14 hours ago, SideshowLucifer said:

It wasn't clan loyalty that caused the problem. It was changing the rules near the end that caused it.

Clan loyalty has been a staple of L5R for as long as it has been competitive. It's what drives the game and the story forward.

Not everyone stays loyal all the time. I had a Phoenix character made for me even though I was always Dragon clan.

Like anything else, it's as good or bad as a person makes it.

They didn't actually change any rules. People made some assumptions about how it would all shake out, echo chambered themselves into believing it and when the actual announcement came out regarding wins and losses and it was different people freaked.

BUT EVEN THEN, i'm not referring to that, i'm referring to the accusation on a certain scorpion board that AEG actually lied about tournament results to prevent the scorpion clan from winning.

People act bat-**** crazy on the internet. Gamers feel victimized. These aren't new things.

I like clan loyalty, and I've both played the game and helped build communities for over twenty years now. Having a clan you identify with can provide you with a support group, with a friends network, with an in-road into an otherwise daunting social experience. I definitely feel there are more positives than negatives, but do think it's something that needs to be constantly monitored.

I'm playing Scorpion at the moment because there's no Spider/Shadowlands (always described myself as a 'corrupt' player rather than faction-loyal). A lot of my long-time L5R friends think of me as a Scorpion player from back in the day, but I actually stopped playing the clan at events after an extremely negative interaction with some vocal players on the old Yahoogroup that soured an otherwise excellent event for me.

That I think is the danger that Monkey is alluding to here...it is absolutely possible to get too invested in a particular clan, to the point where it influences your real-world interactions with others. James, you've definitely seen this many a time where people will become angry and vitriolic towards our former clan...sometimes people just have to take a step back, remember it's just a game, and leave the hostility behind.

18 hours ago, McDermott said:

Yeah, im sure thats it and not peoples irrational overattachment to their clan

Like it or not, tribalism is built into the species.

Actual violence in politics, sports, religion, etc., etc. is sometimes perpetrated because the tendency is so strong.

No sense antagonizing people about it here.

I’m loyal to a clan just because I have a job, a life, love these kinds of games - but they can consume my brain.

Sticking to one clan shrinks my card pool.

Besides, there are often prizes for best-in-clan anyway.

Scorpion Clan for me.

Loyalty Seems more of a thing with the RPG and CCG players rather than new players.

They hit the Spider clan with the history eraser button. So I would have gone for Mantis next, but they got wiped to.

So now I'm Dragon...

... Until the Spider rises again.

I'm Crab for life even though they hot garbage right now.

33 minutes ago, SlackerHacker said:

I'm Crab for life even though they hot garbage right now.

Ummmmmmm.........

41 minutes ago, SlackerHacker said:

I'm Crab for life even though they hot garbage right now.

Crab is amazing right now!

1 hour ago, SideshowLucifer said:

Crab is amazing right now!

Nope, it's not. Only clan worse is Unicorn.

Not that you can't win , you just have to be a better player. A crane or Scorpion deck piloted by an equal player will win most of the time.

1 hour ago, SlackerHacker said:

Nope, it's not. Only clan worse is Unicorn.

Not that you can't win , you just have to be a better player. A crane or Scorpion deck piloted by an equal player will win most of the time.

Then get better. Crabs are in a really good place right now. It's harder to play Phoenix or Lion correctly than Crabs.

Scorpion is really tough to play right now.

I will agree Unicorn is pretty boring atm. Crab is my powerhouse though and a lot of fun to play. Phoenix is harder to play but also a lot of fun.

Didn't Crab just win in a major European tourney? or am I mis-remembering things?

And as a Unicorn player, my general response to any clan calling themselves hot garbage...

I think the perception of Unicorn will change fairly quickly. Movement requires a lot of the player to use well. Committing characters (including after the conflict has started) is one of the most challenging aspects of the game. No one is that great at the game yet. Even the hypothetical best player hasn't been tested that hard yet due to a lack of any huge events that gather disparate communities with lots of play experience.

On the topic of crab and equal skill etc.

There's no such thing as this mythical 'two players of equal skill' scenario. It doesn't exist. There's no way to measure skill so finely. A win/loss is completely limited by who they have played which means you can have an amazing w/l and be completely terrible against someone from a different region, community, online, next town over, etc. Also there are huge differences between playing people you're familiar with, playing strangers, playing online and playing in a league week to week vs a tournament (which pushes your endurance). All of these favor different types of players in different ways.

To get an accurate picture is impossible. It's better to assume you're the reason you lose, not your tools.

11 hours ago, SlackerHacker said:

Nope, it's not. Only clan worse is Unicorn.

Not that you can't win , you just have to be a better player. A crane or Scorpion deck piloted by an equal player will win most of the time.

Since when do the Crab want to play on easy mode?

Fox clan here. What, we don't have any cards yet? Well, I guess I'll just have to aid other clans for the moment then

There have always been two types of players in l5r with a vague, hazy, blurry, amorphous, highly-malleable line between them: fans of the game and fans of the setting.

Fans of the game want to play a cool game. Maybe they want to play to win tournaments, maybe they want to have fun combos, maybe they just want to have a fun game night with their friends. Whatever the motivation, the game is the primary driver. Game fans tend to have light faction loyalty: there's a theme or a play style that they enjoy so they'll have a favorite clan, but they'll try other clans out, they'll shift around, and in old days they would take bounties. Because they're focused on the game they tend to win most tournaments and as such are the more visible players in the community.

On the other side of the coin you have the fans of the setting. These are players who love Rokugan. They love the history of the Empire and the character backstories. They follow the latest fictions, they analyze flavor text for hints about where the metaplot is going. They tend not to be as effective on the competition scene but are much more invested in the tournament results. These players tend to be very clan loyal because they're invested in the story of their favorite clan - possibly the story of their clan - so why would they ever play someone else's story?

Most players fall somewhere in the middle but tend to skew to one side.

Consider Shadowlands cards. Back in the AEG days a winning deck list was analyzed and could be rated Pure (no Shadowlands cards), Tainted (1-3 such cards), or corrupt (4+ such cards) and this would affect the storyline decision. Consider the Kumitae: it was a card tournament and the winner would be allowed to choose one of their personalities who would win a martial arts tournament and gain an Experienced version of the character. The Crab player (Josh Griffis?) who won had a Tainted deck and so in the fiction Hida Nichie won but was tainted.

Now consider your reaction:

• Josh was right to use any cards he needed to win the tournament, Shadowlands or otherwise.
• Josh was wrong to use Shadowlands cards to win the tournament because he corrupted the Crab.
• Josh was right to use Shadowlands cards to win the tournament because the story of a corrupt Crab is an awesome story.

There's no one right answer; different players value different aspects of the game. If you value your clan's story then go ahead and stay loyal to that clan (go Dragon!). If you value your game play experience above all else then go ahead and play whichever clan will give you the most fun at the table, either because they're competitive or you like they're playstyle.

But don't give a hard time to players who make a different choice than you do. We all get different things out of this game.

Excellence in all things! My loyality to the Crane will not waver.

Back when L5R started..... I was Dragon.

I love Shadowlands, and was a dedicated Spider. But all the things I love... Monks, Shadow/Ninja, Blending of Bushi/Shugenja.... most of that started in Dragon. With Hitomi and Kokkujin... so with no more Spider.

I am once again Dragon.

44 minutes ago, suburbaknght said:

There have always been two types of players in l5r with a vague, hazy, blurry, amorphous, highly-malleable line between them: fans of the game and fans of the setting.

Fans of the game want to play a cool game. Maybe they want to play to win tournaments, maybe they want to have fun combos, maybe they just want to have a fun game night with their friends. Whatever the motivation, the game is the primary driver. Game fans tend to have light faction loyalty: there's a theme or a play style that they enjoy so they'll have a favorite clan, but they'll try other clans out, they'll shift around, and in old days they would take bounties. Because they're focused on the game they tend to win most tournaments and as such are the more visible players in the community.

On the other side of the coin you have the fans of the setting. These are players who love Rokugan. They love the history of the Empire and the character backstories. They follow the latest fictions, they analyze flavor text for hints about where the metaplot is going. They tend not to be as effective on the competition scene but are much more invested in the tournament results. These players tend to be very clan loyal because they're invested in the story of their favorite clan - possibly the story of their clan - so why would they ever play someone else's story?

Most players fall somewhere in the middle but tend to skew to one side.

Consider Shadowlands cards. Back in the AEG days a winning deck list was analyzed and could be rated Pure (no Shadowlands cards), Tainted (1-3 such cards), or corrupt (4+ such cards) and this would affect the storyline decision. Consider the Kumitae: it was a card tournament and the winner would be allowed to choose one of their personalities who would win a martial arts tournament and gain an Experienced version of the character. The Crab player (Josh Griffis?) who won had a Tainted deck and so in the fiction Hida Nichie won but was tainted.

Now consider your reaction:

• Josh was right to use any cards he needed to win the tournament, Shadowlands or otherwise.
• Josh was wrong to use Shadowlands cards to win the tournament because he corrupted the Crab.
• Josh was right to use Shadowlands cards to win the tournament because the story of a corrupt Crab is an awesome story.

There's no one right answer; different players value different aspects of the game. If you value your clan's story then go ahead and stay loyal to that clan (go Dragon!). If you value your game play experience above all else then go ahead and play whichever clan will give you the most fun at the table, either because they're competitive or you like they're playstyle.

But don't give a hard time to players who make a different choice than you do. We all get different things out of this game.

As someone who cares VERY much about both the story AND playing/winning games... those were dark days as a Crab player. You honestly HAD to play corrupt iron mine to stand a chance, and there were even more really good cards that you were handicapping yourself by not playing just so that you wouldn't end up with a tainted win. I top 4'd with Crab in Origins in '99(2000?) with a pure Crab deck but couldn't finish the deal. I HATED how the story kept on getting more and more twisted around corruption since it was the only way to win back then. I pray that if corruption/evil is a thing that becomes a choice for players, then it isn't something that gives an advantage/disadvantage but is instead just a choice regardless of how their deck is constructed.

I'm not telling Griffis he was wrong to do ANYTHING. Have you seen him lately? That dude's the Wall.

3 hours ago, Tebbo said:

I think the perception of Unicorn will change fairly quickly.

From what I've played of Unicorn, they didn't seem exceptional weak so much as just missing a vital piece. I think it would only take another card or two to get all the other clans fearing the sound of hoof-beats charging over the plains of Rokugan!

(And this is coming from an archer, who doesn't even like cavalry!)

2 hours ago, nekomatafuyu said:

Fox clan here. What, we don't have any cards yet? Well, I guess I'll just have to aid other clans for the moment then

Wasp Clan's right there with you.

1 hour ago, Andrew.Taon said:

As someone who cares VERY much about both the story AND playing/winning games... those were dark days as a Crab player. You honestly HAD to play corrupt iron mine to stand a chance, and there were even more really good cards that you were handicapping yourself by not playing just so that you wouldn't end up with a tainted win. I top 4'd with Crab in Origins in '99(2000?) with a pure Crab deck but couldn't finish the deal. I HATED how the story kept on getting more and more twisted around corruption since it was the only way to win back then. I pray that if corruption/evil is a thing that becomes a choice for players, then it isn't something that gives an advantage/disadvantage but is instead just a choice regardless of how their deck is constructed.

Yeah, I think if Corruption ends up being a thing, then so should Purity, and the two should be mutually exclusive (for instance, have some powerful characters who cannot be played if you have any Corrupted cards in play, and are uncancelably removed from the game if you play a Corrupted card). That would force people to actually choose between being corrupted or noble, with hopefully less chance of one being an automatic go-to.

2 hours ago, suburbaknght said:

There's no one right answer;

Victory is the only correct answer!

4 hours ago, qwertyuiop said:

Since when do the Crab want to play on easy mode?

Pffft. Like building a massive great wall so you can stand on top of it looking stoic isn't easy mode.

If they were actually a proper clan, they'd have saved all the rocks to make into gravestones and fight on the ground proper like.

So now with a few dynasty packs out AND thanks to the LCG format, I found whatever sense of clan loyalty wavering...the clan I liked the most just seem pretty average in terms of their cards, whereas the new cards is making a particular clan very enticing to play...