I guess we will have to accept that some people likes the digital game and others do not. I myself played angrybirds years ago when it came out for example.

Nevertheless, I hope we all agree eventually to move the discussions of other games to their own forums? Please?

Well one thing I can say about Lord of the Rings the digital game is that they have done a great job with the atmosphere and theme of the game. The Voice overs, the writing, the story itself are all fantastic. If anything would sway me to dive in it would be that.

9 hours ago, Seastan said:

Yes you're right my math is off, sorry about that. But both calculations are off by the same factor. Without ordering it's 3^6, with ordering it's 6!*3^6, so the point still stands. There's an extra factor of n! possibilities.

I'm well aware of how interesting combat can be in the tabletop game, especially with the surprises the encounter deck can pull out with its shadow effects. I think it's one of the best things about the tabletop system actually.

As for the resource system and number of cards drawn - I don't see the clear connection between this and game depth. One of deepest experiences I get with the tabletop game is when I play with my favorite hero, Erestor, where I'm drawing 4 cards a turn. Another pet card of mine is A Good Harvest where I can play cards without a resource match. So I think this is highly subjective territory. Maybe it's also worth pointing out that there's an option to only draw 1 card per round in the digital game if one desires that challenge.

Do not forget a character's power, so in some cases you even have 4 possibilities. And as the number of enemies and obstacles increase so do your options as to what to deal with first. The questions are not only 'Who do I act next with?' and 'Will I fate up, attack an enemy/obstacle, guard or use the special power?' but also "Which enemy/obstacle will I attack?".

I like the game, but this is really worrisome:

Players online

This still Early access... only crasy enough people (like me) Are there now as a labrats testing early beta version of the program aka EA.

Most changes we get at this moment Are balance changes, card changes, some bug fixes etc. There is very Little new content at this moment, so not much to play with. These Numbers seems quite valid at this point.

When the game is released and there is the co-op multiplayer, I Expect to play the game much more!

So stay away of this piece of Goram untill it is ready unless you Are brave or pritty indeed.

And Yes, the game is allready quite nice. Too easy IMHO but that it is why we Are still in EA... a lot of things to do, to make the game better.

These announcements confused me... It said it's not longer free to play. In what ways is that changing? Are you going to need to pay in order to START the game? Or do you need to pay for new packs IN the game? Both? An option to pay for new packs with real money? I'm considering purchasing a Founder's Pack to get into Early Access now, but if I'm going to need to spend money inside the game to make any progress, then it's not worth it for me.

17 minutes ago, joezim007 said:

These announcements confused me... It said it's not longer free to play. In what ways is that changing? Are you going to need to pay in order to START the game? Or do you need to pay for new packs IN the game? Both? An option to pay for new packs with real money? I'm considering purchasing a Founder's Pack to get into Early Access now, but if I'm going to need to spend money inside the game to make any progress, then it's not worth it for me.

New adventure packs can't be purchased with the grindable in-game currency (which the expensive founders packs give loads of), so yes, you will need to spend actual money going forward.

There's nowhere near enough content to justify spending money on it, and very little suggestion that will change. Tiny deck library, one short 5 quest campaign (plus a single "hard" quest I can't be bothered to try), a handful of new cards released over 2/3 months. Disappointing as the actual game part has a lot of potential.

14 hours ago, Edheliad said:

New adventure packs can't be purchased with the grindable in-game currency (which the expensive founders packs give loads of), so yes, you will need to spend actual money going forward.

There's nowhere near enough content to justify spending money on it, and very little suggestion that will change. Tiny deck library, one short 5 quest campaign (plus a single "hard" quest I can't be bothered to try), a handful of new cards released over 2/3 months. Disappointing as the actual game part has a lot of potential.

Well, sure compared to the actual card game the content is closes to non existent. But you have to start out somewhere. We started the physical game with a box of 3 quests. One ment to be played as a tutorial, one with great replayability and one to hard for many people to enjoy. With the player cards given to you, there weren't many "viable" decks, and in true solo even less. Was that content worth 40$?

The digital game is at the same point. There are few player cards and even fewer quests. But everyone should be able to complete them (as there are 3 difficulties). And we have more to come. Getting a ton of in game currency means you won't have to worry about getting new valour cards any time soon. And the more heroes and quests release, the easier it will be to farm up the valour points (for doing decent with a hero in a quest).

So yeah. There isn't too much content at the moment, but it's the same with any new game that is based on an ever growing cardpool and you can get in for iirc 8$ and get the first five quests (+the new "encounter", a "ultra-hard" quest, think like a POD quest) and player cards prior to the recent update. What is (imo) a really good deal, netting an absolute minimum of 3 hours of gameplay (for playing the quests once and listing to the story with it's complete voiceover). Than you can obviously improve your score or increase difficulty. Worth it in my opinion.

You shouldn't be comparing it to the tabletop game, there is no point, it doesn't competes with the tabletop version. What you should be comparing it to is other digital card games on release.

I am sorry, but I just don't know/play an other digital cooperative card game.

I was trying to make the general point, that most coop games, which fokus on a scenario design and a growing card pool, will suffer from "a lack of content" in the very beginning.
And to support this argument, I think looking at the beginnings of the LotR LCG is completly reasonable.

Obviously Calvadur is right, especially since it's just in Early Access plus the game, like the LotR physical card game, is designed to expand over time, judging the game by its starting content is nonsensical. However, for me, if I need to pay for each expansion, I'll stick with the physical card games.

9 minutes ago, Calvadur said:

I am sorry, but I just don't know/play an other digital cooperative card game.

I was trying to make the general point, that most coop games, which fokus on a scenario design and a growing card pool, will suffer from "a lack of content" in the very beginning.
And to support this argument, I think looking at the beginnings of the LotR LCG is completly reasonable.

It's not reasonable when you take into account what market the game is breaking into, and who, justified or not, gonna be it's competitors. And competitors are gonna be other digital card games, which have a lot more cards (both on release and especially currently), and infinite replayability (live opponents), not to mention some games have pve as well (Hearthstone, Shadowverse, TES Legends, etc). You're not gonna get far by trying to compare the game to it's tabletop counterpart. It's two different markets.

I even add to John Constantine point that:

- There is also an ongoing competition in the card game digital market, with the beta of Magic Arena, who know a big sucess, the developement of Artifact, the next Valve project. There is many card games and LoTR seem to have many issues right now that may cause his early death.

- The LOTR physical game core set is really a bad deal. It is mandatory for playing the rest of the game. But there is only one interesting scenario when you buy the game, almost no deckbuilding possible. I think LOTR get lucky to offer a cooperative version in a time where the cooperative offer was small (it is not longer true), and it get it first expansion release quite quickly as far I remember (I start the game with the first AP, so I was quite early but not enough for this point ^^) so this was also quickly forgiven by dedicated players. But it shouldn't be taken in example for any further game.

Let's stick with hearthstone (i am most familiar with, from the games you mentioned) and play it through:

What is the core of Hearthstone: Short (about 10-15 minutes I'd say) 1 vs. 1 battles. Does this, in any way, compete with the gameplay of the LotR LCG? No.

What about the solo content of Hearthstone? Appart from the recent Dr. Boom riddles, they always give you AI-Opponents with stronger cards/heropowers to combat the horiffic AI and create a challenge. Partially you can create a deck to beat them, partially you have an "on the go" deck building. Could this appeal to someone interested in the LCG? Quite possible.

I thinks it is totally fine to ignore the PvP aspects of other games as the LCG never was meant to directly be played against other people (we got this mode with the fellowship event, but come on that isn't PvP).
So if we compare to HS we just have to worry about the PvE part. And at the moment there is much more in HS. Though you have to grind or pay quite some money to get the adventures (Meaning you coud also get the mithril pack for the LCG). And then you are still stuck with mostly basic cards and have to play a game mode you didn't care about in the first place to grind cards or pay even more to get them quick.
After some tinkering you finsihed the adventure (in hard mode) and then? Do many people come back to replay them? I don't. The content is more of a riddle to solve and once that's done you are done. HS asks the question, if you can come up ith a deck for a specific task, and while you are free to do that in the LCG, many people like to come up with a deck that can beat as many quests as possible. Or is as thematic as possible. Hearthstone doesn't offer anything in this regard at all. The modes with "random" deck aren't what a LotR LCG player looks for, as "complex" dedicated deck building as a core aspect of the game.
Summing up: Hearthstone might have more "pure content" at the moment. But it puts PVP first. If you enjoy that part of the game, you will have a nice collection to get the most fun of the PvE. If you don't you have a huge paywall for this content or have to grind a mode you don't like.

Intro: The Lotr LCG. Quite small at the moment there will be at least 16 quests upon full release (I'd argue 1 quests in normal mode easily offers as much content as 3 bosses in a HS adventure in normal mode). All with multiple phases and their own story (something HS only as the absolute minimum of to have a setting for the SP content). You are encouraged to beat the quests in as many ways as possible and as good as possible. New cards you also get either for money or with ingame currency, which you get for playing a game mode you actually want to play.

To bring this to an end: The LCG and Hearthstone can easily co-exist like the hawk and raven. Even though both are birds one doesn't push awy the other. Same goes for the card games. The LCG wants to cater to other players than HS. Sure there are players interested in both and as HS exists much longer they might stay there/don't participate in the AE because of a lack of content (and I repeat the content you get for just picking up the shire pack is great). But once the game has a full release with triple the content they might reconsider it.

One last thing: IF you should have to compare the LCG to HS, you would have had to compare the physical LCG to Magic: The Gathering. And magic outclassed LotR by a huge margin and many other card games did too. Even I house products did. But it became a hit, despite inital lack of content.

TL;DR: The LCG caters to other player than other popular digital card games, putting PvE over PvP, therefore trying to find it's own niche. The inital "lack of content" is impossible to prevent as other games are much longer on the market, but will (obviously) go away with time and can't really be an argument against the game.

19 hours ago, Edheliad said:

There's nowhere near enough content to justify spending money on it, and very little suggestion that will change. Tiny deck library, one short 5 quest campaign (plus a single "hard" quest I can't be bothered to try), a handful of new cards released over 2/3 months. Disappointing as the actual game part has a lot of potential.

Just think what it was like when the physical game was released and you only had the core set: a very poor entry point to the vast, amazing game we have now.

5 hours ago, Calvadur said:

Let's stick with hearthstone (i am most familiar with, from the games you mentioned) and play it through:

It doesn't compete in a gameplay, it does compete as a digital card game for people with limited time. LotR offers small gameplay time and it's pay to play now, HS offers all of it's PvE content for free gated only by your progress within it, and it rewards you if you do it.

It's fine to ignore their PvP aspect. It's not fine to ignore their existance. Why tabletop LotR succeeded? It offered a possibility to play a card game alone, without the need for a human opponent. Digital card games eradicated the requirement of a physical human opponent due to internet, there is not much need for a game like digital LotR like there was/is a need for game like tabletop LotR. LotR's super bad tabletop core set experience worked because there was no alternative. This won't happen with the digital version. People who play digital have too much free alternatives that are free, offer much more game time and replayability. And most outsiders will just shrug the game off as "yet another HS clone", like I keep seeing in the comments. Not to mention the divide within the tabletop fans. Steam numbers don't lie. The players you think it is supposed to cater to barely exist.

Yes and no

I don't like Heartstone at all... But I like the Digital LOTR lcg even it does not have anything common with the tabletop version. And I really think that tabletop version is much better than the digital one. But still the digital version seems to be the second best solo / coop digital card game around.

I think that Pathfinder adventures is best, but it is so full of bugs that you really have to like to play it. Next comes the LOTR DLCG and third seems to be Legendary DXP... So no much competition around at this moment.

All in all LOTR DLCG will have more content in the release than the tabletop game did have. But it "suffers" from more simpler game play. To some people it is a good thing to some bad thing. But it is what it is. Enjoyable solo/coop digital card game.

I see where you are coming from, but I have to disagree.

Players always have to choose what to play thats right. But by offering a different gameplay than an other game you are as unqiue as you can be. I think, I wrote enough why I don't think the singleplayer content HS offers satisfys LCG players.

To say ignoring the PvP aspect would be fine and in the same breath saying you can't ignore the existenz is something I don't understand.

You make good points why the physical game is a success. But I don't agree with the other points. The LCG is for people who don't want to compete with someone else. And the LCG wants to offer this. Sure there will be more people who want to play HS and the DLCG, but go for HS.
I don't know how much money FFG makes with the digital game and I don't know how much they need to make. An other example: For Honor, it had disappointing results, but got supported and is still alive today. Sure no hit or CoD/Battlefield, but not everything can become a mass phaenomenon. I expect the same fate for the DLCG. Also if FFI doesn't make it work, their first game was a bust. Not really what you want image wise.

LotR LCG doesn't make a good job making itself look different from HS, especially to outsiders. It lost it uniqueness when they decided to dumb it down. And it's obviously not LCG players they are trying to please with what they're doing, hence all the dumbing down going on to cater to the "wider" audience, which is too preocupied playing HS and other digital card games.

I'll rephrase: "You may ignore the pvp aspect, but you can't ignore that this game exists as a persistent alternative available whenever the subjects want it, and unlike tabletop competitive card games, it doesn't require a live opponent nearby to play, hence rendering all the advantages and enticement tabletop LotR had nonexistent for the digital LotR".

But do people want it? Witcher, a very well known and loved franchise with the very well known and loved Gwent card game released a solo card game spinoff Thronebreaker, a fully fledged polished game with plenty of content, and even they admitted it didn't did as well as they expected it to be. LotR LCG has no name on PC, doesn't distinguish itselff enuff from other games, takes a lot of money for virtually no content. For Honor failed because at one point they were pay to win which is like a self-signed death sentence, but they still alive because at core it's a very good and engaging game that buried itself early and now tries to crawl out.

I don't see any good outcome of what is LotR DCG rite nao. It succeeds - they think dumbing down tabletop stuff is ok and we never see any proper port of anything. They don't succeed - they are scared off the digital realm and either withdraw entirely or start doing even less risky and more dumbed down stuff. And in case you didn't know, LotR DCG currently holds 50 or less people playing it on steam per day. Games with such low online are considered dead.

On 11/24/2018 at 5:57 PM, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

Just think what it was like when the physical game was released and you only had the core set: a very poor entry point to the vast, amazing game we have now.

There's no way the digital game survives long enough to grow to the same extent on current showing. Initial reception of the product has been very different to that of the core tabletop, and it's a very different marketplace with waaay more competition.

It's a shame. Had the potential to be far better than the original with a decent library of player cards and quests. But no one will be playing it in 2021 when they might have that in place.

This is a little rambly, but...

While I can certainly appreciate the desire to defend the online version, trying to justify why it's not competing with everything else out there is obviously misplaced. Trying to argue that there will be more content, or that you can't judge the game now, is obviously misplaced.

Why? Because the numbers don't lie. You can type until your fingers fall off about why there's no comparison, but actual players obviously ARE comparing, and are finding it lacking.

IMHO the problem is that in the computer space, when you're talking about solo play experiences card games are very, very limited compared to what else is out there. The value proposition for the previous model put the price point about the same as a major AAA game title like Assassin's Creed. You've got to have something REALLY strong to compete with that.

So who are you going to attract? People who really like card games. And of those, people who really like solo games. And of those, people who aren't already happy in one of the many other options out there. And of those, people who will look at the content and think it's not a massive ripoff.

You can't compare the price point of the physical and digital versions because that's not how people think. When you put something physical in their hands, it inherently increases their estimation of the value compared to software, even if the software costs dramatically more to produce. That's just the way it is.

But really, all the justifying in the world about how awesome it is and you can't compare this or expect that is just tilting at windmills. At this point it seems pretty obvious that the game's a big miss with players, and tweaking the sales model isn't going to change that.

Overall I agree with you but I'll always caution anyone who says numbers don't lie. They can be among the most misleading things in existence and that's not counting the ability of the people/systems giving you the numbers to lie. In particular, it's worth noting that a short singleplayer game will not have a high concurrent player count no matter how worthwhile or not it was for however long it lasted.

I don't play the digital anymore and I imagine most players who have, including the players who love the game don't play it all that much, simply because they've already beaten it. It's not even challenging enough to warrant replaying much. Although not many people are playing now, it's quite conceivable that were people not running out of content to play or where feeling sufficiently challenged that the content they had lasted longer that a whole lot more people would still be playing.

I feel more inclined to defend the potential of the game than the actual game. I still firmly believe that with the same basic ideas/systems they have here they could make an amazingly satisfying and challenging game. I have to admit though, I don't actually see the game taking this trajectory. I stopped back in to try this supposedly extremely difficult challenge scenario they released and I beat it on hard on my first try with a perfect score. I feel that this is somewhat telling of some deeper issues with the design. In theory if I was incredibly enthused about it I could intentionally give myself handicaps to make it more interesting but even then that's not the way I personally like to play. I don't feel it's my job to make the game challenging. There are a few other philosophical choices throughout the design I simply find baffling. Honestly though, even with all decisions I consider poor design, I would still find this game quite defend-able if there was simply more content and harder content. That said, it isn't there. And due to their strange priorities, it doesn't look like it's going to be there anywhere near in time.

As for who it'd appeal to, hard to say given what is there now. But I would point out that there are plenty of people out there like me who simply like challenging strategy games and don't particularly care whether the challenge comes from another player or an AI with an unfair advantage so long as it is possible to think your way to an advantage of your own. This doesn't take a complex system or a good AI. I like card games as I find that deck building tends to allow for a decent amount of depth and expression.

22 hours ago, Velensk said:

Overall I agree with you but I'll always caution anyone who says numbers don't lie. They can be among the most misleading things in existence and that's not counting the ability of the people/systems giving you the numbers to lie. In particular, it's worth noting that a short singleplayer game will not have a high concurrent player count no matter how worthwhile or not it was for however long it lasted.

And I'll always caution anyone who offers "Don't trust the numbers because..." reasons without actually trying to analyze those reasons

Yes, the nature of the game is one that will lend itself to a lower concurrent player count. But that doesn't mean that it's meaningless. Trends can be especially important, because it's only comparing the game to itself. What's the trend for LOTR? A pretty big spike when it initially went early access, and then it fell off a cliff. It's not really hard to interpret that - the initial hype and advertising got the attention of a number of players who were excited to try it, but it didn't stick with many of them. Why didn't it stick? Lack of content is definitely an issue, but the question then is can they produce content fast enough to keep people playing? It went to EA on Aug 28. The 29th shows 290 players. Two weeks later it's at about 70. Losing 75% of the players in two weeks is pretty awful. If 75% of your players get bored with the content in less than two weeks and leave, how much content do you have to produce to keep them playing? Is there any realistic possibility of doing so? Now it's peaking in the 20s, though it did get a nice spike from the new announcement - almost back to the "Only lost 75%" mark, but not quite.

The other component to the drop (or not) is new players. Even if your players only stay active for 2 weeks, if you're bringing in new people at an equal rate to replace them your numbers don't drop. It looks like the initial hype, likely driven largely by existent physical players, got the bulk of the people it was going to get.

So yes, there are caveats in the numbers. It's certainly more complicated than simply citing a number and saying you're right. But none of the numbers we have are consistent with the game being well-received, either by new players or by the people who should have been the most excited about it.

Agreed with the above, if the online LCG fails to capture and hold onto the paper lcg players, the chances of it being successful is slim to none. It needs them and that part of the game community has spoken loud and clear, the answer is no, this is what the numbers show and though I agree that numbers are not conclusive evidence , there is no other evidence of any kind to suggest anything otherwise.

That said there is still time for the devs to deal with the reality of their enterprise and make adjustments but to this point there attitude suggests they are moving forward with the game as planned in a defiant act of willful ignorance, the situation has all the makings of an indie developer about to learn a hard lesson in listening to their community.

But real question, can we get this on our IOS phones yet? Or ever? I'm very interested with what I see as these positive changes but waiting to see if it comes out on a system I use or not.