ahead of time without spoilers.

There was a throw away line about the winner of worlds being shogun, but I don't know if that is a story award or title award like hatamoto

12 minutes ago, phillos said:

I like that people are already getting salty about people making poor choices on the Role selection. Made me laugh. Who cares. It's only for one tournament season and you have to change it each time. I like this system a lot. It is something I was asking for this game to attempt. It's shaking up the tournament meta each season. That is a very good thing for an LCG.

I don't recall reading anything about story prizes. Did I miss something or was that absent from these articles. I guess you can't really announce that ahead of time without spoilers.

The salt is definitely real.

From the Thursday casual tournament:

• This group of newly-promoted Hatamotos will briefly discuss and then cast votes to decide the very first story choice, helping to shape the future of Rokugan!

4 hours ago, Yogo Gohei said:

My bet is it lets you take 1 honor from your opponent. That lets you bid high without auto-losing by honor / dishonor.

It seems certain that it says 'Action: if you are less honourable than your opponent, bow this stronghold -take'X'.'

Taking 1 honour seems a bit weak, but what about taking the imperial favour? Or a fate?

The hatamoto stuff is cool, and roles are an interesting way of encouraging buy in to events. Like it.

As a long-time scrub who never, ever travels terribly far for events and whose opinion on these matters is purely academic- I like what I see.

28 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

There was a throw away line about the winner of worlds being shogun, but I don't know if that is a story award or title award like hatamoto

Both, right next to that line is another one saying the shogun makes a significant storyline decision affecting Rokugan.

9 minutes ago, Fumo said:

It seems certain that it says 'Action: if you are less honourable than your opponent, bow this stronghold -take'X'.'

Taking 1 honour seems a bit weak, but what about taking the imperial favour? Or a fate?

The hatamoto stuff is cool, and roles are an interesting way of encouraging buy in to events. Like it.

Taking the favor seems weak as well. That amounts to a 2 point swing if your opponent has it, or a zero point swing if he doesn't. That would be weaker than most other strongholds that give you roughly a 2 point swing. It wouldn't substantiate giving them 1 less PS. I agree with you that 1 honor seems very weak as well so who knows but taking fate seems way too strong.

4 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

Taking the favor seems weak as well. That amounts to a 2 point swing if your opponent has it, or a zero point swing if he doesn't. That would be weaker than most other strongholds that give you roughly a 2 point swing. It wouldn't substantiate giving them 1 less PS. I agree with you that 1 honor seems very weak as well so who knows but taking fate seems way too strong.

Take a fate from the pool? Take two actions? Take control of an opposing character? Take five?

Not keen that so much about the global tourney metagame is going to be decided in what is essentially an American tournament. I suppose that most of the best players in the world will fly over regardless (I recall in Conquest, the British worlds winners were dedicated globetrotters), but it still feels odd that such a major decision will be basically gated by geography and money.

More broadly though, I don't like the way that the cards will encourage certain deckshapes, as I expect this will narrow the variety of decks seen in tourneys.

Historically, all FFG LCGs have suffered from a slight problem of deck homogeneity, in that everyone has access to a full card pool, and the internet distributes new ideas rapidly. Not saying that everyone plays the same deck, but rather that there's a lot smaller spread of deck builds than you'd see in most CCGs. That everyone can build a top deck without going mad on spending money on single cards is also a really great thing, of course, and why I like LCGs in the first place.

However, any additional mechanic that further encourages a strategy along a give path is - in my opinion - going to make the spread of decks more homogenous at the competitive level. As has been observed, Seeker of Earth could show one direction that will encourage everyone with that option to build the same, for example.

1 hour ago, Prepare for War said:

Historically, all FFG LCGs have suffered from a slight problem of deck homogeneity, in that everyone has access to a full card pool, and the internet distributes new ideas rapidly. Not saying that everyone plays the same deck, but rather that there's a lot smaller spread of deck builds than you'd see in most CCGs. That everyone can build a top deck without going mad on spending money on single cards is also a really great thing, of course, and why I like LCGs in the first place.

However, any additional mechanic that further encourages a strategy along a give path is - in my opinion - going to make the spread of decks more homogenous at the competitive level. As has been observed, Seeker of Earth could show one direction that will encourage everyone with that option to build the same, for example.

Historically, I would say this is true on nearly every CCG. Granted its been a long time since I played competitive magic, but I recall the tournament scene all being the current big deck, or the deck that beats the current big deck. L5R historically had less of this problem due to clan loyalty, however at the major tournament scene, the player base was always disproportionately skewed toward whatever the big deck was at the time.