Hey, Everybody!

When I saw the first notes on FFG's webpage that they would re-tool and release L5R, I thought about how they should keep 95% of A.E.G.'s game in-tact. I played old L.5.R. for years. The game had a couple of problems, like the Cavalry keyword made for completely jank combats, but when that big battle finally happened, it produced truly, truly cinematic moments better than all of the movies playing on theater screens. A Dragon invasion squad attacks a province and the Lion volley back with their arrows, blades, and tactics cards. Wow!

I checked FFG's webpage every day, like a devout, religious follower, waiting to see a preview of the game. Then, last year, when the first preview dropped, I felt like the FFG designers created a different game, that widened the asymetrical issues of L5R, like a political-heavy deck not interacting with a military-heavy deck. Then, I saw the designers talk with the boys at Team Covenant and realized that they just threw some ideas into this world, like seven economic points to spend each turn and wonky cards with semi-tricky abilities. After reading all of the previews and watching all of the videos, I felt like I couldn't trust the designers to really deliver on this game experience and thought that once a real player-base got their teeth into this LCG, its design flaws would rip open.

Now, here we are six packs in, and here's the unfortunate inevitability, a huge restricted list and an admission that the crew at FFG are learning on the job rather than delivering a top-shelf game. I passed on their L5R game when it came out and feel glad that I did. I completely dig FFG's production values, artwork, graphic design, and intellectual properties. I just really, really, really wish that they would take the time to develop a more straight-forward, faster playing LCG that could act as a gateway for new players and have the rock-solid gameplay that veterans like me can appreciate. How does everyone else feel about the revisions on the go for L5R?

tl;dr

I happily don't play the LCG.
With recent and upcoming changes, I happily still won't play the LCG.
But I want to discuss it with you, in the wrong forum.

43 minutes ago, Bayushi Shunsuke said:

tl;dr

I happily don't play the LCG.
With recent and upcoming changes, I happily still won't play the LCG.
But I want to discuss it with you, in the wrong forum.

At least it is not full of grammatical and spelling mistakes! Though this is the wrong forum. Maybe he doesn't play because forums are hard? So anything more complicated is hard? Also, actually understanding the rules is hard?

Hello,

Thank you all for viewing and responding to this post. Both previous posters commented that I may have added this discussion to the incorrect forum.

I felt that talking about cards and rules of the game most closely represented my views on the loss of evergreen abilities from Old L5R, rather than discussing the lore or specific, gaming groups.

I lament that the designers have chosen to lose some of the keywords that really helped bring out the flavor of Old L5R. For example, battling a Spider Clan deck of fear-inducing characters allowed me to bravely defend my homeland as a strong Crab Clan.

I believe the right word here is "gloat". It's when someone you don't like slips, falls, and hurts a knee. Then, in your eyes the characteristics you don't like about that person become the reason why they fell, and you think that they got what they deserve. This is not a very good personality trait.

Personally, I am glad that L5R devs didn't hesitate to release a restricted list as soon as the problem became apparent. In AGOT we had to endure a year of Lanni dominance. A restricted list is not a symptom of the devs' incompetence. Rather I see it as testimony of their dedication and responsibility. The fact that you didn't like their vision has nothing to do with their skill level, do not delude yourself. And if you tell me that half a year into the old L5R's life the meta was healthier than it is now, then... well, i doubt that very very much.

" When I saw the first notes on FFG's webpage that they would re-tool and release L5R, I thought about how they should keep 95% of A.E.G.'s game in-tact. I played old L.5.R. for years. The game had a couple of problems..."

I greatly appreciate you establishing right at the start how informed and valid your post will be. Thanks!

While I think that there were some questionable design choices in the LCG, the design of the CCG was much worse. I really like the world and lore from L5R, but whenever I tried to pick up a competitive deck to compete at tournaments, the game was ridiculously unbalanced, to a point where there were only 1-2 decks that are a good idea to play (with according card prices). The design of the cards felt like if the Designers were throwing darts at costs, stats and abilities, which resultet in cards/combinations being unreasonable opressive.

Hello,

Thank you for the views and posts to this discussion.

Please allow me to add: when designers restrict cards, they admit that they have over-powered a card or not caught how it interacts with other plays in the game. I wish that they would raise the cost or lower the effect of restricted cards and then reprint them for free in a future expansion rather than allowing the players to use only some of the cards they bought. Also, in gameplay, one player draws and uses a restricted card, while their opponent's deck fails to produce the over-powered, restricted card she needs to play.

Furthermore, in the old L5R, the publisher would nerf cards just as they came out, so I would open a pack and see a cool card. Then, another player would tell me to go online to see how that card works now. I feel very sad that we can't update cards like we can computer games.

I feel very excited for the L5R roleplaying game on the way and hope that it affords us the ability to experience Rokugan.

3 hours ago, mplain said:

I believe the right word here is "gloat". It's when someone you don't like slips, falls, and hurts a knee. Then, in your eyes the characteristics you don't like about that person become the reason why they fell, and you think that they got what they deserve. This is not a very good personality trait.

Personally, I am glad that L5R devs didn't hesitate to release a restricted list as soon as the problem became apparent. In AGOT we had to endure a year of Lanni dominance. A restricted list is not a symptom of the devs' incompetence. Rather I see it as testimony of their dedication and responsibility. The fact that you didn't like their vision has nothing to do with their skill level, do not delude yourself. And if you tell me that half a year into the old L5R's life the meta was healthier than it is now, then... well, i doubt that very very much.

Oh, Man, I care about FFG and their goals in providing tabletop-gaming excellence. I hoped for a homerun, not for them to fall over.

And yes, early L5R had multiple first-turn win conditions. Those people had no idea what game design meant. Haha

So you don't like it. Alright, that's fair.

If that's the short and long of it, discussion closed.

I think the reasons you really liked the CCG are the things that most people who play the LCG are happy they mostly got rid of.

Sometimes it is fun to feed the troll.

So anyone catch that hockey game last night? Crazy.......

I mean crazy good, not OP crazy

Nice!

While i think the OP is overplaying the game problems. There is a slight design problem from the start and i hope they actually learned from two cards: Policy debate and Charge. To be honest with you charge was already a card in my head when i had 3 core set, that should simply not exist at all. If you think about it 30 seconds really hard, you instantly understood how it greatly impact the future design of the game, aka its dumb to have a card that will forever force the design of the game in one way only with a 1 cost event NEUTRAL. Its even worse when you take into account the nerf to the unicorn clan before the game even released, things like their original champion being not even close to broken stuff like charge.

Policy debate, another card that you can tell somebody did not think about long enough. The text might as well be Look at their hand, discard a card. You cant lose it if you dont want to. Cost nothing. Destroy every clans that needs to pull off any kind of combo. Its a throw away card, that you dont even want to use an interrupt on. Every single clan can run it without even thinking about it. You think about it 10 seconds and you figure out its a stupid card.

Now that those card are forced to be put into a restricted list. I hope the lessons were learned and we just dont need to add 2-3 more of these, kind of super obvious from the very start, cards on the list. Because we all know the only reason for all these restriction are charge, pd and dragon splash. The reason they had to be stuff from other clan is to remove, without removing them from the game, these two cards from almost all clans. And making it so not most clans just run dragon splash still.

I would also agree on one thing. Having the need for a restricted list so early into the game, is really surprising. And disappointing.

My understanding was that the whole development of the game was planed ahead. and the design team had already in mind at the core set release the whole full first cycle.

For games like Netrunner where the card pool starts to be really massive I understand that some exploiting combos will not be found during the card design because the number of combinations you have to think about is horribly high. However we are talking here about a new game, with a card pool many players even complaining about being too small.

I think that it wasn't unrealistic to expect a more balanced design for the core set and first cycle cards. A restricted list would have come eventually. but so soon? As I said, It's disappointing,