3 minutes ago, Ersatz Nihilist said:

What's the alternative? Super aggressive Rotation? I'd actually be cool with that, but again, I know a lot of people who just look at you slack jawed and say "What? I won't be able to use the cards I bought? With my money? **** THAT".

It's the lie of the competitive LCG system that your cards will be useable forever in official formats (and one of the big reasons it just doesn't work in practice IMO). You let the card pool grow to a size too financially intimidating for a new player to break into the game and your play group will naturally die off to regular attrition. Your game group dies off and your cards are worthless anyway. I think it was a nice idea on paper, but in practice a rotation-less LCG doesn't work. The audience eventually deflates to the point where it's not economically viable to support the game anymore. At the same time they just continue to carry problem cards in the pool without the ability to clear the slate and start fresh (having learned form their previous mistakes). The slow method of trying to fix the card pool with restricted lists and future releases can be frustrating for players, which again hastens natural game group attrition.

Yeah, I really like rotation - I guess I look at something like Warmachine and see the same thing; the game essentially ran out of design space, but when I spoke to other players and said that Rotation would probably be a great ideas ('Jacks have their manufacturing dates all listed!), you just get the side eye at the idea that you can't use everything you'd ever bought - ignoring the overall health of the game.

I'm just struggling to see what the obvious solution is here. You have to dance carefully between a restrictively small card pool and as you note, a financially impregnable one. Even with their current rotation model, to fully "buy in", you've got 6 (or is it 5?) cycles to pick up, so £360 (£300?) + Cores and any other evergreen products that pop up. Perhaps the Rotation pattern needs to be cut to 3 or 4? Even then you're still asking for hundreds of pounds and possibly making the game a bit more dull.

Perhaps I'm just being thick and not seeing the obvious way forward here. Hrm.

I dont see a problem with royations. Youll still get to use your cards for a long while before they rotate out. And stored can always male custom events with past rotations and such.

On ‎8‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 9:49 AM, The Steel Unicorn said:

Although us Unicorns got a bit of a boost in the Elemental cycle, I'm really pleased that we're next up for the Clan Packs. Hoping we'll get the 'Ancestral Sword of the Ki-Rin' along with some more reinforcement for our theme of going first in the initiative order, movement shenanigans (both attacking and defending people) and maybe some economy building abilities.

The trend I'm seeing for the Clan Packs is that they principally add a new playstyle. Ideally, the Unicorn pack adds a different direction for Unicorn to choose from, rather than just pigeonholing them further into a corner.

I like the idea of them getting more benefit to going first, though.

Personally I'm hoping for intro-packs. I agree with Phillos that it's too hard to introduce someone to an lcg, which is also disrupting my play experience since I live in a small town with just one other player (who's moving away soon).

Having intro-packs for the clans would probably help me introduce new players. They don't have to be tournament-level decks, but just something that playable, fun and lays the groundwork for a proper deck.

That said, I do believe the new product will be either

1) a multiplayers box with card designed specifically for multiplayer.

2) a co-op set where a few players team up against the game.

3) a "season 2" story box that will have characters updated for how the story has progressed while also pulling double duty as a new "intro-core" for new players.

I suspect they'll do a hard turn on L5R where there's an entire co-op or multiplayer set with cards restricted to that format. But not just cards, but entire objectives and play styles.

If they can figure it out, a new faster playing format.

After Netrunner, a game that was absolutely hurt by an inability to get new players, they'll want to have as many ways to play as possible. Intro decks is a good start, but they'll have to do more earlier for L5R since it's already a niche game within a niche market.

I suspect what they're doing with AGoT:LCG (Intro Decks) is a test product to see what they can reasonably do to grow the player base.

What FFG is hedging against is an overabundance of product on retailers' shelves. Most FLGS aren't very big. There are some in major cities that are, but a good number aren't.

The advantage of the core set is that you can try each of the clans, as well as splash any other clan with them. Once you get someone interested - via an intro deck - then they still need to purchase every other product if they want to play/splash other clans or play competitively. In that case, all of the cards they purchased in the intro deck are duplicates. If, instead of reusing cards, the intro decks are entirely new cards, you'll run into the problems of potential balancing issues with which we are already familiar.

Either way, the World Championship decks for Netrunner and the Intro Decks for AGoT are $15, contain 69 cards & 51 cards respectively. The Clan Decks are 78 cards for $20. For a minimum, legal L5R deck it's 86 + a Role card (if any).

So let's say L5R Intro Decks are 20$ and contain new cards. Are each of the new cards in triplicate, or do we need to purchase each of these decks 3 times to get a playset? If they playsets for each of the new cards, then it's $140 to get all 7. The retail for 3 Core sets is $120.

Now, the AGoT Intro Decks are alt-art (I don't know percentage of which received alt-art) and do not contain new cards, and there are cards that did not receive playsets.

Doubly back to retailers, one of the things they're looking to avoid is having an abundance of overstock. If they order 3 of each and Crab, Lion & Dragon are all purchased, but Phoenix and Scorpion didn't sell at all and the other 2 sold a copy or 2, did the store turn a profit?

-------

I think one of the things they could consider for appealing to new players is shortening the rotation from 4 years to 3 or 2 - cue gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth. If there were 2 formats for tournaments - one with a 4-year cycle and one with a 2-year cycle - I think that would be more appealing to new players. They've done the same thing with Destiny: a 2-year cycle (Standard), a 1-year cycle (Trilogy), and an unlimited cycle (Legacy).

As an aside, I expect to see the World Championship 2019 deck sometime next summer. That's a product type I haven't seen listed yet.

3 year at the very least.

And my idea is this:

Core set with singleton faction cards and playsets of neutrals.

Then follow up with faction packs that finish off the faction cards, and have playsets of some new ones.

The core set is to get you to try it out and give a taste of each of the factions, the faction packs to finish off your start.

I think they also need to rethink how they do cycles. Make it 1 cycle a year and have the cycle rotate. They already rotate 2 in pairs anyways. This is basically what Legion does.

So rotation occurs after the winter court when they release a new deluxe that sets the theme for the year. And then follow it up with releases of product. Some Dynasty packs that provide cards for all factions, but also "vs packs" that represent the conflicts of 2 clans. Like release a pack that has the Lion and Unicorn strongholds that just came out to represent their battle there. It is only Lion and Unicorn cards. Make more specialized stuff like that.

The only problem with such an aggressive rotation policy is that the card pool will never get that deep (unless they significantly up the number of cards per cycle). That will turn off a lot of the LCG crowd that enjoy the constructed format because it allows them to find new and interesting decks. I agree a faster rotation would definitely help guard against this giant barrier of entry problem, but I wonder what damage it would do at the same time to the appeal.

The idea of abolishing the core set for factionalized purchases was to lessen the financial burden up front since it would allow you to buy a subset of the card pool and not limit your options. I suppose a core set and then a completion clan pack for the core set cards is just as good. In both cases it does create the issue of flooding FLGSs with product and potentially create an asymmetric demand. that issue could for example see tons of Unicorn boosters on the shelves and no Dragon. Also it would give FFG a financial incentive to phase out factions or under support factions. Also there is a risk on FFG's part that they will make less off their initial investment since a portion of the audience would be spending less up front then they use to spend. Though if it did actually increase adoption rates for their games hopefully it would be a wash. All of this is why I said originally that I understand why they don't do factionalized purchases for these games.

Just piping up that I too feel an aggressive rotation will draw and turn away at the same time. I feel games like Magic are able to get away with it due to the volume and (most importantly) brand. If you're trying to push the same, some store owners are going to start wondering why they're a lot of product sitting on their shelves for this non-magic game that's not generating the same volume of sales.

In a perfect world, there will be two formats in LCGs that will receive equal support and turn out. That'd be a dream to get the best of both worlds.

Let me put it this way, as far as the cost stuff goes. Compare an LCG to a CCG. Back in Old5r, which was a CCG, every time a new booster set came out, the dedicated players (myself included) would drop hundreds of dollars on at least one full box, some two or three or even more, and then buy one to three packs per week. These players were never guaranteed to get a playset of every card in the expansion, and most engaged in trading and even buying/selling online to complete decks or even collections. And then, old5r did something relatively unique with the CCG model, it had arcs that usually lasted 2-3 years, and at the end of an arc, every single card from the previous arc would go out of rotation unless it got reprinted in a later set.

Personally, I joined relatively late in the game, at the tail end of celestial edition. My dad and I both joined, with him paying for the both of us. Between the two of us AEG probably got upwards of $5000 of his money (not literally, I mean, that's easily what he spent, but that's at the retail level, a large portion of that went to other places, like the store, the distributors, whatever) in just the same amount of time that it's been since the LCG dropped to now. Now then, with the current model, assuming every player buys 3 cores and every pack once, just since L5R dropped last year, we've all spent roughly $320. That is way, way cheaper than playing ANY CCG at the competitive level, it just FEELS more expensive because you're paying in larger chunks individually, but it averages out to way, way less.

CCGs are like micro-transactions in mobile games, it feels like it's cheap because it only costs a couple dollars at a time, but it adds up fast.

I'm not really arguing for or against rotations or changing the distribution model for the game or whatever, just providing a bit of perspective that the current argument seemed to be lacking. I'll make another post later with my suggestions and ideas, but this one is already taking too long and I need to eat.

I agree, but at the same time that first taste for a CCG is super affordable. It can afford to be because big fans will dump a ton of money into collecting. The LCG really helps out big fans by lowering that spike in cost and making it a predictable expense spread out over time. At the same time it allows those same fans to not have to chase anything since everyone get's a full playset if they purchase all the releases. Very attractive for a card player who enjoys constructed formats, which in other games can be quite pricey to participate in at a competitive level.

That is all a boon to people already sold on the game. The problem they need to fix is how they sell people on the game once it get's going. What is that low cost entry point. Is it 2 or 3 core sets? that is a big purchase to test the water. It's not 1 core set. I can tell you that for certain. One L5R core set was a bad intro to the game. It again was structured to favor the big fan since it maximized the unique and thus had the least amount of waste assuming you'd purchase multiples to get a full playset. In contrast the Netrunner core set was much more attractive since you could build two legal decks in 1 of those boxes and had some room to deck build. The nature of L5R (number of factions, two decks etc.) made that impossible it seems to have the same experience in a comparable product. I'm sincerely hoping the AGOT intro decks are successful. I feel that fixes a real need in the format.

Because of all this I'm very interested to see how popular Keyforge is since it's almost the exact opposite of an LCG. Very attractive for a casual or new player, but maybe frustrating for a hardcore constructed format card player (for which the LCG is the more attractive model).

I started playing Conquest LCG a pack or two into the second cycle. I didn't feel a barrier to entry at all. I bought one core, and started picking up packs that looked interesting every couple of weeks. By the end of the cycle, I was pretty much caught up on packs. I didn't get a third core until after the game was cancelled.

To my mind, having something like the Warlords in each Conquest pack made it more appealing to pick up the packs at a steady pace. With so few strongholds out, I don't know what players in my position would prioritise...

In my opinion having gone through Netrunner, Conquest, and now L5R (I played AGOT, but never very seriously) is that the first and second cycle is the sweet spot usually for these games. It's once we get past that point that these problems start to become obvious. Once a new player sees 12 packs, 3 core sets and a couple deluxe expansions already in the backlog it starts to become a bit intimidating financially (part of the appeal of the LCG is owning everything after all). At the same time you start to see natural attrition set into the local game groups as the initial excitement for the game starts to wane. I believe the 6 in 6 distribution model was an attempt to continue tent pole that initial excitement as you go through the life of the game by making a cycle release a bigger event. I do appreciate that they are trying to solve some of these noticeable problems with the format.

I loved Conquest BTW. I'm still super sad that game isn't around anymore.

5 hours ago, psychie said:

And  then, old5r did something relatively unique with the CCG model, it had arcs that usually lasted 2-3 years, and at the end of an arc, every single card from the previous arc would go out of rotation unless it got  reprinted in a later set. 

I would add that (at least for Gold / Diamond / Lotus when I played) the cards in the sets for the second half of each arc were “dual-bugged” to be legal in the next arc as well. This meant that the set with the shortest length of legality would be the last, single-bugged, expansion of the first half of the arc, and those cards would be legal for about a year or year and a half (and more importantly, at least through the next Kotei season and worlds,) though they would br eligible for reprint in the next base set. But cards from sets in the second half of the arc would remain legal until the end of the next arc, so usually two or three years.

6 hours ago, phillos said:

In my opinion having gone through Netrunner, Conquest, and now L5R (I played AGOT, but never very seriously) is that the first and second cycle is the sweet spot usually for these games. It's once we get past that point that these problems start to become obvious. Once a new player sees 12 packs, 3 core sets and a couple deluxe expansions already in the backlog it starts to become a bit intimidating financially (part of the appeal of the LCG is owning everything after all). At the same time you start to see natural attrition set into the local game groups as the initial excitement for the game starts to wane. I believe the 6 in 6 distribution model was an attempt to continue tent pole that initial excitement as you go through the life of the game by making a cycle release a bigger event. I do appreciate that they are trying to solve some of these noticeable problems with the format.

I loved Conquest BTW. I'm still super sad that game isn't around anymore.

Is owning everything really the appeal? The appeal to me is that you know what you are buying.

As for rotation, we get about 250 cards or so a year. so for a 2 year rotation you have 500 cards, plus the evergreen cards like core set. That brings it to about 800 give or take a few hundred cards. That is a relatively deep card pool.

Personally, I think it's a tad early to be talking about implementing a rotation (although I do think FFG should start thinking about it now, as the time to start talking about it is next year around this time, and then implement it about a year later if they decide it's what's best, and I don't think they should rotate out the core set or the clan packs, and any strongholds that are in the dynasty packs should get reprinted in an evergreen box).

I think faction "intro" packs are a good idea, and I think now would be an ideal time to announce something like that. Since it sounds like it'll be clan pack, clan pack, cycle, clan pack, clan pack, clan pack next year, after that last clan pack would be an ideal time to release them (probably in time for christmas). Have it be a playable deck, use the SH from the core set, include both roles that would be legal for that clan at the time, but have the deck only use one. Make sure there's a playset of any in faction cards from the core set, a 2x of any in faction cards from the earlier cycles, and at least a 1x of any cards from the most recent cycles. Don't include anything from the clan packs. No more than 2x of any neutrals.

I have more thoughts on the matter but I need to go now.

9 hours ago, Radix2309 said:

Is owning everything really the appeal? The appeal to me is that you know what you are buying.

As for rotation, we get about 250 cards or so a year. so for a 2 year rotation you have 500 cards, plus the evergreen cards like core set. That brings it to about 800 give or take a few hundred cards. That is a relatively deep card pool.

Yeah I think having the freedom to deck build as you please is the big virtue of the LCG. I'd like to agree with you that knowing what you are buying should trump having to buy all of it, but I've been playing these games for years and I've not seen that sentiment be more prominent in my experience. The majority of the people buy everything and if they can't get everything for some reason (for example a pack runs out of stock and needs to be reprinted) people kinda freak out a bit. I think LCGs attracts completionists since the format is very attractive for them.

On the topic of clan decks to supplement a core. The question with that is how do you price them. Current MSRP on a core is $39.95, so three of them your looking at $119.85 for the play set. Based on pricing for the Game of Thrones Clan Decks you are looking at $14.95 each or $104.65 if players want the full set (and those are only 60 cards decks plus support features so you may be looking at something more like the Clan Pack pricing to get a reasonable expectation of price).

So yes the idea may make it cheaper for a player who only wants the one clan however they are also disadvantaged as unless they are limiting themselves to a single splash as it becomes cheaper to just buy 2 cores and you have everything you need to make 2 casual decks without much struggle if you are looking at more than 2 of the packs. If they are planning to play competitively than odds are they will want the third core anyway to cover all options as that is the cheaper route than the 1 core and all 7 Clan Decks. And again that assumes that packs are priced at the Game of Thrones Intro deck prices. If they price them at the rate of the Clan packs ($19.95) your now looking at an extra $35 on the play set (so another core) and just two packs is as much as a whole core.

Honestly I don't see the real long term savings for players being there with that system unless they seriously play with their deck design rules and get rid of Clan Splash, but doing that would require a serious overhaul of card design as part of the game balance is the ability to take cards from out of clan to offset weaknesses in your own clan.

As an introductory price I think a core plus Clan Pack is enough to give a solid taste of a clan. It isn't competitive, but there would be enough to play around with legal decks and have fun. From there I think getting to three cores and specific Dynasty Packs could make a decently competitive deck. Once all of the clan packs are out I think that will help.

Completionism is big in this game and LCGs in general, but I feel like it isn't necessary to enjoy this game. It does depend how wide and how competitive you want to be.

The point of the intro packs isn't longterm savings, it's a less intimidating entry point. It's cheaper than a CCG in the long term just by virtue of being an LCG, long term cost isn't really the issue, it's the expense of STARTING.

Also, personally, I just like the idea of having multiple ways to get playsets of the core cards, so a new player who wants to have the whole collection would be inclined to go for 3 cores, whereas a new player who wants to just get some cards in hand and start playing can just buy a couple of clan intro packs and build outward from there. Include a booklet that shows all the in clan cards that aren't in the intro pack and tells you which packs to get them in, some good neutrals that aren't included, and the most common splashes from each other clan (FFG has access to this data via the decklists they collect at every major tourney, they just need someone to sit down and analyze it), and which packs those can be found in.

You know, like multiple points of entry at varying cost values, buying all of the clan packs doesn't necessarily need to be cheaper than buying 3 core, because the point isn't for every player to buy all of them out of necessity, it's to have an accessible point off entry for new players so they can choose what avenue to take to build their collection.

L5R is my first LCG and I've played dozens of CCGs throughout the years. How does FFG promote their LCGs to new audiences? Do they support and encourage demos? Do they ever make demo decks to give people a taste? Homemade CCG demo decks are usually pretty easy to build with extra commons and uncommons. Would a demo deck or Clan Pack even work without adding the tokens and dial?

6 minutes ago, psychie said:

The point of the intro packs isn't longterm savings, it's a less intimidating entry point. It's cheaper than a CCG in the long term just by virtue of being an LCG, long term cost isn't really the issue, it's the expense of STARTING.

Also, personally, I just like the idea of having multiple ways to get playsets of the core cards, so a new player who wants to have the whole collection would be inclined to go for 3 cores, whereas a new player who wants to just get some cards in hand and start playing can just buy a couple of clan intro packs and build outward from there. Include a booklet that shows all the in clan cards that aren't in the intro pack and tells you which packs to get them in, some good neutrals that aren't included, and the most common splashes from each other clan (FFG has access to this data via the decklists they collect at every major tourney, they just need someone to sit down and analyze it), and which packs those can be found in.

You know, like multiple points of entry at varying cost values, buying all of the clan packs doesn't necessarily need to be cheaper than buying 3 core, because the point isn't for every player to buy all of them out of necessity, it's to have an accessible point off entry for new players so they can choose what avenue to take to build their collection.

The problem with your example is that if doesn't actually make sense from a business perspective and may capture the one time buy player but actually works poorly to convert that player into a long term customer. If I put the most sought after neutrals and Clan cards form a cycle in the "intro" set I've killed the inclination of a new player to ever get those sets (thus hurting retailers who can end up with dead stock they can't move), or if they ever decide to become a completionist than they are now possibly going to be stuck with with duplicates of cards that may not be usable in other decks. It also has the downside of locking players into a splash based on tournament preference which isn't always ideal for new players (after all half the decks would be on Dragon if they went with tourney stats) or which ever clan FFG decides is the best match for the deck. And with the number of sub components that are needed for the game (bid dial, rings, first player token and honor/fate tokens) are you going to include those in the sample decks? If not than we are back to you need at least 1 core to play for those components.

Even at one core and one pack what if they decide they don't like the clan they initially picked, or decide they don't like the recommended splash.

As I said the cost of one core and two of the clan packs to give the new player a feel for the game would be likely cost about the same as having bought 2 cores which would do the same and than have the lower jump to being a completionist of 1 more core before we branch into expansions.

I didn't say to only offer the most popular splash clan as the splash suggestions, I said to show the cards from each clan that are most commonly splashed. I'd say it's a safe bet that over the course of every single major event that FFG has run over the last year in which they collected deck lists, there have been examples of every combination of clan/splash clan, so in this booklet it would tell say the three most common cards from each clan, so like in the dragon pack booklet it'd have these are the three most common splashes from the crane clan, these are the three most common splashes from the crab clan, these are the three most common splashes from the lion clan, etc.

I've known a lot of people that would be interested in trying out a game like this, and would even spend 20 ish dollars to do so, but would not spend 120 ish dollars to do so, but once they got hooked they would totally be willing to buy the $120 worth of stuff, even if it included duplicates. I mean, again, look at CCGs, back when I played Yugioh, by the end of my 9 years of play, there were probably some common cards that I had hundreds of copies of that never once entered any of my decks, but I kept buying the packs because they might have something I needed or at least didn't already have, and if it had more dupes of the same duds, I was okay with that. With an LCG, if someone bought a clan intro deck to try the game out, and they decide it's worth investing in, then I can't imagine too many people would have an issue with having a few duplicates of cards they don't need. I mean, just from prize support I have duplicates of all kinds of cards that I don't run right now, and I'm only going to amass more. On the other hand, there are some cards that I wish I could get some more of without needing to buy more of all of them, so that I could have multiple decks built at once that want to use some of the same cards. Even if I already had every single card in every single intro pack, I'd probably buy the dragon one just to have duplicates of some of the cards.

35 minutes ago, BCumming said:

L5R is my first LCG and I've played dozens of CCGs throughout the years. How does FFG promote their LCGs to new audiences? Do they support and encourage demos? Do they ever make demo decks to give people a taste? Homemade CCG demo decks are usually pretty easy to build with extra commons and uncommons. Would a demo deck or Clan Pack even work without adding the tokens and dial?

For demos, you can build 2 of the Suggested Starting Decks out of a single core (not any 2, mind, because of splash). They're wonky, but they work to illustrate the foundations of the game. With 2 cores, you can make any paired-combination of the starter decks.

Ideally, a person's first game should be against someone else who has never played - the learning curve for the game isn't huge, but things like the value of 1 fate, the permanence or honored/dishonored statuses, and honor bidding take a game (specifically a mistake) to learn.