How many part time hour does it take to buy a single expansion pack?

If that's an issue, I think you have bigger problem to think about rather than FFG's business decision.

My next point being, marketing a product to everyone seems logical. But a key aspect of making a business decision is which consumer group to focus on and which to give up. For someone in serious financial crisis or gets passed over thus, I don't think that's going to be my key customer group. I'll be more interested in keeping my key group happy.

I for one am glad a larger card pool is out before Christmas to keep my interest rather than letting it decay. If all their future cycles are as such, then yes I think FFG is playing with the fire ring. If the intention is as per how I speculate, good job.

For now I choose to trust them.

I'm confused about the concept of "barrier" to the game that the OP is talking about. Am I to understand that there is a general consensus that unless you have "everything", its better to not bother playing the game?

I really don't get that. The wonderful thing about having available expansions is that when you are ready (or have some extra cash to blow) you have something to blow it on. I find it a lot more frustrating when a game "doesn't have enough", then one that has "too much". Like generally I don't even bother with a LCG or a CCG until at least 5 or 6 expansions have been released, I mean I just got into Lord of the Rings for example last year mainly because I thought... Ok.. now there is some good stuff to get and choose from, thats when you get it. With just the core set the game was not very attractive at all.

I feel the same with Legend of the Five Rings... with just a core set, there is no deck building, you kind of have these more or less "default" decks, its kind of boring. What this game needs is 5 or 6 expansions so that there is some flexibility and muscle to deck building.

Eh? I don't get the issue? I assume they won't produce more content in a year with this method then they would otherwise right? Doesn't this just mean they will produce 1 a week for 6 week and then have a longer break until next set? Personally I would prefer if they produced 1 pack per clan all at the same time. That way you could invest only into the clan you want to play as.

amazingly ffg are not a charitable organisation and are in the business of making money. If the ccg model made them more money then that's what this would be. They found that for more niche games not called magic or Pokemon that the lcg model was more stable and had better potential for steady income.

I suspect they are trying this due to a recognized early drop in interest in previous lcgs. They know they have a ready made rabid fanbase who formerly did drop cash to be competitive. If they keep interest high and the player levels high then more casual players will hopefully get drawn in later. They are not trying to gently expand the game.

more power to them and I hope it gets them lots of revenue and keeps and grows player base . Fan post over.

6 hours ago, Casanunda said:

Well, even though the fervor here seems to have died down, I'll just chip in one last opinion before the bell rings. I'm a little annoyed at FFG about the announcement, and I'll try to explain why. I've been trying very hard to push this game locally, and we've managed to carve out a crowd of a dozen or so players in a very MTG-heavy area where LCGs have not been very good sellers. One of the selling points of the game was the lower cost; many of the players are university students, and money is tight. These people were told that the typical release schedule was one pack a month, and many were happy with that. Now that they have bought their core sets, FFG springs this new schedule on them, and I'm left with egg on my face. Certainly the timing of the announcement was a little shady.

Exactly the same thing happened to me. I got about 7-8 players convinced to play the game, with maybe 2 or 3 more when they get money. One of my selling points was the release schedule and how they just have to put 15€/month toward the game. The thing is, we still don't have the cores, we're getting them this weekend, and I'm praying no one of them read this news before getting those cores, lest they decide they don't want to spend so much in a card game and just don't buy them. I'm a bad person for hide this from them? Well, yeah, I probably am, but then again, my secondary deck is Scorpion.

Too bad most of the people complaining here rely on a community so reluctant to play this game that they will quit sooner or later (sooner thanks to this announcement, later when the next MtG expansion hits).

The number of people here trying to shame those compalining about price by insinuating they should make more money or that the cost of buying all these packs in a month's time 'is not expensive for a working adult' is quite disgusting. If this is a communtiy that thinks it can tell people what they should and shouldn't be able to afford then count me out. Shameful.

For me personally the irritating thing is the fact that they will release it over 6 weeks... I rather they just do one box with everything in it, in fact I will probably wait until the 6th week and get everything at once. I can't be bothered with ordering **** once a week.

This is one of the funniest topics I've seen because the complaint is so ridiculous and stupid. Pack your bags, boys! We can't afford to buy part of the first cycle on day 1, so we're not playing at all! I looked at my budget and $120+ on a card game was a-ok, but an expedited release of the first cycle is going to break the bank even though it's optional. Too bad, I was really looking forward to playing this game!

I don't even think each of these pack will have a card I want, so I'll do my homework, check the packs content on the web after release and if one pack have cards I want that will synergize with my decks, then only I'll buy the pack.

Former player of th CCG, I shelved a ton of money on booster boxes, not even sure of what I'll get and most often not getting what I needed. Plus the player base was not great in my area at the time so trading was a pain. I ended up making deck for each clans that I barely played just for the sake of rentability.

With the LCG model, I'll be able to tailor buy what I need. So even if they release six in six weeks, I can still buy them over six months.

Quote

The number of people here trying to shame those compalining about price by insinuating they should make more money or that the cost of buying all these packs in a month's time 'is not expensive for a working adult' is quite disgusting. If this is a communtiy that thinks it can tell people what they should and shouldn't be able to afford then count me out. Shameful.

This is from him (sockpuppet insinuation for those who dont know what that means)

11 hours ago, Casanunda said:

Well, even though the fervor here seems to have died down, I'll just chip in one last opinion before the bell rings. I'm a little annoyed at FFG about the announcement, and I'll try to explain why. I've been trying very hard to push this game locally, and we've managed to carve out a crowd of a dozen or so players in a very MTG-heavy area where LCGs have not been very good sellers. One of the selling points of the game was the lower cost; many of the players are university students, and money is tight. These people were told that the typical release schedule was one pack a month, and many were happy with that. Now that they have bought their core sets, FFG springs this new schedule on them, and I'm left with egg on my face. Certainly the timing of the announcement was a little shady.

Of course, many people are saying that this shouldn't be a problem, no one is forcing them to buy the packs. Well, that's all said and good, but the whole point of the LCG model is to try and make the game about skill, not a competition of who has access to more cards. To all those saying that you can just split the packs somehow, sure, that works, but it's STILL more expensive than if you were splitting one pack a month. I want all of our local players to be on the same footing as far as cards go; I'm not comfortable with two classes of players, haves and have-nots. Again, that's why I like the LCG model. I'm seriously considering not allowing the new cards in any of the upcoming tournaments so no one feels pressured into buying them, but that of course will annoy the more competitive crowd who want to play with those same cards. It's going to be difficult to please everyone, and that's unfortunate for a small community of players who should really be a tight-knit group. It's creating divisions between players at a time when we should be building communities.

That said, I'm certainly not quitting; if I wasn't trying to build a community, I would probably be happy about the release schedule, I can certainly afford the cards. It just seems like it is compounding the problem of the LCG model; high initial buy-in cost. I just hope it doesn't cost us any new players.

I know it wouldn't be permissible in larger tournaments, but would it be possible to allow proxies?

I know some people may use proxies to avoid having to buy cards altogether, but personally, I always enjoyed being able to finally remove the proxy and replace it with the real card! If players are on a tight budget, it may be a way to allow them to try out new cards without having to skip on buying some of their books!

They want to make sure there is a diverse and balanced card pool for the tournament season. Nothing wrong with that, and in hindsight still cheaper to get a full playset than 1 expansion of Magic the Gathering.

On 10/12/2017 at 7:09 PM, shosuko said:

idk... I think they might be on to something...

You missed one.

15 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

For me personally the irritating thing is the fact that they will release it over 6 weeks... I rather they just do one box with everything in it, in fact I will probably wait until the 6th week and get everything at once. I can't be bothered with ordering **** once a week.

I was thinking the same thing, that I wish there was an all-in-one expansion box first up but then again this way people who only want certain cards can just buy the dynasty packs they want. Win-win really.

Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical of groups of MTG players being turned off by the cost of L5R.......considering typical costs for competitive decks in the standard format are regularly in the hundreds.....and rotate faster than an LCG.

1 hour ago, TopHatGorilla said:

You missed one.

Is that like this guys? (I guess ppl don't like anime, but srsly curvy)

12 minutes ago, shosuko said:

Is that like this guys? (I guess ppl don't like anime, but srsly curvy)

That is another style, yes. That is based on a real Indian sword... Or whip, whichever.

I know a few websites are going to sell clan sets or only clan cards from cores/clan packs that may be the option for some people.

To be honest yes it sucks to lose players but I have been playing traditional games for close to 20 years and every time i see "omg this community so toxic i'm happy im not playing" it tends to be from people who probably wouldn't last or contribute to the community anyway. When people offer valid alternatives those are overlooked or even outright ignored in order to respond to someone else they don't agree with.

You don't even have to go far to see this behavior it seems to spring up every week or every other week that people are put off by 'the community'. If you let someone on the net that you don't even know and probably will never meet in your life effect your thought. don't. There are plenty of good people even in your own gaming group don't let people that you know nothing of or care about effect you.

It's the least bad way they could do it this time.

I'm sure they will figure on something better next time.

12 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

It's the least bad way they could do it this time.

I'm sure they will figure on something better next time.

I can think of two ways that would've been less bad off the top of my head, Tyler:

A, Stick to the traditional LCG model that people were expecting.

B, Have made players/retailers aware of this when the first Dynasty Pack was revealed back in late August.

a- why is this 'bad' , seems your interpretation and considering you don't produce games for a living you don't actually have a clue.

b - so you could slag the game off prior to release and claim you'll never play due to 'a'

logic and 'not the center of the universe' and 'first world problem' lessons required

b - FFG may not have been planing on this in August! note how much staff has changed at FFG since the initial start of the project and the eventual release.

a - the traditional LCG model was worse in their opinion!

6 hours ago, shosuko said:

Is that like this guys? (I guess ppl don't like anime, but srsly curvy)

It's only the best Manga ever.

12 hours ago, Matrim said:

a- why is this 'bad' , seems your interpretation and considering you don't produce games for a living you don't actually have a clue.

b - so you could slag the game off prior to release and claim you'll never play due to 'a'

logic and 'not the center of the universe' and 'first world problem' lessons required

I'm not sure what you're trying to say in your response to my suggestion A, Matrim - aside from attacking the idea that someone who doesn't design/produce games for an idea can have an opinion as to what makes a good release plan.

Regarding B - if they'd told us at the end of August about the Six in Six thing, there are two advantages. Firstly, it allows players to budget accordingly to purchase, as they have another month of income to allow for this purchase within. Secondly, it heads off complaints that anyone demo-ing the game and explaining the known LCG model are misleading players - GenCon was the first time you could buy the core set, and off the top of my head was about the same time the article about ToA was posted, meaning that demos using actual game components wouldn't have happened before people were aware of the change in release structure for the first block of Dynasty Packs.

You seem to be getting awfully wound up by the idea that I disagree with FFG (or TylerTT) as to the "best" to have handled this. Might I suggest some meditation by the koi pond, or a tea ceremony to help centre yourself?

@TylerTT - It seems odd that a significant change to their release structure wouldn't've been in place before the end of August, but I can't rule it out. I'll also admit to not paying much attention to when staff have arrived or departed from the L5R LCG project - but would changes to game development staff have made a difference to their approach to releasing this first block?

Regarding your response to my A, can you cite a source on that? After all, at no point during the article announcing Si6x do they state it is because they felt the traditional LCG approach is a problem in the early stages of a game's life cycle - just that they're doing something different this time.