https://amzn.to/2L4YFn6

Why is it so cheap? Is this game not selling well? I am not asserting that, just curious, and I don't pay it.... yet.

I assume its because of over printing. Plus people aren’t going to pay full price when they buy extra to get to the max copy limit.

Amazon sold what they had.

Bummer. I was ready to grab two more!

7 hours ago, Malabor said:

Bummer. I was ready to grab two more!

I know, I snoozed too long myself.

7 hours ago, dojimaster said:

I know, I snoozed too long myself.

Many of us did lol.

I can only speak for a very localized meta, of all the current LCG's L5R is doing by far the worst in my store and area. It had the biggest crowd and launch of all LCG's so far but length of play / structure and how complex the game is in the end i'm not surprised that a lot of retailers are sitting on left overs. I can't sell anything from it anymore for the life of me. It's unfortunately dead in the water for us and i have very little hopes of it coming back. The only thing i'm sure of is that it's not a matter of balance, most complaints i've heard were towards the mechanics and how long games take.

The game length is definitely a hindrance to people. FFG needs to find a way to speed it up. There was a lot of buzz last year but the time commitment is too much for a lot of people and probably a bit much on the mechanic side.

11 minutes ago, Braxton said:

The game length is definitely a hindrance to people. FFG needs to find a way to speed it up. There was a lot of buzz last year but the time commitment is too much for a lot of people and probably a bit much on the mechanic side.

There is no way to fix this, as elegant as the rules are of l5r, the alternating action play was a not very well thought out decision and turns out to be it's biggest crutch. All other major lcg's and most cardgames i know do this different. Netrunner is 4 "actions" / 3 "actions" and if you run it's mostly limited to one server, Game of Thrones is mostly also limited to one player finishing his phase (save for some rare interrupts). Keyforge is even more extreme in it's "every player does the whole turn" concept.

The problem is with alternating back and forth play within a phase that the boardstate changes constantly and the opposing player has to reanalyze big parts of it. This contributes the most to the length of the game. I had high hopes for the game personally as a player but unfortunately this is a rather unfortunate side effect that kills it for me for good. To further the problem you not only have to consider changing boardstates constantly but the alternating conflicts mean you need to also think what the other guy can do in his 2nd conflict and vice versa. It's unfortunately to deep and to complex for it's own sake for most people.

10 hours ago, Lancezh said:

There is no way to fix this, as elegant as the rules are of l5r, the alternating action play was a not very well thought out decision and turns out to be it's biggest crutch. All other major lcg's and most cardgames i know do this different. Netrunner is 4 "actions" / 3 "actions" and if you run it's mostly limited to one server, Game of Thrones is mostly also limited to one player finishing his phase (save for some rare interrupts). Keyforge is even more extreme in it's "every player does the whole turn" concept.

The problem is with alternating back and forth play within a phase that the boardstate changes constantly and the opposing player has to reanalyze big parts of it. This contributes the most to the length of the game. I had high hopes for the game personally as a player but unfortunately this is a rather unfortunate side effect that kills it for me for good. To further the problem you not only have to consider changing boardstates constantly but the alternating conflicts mean you need to also think what the other guy can do in his 2nd conflict and vice versa. It's unfortunately to deep and to complex for it's own sake for most people.

Is this something that was maybe done to try and get Old L5R players to buy-in? I didn't play it so I don't know if that was complex or not. It feels like there is less interaction with the alternating actions and perhaps each player should should only have one conflict opportunity per round?

6 hours ago, Braxton said:

Is this something that was maybe done to try and get Old L5R players to buy-in? I didn't play it so I don't know if that was complex or not. It feels like there is less interaction with the alternating actions and perhaps each player should should only have one conflict opportunity per round?

To be completely fair, i didn't spot this when i was reading the games rules initially and having played it for the first couple times either. It didn't appear to much of an issue. So to answer your question, i don't think it was a very concious decision, it was just something they didn't notice that it could have such an adverse effect to the play flow. However, they did have beta testing as they always do, and maybe they felt they couldn't change such an underlying structure anymore as it would have been to much. I'm also sure you will find people in here obviously that tell you that everything is a-ok with l5r. My personal preferences shouldn't be taken as an objective truth, i'm merely trying to figure out what's wrong with the game mechanically for me, and wether concious or not, also for most players in the end. The flow and speed of the game is it's biggest weakness, and unfortunately it's a fundamental thing.

4 hours ago, Lancezh said:

To be completely fair, i didn't spot this when i was reading the games rules initially and having played it for the first couple times either. It didn't appear to much of an issue. So to answer your question, i don't think it was a very concious decision, it was just something they didn't notice that it could have such an adverse effect to the play flow. However, they did have beta testing as they always do, and maybe they felt they couldn't change such an underlying structure anymore as it would have been to much. I'm also sure you will find people in here obviously that tell you that everything is a-ok with l5r. My personal preferences shouldn't be taken as an objective truth, i'm merely trying to figure out what's wrong with the game mechanically for me, and wether concious or not, also for most players in the end. The flow and speed of the game is it's biggest weakness, and unfortunately it's a fundamental thing.

The alternating activation is only a slow down while you are first getting used to the game, but considering the main area of the game where it can lead to slow downs is during conflicts, and O5R had the same alternating activation for battles, i wouldn't call it a major detriment to the game.

8 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

The alternating activation is only a slow down while you are first getting used to the game, but considering the main area of the game where it can lead to slow downs is during conflicts, and O5R had the same alternating activation for battles, i wouldn't call it a major detriment to the game.

I'm sorry this is just not correct. I'm almost exclusively playing card games and am considered to be one of the fastest in my meta with many thousands of games between Netrunner / GoT with only L5R maybe being under 100 games. It doesn't matter wether you are experienced or not, it remains a fact that the board state changes with hidden information (your oponents hand, what could he play next activation). Being experienced means only that you are faster overall, that doesn't make the process good or streamlined.

Observe a game of Netrunner or GoT, the biggest downtime happens when players plan their PHASE. That is after your oponent has done their stuff and it's now your turn to marshal / play cards or to do your attackphase. You do have altering card effects (like events) but all in all those are the biggest time wasters in each game. In average i'd say you stop about 3-4 times to thoroughly analyze the boardstate before a game round concludes (in NR this is a bit different sometimes but that's besides the point). In L5R you do this after every action. This isn't usually that much of a problem in the Dynastyphase as there the Boardstate is relatively transparent but in the Phase with Conflicts this is a HUGE timestopper and sink.

The argument that experienced players are playing faster is not something i can confirm to the point where it's not a problem anymore, it also essentially means that the game is ONLY fast (if it were true) in the hands of only a select few. It much more comes down to the personality of the player, some people are playing slow not because they are less experienced or slow in the head, because they play different. They think everything through and are more risk averse etc. etc.

Either way, i'm happy that it's not a problem for you, but i was referring to the general perception this game gives. And why i, personally, do not play it anymore.

52 minutes ago, Lancezh said:

I'm sorry this is just not correct. I'm almost exclusively playing card games and am considered to be one of the fastest in my meta with many thousands of games between Netrunner / GoT with only L5R maybe being under 100 games. It doesn't matter wether you are experienced or not, it remains a fact that the board state changes with hidden information (your oponents hand, what could he play next activation). Being experienced means only that you are faster overall, that doesn't make the process good or streamlined.

Observe a game of Netrunner or GoT, the biggest downtime happens when players plan their PHASE. That is after your oponent has done their stuff and it's now your turn to marshal / play cards or to do your attackphase. You do have altering card effects (like events) but all in all those are the biggest time wasters in each game. In average i'd say you stop about 3-4 times to thoroughly analyze the boardstate before a game round concludes (in NR this is a bit different sometimes but that's besides the point). In L5R you do this after every action. This isn't usually that much of a problem in the Dynastyphase as there the Boardstate is relatively transparent but in the Phase with Conflicts this is a HUGE timestopper and sink.

The argument that experienced players are playing faster is not something i can confirm to the point where it's not a problem anymore, it also essentially means that the game is ONLY fast (if it were true) in the hands of only a select few. It much more comes down to the personality of the player, some people are playing slow not because they are less experienced or slow in the head, because they play different. They think everything through and are more risk averse etc. etc.

Either way, i'm happy that it's not a problem for you, but i was referring to the general perception this game gives. And why i, personally, do not play it anymore.

I can speak from ample experience having played since release and having attended several regular monthly tournaments at the local level and can confirm that it is not only the "elite" players who see an increase in play speed as they gain experience but frankly players at all skill levels. When we first started 90% of games were going to time however as players have become familiar with their decks and the play styles of opposing decks that number has dropped significantly and now its normally only 10-20% of games going to time and normally that is because one or more of the decks is slow dishonor/control type that is playing for that eventuality as if not their primary condition, then a secondary. And that includes players who, like me, have been playing this version since release to those who started in the last 2 months.

As I said previously, L5R has always been built around the You Go I Go mechanic for just about every phase of the game as all action windows and battle windows from the previous game were enabled that way. The only real difference were you had open and limited actions which limited the phases they could be played in to any turn or your turn only, and when it came to battles, where most actions occurred, the evolving board state was a fact of life. yes dynasty was a static phase of only one player goes, but after that it was very dynamic.

The problem that you keep describing as a flaw is from your personal perspective and yes if you have only played a few games may appear daunting, but as you get more experienced with the game that so called "HUGE timestopper" becomes far less and is no worse than the action/reaction window that you find in most other games.

You may not enjoy it and if that is the case than this may not be the game for you, but you paint a fairly broad brush with your statements that lacks actual proof to back it up. Frankly the game play you describe as the ideal tends to be in my experience the most boring as it leads to me sitting there waiting for you to run out your turn and doing very little except the occasional reaction to your cards and than having the tables turned as you have to do the same during my turn. That can be a horrible game style with the wrong mechanics (don't get me started on an old 7th Sea Necros Deck that I used to run where the point of the deck was to cycle through the entire deck 4-5 times a turn starting from turn 3 to destroy your opponents resources with little they could do in reaction due to the economy of the game). I would suggest try getting regular games for a few months before painting everything with as broad a brush as you do.