I have some real concerns about the future of competitive LCG's: the buy-in gets insane. Initially, it's not bad, you buy a core set, maybe 2. The additions are a set of $10-$15 decisions. After a couple rounds of expansions, getting new people into the game becomes a huge challenge. Too many cards to get your head around, and the up-front cost is very high. The co-op games seem to work a lot better. Adding a new player into LotR - swap over to easy mode. Playing with a 7 y.o? sorted. Getting a new friend interested? sorted. Working with a theme deck ? sorted. Arkham LCG is even better - use the easy bag. Someone with a single core wants to join the campaign: sorted. I love how you can easily play with people who go all-in and people just testing thing out. I enjoy the both styles of games - but the co-op just feel like they work out better.

Anyway, I'd love to see a "Battle-tech" co-op game (with an optional head-to-head mode). You pick a 'lance' of 4 mechs. Run them through a campaign, a set of linked scenarios that carry over. (I have some battletech-nostalgia, but really... the theme could be warhammer 40k, starship troopers, aliens vs space marines, robotecth, or just about anything.) You a are a mercenary company, hired into a campaign. You have some core units you enhance with extra armor/weapons, you recruit allies, you have special tactics. As you progress through the campaign, you get more experienced (like Arkham), but also build up damage.

Please, please take my money.

It’s a nice thought but just imagining games using intellectual properties FFG/Asmodee doesn’t have access to is...optimistic.*

Also—there’s more to a successful game than just buy-in price. People want individual competition and individual deck building, apparently. The competitive LCGs generally outsell the co-op ones.

(*in particular there used to be a 40K LCG but GDW pulled the license when FFG/Asmodee started moving onto the miniatures market that GDW considers its turf. Imperial Assault, SW Legion, and Runewars directly compete with Warhammer and 40K. So that’s never happening ever again. Probably ditto for any other miniatures-heavy IPs.)

Do we know if the competitive outsell the co-ops? I imagine LotR isn't that much, but Arkham has been consistently popular. I wouldn't be suprised if it was 2nd best selling behind L5R.

On 2/10/2018 at 6:39 PM, ColinEdwards said:

I have some real concerns about the future of competitive LCG's: the buy-in gets insane. Initially, it's not bad, you buy a core set, maybe 2. The additions are a set of $10-$15 decisions. After a couple rounds of expansions, getting new people into the game becomes a huge challenge. Too many cards to get your head around, and the up-front cost is very high. The co-op games seem to work a lot better. Adding a new player into LotR - swap over to easy mode. Playing with a 7 y.o? sorted. Getting a new friend interested? sorted. Working with a theme deck ? sorted. Arkham LCG is even better - use the easy bag. Someone with a single core wants to join the campaign: sorted. I love how you can easily play with people who go all-in and people just testing thing out. I enjoy the both styles of games - but the co-op just feel like they work out better.

Anyway, I'd love to see a "Battle-tech" co-op game (with an optional head-to-head mode). You pick a 'lance' of 4 mechs. Run them through a campaign, a set of linked scenarios that carry over. (I have some battletech-nostalgia, but really... the theme could be warhammer 40k, starship troopers, aliens vs space marines, robotecth, or just about anything.) You a are a mercenary company, hired into a campaign. You have some core units you enhance with extra armor/weapons, you recruit allies, you have special tactics. As you progress through the campaign, you get more experienced (like Arkham), but also build up damage.

Please, please take my money.

I agree with you for all the reasons you stated. If I were a betting man, I'd bet on a Star Wars co-op LCG. Destiny is a CCG, which is a different critter and there won't be any new Star Wars LCG packs coming. A narrative, co-op LCG would be amazing and would likely sell very well.

I'm skeptical of a SW co-op LCG for the simple reason that they tried it already, then scrapped it after a lot of development in favor of the competitive version.

10 hours ago, Radix2309 said:

Do we know if the competitive outsell the co-ops? I imagine LotR isn't that much, but Arkham has been consistently popular. I wouldn't be suprised if it was 2nd best selling behind L5R.

FFG doesn't release sales figures that I know of, but they do like to talk about how 40K Conquest, AGOT 2nd Edition, and then good god, L5R all sold at Gen Con when they debuted. Arkham Horror may be doing quite well, but it doesn't "make headlines" as it were. I get the impression that it meets expectations, but those expectations are lower.

7 hours ago, Grimwalker said:

I'm skeptical of a SW co-op LCG for the simple reason that they tried it already, then scrapped it after a lot of development in favor of the competitive version.

In all fairness, AH is a good co-op game. The old SW version obviously wasn't.

Wasn't AH sold out at GenCon as well? And sold out in general after it came out? Plus it was rated top game of the year on BGG.

10 hours ago, KrisWall said:

In all fairness, AH is a good co-op game. The old SW version obviously wasn't.

This could be true, but the main reason (at least according to what was said) was that people wanted to play as the Empire. For example, I don't give a **** about the app for Imperial Assault because you're not allowed to play Empire, and I'll never pay a penny for a SW coop game where I'm bound to play the Rebel. Clearly, I'm not indicative, but what's true is that the Empire has a ton of fans, so, going coop on SW means creating a division in the fan base. When you design something, you want as many purchasers as possible interested in the product

Well the Star Wars lcg forced you to play rebels anyway.

I think a co-op Star Wars would do well. And I prefer scum.

But give me some tough adventures involving scum and it'd be awesome.

13 hours ago, Julia said:

This could be true, but the main reason (at least according to what was said) was that people wanted to play as the Empire. For example, I don't give a **** about the app for Imperial Assault because you're not allowed to play Empire, and I'll never pay a penny for a SW coop game where I'm bound to play the Rebel. Clearly, I'm not indicative, but what's true is that the Empire has a ton of fans, so, going coop on SW means creating a division in the fan base. When you design something, you want as many purchasers as possible interested in the product

Fair statement.

Then again, pretty much anything you do creates a division in the fan base. I'm not a fan of hyper competitive play. I bought into Destiny and then sold out when the organized play events came down to who had the best card draw across a very small handful of viable decks (the ePoe/eMaz era). By making Destiny competitive, they lock out people who don't like competitive games, thus creating a division in the fan base.

22 hours ago, Radix2309 said:

Wasn't AH sold out at GenCon as well? And sold out in general after it came out? Plus it was rated top game of the year on BGG.

Sounds like Netrunner... LCGs always sell out at GenCon, and remain sold out in general until December/Feb depending on FFG's ability to get produced and shipped before Chinese New Year.

To be fair about Battletech, I'm not sure the companies that have that IP are sure how to use it. Asmodee could probably get the rights by taking them whilst magically pulling a quarter from behind Catalyst/IWM/etc.'s ears.
And Battletech, being completely steeped in war, should probably competitive. I thought of a rough draft fix for the old CCG based on elements from Imperial Assault.

Arkham Horror feels like the best version for a co-op LCG. How else do you make one relevant without feeling like AH or LotR with a different coat of paint. I think Co-op expandable card games would be great following models like Warhammer Quest or Death Angel. I'd like one without the LCG release schedule. Give me one or two expansions a year like the AH deluxe boxes.

I think that the LCG model lends itself best to cooperative card games, for some of the reasons OP mentioned. I took a slight diversion from playing MTG to get into AGoT 1.0, and then also played SW LCG, only to see both games die and have essentially worthless cardpools lying around. When I reflect on the total amount of money that I spent on those two games combined, I realize that I could have bought a TON of MTG cards. And, I would still be playing with those cards to this day, whether in Modern, Commander, draft cube, or some other variant. And, not only would I still be playing with them, they would actually be increasing in value. For that reason, I just can't justify ever buying in to a competitive LCG again. I'll just buy MTG product instead.

The reason i was thinking about Battletech was that it lends itself thematically to a card game implementation.

In the old board game, you would pick units by tonnage: you might have 190 tons to play with that you split across four mechs, so something like theat in LotR LCG.

It also lends itself to the campaign play of Arkham: as you accumulate experience (i.e., like new cards to swap into a deck), you might also be accumulating damage and not fully restocking ammunition.

To handle action efficiency, there is a concept of 'overheating': the more actions you take, the more heat you build up. Certain weapons ( particle beams, lasers ) might add extra heat.

There might be options with the 'fog of war', you might send a light scout in to scout an area, but units won't engage until they see you.

Finally, I love the idea of a game that is fundamentally co-operative, but also with a scrimmage mode. (To an extent, I wish they had gone this way with L5R: mostly progressing the story line with a cooperative campaign against the shadowlands, but allowing for clans to fight head to head as well.)

It doesn't need to be battletech... most of those could work just as well with "Starship Troopers", "Robotech", "Space Marines" or any number of other franchises.

Well you have my vote! I love Battletech, I think it would make for an amazing card game and a Nate French FFG version is pretty much a money printing machine if you ask me.

That said I think FFG seems to be a company that understands its own fan base very well and knows how to leverage their addictions to make an insane amount of money. Consider the makeup of the current lineup in the "card game" department. I mean you have IP's like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings , Arkham Horror, Game of Thrones and Legends of the Five Rings. I mean these are some of the biggest names in gaming as far as IP's go and they command them with authority. Star Wars Destiny for example is well on its way to compete with the likes of Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon and Magic The Gathering in terms of sales already super-passing some of the Asian supported games like Force of Will, Dragon Ball and other Dice based games like Dice Masters who pretty much created the dice-card genre. Than there is stuff like Android and Star Wars LCG that have had really amazing runs and are fully expected to see a "2nd edition" sometime in the future. Its hard to say how successful some of their new games will be like arkham and Legend of the Five Rings, but both of these niche franchise have a long standing fan base on which they can lean. By most accounts the Legends of the Five Rings reboot for example has been really well received by the competitive community.

In short, they really have no reason to pursue another card game, but if they picked Battletech, I mean.. if I was the IP holder and a company like FFG with their reputation for successful card games approached me and asked me to let them make a Battletech with Nate French at the helm... they would be idiots not to take that deal.

The popular and critical acclaim that AHLCG has received + SWLCG going away, makes a co-op SWLCG a safe bet. I think there's definitely a market to sustain Destiny and a co-op SW card game.

But there's problems with a co-op SW lcg from a marketing standpoint. What can they call it? Star Wars the Card Game? That'd be confusing. They can't even call it a 2nd edition, because it'd be unrecognisable from the first.

I'd like to see a separate game that isn't an lcg, with less frequent product releases. Something like "Star Wars: the Adventure Card Game" - inspired by Elder Sign and Warhammer Quest Adventure Card Game. Mainly card based, but chuck some imperial assault style dice in there

16 minutes ago, jonboyjon1990 said:

The popular and critical acclaim that AHLCG has received + SWLCG going away, makes a co-op SWLCG a safe bet. I think there's definitely a market to sustain Destiny and a co-op SW card game.

SWLCG was initially supposed to be a coop. Many people didn't like not being able to play as the "bad guys", so it was made into a confrontation game instead. A Star Wars coop game is actually a very unsafe bet.

Why not a SW coop that hits both sides. Hero and villain and neutral player cards. Double scenarios. A hero scenario, a villain scenario, and a scenario playable be either villain or heroes.

5 minutes ago, Ywingscum said:

Why not a SW coop that hits both sides. Hero and villain and neutral player cards. Double scenarios. A hero scenario, a villain scenario, and a scenario playable be either villain or heroes.

That would take a whole lot of cards. I doubt you could fit that in monthly 60-card packs.

1 hour ago, Khudzlin said:

That would take a whole lot of cards. I doubt you could fit that in monthly 60-card packs.

True. Only room for 1 scenario in a pack. With current model. They could alternate packs (hero, villain, neutral)

Or break the mold. Larger expansion packs less often? Just spitballing here.

Then you are just making 2 separate games.

There should be shorter time for rotation to make it easier to jump in to the competative Lcg.

No core, no deluxes. Everything should rotate so the game would not get boring and the cost would not get too high.

it could be possible to rotate cards back to the game, like happens Also in mtg.

do all of you think perhaps a co op andriod lcg would be cool? basically you would play a runner and depending on the scenario you would be chasing down contacts in the story or trying to hack into the corporations databases etc? i know that it will never be netrunner but people also love the andriod universe and i think it could be really cool and really fun.

They'd involve meat space more. The fluff of Android/Netrunner has a lot more than just Runners in it, even though runners are a major part.

I'm expecting that we'll see a new competitive LCG out of Android. I expect that it will move out of the digital and into streets. Targeting turf (zones) and holding them against opposing factions - Los Scorpiones, 14K, NAPD, etc. - and taking jobs for and against the corporate factions - Wayland, Haas Bioroid, etc.