4 hours ago, Matrim said:

this brings back memories though of old ccg story fans ******* because the competitive players got to make all the storyline decisions

I am happy for those who wish feverently for a different choice to take their own deck to worlds next year and win out. Otherwise suck it up...

You realize that most people don't have the money or time to travel halfway across the country for a card game, right? I will probably never have the opportunity to go to worlds due to various factors, and yet people there will make a decision about how I get to play the game. There's valid reasons for people to be angry or frustrated about the system, and frankly it's the one part of the game and meta that I'm not that enthused about.

+1 on that. There is no way I am going to spend a week of my time and money to travel to Minnesota in November to play a game. If FFG ever moves to New Orleans...

With the above in mind, I am not complaining, it is JUST a game.

To be clear: NPE and overpowered are two different things.

Oftentimes NPE effects happen to also be overpowered, but Brad wanting to lock Scorpion out of Backhanded Compliment was because he felt it was NPE more than it was overpowered. Losing via dishonor is already disheartening for newer players. It sucks more than losing via province breaks does.

The player base around me complains about Crab and Scorpion more than any other factions. The reason for this is that both have major NPE cards that frustrate players. No one likes having to burn actions to soak up Kisada nor having a big dude murdered by Way of the Crab. But scorpion is even worse. They are constantly playing "feel bad" cards that make the game miserable for players. Players have already quit because they hate Scorpion so much. Giving them access to a card that can burn someone down to 0 honor in a flash is way overboard at this stage in the game. Perhaps in a cycle or two we'll see enough honor gain to make a card like Backhanded Compliment not a major issue, but as the game currently stands it will be played at a high enough rate that will be a problem for new players.

It won't be a problem for good players, but then again, nothing is a problem for good players. Good players aren't the ones complaining about Backhanded Compliment being banned from the clan. Good players are looking for ways to use the extra money from the seeker role to maximize gameplay. Good players also aren't complaining about Crane losing access to Disdainful Remark, they are looking to find a way to tailor their decks around the fact that they can now play two air provinces every match. And if Backhanded Compliment were available to Scorpion, good players would tailor their deck to prevent losing to that card.

But it's not about good players. It's about keeping the game fun and inviting to everyone else.

8 minutes ago, DarkArk said:

You realize that most people don't have the money or time to travel halfway across the country for a card game, right? I will probably never have the opportunity to go to worlds due to various factors, and yet people there will make a decision about how I get to play the game. There's valid reasons for people to be angry or frustrated about the system, and frankly it's the one part of the game and meta that I'm not that enthused about.

To be fair, it seems likely the yearly Shogun story decision will not be the only one. Certainly the koteis seem like they will have more opportunities for story decisions which may even be made by a voting.

2 minutes ago, kiramode said:

To be clear: NPE and overpowered are two different things.

Oftentimes NPE effects happen to also be overpowered, but Brad wanting to lock Scorpion out of Backhanded Compliment was because he felt it was NPE more than it was overpowered. Losing via dishonor is already disheartening for newer players. It sucks more than losing via province breaks does.

The player base around me complains about Crab and Scorpion more than any other factions. The reason for this is that both have major NPE cards that frustrate players. No one likes having to burn actions to soak up Kisada nor having a big dude murdered by Way of the Crab. But scorpion is even worse. They are constantly playing "feel bad" cards that make the game miserable for players. Players have already quit because they hate Scorpion so much. Giving them access to a card that can burn someone down to 0 honor in a flash is way overboard at this stage in the game. Perhaps in a cycle or two we'll see enough honor gain to make a card like Backhanded Compliment not a major issue, but as the game currently stands it will be played at a high enough rate that will be a problem for new players.

It won't be a problem for good players, but then again, nothing is a problem for good players. Good players aren't the ones complaining about Backhanded Compliment being banned from the clan. Good players are looking for ways to use the extra money from the seeker role to maximize gameplay. Good players also aren't complaining about Crane losing access to Disdainful Remark, they are looking to find a way to tailor their decks around the fact that they can now play two air provinces every match. And if Backhanded Compliment were available to Scorpion, good players would tailor their deck to prevent losing to that card.

But it's not about good players. It's about keeping the game fun and inviting to everyone else.

Yeah... what ever. We will get our Keeper-Role after the Koteis, and than all this babies who quit, because they get their asses kicked (because they bit too **** high), can cry me a river.

2 minutes ago, kiramode said:

To be clear: NPE and overpowered are two different things.

Oftentimes NPE effects happen to also be overpowered, but Brad wanting to lock Scorpion out of Backhanded Compliment was because he felt it was NPE more than it was overpowered. Losing via dishonor is already disheartening for newer players. It sucks more than losing via province breaks does.

The player base around me complains about Crab and Scorpion more than any other factions. The reason for this is that both have major NPE cards that frustrate players. No one likes having to burn actions to soak up Kisada nor having a big dude murdered by Way of the Crab. But scorpion is even worse. They are constantly playing "feel bad" cards that make the game miserable for players. Players have already quit because they hate Scorpion so much. Giving them access to a card that can burn someone down to 0 honor in a flash is way overboard at this stage in the game. Perhaps in a cycle or two we'll see enough honor gain to make a card like Backhanded Compliment not a major issue, but as the game currently stands it will be played at a high enough rate that will be a problem for new players.

It won't be a problem for good players, but then again, nothing is a problem for good players. Good players aren't the ones complaining about Backhanded Compliment being banned from the clan. Good players are looking for ways to use the extra money from the seeker role to maximize gameplay. Good players also aren't complaining about Crane losing access to Disdainful Remark, they are looking to find a way to tailor their decks around the fact that they can now play two air provinces every match. And if Backhanded Compliment were available to Scorpion, good players would tailor their deck to prevent losing to that card.

But it's not about good players. It's about keeping the game fun and inviting to everyone else.

You forgot to say “in my opinion, based on what we know now”. Unless you are on the design team or a play tester you really have no idea what the card look or meta will look like by the time this card comes out. That was really my only problem with this whole deal - it was all based off of the assumption that they knew better than the design team who had access to the whole picture.

Again, I really have no problem with it. It’s a **** prize, whoever wins it deserves to pick what they want for whatever reason they like. But everyone acting like it is some big sacrifice for the environment is just silly when you don’t know 80% of the cards coming out in the next 2 months.

what some, or at least myself, are saying is that we don't know what will exist in the future. in the current environment it might be harmful due to typical honor totals vs draw and a lack of interrupts or reactions to deal with such situations.

but assuming that will all be identical after another 100 or so cards are revealed is presumptuous and making a statement like you're doing it 'for the good of the game' is... well, somewhat revolting.

The part that I find hilarious is that my friends were way more upset about the Oni Mask than they were Backhand. Getting another control piece this time that blanks characters was way more worrying to them than me having an easier time winning via dishonor. It would be kinda ironic of the Mask ends up making a way more NPE than Compliment would have.

Also a lot of the gloom and doom from fellow Scorpion players may be a bit too soon. I sure hope a role specific card wasn't the only way they were going to add more dishonor tech.

8 minutes ago, Klawtu said:

The part that I find hilarious is that my friends were way more upset about the Oni Mask than they were Backhand. Getting another control piece this time that blanks characters was way more worrying to them than me having an easier time winning via dishonor. It would be kinda ironic of the Mask ends up making a way more NPE than Compliment would have.

Also a lot of the gloom and doom from fellow Scorpion players may be a bit too soon. I sure hope a role specific card wasn't the only way they were going to add more dishonor tech.

I certainly hope it isn't either - because currently the Scorpion clan feels like "dishonor, but at the same time, not dishonor." they can dishonor themselves well enough as costs for their abilities, and I like this - and they can dishonor the opponent's characters which can be strong when they have good glory - but they don't actually have much in the way of causing honor loss.

This is what really gets me with this - this guy goes off, apparently making a call a 8AM to rave about how broken this card is - when its basically the first real dishonor card the Scorpion clan gets... Meanwhile Phoenix can take advantage of dishonored characters better, and Crab can cause more direct honor loss. BC is nothing the game hasn't already seen, and his grand plot to sabotage the Scorpion "for the sake of the game" leaves this card completely open to these other clans anyway...

Like - basically he accomplished nothing good, he just exposed the problems the Role system creates. There was a lengthy thread about that before with a player being very concerned about the negative ramifications of the Role system. Well here they are - a player can drop a bucket of money at the feet of FFG and then I can't use the only exciting card spoiled for Scorpion, and its not even released yet - why bother buying the pack?

Way of the Scorpion is a better dishonor tool than anything other clans have. They also have their box. It's not hard at all for Scorpions to drag games down to both players having under 5 honor. The difference between them and Crab/Phoenix is that those clans can't tutor for the Backhanded Compliment chain as effectively without Favored Niece and Hidden Cache.

More importantly, in order to play the dishonor game you need defensive cards to keep you alive. Splashing Scorpion doesn't give you that. You also lose other dishonor splash options. Crab splashing Backhanded Compliment means they don't get Display of Power. Not saying it won't get played, but it's just not as dangerous.

You know I knew as soon as the role system was announced that someone would play another clan to deliberately pick a bad role for them.

I had just assumed that it would be coming from the Scorpion, not to the Scorpion.

1 hour ago, kiramode said:

Players have already quit because they hate Scorpion so much.

Sorry but this is a completely different issue, and if true (something that I doubt, sorry) a bigger can of worms. It would simply mean that 2 over 3 victory conditions of the game are seen as bad and un-fun by players, and should be removed. Making them very hard to achieve would not be the answer, and clans mostly revolving around them should be redesigned. Do we really want to go in that direction?

To be clear: Brad didn't make the pick, I did. I gave Brad props for what he had tried to do, but my intention, since getting the first pick at GenCon, was always to go for Seeker of Void.

And as an aside: all my victories this weekend were by dishonour. Most of my single core victories at GenCon (where I actually played Seeker of Void) were also dishonour. We're already more than capable of consistently winning that way.

1 hour ago, Bayushi Nono said:

Yeah... what ever. We will get our Keeper-Role after the Koteis, and than all this babies who quit, because they get their asses kicked (because they bit too **** high), can cry me a river.

You know that the Kotei extend at least to next GenCon, maybe even later and that the role selected by votes at Kotei will only be legal for next worlds and 1 other special event, right?

10 minutes ago, franzvong said:

Sorry but this is a completely different issue, and if true (something that I doubt, sorry) a bigger can of worms. It wouls simply mean that 2 over 3 victory conditions of the game are seen as bad and un-fun by players, and should be removed. Making them very hard to achieve would not be the answer, and clans mostly revolving around them should be redesigned. Do we really want to go in that direction?

Players quitting because of scorpions isn't an L5R issue, it's a card game issue. There's always going to be players that quit because there's a deck in the meta that is unfun to play against. You don't need to placate to them forever, but keep the full on solitaire decks at bay until the game has matured a little.

Dishonor is in a fairly good place right now. It's not fun to play against, but it's pretty easy to interact with it and play the game. A little practice goes a long way. But it only takes one time for a player to get burned down from 5-6 honor to 0 for someone to just mentally check out forever. Especially if there's no obvious counters that can be pointed to.

3 minutes ago, kiramode said:

Players quitting because of scorpions isn't an L5R issue, it's a card game issue. There's always going to be players that quit because there's a deck in the meta that is unfun to play against. You don't need to placate to them forever, but keep the full on solitaire decks at bay until the game has matured a little.

Dishonor is in a fairly good place right now. It's not fun to play against, but it's pretty easy to interact with it and play the game. A little practice goes a long way. But it only takes one time for a player to get burned down from 5-6 honor to 0 for someone to just mentally check out forever. Especially if there's no obvious counters that can be pointed to.

Its also easy to mentally check out when I've only bought the core game - and the only spoiled card of any interest from the first cycle is already essentially banned.

Nothing was done to save the game, it was only the efforts of an egotistical fool to knee-cap a clan he didn't like.

Seriously, those complaing about the results, why did you not go and play for your clan? If your not planning on being a tourney player anyways, then none of this affects you.

Grow up and compete or organize your clan if you want to be making the calls, or stick to non tourney games where you can play whatever you want.

13 hours ago, SideshowLucifer said:

Seriously, those complaing about the results, why did you not go and play for your clan? If your not planning on being a tourney player anyways, then none of this affects you.

I have nothing against the role decision, but this justification (also from Mark’s post, that I otherwise respect a lot as a player) has to stop here and now. Not everyone can afford thousands of USDs to play a card game, and this should not be a reason to label them as less valuable players. We are not playing an online videogame, so the idea that we are all on an equal field and lack of participation to global tournaments is just lazyness is, sorry to say, plain stupid and unrespectful.

1 hour ago, franzvong said:

I have nothing against the role decision, but this justification (also from Mark’s post, that I otherwise respect a lot as a player) has to stop here and now. Not everyone can afford thousands of USDs to play a card game, and this should not be a reason to label them as less valuable players. We are not playing on online videogame, so the idea that we are all on an equal field and lack of participation to global tournaments is just lazyness is, sorry to say, plain stupid and unrespectful.

This, all the way.

There's plenty of people (myself included) who are probably never going to be able to afford the time and money it would take to haul it out to Minnesota or wherever for three days to play card games, but who may be interested in playing at a local tournament where the Worlds role decisions we had no chance of influencing will be enforced. To say that people who couldn't afford to go to Worlds shouldn't complain about the outcome is just plain unintelligent.

ADDENDUM: Honestly, this is why I'm getting a bit annoyed with all of these "Keeper/Seeker Only" cards. Right now we're playing with a minuscule card pool, and some clans (such as the Unicorn) are in sore need of new options. Why they would choose to release these so soon after launch, instead of options that will be universally useful, baffles me. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with this theme per-se--but it would have been better served if they had waited until the card pool was larger before they released it.

And based on other spoilers , there are element role provinces for each element coming in this first cycle. It would have been nice to have seen those cards before roles were chosen like the seeker and keeper cards were for the clans. But that is what casual play is for I guess. I really like the earth role province.

12 minutes ago, Chupacabra52 said:

I really like the earth role province.

The what now??

Scorpion in flavor and mechanics is tricky. People generally don't like 'tricky' when it comes to a game which is ostensibly competitive and even. It gives the impression that someone is playing underhanded and has unfair advantages. Even when this is of course, entirely untrue.

So if someone loses to Scorpion... It's likely if they're miffed that they will complain about Scorpion and the methods Scorpion uses to win. It's not a problem with the game, it's not a problem with Scorpion.

It's a problem with people who are bad losers. Making a choice to protect what are basically **** people, is itself, ****.

15 minutes ago, Chupacabra52 said:

And based on other spoilers , there are element role provinces for each element coming in this first cycle. It would have been nice to have seen those cards before roles were chosen like the seeker and keeper cards were for the clans. But that is what casual play is for I guess. I really like the earth role province.

The people at Worlds saw them before the roles were chosen. So, they chose knowing them.

Are you guys who are complaining about traveling players of the old ccg?

Because i can tell you, that us old l5r players do indeed travel to get a chance at these decisions. A lot have traveled all of the country to plat at events. Others, Luke myself, have gone on the ccg cruise and gone to the Euro tournies to influence the game.

That is L5R. It has always been like that. Those that do the traveling and the comp games will always make the majority of the decisions.

That doesn't mean other players are less valuable. There will be votes and other decisions everyone will get to take part in as well as more local events that will get tallied around the world.

The ones I'm being judgemental about are the people who will likely never play in an event where these role restrictions are enforced and are complaining that somehow, they should have as much say as the people who do travel and compete.

8 hours ago, Matrim said:

this brings back memories though of old ccg story fans ******* because the competitive players got to make all the storyline decisions

As one of those... yes. And the right to gripe applies.

Note that I respect this particular decision since it was formed around the idea- not yet substantiated by a full look at the card pool- that Scorpion having access to this particular fuss would turn people off of playing the game. I think the impulse was good, perhaps presumptuous, and not necessarily correct, but not something to pillory a person over.

Those who say, "trust the developers" do not recall as many poor design moves as those of us who soldiered through the CCG days do. Yes, FFG didn't make those moves- but to say they're incapable of missing a potential NPE is drawing a wide margin on credulity.

With that said... one guy I'll likely never meet hamstringing my anticipated deck build for a reasonably long swathe of organized play is something that would give me cause to gripe.

Just like I spent my time in the CCG days actively rooting against certain people who were playing my clan because I knew they were maho-heads hellbent on making the Phoenix into little more than Diet Spider- because I live in the middle of nowhere, with a playgroup that has never been bigger than about ten guys, and which therefore doesn't exactly see a lot of high-level play to make a run for major story tournaments feasible.

8 hours ago, Matrim said:

I am happy for those who wish feverently for a different choice to take their own deck to worlds next year and win out. Otherwise suck it up...

If I chose to drag my carcass to the Anchorage kotei back in the CCG days, it would involve either a 1-hour flight or about six hours' drive- and that was the only organized play event even remotely accessible to me. Upon arrival, I could count on maybe making Top Phoenix (since there were only three of us) and then watching any out of state player who bothered to show up and play a kotei as part of an Alaska summer vacation run away with the whole thing- this is not an exaggeration. The only time an out of state player was present and failed to win the whole thing during the time I was playing, it was because they lost to another out of state player.

Therefore, "play better n00bz" is neither helpful, nor reasonable. To "take their own deck to worlds next year and win out" involves practice, time, money, travel, and fortunate geography. It's a rare person for whom those things can line up. Let them complain. It's literally all they can do about it.