Formats and Rotation announced

By GamerGuy1984, in Star Wars: Destiny

pretty much the only trading that goes on is for characters.

More because "I need that 2nd die!" than "i want that character"

Only noncharacter i traded/bought was a Uwing/ATST, because both are legendaries in an older pack and i want nothing else out of that pack anyway lol.

5 hours ago, Chakan99939 said:

CCG needs value to keep player playing... and collecting. Proof? When awakening was relatively unavailable and SoR not out yet, there were several players at gamestore, why? Card price. High prices are exciting, gives value to the rare cards you own, even if you don't have every card you want. CCG tend to become boring when "everyone have everything".

Last tournament I attended, no one, NO ONE needed anything. Every player had all the card needed in their tournament deck... It's not that bad... or is it? Yes it is, CCG must have difficult card to obtain. When i was playing magic (type 1, equivalent to legacy or the other one) 99% of the local players had "not every card" needed for their decks, and we still had tons of fun and some almost "unrechable" cards gave us a reason to trade and hope.

When every one has everything, it's just boring. I'm a 50% Player 50% Collector and I'm becoming bored... FFG, PLZ discontinue something and make something HARD TO ACQUIRE, after all, it's a CCG (The first C is for collectible).

100% agree

Chak

There have been few posts on this forum I disagree with more than this. The more even the players' collections are, the more the game is decided by a player's deckbuilding skill and play skill, not the size of their wallet.

1 minute ago, TheNameWasTaken said:

There have been few posts on this forum I disagree with more than this. The more even the players' collections are, the more the game is decided by a player's deckbuilding skill and play skill, not the size of their wallet.

Truth

Literally the reason i didnt get into Magic was because when i was in highschool and i attempted to i got flattened multiple times by some kid who's rich parents dumped hundreds upon hundreds on the game. He had cards i literally could do nothing about because the counter was just as if not more rare and i didnt have it.
As a result, i hated the game. Its pay to win to me and always will be.

1 hour ago, Vineheart01 said:

Truth

Literally the reason i didnt get into Magic was because when i was in highschool and i attempted to i got flattened multiple times by some kid who's rich parents dumped hundreds upon hundreds on the game. He had cards i literally could do nothing about because the counter was just as if not more rare and i didnt have it.
As a result, i hated the game. Its pay to win to me and always will be.

That's just an instance of Magic's continuing bad card design. If you design so that Legendaries and Super Rares are always better than a normal rare counterpart, then that's going to happen. I think FFG has stated and attempts to make their Legendaries influence a different way to look at the game, rather than just make the same type of card with lower cost and better die faces. Look at the new Obi-Wan. He's a rare and every bit as good as Windu or Luke or old Obi-Wan (all Legendaries).

In every collectible game, there's a format for success and a healthy secondary market is part of that. Organized play drives the secondary market. A healthy secondary market drives the primary market. Once your cards lose secondary market value, that's when you know the game is dead or at least getting there. Happened to VS System. Happened to original L5R. Pretty much happened to every successful collectible game that died (except those that have their licenses pulled from them, i.e. Decipher LotR and SW).

2 hours ago, TheNameWasTaken said:

There have been few posts on this forum I disagree with more than this. The more even the players' collections are, the more the game is decided by a player's deckbuilding skill and play skill, not the size of their wallet.

You can certainly hate this and you certainly won't be alone with your hate for this, but CCGs have always been pay to win. Why many, including myself, would have liked to seen this game be an LCG. However that boat is sailed, this is a ccg and like it or not, it is pay to win. The best, most playable cards are going to demand the highest price. $40 for an ancient lightsaber isn't because that is a highly collectable card. Sadly, the ccg model works best when the cards are very expensive. Pulling a $40 from a pack generates a lot of excitement. It demands attention and why CCGs are so popular. It is the CCG aspect, not the game aspect, that gets people playing. Otherwise a game like netrunner would be more popular than magic. It's just how this business and the psychology that goes along with it works.

You just have to be willing to trade, and find friends who will do likewise. If you’re just trying to get one or two good decks, this game is much cheaper as a CCG than it would be as an LCG. You just have to realize that if you don’t want to have to spend a ton of money, you’re going to have to be open to buying, selling, and trading cards.

1 hour ago, Kieransi said:

You just have to be willing to trade, and find friends who will do likewise. If you’re just trying to get one or two good decks, this game is much cheaper as a CCG than it would be as an LCG. You just have to realize that if you don’t want to have to spend a ton of money, you’re going to have to be open to buying, selling, and trading cards.

No...just....no. With LCG you can make literally every single deck in the entire game for a small fee of buying 1-2 expansion packs when they come out (no different than x-wing). With CCG you have to spend a shitton of money to be able to make every single deck in the game. It's cheaper only if you choose to play a single non expensive deck. **** a single Force Speed pretty much costs more than 2 expansion sets for most LCGs.

6 hours ago, Joelist said:

Lest we forget Destiny is selling VERY well (I think it was Q2 this year where it moved past Pokemon into the #2 sales slot in CCGs). And event attendance has been high. So there are players.

The bigger challenge is going to be keeping people spending money while keeping the game affordable. If people are able to sit tight the spending stops and the game no longer is a profit engine. If it is too much money to play competitively then players are scared off. And this is why FFG is trying to in effect please both worlds with the three different competition strata.

The Infinite format works for anyone who has cards. The Trilogy format is for those entering Destiny or those who prefer building from the smallest pool while Standard appeals more to those who may not want the biggest pool but also want to get a little more life out of their cards. Time will tell how this approach works.

I have to admit I am tempted to focus on Trilogy play once it is active simply because I like working with smaller card pools.

There aren't three different formats for competition. Standard will be the only format. FFG doesn't have a second entity like MtG does with SCG nor do they have enough of a tournament infrastructure to run all three formats at Worlds. The event attendance that I've seen at store champs and nationals has been super small compared to other FFG games and it's usually half the same people going to the event. This is going to kill the second half that are the people that live close to the big event and want to play. This format is only going to retain the hardcore grinders that only or mostly only play Destiny. The game population isn't big enough to support that, so this is likely going to end in the game dying a slow death just like Imperial Assault.

Actually FFGs article states that all three formats will have Organized Play support. And your anecdotal experience is not that of everyone - indeed our Destiny events have been drawing well since Awakenings.

I play or have played every LCG they've made. There's never been a card game from FFG in our area with the consistent turnout for tournaments we get for Destiny. Netrunner was close in its first and second year, L5R is about that size right now, but Destiny is the most played card game in our area outside Magic and we could definitely support Standard, Infinite and Draft.

Regardless of if FFG will offer material for all 3, whether stores even bother is another question. If they know the local population thinks Trilogy is stupid or Infinite will be too confusing/broken, they wont even bother because hardly anyone would come.

Rather than have the multiple formats be just "what cards are legal" outside of standard and infinite, they should have had a literally different format. Such as doubledeck or modified deck (up to 4 of the same card for instance).

I really dont see anyone caring about trilogy. They say its for newer players who bought in just now but theyre more than likely not going to be investing as much as the old players, so the people that buy like 2-3 boxes on release will STILL have a huge lead over the new guys.

9 hours ago, Hoffburger said:

It's cheaper only if you choose to play a single non expensive deck.

That’s literally what I just said.

I just said if you want a good deck, not a deck using the single most expensive card in the game...

This game is not an LCG, and I personally don’t think it would be as fun as one. It’s a trading card game, and a huge part of that is that you’ll have to trade away cards you actually need to get cards you need even more, or spend a whole ton of money. I know a number of casual players who play this game rather than X-Wing because it’s cheaper for them to get a deck and play with it.

On 11/11/2017 at 3:01 AM, Kieransi said:

That’s literally what I just said.

I just said if you want a good deck, not a deck using the single most expensive card in the game...

This game is not an LCG, and I personally don’t think it would be as fun as one. It’s a trading card game, and a huge part of that is that you’ll have to trade away cards you actually need to get cards you need even more, or spend a whole ton of money. I know a number of casual players who play this game rather than X-Wing because it’s cheaper for them to get a deck and play with it.

And if your playerbase is like mine, those of us that have been playing from the beginning and have mostly complete/complete sets often freely give away everything other than Legendaries to budding new players to help out their fledgling collections and to make them feel welcome in the Destiny community. Whereas is the X-Wing community it’s usually just extra promotional items (AA cards, extra tokens from OP kits) that might or might not ever see use, or that third copy of the salvaged astromech Genius because you bought three Punishing One expansion packs.

2 hours ago, Destraa said:

And if your playerbase is like mine, those of us that have been playing from the beginning and have mostly complete/complete sets often freely give away everything other than Legendaries to budding new players to help out their fledgling collections and to make them feel welcome in the Destiny community. Whereas is the X-Wing community it’s usually just extra promotional items (AA cards, extra tokens from OP kits) that might or might not ever see use, or that third copy of the salvaged astromech Genius because you bought three Punishing One expansion packs.

Yeah, it’s a lot more communal! I remember when a new player bought the Kylo starter and a couple packs. He opened a One With the Force and had no use for it (because he only wanted villains.) I traded him every single card he needed to build a (quite good) eKylo(Aw)/eVader(SoR) deck for that one card. That was a great night for both of us!

This game is very affordable the best character in the game new Kylo is in the two player starter with a lot of other good cards. This game only becomes expensive if you want more than one deck. If you focus on one deck or play Tts till you figure out what exactly you want to play then buy singles it's really not that much (outside of buying 2 force speeds and 2 ancient light sabers but good news they are rotating out in a year)

Yeah, I've been given and have in turn given commons and uncommons. Good fun to be had at friendly competitive events. I usually go 1.5 w-l, but, I just play for fun for the most part.

One of the good things about this announcement is it was early enough to have players prepare for it.

If you are of the opinion that the rotation is a bad thing for you, it is much better to figure that out now that in a years time.

On 2017-11-10 at 1:34 PM, TheNameWasTaken said:

There have been few posts on this forum I disagree with more than this. The more even the players' collections are, the more the game is decided by a player's deckbuilding skill and play skill, not the size of their wallet.

You know... when looking for pure 100% skill, you better play a boardgame rather than a CCG.

"The more even player's collections are..." Exactly the opposite, when at a disadvantage, that's when your skill will really shine. I personnaly went to tournaments with "theme decks" rather than tournaments one. Call that volontary handicap if you want, but I love challenge.

On 2017-11-10 at 3:30 PM, gokubb said:

That's just an instance of Magic's continuing bad card design. If you design so that Legendaries and Super Rares are always better than a normal rare counterpart, then that's going to happen. I think FFG has stated and attempts to make their Legendaries influence a different way to look at the game, rather than just make the same type of card with lower cost and better die faces. Look at the new Obi-Wan. He's a rare and every bit as good as Windu or Luke or old Obi-Wan (all Legendaries).

In every collectible game, there's a format for success and a healthy secondary market is part of that. Organized play drives the secondary market. A healthy secondary market drives the primary market. Once your cards lose secondary market value, that's when you know the game is dead or at least getting there. Happened to VS System. Happened to original L5R. Pretty much happened to every successful collectible game that died (except those that have their licenses pulled from them, i.e. Decipher LotR and SW).

Exactly and I agree. I am not asking FFG to design stupidly broken cards and discontinue the set they are from 2 weeks later. A higher card value means local game store will "BOTHER" to sell individual cards and dice. Just think about that, why would a store bother to hold 20000 differents cards if everything was priced at 0.10$ or less? Answer is, they would not. You would have to purchase packs at 4$ each, with 0.5$ worth if cards in it in ordert o get your 0.10$ card you were looking for.

On 2017-11-10 at 3:43 PM, Mep said:

You can certainly hate this and you certainly won't be alone with your hate for this, but CCGs have always been pay to win. Why many, including myself, would have liked to seen this game be an LCG. However that boat is sailed, this is a ccg and like it or not, it is pay to win. The best, most playable cards are going to demand the highest price. $40 for an ancient lightsaber isn't because that is a highly collectable card. Sadly, the ccg model works best when the cards are very expensive. Pulling a $40 from a pack generates a lot of excitement. It demands attention and why CCGs are so popular. It is the CCG aspect, not the game aspect, that gets people playing. Otherwise a game like netrunner would be more popular than magic. It's just how this business and the psychology that goes along with it works.

Not 100% agree, but I agree on some points. Every CCG have a % of "pay to win". Each game has a different % value. I estimate that SW destiny is 30% pay 70% skill (Ok we could start another topic on wich % luck is responsible but...). It is so easy to make a very good deck, almost tournament one, for ultra cheap (Who cannot afford Emo kids...). Does that mean you can make "ALL DECKS AVAILABLE"? No of course, but it gives challenge to try to.

Without challenge there is no game.

Chak

4 hours ago, Chakan99939 said:

It is so easy to make a very good deck, almost tournament one, for ultra cheap

almost? ALMOST? Rieekan is mad at you now.

5 hours ago, Chakan99939 said:

Not 100% agree, but I agree on some points. Every CCG have a % of "pay to win". Each game has a different % value. I estimate that SW destiny is 30% pay 70% skill (Ok we could start another topic on wich % luck is responsible but...). It is so easy to make a very good deck, almost tournament one, for ultra cheap (Who cannot afford Emo kids...). Does that mean you can make "ALL DECKS AVAILABLE"? No of course, but it gives challenge to try to.

Every game is somewhat pay-to-win, in my opinion LCGs are actually worse at this. If you don’t buy all the products, your decks will be noticeably further behind everyone else’s. It doesn’t bother me, because the most LCG-like game I play is X-Wing and I just love buying all the miniatures anyway, but it can be annoying. I have a friend who plays X-Wing, Destiny, and Netrunner (relatively casually), and he’s spent far less on Destiny than the other two.

Destiny seems to be pretty much equal parts pay, skill, and luck, because I seem to see equal amounts of complaining about all three. I see a lot of complaining about the game being pay-to-win, but I also see just about as much complaining about bad luck, and I think I might see more complaining than anything else about “I bought all the stuff, found the best list online, and I still can’t win”, which indicates to me that there’s still a good deal of skill involved. Personally, I kinda like it like this. There’s some reward for being committed to the game and buying product, there’s an even higher reward for being skilled at the game, and luck evens things out a lot. I can’t even tell you how weirdly lucky this game can be (I once won a tournament with Luminara Unduli!)

7 hours ago, Chakan99939 said:

Not 100% agree, but I agree on some points. Every CCG have a % of "pay to win". Each game has a different % value. I estimate that SW destiny is 30% pay 70% skill (Ok we could start another topic on wich % luck is responsible but...). It is so easy to make a very good deck, almost tournament one, for ultra cheap (Who cannot afford Emo kids...). Does that mean you can make "ALL DECKS AVAILABLE"? No of course, but it gives challenge to try to.

Without challenge there is no game.

Chak

Of course you can't just plop down a bunch of money and expect to win every game. That isn't what pay to win means. Pay to win means you paid money to gain an advantage, sometimes small, but still paid to have an advantage. A good player absolutely can take a cheap deck and win a bunch of games. They can also pay a bunch of more money and win even more. This is why people (specially in video games since you are allowed to be mean on the internet) that pay to win and still fail are made fun of so readily. After ponying up all that money you still have to pilot that deck well or you do crash and burn.

I will say that LCGs, especially when you first get into an older LCG, has a huge buy in. If you don't do the huge buy in, you are at a disadvantage because you don't have all the cards to choose from. You end up making suboptimal substitutions. I guess one can view this as pay to win but really with an LCG you simply don't have all the game pieces. This is a bit different than a CCG where the very best cards are going to cost a lot more money than filler cards even if they have the same print number. You end up paying a premium for cards that will make you win more. In an LCG, you pay the same price no matter what. Of course you still have to pay, so it is a bit of a gray area, but one ancient lightsaber is going to set you back more than say an entire box set like terminal directive or even a core set. I think that is the big difference between pay to play and pay to win.

2 hours ago, Kieransi said:

Every game is somewhat pay-to-win, in my opinion LCGs are actually worse at this. If you don’t buy all the products, your decks will be noticeably further behind everyone else’s. .

You really can't say a CCG doesn't require you to be a completionist, but an LCG does. If you play a single faction/deck in an LCG you can often skip packs, as they'll only have 3-4 cards for your faction. Yes, when it gets really big the lack of a secondary market can make it more expensive, but it still won't come anywhere near what a CCG will. Needing that one popular card will cost the same as almost an entire cycle for an LCG. Sure, you don't HAVE to buy that one popular card, but your decks will be noticeably further behind everyone else's...

The LCG model certainly has its own issues and its own drawbacks. CCGs and LCGs both do their best to make you buy a lot of stuff you don't actually need. But if you're going to try and compare them you really should at least pretend to do so on a level playing field.

43 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

You really can't say a CCG doesn't require you to be a completionist, but an LCG does. If you play a single faction/deck in an LCG you can often skip packs, as they'll only have 3-4 cards for your faction. Yes, when it gets really big the lack of a secondary market can make it more expensive, but it still won't come anywhere near what a CCG will. Needing that one popular card will cost the same as almost an entire cycle for an LCG. Sure, you don't HAVE to buy that one popular card, but your decks will be noticeably further behind everyone else's...

The LCG model certainly has its own issues and its own drawbacks. CCGs and LCGs both do their best to make you buy a lot of stuff you don't actually need. But if you're going to try and compare them you really should at least pretend to do so on a level playing field.

I didn’t really say anything about completionism. I do look at the games on a level playing field, because I like both LCGs and CCGs, but the playing field that I look at is the very specific type of play where you are playing very solid and competitive but also very tier 2 decks in a relatively casual environment. That’s pretty much all I ever do, with any game, and in that very narrow and specific game mode, the CCG is usually cheaper than the LCG, because people don't buy and don’t expect each other to buy those few specific top tier $40 cards, but people still want to have pretty good, competitive decks. An LCG usually requires you to buy just about everything in this type of play, but with a CCG you can get away with spending a good deal less on packs and then trading cards with friends.

I will agree with you that on almost every level of play, CCGs tend to be much more expensive than LCGs. It just so happens that the CCG model is more accessible for me and my friends due to the very specific way that we like to play.

Edited by Kieransi
Typo

Yeah, the buy in on an LCG, especial an older one, is very expensive. However the maintenance is much cheaper on an LCG than a CCG. You can buy a poper deck in a CCG to play and not completely suck. There is no such thing as a doesn't suck poper deck in an LCG. In that sense a CCG is more accessible. Once you buy in though, LCGs are so easy to keep up with it is hard to compare to the two.

On 11/10/2017 at 10:37 AM, Joelist said:

Lest we forget Destiny is selling VERY well (I think it was Q2 this year where it moved past Pokemon into the #2 sales slot in CCGs). And event attendance has been high. So there are players.

I agree the game is doing well, but where do you get figures that it's outselling Pokemon? And is it magic or Yugioh in the top slot?