I was going to post this yesterday, and while this mornings "Lost Legends" announcement certainly changes things a bit, I do believe it only underlines the fact that FF still has plans for Descent.
I'm fairly certain that for all the doom and gloom that's been floating around, FF is almost certainly working on a third edition. And I think that may turn out to be a better thing than you might think.
The problem with a third edition is mostly the fact that some of us have sunk a ton of money into second and/or first edition components, and are loathe to start all over. And even though FF does often do conversion kits and makes at least some effort to incorporate previous components into new versions, there's still a lot of stuff that'll never be used again. And that's a powerful deterrent.
There's also the fact that second edition has missing components. Lost Legends fixes a lot of this, but we're still missing a dozen heroes. I think a lot of people are reluctant to support a reboot until the previous version is topped off.
There are however some very big benefits to a third edition provided it isn't a total reboot. A soft reboot that incorporates nearly all previous components, while adding or replacing problematic ones, could be exactly what this game needs. Essentially a new Core box with largely minor alterations.
I'm suggesting in particular that third edition should, and almost certainly will have a skirmish mode. And not necessarily for the obvious pvp aspects.
Currently there are 56 different monster groups, 20 unique lieutenants, and 72 heroes (60 without the missing dozen from first edition). But to amass all of these is no small task, and even I don't yet have all the Hero and Monster packs. And frankly I don't have a lot of incentive to pick them up. Why? Because while the monsters get added to the list of available spawns for pretty much ALL content, the heroes only matter at the beginning of a campaign. You may see dozens of different monster groups throughout the story, but you'll only ever see those 4 heroes you picked at the very beginning. You would have to play through at least EIGHTEEN campaigns to use all the heroes, and then only once each. Let's face it, most of them will never hit the table. There's a similar issue with the classes, but it's not quite as dramatic. FF knows this . And you can bet they've realized that it's a hard sell to get people to pick up the whole line. At this point each expansion faces serious diminishing returns.
However, those who've played Imperial Assault know that it doesn't have to be this way. In that game your 4 heroes are regularly joined by allies who provide much needed variety throughout the campaign. Descent has toyed with this a little, most notably in Labyrinth of Ruin, but not nearly as much as they could. The problem is that in descent the only hero cards are the traditional large stat cards, and the weapons and class abilities come from separate decks. IA has this as well, but also has "skirmish" versions of all the heroes, giving them simplified one-card versions on par with the cards used for the enemies. This not only allows for proper balance in selecting a skirmish group, but it also allows for heroes to be used interchangeably with allies.
Imagine if one map you had Elder Mok helping you out as a fifth member, then replace him the next map with Steelhorns, or a group of Daquan infantry. These wouldn't be full powered heroes but they would have one or two signature abilities. This would add variety and flavor to the group, making each run through a campaign even more unique. The same could also be true of lieutenants, as IA has also demonstrated.
I would love to see a final second edition box set based on a tournament of champions, with a campaign built around heroes facing off against other heroes. OF course the whole event would get corrupted, and you'd wind up facing monsters again as well as enslaved/corrupted versions of heroes. It would introduce the skirmish mechanic and give us a whole lot of uses for the piles of plastic they keep nudging us to buy. Perhaps this would be a good place to add those missing 12 heroes from first edition, while also serving as a conversion kit/capstone for second edition. I would have expected the missing class and cross-class cards to fit in here as well, but they've already fixed that issue.
In addition there is another issue which I am less hopeful towards. I have ZERO interest in tabletop wargaming. But I would have bought the entirety of Runewars and Legion if the minis could have been used in their respective sister games. There are certainly sizing issues with some of the minis there, but I would hope that FF starts to look into cross-game usability for these titles.
There are certainly other rule and mechanic issues that need to be addressed, and I think they should be. Gently. In a new core box. But in particular this would give them a strong finish to second edition, while setting things up for a new skirmish-enabled third edition without pissing off the people who supported them so far.