3 hours ago, Hellvlad said:

Pretty sure. No Man's sky comparison again. They said "the chances 2 players ill be at the same time on the same planet are ridiculously low sow very unlikely to happen" And it happened just weeks later , confirming it was NOT multiplayer

So yeah, I expect this to happen and have mirror matches, even if ti will be " extremely unlikely". Statistics is a ***** when it wants. And Murphy's law works

It is not that hard to keep track of all decks you printed. Though the translation process will be interesting as you basically have to assign pools for the different languages with no overlap.

Decks might be quite the same though.

I think that the point nowadays is tha most of the ccg/lcg players don't bother building their decks, they just netdeck it and play an alien deck to them. Take that and make alien decks for everyone, and keep the meta fresh/weird since nobody can just pick the best deck.

7 minutes ago, Barbacuo said:

I think that the point nowadays is tha most of the ccg/lcg players don't bother building their decks, they just netdeck it and play an alien deck to them. Take that and make alien decks for everyone, and keep the meta fresh/weird since nobody can just pick the best deck.

Except the people that netdeck without any testing still have the ability to choose a deck that fits their playstyle. And those players even have the ability to ensure that they choose a deck that is "top tier".

This format makes you win or lose before you even sit down. It isn't about testing or practice. It isn't about "cool combos". It is about RNG at the time you decided to shell out the $10. Or, at the most cynical, about whoever shelled out the most $10 increments to reroll their deck in order to get a "top tier" random deck.

I see the fun behind the reasoning of this game, and sure I'll give it a shot. But buy two of three decks and done, maybe if some friends meet to play sealed I'll get in there. But that's all, probably the gimmick will get old and I'm not a fan of randomized boosters so this won't catch me (but not exactly the same way as boosters, it's not the same thing).

2 hours ago, Radix2309 said:

Yeah. Most basic would probably be having one of every faction representative. Even more ambitious would be having at least one copy of every card in the set.

Or a tad bit more difficult: one Archon for each combination of houses: that's 210 (7 x 6 x 5).

9 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Or a tad bit more difficult: one Archon for each combination of houses: that's 210 (7 x 6 x 5).

Ah good I was wondering about that. (and to lazy to do the math)

So 210, asuming you can buy or trade for the ones you don't have at standard msrp... 2100$ total. Heh! Still cheaper than buying the power 9.

12 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Or a tad bit more difficult: one Archon for each combination of houses: that's 210 (7 x 6 x 5).

That would be permutations.

Combinations would be 7!÷(3!×4!)=7×5=35

Permutations only works if there isn't a set order to the houses. There can't be if they are in alphabetical order or something. I guess we will see.

Are we really assuming that there are going to be decks out there that will be the equivalent of 40 land cards in a Magic deck?

3 minutes ago, DailyRich said:

Are we really assuming that there are going to be decks out there that will be the equivalent of 40 land cards in a Magic deck?

well not lands, but a bunch of 1/1 vanilla creatures with some carp rares? possibly.

I'd like to think FFG and Garfield have taken steps to prevent that. Because nothing will turn people off of this game more than spending ten bucks for a deck that doesn't do anything.

5 minutes ago, DailyRich said:

I'd like to think FFG and Garfield have taken steps to prevent that. Because nothing will turn people off of this game more than spending ten bucks for a deck that doesn't do anything.

With the way they are doing things there is no way to get to that number of decks without having a significant % of all decks being fairly crap. The only way to prevent that is to have a scope of power and abilities that are so close that there is effectively no difference. In such a case there is really no reason to play such a game. It will become predicable and dull in very short order.

I think one thing a lot of people are overlooking is that many people will want to play specific houses, and particularly specific combinations of houses. This is not a fringe group, I am even confident enough in this to say most people want that. For example, it is rare, even in a competitive environment for a given gamer to not only have a strong preference for a particular house, color, faction, ect. but them to go so far as to not be interested in putting effort into those that don't interest them.

Another aspect of this is that even in sealed, draft, ect. you have some agency over what you play. In this unless you are willing to shell out $10 a shot knowing you will probably never get exactly what you do want you are stuck with what you get. That will turn off more players that it will bring in.

Overall that is the most obnoxiios part of this design. You could spend 1000s of dollars and never get a deck you are happy with. This is simply not the case with any CCG or LCG. Even out of print cards are still available.

I would be curious to know what the actual odds are of getting:

1 - the exact 3 houses you want

2 - the mechanics of those houses you want

3 - a competitive deck that meets 1 and 2

I would guess the odds are worse that getting hit with lightning...

41 minutes ago, Krashwire said:

I would guess the odds are worse that getting hit with lightning...

Okay, have to post this at this point:

1 hour ago, Krashwire said:

I would be curious to know what the actual odds are of getting:

1 - the exact 3 houses you want

3/7 * 2/6 * 1/5 = 1/35

Quote

2 - the mechanics of those houses you want

3 - a competitive deck that meets 1 and 2

We won't know these two until the game is released.

What's wrong with plain' a game for fun?

A deck costs about the same as a movie ticket, if I then get 3-4 games with people that are having fun, laughing at my jokes and making me laugh with theirs, how have I wasted my money?

If you are really trying to understand the appeal of this game, but just can't:...

If your top concerns are game balance and control over your deck, playstyle and faction, ...

If you have the time and dedication to do the research about winning decks and either craft you own personal pile of cards where you evaluated every single one of them, or build a copy of a decklist from your accurately organized collection,...

...don't bother, this game is obviously not for you. There are tons of other games out there, that offer the experience you are looking for.

This is game for people...

...who love the chaos and RNG.

...who love to find ways to play at their best from moment to moment with just the tools they are just provided with.

...who don't want to or just can't dedicate them to meta research and deck construction, and just want to play.

The existing card player base is not necessarily the target audience for this game, I think. These folks already play other games for reasons that this game doesn't offer.

I start to think about KeyForge as the card game equivalent to the Nintendo Wii. This has the potential to introduce brand new people to card gaming, and bring back players who stopped playing other games because they didn't have the time.

3 hours ago, Ooipooi said:

If you are really trying to understand the appeal of this game, but just can't:...

If your top concerns are game balance and control over your deck, playstyle and faction, ...

If you have the time and dedication to do the research about winning decks and either craft you own personal pile of cards where you evaluated every single one of them, or build a copy of a decklist from your accurately organized collection,...

...don't bother, this game is obviously not for you. There are tons of other games out there, that offer the experience you are looking for.

This is game for people...

...who love the chaos and RNG.

...who love to find ways to play at their best from moment to moment with just the tools they are just provided with.

...who don't want to or just can't dedicate them to meta research and deck construction, and just want to play.

The existing card player base is not necessarily the target audience for this game, I think. These folks already play other games for reasons that this game doesn't offer.

I start to think about KeyForge as the card game equivalent to the Nintendo Wii. This has the potential to introduce brand new people to card gaming, and bring back players who stopped playing other games because they didn't have the time.

The trouble with making generalised statements is, I play Destiny, I have a highly evaluated and organised collection, so this game is not for me. ?

I think what you meant to say is, if it looks like you won't have fun playing this game, then don't.

Generally I like games that have simple to play rules and here page 1 of the rulebook is the cover, 2-8 the rules proper and 9-12 the glossary. 10 Pages of rules places this game in the simple category. It will take one game to learn or teach the game to some one.

Tactically though the game is deep, the house I pick to play in a given turn affects a whole slew of options and choices. Then after that even the order I do things matters and there does seem to be a lot of hidden combo effects and such that make a difference. Do you take a slow turn here and hope to draw into a faster turn. Then, in taking a fast turn and playing 5 cards will you be able to repeat with 4-6 cards from that house left in a 26 card deck? Many games give you a limited pool of resources and you spend each turn making the best of what you have, but this game makes you cast forwards and rewards players who have the knowledge of what is in their deck to do this well. I have three cards in my deck, and 3 of my cards in hand will form a very powerful combination with one of those three cards, but I can only play 2 cards in order to try and draw that card.

So easy to learn, hard to master. So far so good.

So what if my opponent has the best deck in the world it won't matter if he can't figure it out. Your deck is unique so no one can tell you how to play it well. It is therefore on you to take the time and practice to master. I think we are going to see a lot of players come out of a game night swearing and complaining about their lame deck, when in fact they didn't play it as well as they could have. A rather cool format for game night would be to buy/bring a deck and swap after each match, sure some decks will play out better, some games will be decided by luck of the draw. However, I wonder just how many players that lost game one will win game 2 just because they now have a stronger deck and how many players that won round one will lose round 2 for having a better deck. At the end of the evening players can the select the deck they take home based on the results, so the player that wins gets first choice.

The game looks like multiplayer will be viable. I think at least I wouldn't mind trying a few games to try out the format and see if it works or not.

Each deck is unique and given a unique name!! I will love him, and hug him and name him George!! Now if only FFG could figure out how to sell decks with names we choose on them.

Overall the game looks like fun from what I have seen.

This game isn't marketed to deckbuilder and spikes players. It seems to be marketed to people like my girlfriend who likes to play with her deck once or twice a month without putting any effort to keep in touch with the meta etc. Or to the player that want a side game while not having a lot of time.

I personnally like the idea of going to an event, buying a deck on the spot and go with that (and having a chance to do well).

40 minutes ago, MrMenthe said:

This game isn't marketed to deckbuilder and spikes players. It seems to be marketed to people like my girlfriend who likes to play with her deck once or twice a month without putting any effort to keep in touch with the meta etc. Or to the player that want a side game while not having a lot of time.

 I personnally like the idea of going to an event, buying a deck on the spot and go with that (and having a chance to do well).

The thing I don't understand is, how are they gonna make any money while targeting the casual audience? I'm totally up for buying a couple of decks to play casually, despite my reservations about the distribution model, but I just can't see anyone buying twenty of these things

24 minutes ago, Supertoe said:

I just can't see anyone buying twenty of these things.

Maybe the idea is that 20 people buy one of these things.

17 minutes ago, Supertoe said:

The thing I don't understand is, how are they gonna make any money while targeting the casual audience? I'm totally up for buying a couple of decks to play casually, despite my reservations about the distribution model, but I just can't see anyone buying twenty of these things

There are a lot more casual players than hardcore CCG players. I don't anticipate many people buying 20 decks. I can see them getting it into Barnes and Noble, or maybe even Walmart, though, making most of their sales that way.

Of course, this game looks like enough of an experiment that I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's guesses about sales and demographics are wrong.

16 hours ago, Xelto said:

3/7 * 2/6 * 1/5 = 1/35

We won't know these two until the game is released.

So on average $350 to just get the distribution of houses you want...

Now to meet the other two I wonder how many times you would have to spend the $350...

That's seems steep if you want to play something in particular, and when reality sets in most players are going to have a preference and not be able to have access to play what they actually want to play WILL push them away.

I play card games with both competitive and casual groups. It is exceedingly rare to find players who just dont care what they play. Sure many people myself included may be interested to play a game or two with whatever, but anything other than just trying it out once or twice and I would want to play a deck I would actually enjoy the aesthetic of as well as the mechanics. In magic I never play green or red. I rarely play white. I like black and blue so that what I play. If I knew I had a better that even chance of never getting to play what I wanted I wouldn't bother.

My wife only ever plays white decks in magic. She simply has no interest in playing the other colors. She is very casual when it comes to card games. But she wouldn't for a instant have any interest in playing a random deck of colors other than white.

On 8/2/2018 at 11:57 AM, DailyRich said:

You can't collect everything because every deck will be different. There's no way for you to have the same deck as someone else. So unless this is some elaborate Highlander-style thing where you have to wrest decks away from other players until there's ultimately one guy owning every single deck, you'll never get a complete collection.

I'd at least be interested in the game, then.

Is Richard Garfield trying to destroy his own creation, or spread the futility he feels on to the gaming populace? Can't build decks. Can't collect everything. Can't really collect anything since none of the decks matter. Marketing items to make consumers feel unique is nothing new, but in this case it's semi-randomly assigned uniqueness.

23 minutes ago, Xelto said:

There are a lot more casual players than hardcore CCG players. I don't anticipate many people buying 20 decks. I can see them getting it into Barnes and Noble, or maybe even Walmart, though, making most of their sales that way.

Of course, this game looks like enough of an experiment that I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's guesses about sales and demographics are wrong.

The casual market who only buy the core set for LCGs is actually pretty big. These decks are reasonably priced that people can just pick a clue up and play, Or get as presents for their kids.

The casual crowd will easily get these.

8 minutes ago, Krashwire said:

That's seems steep if you want to play something in particular, and when reality sets in most players are going to have a preference and not be able to have access to play what they actually want to play WILL push them away.

So you and your wife enjoy Magic, life is too short to not pursuit your passions, have fun and enjoy.

However, some of the very aspects you dislike here are going to be the very reasons why people are interested. A lot of people are just going to go to their local FLGS and plant down some money for 4-5 games and suffer the indignity of trashing each others random piles of trash together for 3-4 hours of laughs.

11 minutes ago, qwertyuiop said:

I'd at least be interested in the game, then.

Is Richard Garfield trying to destroy his own creation, or spread the futility he feels on to the gaming populace? Can't build decks. Can't collect everything. Can't really collect anything since none of the decks matter. Marketing items to make consumers feel unique is nothing new, but in this case it's semi-randomly assigned uniqueness.

Richard Garfield doesn’t like the current state of CCGs. He designed Magic before the Internet and online singles and netdecking were a thing.

I started playing Magic in middle school, and you literally just smashed together what you could back then when you first started. I played so many lunch time games in the library with garbage decks. Cards that probably weren’t any good in my deck became favorites, because when they went off it was awesome.

Later, in high school, decks were better, but they were still super inefficient—you just didn’t have access to 3 of every card, so you made due and had fun with your combos when you could get them, because it was rare and that made it feel more awesome.

Chasing that feeing is why I’m interested in the game—I dropped Magic when I started playing with people who ran an eBay store in the early days. They’d crack dozens of boxes and I had my pick of stuff, and the game just got super boring when every deck is a well oiled machine and you’re just playing to see which one fires off first rather than if you can wrangle either of them to fire off at all.