2 hours ago, Vixen Icaza said:

My problem is selling this to my group. We have a history of getting into a new game and it disappearing fast when 1 or 2 people dump ALL the cash in.

So far I have 1 core and have managed to demo the game to 2 people.

they do follow ffg though and know the news. I can hear them now with the price gouging complaints. This game won't grow now in my group because of the announcement.

It's like the RPG. We like and have played 1st to 4th edition. However another specialised dice game!!!!! turns us right of because we have to buy more dice (the app is a no go for us) and we cannot get them in any style bar the official one. I doubt we will play 5th and that will be sad.

Now I can understand the need for a good competitive environment and so understand the way they have done this. I think it would have been more palatable to casuals though if they had released this cycle as 7 Clan packs to enlarge the pool. That way you don't feel the need to buy it all @ £35 per core and £20~ a booster (for 6 Clan cards and neutrals) for us non torniment players.

Agreed - when the tournament system encourages clan loyalty having to pick up all the dynasty cards for the six clans you're not playing feels very bizarre, but we all agreed to this by buying into the LCG format. As for this six-pack speedrace, however, having the option of only purchasing your own clan's cards would soften the blow significantly.

2 hours ago, Vixen Icaza said:

It's like the RPG. We like and have played 1st to 4th edition. However another specialised dice game!!!!! turns us right of because we have to buy more dice (the app is a no go for us) and we cannot get them in any style bar the official one. I doubt we will play 5th and that will be sad.

Sorry, but this to me sound as entitlement instead of a real complaint. So you are not even trying the game just because they ask you to purchase a set of dices (10-15$?) that you will use forever, and it has to be in the color and shape defined by the creator. Yet I'm pretty sure in other games you dumped a lot of money on useless manuals that maybe gave you one additional useful skill.

I'm not saying the rpg will be the best thing ever, but this crying over the dices it's completely incomprehensible to me, unless it's just done because "new is bad, old is good". It's like not buying a boardgame because the board is paper instead of mounted: it may be a comment in a plus/minus evaluation, but it cannot be the reason why you purchase or not something, imho.

Many of you are using the word 'entry' wrong.

Also, ASK PEOPLE TO GET YOU THEM FOR CHRISTMAS.

One must not concern oneself with the peasants of which there are many. Let us Samurai enjoy the additional cards.

9 minutes ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

Many of you are using the word 'entry' wrong.

Also, ASK PEOPLE TO GET YOU THEM FOR CHRISTMAS.

L5R - now for Christians only!

?

9 minutes ago, BayushiAnatsu said:

One must not concern oneself with the peasants of which there are many. Let us Samurai enjoy the additional cards.

Will courtiers be able to use the new cards?

35 minutes ago, BayushiAnatsu said:

One must not concern oneself with the peasants of which there are many. Let us Samurai enjoy the additional cards.

That, if taken at face value, reads as a terrible attitude.

40 minutes ago, BayushiAnatsu said:

One must not concern oneself with the peasants of which there are many. Let us Samurai enjoy the additional cards.

/facepalm

Well for anyone is quitting, I'll happily buy your cores for $20 shipped,

4 minutes ago, ..H.. said:

Well for anyone is quitting, I'll happily buy your cores for $20 shipped,

Or, if you're in Europe, I'll buy them for 20€ each.

51 minutes ago, DrDevidents said:

L5R - now for Christians only!

?

Christmas, the holiday celebrated by more seculars than christians.

21 minutes ago, dysartes said:

That, if taken at face value, reads as a terrible attitude.

57 minutes ago, BayushiAnatsu said:

One must not concern oneself with the peasants of which there are many. Let us Samurai enjoy the additional cards.

I can see your point. It's actually kinda thematic in a way.

I'm only quitting if I have no players to play against or some other economic constraints prevent me from purcharing more L5R (income reduction, Eldrich Horror LCG, Warhammer Quest the Adventure Card Game-like Sar Wars LCG, love interest,...).

Quick extra cards for deck construction will be nice. Being Unicorn, even more. I hope. Extra warning time would have been appreciated though. And providing us the plans beyond this event (i.e. "Regular release plans will continue in march 2018") would have been a extra nice touch. Fortunately, it's not that much money and the packs will still be there months after their release (barring distribution issues).

Well like they said in the announcement, this is unprecedented. I assume they would rather hold off on announcing future release plans until they get some hard data on how successful this thing turns out. They may decide to try additional tweaks to the distribution model going forward.

18 hours ago, GMmL said:

I have 3 cores arriving tomorrow. If I had known about this pack rollout method I would not have pre-ordered. Not quite sure what I'm going to do just yet, but my initial reaction is not positive. I'm going to wait until my knee-jerk emotions have passed and then figure out what to do. Likely, it will be to try to sell 3 cores.

edit- To clarify it's the timing moreso than the method. $200+ right before the holidays to hop in and be competitive? No, thank you.

Honestly though if you are not planning on going to one of the 3 Kotie during the 6 week release schedule, you could easily buy at a more sedate pace, and if you already have 3 cores you would not be too far behind.

3 hours ago, franzvong said:

Sorry, but this to me sound as entitlement instead of a real complaint. So you are not even trying the game just because they ask you to purchase a set of dices (10-15$?) that you will use forever, and it has to be in the color and shape defined by the creator. Yet I'm pretty sure in other games you dumped a lot of money on useless manuals that maybe gave you one additional useful skill.

I'm not saying the rpg will be the best thing ever, but this crying over the dices it's completely incomprehensible to me, unless it's just done because "new is bad, old is good". It's like not buying a boardgame because the board is paper instead of mounted: it may be a comment in a plus/minus evaluation, but it cannot be the reason why you purchase or not something, imho.

No it's more like. I spent time looking for these 10 sided dice, they are the colour I like and feel nice to roll. I already paid for these. I also paid for 3 sets of star wars dice that I have to use for when we play star wars RPG, and 2 sets of x-wing dice....... and so on (mainly board games with this trend). My ascetic is important to me and I spend time on it surely a player of a game that works hard gets it's feel right can understand that. I don't wish to have to buy a new set of dice that I cannot match to that look every time I start a new RPG or miniature game.

27 minutes ago, Akodo_Metuki said:

Honestly though if you are not planning on going to one of the 3 Kotie during the 6 week release schedule, you could easily buy at a more sedate pace, and if you already have 3 cores you would not be too far behind.

We're sorted. Sold 2 of the cores to a couple folks in our regular group. We're just going to derp around casually at home sessions and maybe revisit store/competitive play after the New Year depending on interest and fiscal capabilities.

If you are not zen enough to appreciate a larger card pool and get over the fact you can't afford every card you want, you need to take a breath. If you are aggravated enough to leave this expertly-crafted game because their card-release schedule doesn't match your criteria for "good enough", then farewell.

18 hours ago, Shizrak said:

I suppose my point wasn't clear enough. I'm not quitting because I can't stretch to afford it. I'm quitting because this cash-grab is going to discourage new players. With so much content coming so fast, there won't be any real time to build a community before people start falling behind.

I want to raise awareness that this was a poor decision. I wish I could ACTUALLY not purchase, but I already got my cores expecting one thing, and instead got something completely different. So now I need to sell core sets.

I disagree that the decision was poor. Many people do seem upset with it, but more seem rather happy or indifferent towards it. I understand that some players may struggle with this, but that doesn't make it foolishness on FFG's part.

17 hours ago, Shizrak said:

I was expecting a slow roll out with time to build a playerbase.... Y'know, sorta like all the other LCGs ever.

It's not solidarity... It's that there aren't going to be any middle ground players at all. Just toxic ultra-competitive types, and one-core casuals. The tone of the replies to my comments proves this pretty strongly.

How do you classify those of us who bought three cores and plan to buy all expansions, but have no interest in the competitive scene?

17 hours ago, Kaiju said:

Had a few great games today, so I wont be quitting anytime soon. But yes, it ll hurt new players, and thus kill the game within a year or so easily. But thats what happened to the last LCGs for some reason too, so I think the TCG model is just better.

I wonder. Yes, for people who bought three cores so they could participate in the 3-core events, this may be a bit steep, but if it's possible to make decent decks with a single core plus the cards from this cycle, a new player could get the core plus six packs for only $10 more than three cores without expansions.

17 hours ago, Isawa Tsuke said:

The problem, though, is that the game developers deceived us. They originally told us that packs would be rolling out one per month. Now that our core sets have been preordered and delivered and we're somewhat committed to the game now, they spring this on us? Instead of $15 a month now we have to pay $60 one month and $30 the next (to say nothing of shipping and handling)? Not all of us have excessive amounts of money to drop on these games. One of the selling points of the LCG model is that it's cheaper than the CCG model, but that's merely an illusion. It didn't cost me nearly this amount of money to start playing L5R the CCG, nor did it cost me nearly this amount of money to have a competitive deck.

"Deceived" implies intent, which I don't think is present. What we see is also perfectly fitting with FFG originally deciding on one pack a month, and then later deciding that the initial meta will grow too slowly and get stale if they keep on that, so why not give the players more cards up-front as a one-time exception to the overarching model?

I don't know for sure that this is how it went down, but assuming deception when there are other possible explanations is a bit disingenuous.

17 hours ago, shosuko said:

Surprisingly I think this is good news to some of the people I know - the people who want to play, and don't mind buying all of the expansions, but just have an issue with buying 3x cores. This will make 1 core v 3 core much less evident from release! because the other cards will help fill out decks easier. Ironically this helps the casuals and less-financially-involved players as they have a larger pool to pick from to selectively purchase the most valuable cards without buying everything each month as they come out.

It might also help players co-op to buy different packs and trade the clan cards they each want, since there are 6 different options to choose between.

What FFG needs to do is start spoiling these cards asap so we can plan accordingly.

I agree. I'm looking forward to having some options so that not every deck looks identical to all others with the same clan.

16 hours ago, Kaiju said:

Warhammer Invasion lasted quite a long time, even though interest in tournament level play never seemed to develop. Sales were good in europe at least, it was often difficult to get older stock.

Look guys, I love the L5R Brand. I am not selling my core sets. I think this is a good game. But FFGs track record with LCGs is rather bad. For the few that got anywhere, several have bit the dust, for a variety of reasons MOSTLY on FFGs side. And that was without making obviously unpopular moves like this one. Its hard enough to recover the playerbase of a TCG to go to the LCG format (TCG having, due to its nature, a naturally stronger draw because of offering a "collecting" experience as well), and I just wished they would not have made this rather obviously bad decision.

Simply repeating that a decision is "obviously" unpopular and bad does not make it so. There are complaints and valid concerns, to be sure, but there are also quite a few people who are rather happy with the decision. Time will tell if the decision was good or bad overall.

13 hours ago, KineticOperator said:

I own a shop, and I guarantee you the larger barrier was a stale game due to low variety. If you don't get a game with enough variety early while the excitement is still there, those same people will move on to the next shiny thing.

I would rather do it this way, and have a really cool launch followed by evolutions of an exciting game for a large player base, than 6 months of stale same-same play leading to a great game with no players left. Yup, it's a bit more expensive. Nope, still not even remotely in the realm of a CCG.

I know if I were given the choice between two games that both looked about equally fun, I'd personally gravitate towards the one with more expansions. Even if I can't purchase them all initially, just knowing that I'll have options when I can afford them is always rather tempting.

6 hours ago, Vixen Icaza said:

My problem is selling this to my group. We have a history of getting into a new game and it disappearing fast when 1 or 2 people dump ALL the cash in.

So far I have 1 core and have managed to demo the game to 2 people.

they do follow ffg though and know the news. I can hear them now with the price gouging complaints. This game won't grow now in my group because of the announcement.

It's like the RPG. We like and have played 1st to 4th edition. However another specialised dice game!!!!! turns us right of because we have to buy more dice (the app is a no go for us) and we cannot get them in any style bar the official one. I doubt we will play 5th and that will be sad.

Now I can understand the need for a good competitive environment and so understand the way they have done this. I think it would have been more palatable to casuals though if they had released this cycle as 7 Clan packs to enlarge the pool. That way you don't feel the need to buy it all @ £35 per core and £20~ a booster (for 6 Clan cards and neutrals) for us non torniment players.

The Clan Packs approach doesn't really fix the problem; it just changes it. Where do you put the neutrals, for instance? Does every pack get a full set of neutrals, driving up the price and causing people to complain about redundancy? Or does each pack get a portion of neutrals, causing people to complain about how they're clan X, but they're being forced to buy clans Y and Z in order to get the best neutrals (very similar to some complaints in X-Wing, for instance)?

4 hours ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Agreed - when the tournament system encourages clan loyalty having to pick up all the dynasty cards for the six clans you're not playing feels very bizarre, but we all agreed to this by buying into the LCG format. As for this six-pack speedrace, however, having the option of only purchasing your own clan's cards would soften the blow significantly.

Wait, you mean there are people who don't need all the cards because they're not planning to construct decks for all playable clans?!

Takes all kinds, I suppose.

31 minutes ago, Etaywah said:

If you are not zen enough to appreciate a larger card pool and get over the fact you can't afford every card you want, you need to take a breath. If you are aggravated enough to leave this expertly-crafted game because their card-release schedule doesn't match your criteria for "good enough", then farewell.

Way to tell 'em, or something. Go you. Class dismissed

1 minute ago, GMmL said:

Way to tell 'em, or something. Go you. Class dismissed

I just believe that if this is truly your favorite hobby, then you will either 1) Be happy for the health and prosperity of the game and the community, or 2) You will find a way to afford the components for your favorite game either by making more income or budgeting or "finding a way".

Relax everyone. It's pictures on card-stock. Let's just be happy we have a fun game and not freak out over every little thing.

24 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Wait, you mean there are people who don't need all the cards because they're not planning to construct decks for all playable clans?!

Takes all kinds, I suppose.

It's just a lot harder to break one's fealty when one's clan still exists. No offense meant, of course.

3 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

It's just a lot harder to break one's fealty when one's clan still exists. No offense meant, of course.

True, but even under AEG, I had a deck for each clan (though I played some more than others).

45 minutes ago, Vixen Icaza said:

No it's more like. I spent time looking for these 10 sided dice, they are the colour I like and feel nice to roll. I already paid for these. I also paid for 3 sets of star wars dice that I have to use for when we play star wars RPG, and 2 sets of x-wing dice....... and so on (mainly board games with this trend). My ascetic is important to me and I spend time on it surely a player of a game that works hard gets it's feel right can understand that. I don't wish to have to buy a new set of dice that I cannot match to that look every time I start a new RPG or miniature game.

Then it is entitlement. You don't like the color and feel of not using your own custom stuff. This isn't FFG's problem and its just you not wanting to buy a game you cant have your dice match. If that is all it takes to make you swear off a product, that your dice aren't your favorite color, then don't buy it then, just don't act like this is anyone's fault but your own.

The reason the wonky dice even exist is to start combating piracy of RPG rulebooks, because you cant just download the game off a site and play with any old d10, you need their dice, meaning that even pirates will still make purchases. Its why the dice still play a lot like the old Roll and Keep system with a few flairs thrown in.

1 hour ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

The reason the wonky dice even exist is to start combating piracy of RPG rulebooks, because you cant just download the game off a site and play with any old d10, you need their dice, meaning that even pirates will still make purchases. Its why the dice still play a lot like the old Roll and Keep system with a few flairs thrown in.

2

Hm. I hadn't thought of it like that.

I'm not sure that's exactly true, but it's true enough in a sense.