8 hours ago, Ascarel said:

No.

It does foster a different level of interaction and engagement in a game, one that I see regularly at the game shop.

People come in regularly to riffle through cards and packs and share joyful stories about their card hunts and feelings of accomplishment when picking up the last piece of the puzzle.

If it isn't something you can see or like I would wager you never did or preferred not to play card games before the LCG model.

It is a big divide between the type of gamer and fan of a game line, and I really do feel (and observe) that the LCG model is serving one type of gamer over the health and growth of the game line (and it's potential).

Time wil tell. Atleast at the dozen and a half game shops within travel distance all evidence is pointing to decent numbers and growth in old ccgs and new ones (Flesh and Blood is a prime example) and little engagement in ang LCG's (even the really good or dead ones).

13 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

I mean I've gone to the trouble to set up a draft set from my collection (and aside from asking players to bring their own spare Good Omens and Wandering Ronin I was the only one who had to put any effort into it) and you know what we've had plenty of fun playing with it.

I have as well. Its a decent amount of effort to maintain and sleeve it, sort it properly etc (I do the same with AGOT and Netrunner and Call of cthulhu).

Way easier with random booster packs in a box off the FLGS shelf, and the store makes a bit of dosh from each draft, and the players who want to trade for cards drafted have a easy time with it too.

Cube drafting can be great, but I think their are greater advantages for the health of a store and a community from sealed pack drafting. Once you have built a cube there is no profit or growth for the product line, drafting new sets as they are released is a hallmark event, something lost with the LCG model, FFG had greay success with it for Destiny (though it wasn't my cup of tea).

If they ever switch back to CCG method I'm out.
I hate that approach, buying cat in a sack.
Never knowing what will I get.
At least with LCG I know what I get each pack and can plan ahead because of that.
Not to mention that you can make a deck with few packs and cores.
No need to buy everything.
So overall, lets stick to this and not trying to invent hot water again.
This is not magic, and it will not last that much.

Prediction: changing the game mechanics or distribution system won't achieve much, because L5R's fundamental problem is that the strengths that made it a (reasonable) seller in the 90s continuing in the 00s just aren't there anymore:, and it never broke out of its niche enough to become the kind of nostalgia juggernaut that get working remakes.

A game that was steeped in the katana-are-better, ninja-and-samurai Japanese exoticism of the 90s will necessarily struggle three decades later in a world where Japanese culture and entertainment are a click of the mouse away and where "katana are better" has long since been debunked (and where exoticism itself gets called into question a lot). And without that, L5R just becomes about a fantasy realm where noble houses feud and intrigue over a throne, while ignoring the threat of an evil horde on the other side of an immense wall. Which doesn't so much scream "selling point" as "Game of Thrones" (Yes, L5R is actually the older of the two, but the people you're trying to sell this to now don't know or care about that one-year difference). L5R, bluntly put, is the hybrid of a fad that has long since faded and a niche that is currently the private property of a media juggernaut franchise. There's not much room to sell between these two.

The other main selling point of old5R - the central place of the story - doesn't help much either because a)stories having a significant place in games is now fairly normal; b)FFG isn't actually using it as a selling point, and c)even if they did, the glacial pace of the story, while it may grant longevity to the story, also makes it hard to buy into the story.

1 hour ago, Himoto said:

Prediction: changing the game mechanics or distribution system won't achieve much, because L5R's fundamental problem is that the strengths that made it a (reasonable) seller in the 90s continuing in the 00s just aren't there anymore:, and it never broke out of its niche enough to become the kind of nostalgia juggernaut that get working remakes.

A game that was steeped in the katana-are-better, ninja-and-samurai Japanese exoticism of the 90s will necessarily struggle three decades later in a world where Japanese culture and entertainment are a click of the mouse away and where "katana are better" has long since been debunked (and where exoticism itself gets called into question a lot). And without that, L5R just becomes about a fantasy realm where noble houses feud and intrigue over a throne, while ignoring the threat of an evil horde on the other side of an immense wall. Which doesn't so much scream "selling point" as "Game of Thrones" (Yes, L5R is actually the older of the two, but the people you're trying to sell this to now don't know or care about that one-year difference). L5R, bluntly put, is the hybrid of a fad that has long since faded and a niche that is currently the private property of a media juggernaut franchise. There's not much room to sell between these two.

The other main selling point of old5R - the central place of the story - doesn't help much either because a)stories having a significant place in games is now fairly normal; b)FFG isn't actually using it as a selling point, and c)even if they did, the glacial pace of the story, while it may grant longevity to the story, also makes it hard to buy into the story.

Can't really disagree with you that much or fault the logic of your points.

I am just wondering how long the game can last without a shift in gear to engage a bit more. Surely there is some wiggle room left?

I don't know. I really don't. You would essentially have to find something *new* (and appealing) for L5R to be, a new niche for it to move into, that would let it stand out again, while at the same time not completely rejecting the core of what makes the (dwindling) fanbase like the game.

All of that in an economic environment that simply does not favor card games.

Hard.

On 6/23/2020 at 12:48 AM, Ser Nakata said:

Ban the whole core set and get a new one.

At this point I'm beginning to think that they should just make a whole new version of the game like they did the V2 for Game of Thrones

Get rid of Province cards, get rid of mono no aware and just have characters leave play each turn, get rid of

Decomplexify the game, make it accessible to everyday gamers and not only to hardcore ones.

You cannot hope to have a a card game have a long life if you don't renew the playerbase regularly. L5R as it is has no appeal to new players. It is too niche and too targeted at Spikes.

Skirmish is a huge step in the right direction, but we're not even halfway there.

I agree with everything you said, but you still haven't addressed the biggest problem with the game: the LCG business model. After a year or two it's going to cost a lot for new people to get into the game. Also it takes forever for there to be enough cards in the card pool to feel like a real format. Seven clans, and two different decks. It takes forever for there to be enough cards in the card pool to have a real format.

8 hours ago, Lily Chen said:

I agree with everything you said, but you still haven't addressed the biggest problem with the game: the LCG business model. After a year or two it's going to cost a lot for new people to get into the game. Also it takes forever for there to be enough cards in the card pool to feel like a real format. Seven clans, and two different decks. It takes forever for there to be enough cards in the card pool to have a real format.

The only way to "solve" the LCG model is to have seperate card pools with seperate products. The advantage is that you don't need to buy as much and it is easier to balance, but the disadvantage is that it limits the deckbuilding and design options.

Rotation, Rotation, Rotation.

Have two cycle maximum being legals along with the core set, and the latest clan packs.

1 hour ago, Ser Nakata said:

Rotation, Rotation, Rotation.

Have two cycle maximum being legals along with the core set, and the latest clan packs.

This would aleviate the issue, but won't solve it. If you calculate with MSRP, you'd still have a cost of 349,20 to 438,90$. You then have to deal with people being unsatisfied with their cards only being playable for 1-1,5 year.

8 hours ago, Ignithas said:

This would aleviate the issue, but won't solve it. If you calculate with MSRP, you'd still have a cost of 349,20 to 438,90$. You then have to deal with people being unsatisfied with their cards only being playable for 1-1,5 year.

Isnt that the amount of time cards are legak in CCG models as well?

3 minutes ago, RafaelNN said:

Isnt that the amount of time cards are legak in CCG models as well?

The actual problem its the size of the card pool you end up with. Two cycles are about the equivalent of a single set of Magic.

So for example the current Magic set block is Core set, Ravnica and Theros blocks. October Ravnica with its three sets and the 2020 core will rotate and be replaced by Core 2021 and the new Zendikar block.

What that means is that at any time you have a core set and 4-6 expansions legal for your card pool (or the equivalent of 8-12 Cycles plus the Core). Current rotation plans would be about the same with the clan packs and deluxe boxes filing out the equivalent of an expansion and a half (or likely two full Expansion if we get a third deluxe box this year or next) and then the remaining cycle legal cards filling in the missing space. You realistically need a larger card pool for L5R then magic as the clan restrictions act as a bigger limiter on your card pool then colour does in magic as you are stopped from mixing dynasty options unlike magic where you can freely mix the colour pool if you wish but the current pool with effectively 6-7 cycles being legal at a time gets you about as close as could be expected without significantly increasing the size of each cycle.

Perphaps it wpuld be better of the model.changed to big boxes rather than dynasty packs. Make 3 big box releases each year, add a few more cards to each to increase card pool, and have it so that they rotate every set time (oldest big box rotates put every 12 months?) That way the card pool increases by chunks, sp changes impact more, players have more time to play them, and since they rotate relatively quickly problem cards can be taken and left put while good cards can be reintroduced later again (perphaps with new art, like magic does). If ffg invests a bit more in playtesting and design so that there are no dead cards, that would be a plus

6 minutes ago, RafaelNN said:

Perphaps it wpuld be better of the model.changed to big boxes rather than dynasty packs. Make 3 big box releases each year, add a few more cards to each to increase card pool, and have it so that they rotate every set time (oldest big box rotates put every 12 months?) That way the card pool increases by chunks, sp changes impact more, players have more time to play them, and since they rotate relatively quickly problem cards can be taken and left put while good cards can be reintroduced later again (perphaps with new art, like magic does). If ffg invests a bit more in playtesting and design so that there are no dead cards, that would be a plus

Yeah that sadly isn't going to happen. FFG just isn't of the scale that Wizards is to be able to invest in play testing the way that Magic does.

And realistically that doesn't actually change the primary issue (buy in cost) as moving to a "big box" model would still need to priced accordingly. So too match a two cycles worth of cards (the equivalent of a magic set) you are looking at roughly $150-180 per set because the current clam shells are likely a lot cheaper to produce and individually ship then the boxes would be, but since you are shipping less frequently (quarterly versus monthly) you may have some savings there.

So getting an equivalent card pool to Magics out there would require you to have the core set ($120 for 3) 3 Deluxe boxes ($40 each or $120) 7 Clan Packs ($20 each or $140) and 2 big boxes ($300-$380) for a total of $680-$740 dollars (you could break that down as $57-$62 per month if a player were starting from scratch and wanted to build up a collection over a year). Annual turn over then assuming you rotate 1 Deluxe, 2 clan packs and 1 Big Box a year ends up being $230-$260.

i thing there is way to much focus being placed on the total for a player getting the full pool in one go, when realistically most new players aren't going to all in at once (unless they are buying a collection used) and most players would be doing the stagger or monthly purchase method. I know I reference in an earlier post but to repeat most players can get started with 2 cores, a deluxe box, their clan pack and probably a cycles worth of cards from the various packs (so roughly $230) and even that is likely only the sale to someone after you've already "sold" them on the game.

Its a still cheaper then what you realistically would be paying for Magic to build up a proper competitive deck for more then casual store play (I mean its not unheard of to see a single competitive deck that has $600+ worth of cards in them) but it looks a lot less intimidating to a new player then your proposed model since they can choose to focus their purchases on specific cycle packs and build an "ideal" clan deck while you slowly build up a collection.

For all complaining about the size pool remember the designers of the game have the fantastic idea of the role system 🤣

4 hours ago, Daigotsu Arashi said:

For all complaining about the size pool remember the designers of the game have the fantastic idea of the role system 🤣

Role if handled correctly was a decent idea of a way to force regular meta shifts without needing to drastically change your card pool. The difficulty was that they were making it a reward for winning and thus the clans that were doing well got to lock into their best roles and those with playtest knowledge had a pretty big advantage in steering choices if they were listened to. And since they gave into player demand and opened the roles it's now an irrelevant complaint.

11 hours ago, RafaelNN said:

Isnt that the amount of time cards are legak in CCG models as well?

It depends on the set. Standard has a legality time of:

2 years
1,75 years
1,5 years
1,25 years

If 1 set was released per month and 2 cycles are legal at a time , L5R would have a legality of:

1 year
0,917
0,833
0,75
0,667
0,583

2 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

Role if handled correctly was a decent idea of a way to force regular meta shifts without needing to drastically change your card pool. The difficulty was that they were making it a reward for winning and thus the clans that were doing well got to lock into their best roles and those with playtest knowledge had a pretty big advantage in steering choices if they were listened to. And since they gave into player demand and opened the roles it's now an irrelevant complaint.

Having a role system and clan loyality is a cursed problem. Furthermore balance through card design becomes more difficult and you furthermore make an uneducated guess, because you don't know the future cards.

The only way to keep prices low and cardpool big is to drop restrictions on deck building. Old 5R had only neutral cards in the fate deck (i know, some said can only be played in clan, still they where neutral). If we would make all none character fate cards neutral that would increase the fate cardpool by a factor of 5. Now imagen neutrals where not mostly underpowered an role locks did not exist. The cardpool and deck variety would be big enough to rotate more frequently.

12 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

Role if handled correctly was a decent idea of a way to force regular meta shifts without needing to drastically change your card pool. The difficulty was that they were making it a reward for winning and thus the clans that were doing well got to lock into their best roles and those with playtest knowledge had a pretty big advantage in steering choices if they were listened to. And since they gave into player demand and opened the roles it's now an irrelevant complaint.

And you worsen the big problem of the card pool.

Instead of the locking of cards, what about increase/decrease cost or effects

But I think I'm asking the impossible.

Disclaimer, this needs to be supported by good balance

Game aims to be "chess like" and reward skill, anticipation, and a meta based on general knowledge of the cards opponents may play and planning accordingly. Don't really need a huge cardpool, there's so many useless and binder worthy cards with wtf effects or requirements or stuff nice to look at but you wont ever play. Remove that clutter and give every clan two clear strategies pursuing somehow two victory condition with less cards printed and you can do 3 big box yearly.

It's a focus game, ffg stop printing straight to binder cards.

On 7/3/2020 at 11:26 AM, Schmoozies said:

Bit of a fallacy here.

Yes, you could play for "free" if your local scene was willing to take pity on you and just give you cards, but the same can happen in the LCG if your locals are focused on a single clan as you can split packs and only take the cards needed for your faction. And that person playing for free is only a body sitting at the tables but isn't' actually contributing anything to the community beyond that being a warm body. They aren't supporting the store that is bringing product in and supplying play space they are literally just a body for the other players to punching bag against.

CCG gives the illusion of being cheaper, but that is just it, an illusion. The buy in for a single cycle costs $89.70 plus tax and gets you a play set of that cycle. You now have every option from that set and there is no need for rare chasing or secondary market hunting. A single booster box cost you roughly the same and you are now left with hunting for cards to finish your deck by trading and secondary market purchases and that is likely only going to get you 2 or 3 decks out of the process (and even that is just a fun deck as I've never seen a magic deck that was limited to only 1 expansion that wasn't just a for lol's deck). I know you'll say that you have to multiply that by the cost of each cycle, but no player has to buy the complete cycle in one go, you can very easily tinker on the deck building sites to figure out what packs you need and then just go out to buy those packs initially and then over time build the rest of your collection.

Was there a bigger community at your store for the CCG then LCG maybe, but that is just anecdotal proof from your store, in my local scene we went from having a non-existent CCG scene to an active one that was supporting regular play at 4 different stores (between weekly meetups and monthly tournaments) as a direct counter. **** we still have an active Netrunner community running that has 10-20 regulars coming out for a dead game. The only thing that kills a game is whether you have a community that is willing to rally around it and from what you've described your communities issue wasn't that they liked the old game more, its that most of your players sound like they were cheap and wanted someone else to carry the frate for them.

Before the pandemic, here we used to lend cards to new (and not so new) players as they built their collection, we even advised them not to buy everything all at once. I think part of the problem is the idea that you have to have everything to play competitively, were in truth you can lean on your local group as you slowly and sustainably build a collection. We also used to make new player friendly tournaments and escalations. Were we began with the core set, and incorporated new dynasty packs slowly so they had time to catch up (still faster than new product came out, so they would catch up). LCGs are cheaper than CCGs, but entry point can be a problem, mostly due to the mentality of needing to have it all in one go or in a very short amount of time. Social measures and dynamics can be made to ease that up and make it easier to newer people without sacrificing the strategic strength of having an entire collection at hand.

23 hours ago, RafaelNN said:

Before the pandemic, here we used to lend cards to new (and not so new) players as they built their collection, we even advised them not to buy everything all at once. I think part of the problem is the idea that you have to have everything to play competitively, were in truth you can lean on your local group as you slowly and sustainably build a collection. We also used to make new player friendly tournaments and escalations. Were we began with the core set, and incorporated new dynasty packs slowly so they had time to catch up (still faster than new product came out, so they would catch up). LCGs are cheaper than CCGs, but entry point can be a problem, mostly due to the mentality of needing to have it all in one go or in a very short amount of time. Social measures and dynamics can be made to ease that up and make it easier to newer people without sacrificing the strategic strength of having an entire collection at hand.

One matter for the gamers is that this game encourage to buy everything, even for clans your not going to play

The problems I see with sharing or selective buying are:

If you share you have the problem of the splash and neutral cards and maybe a cycle or deluxe box doesn't interest you.

If you go selective, you buy a pack for a must card for your clan and no so good or cards that will never see the light, maybe in 6 months that must card enter in RL or is banned(AKA the shoju's incident 🤣 )

3 hours ago, Daigotsu Arashi said:

One matter for the gamers is that this game encourage to buy everything, even for clans your not going to play

The problems I see with sharing or selective buying are:

If you share you have the problem of the splash and neutral cards and maybe a cycle or deluxe box doesn't interest you.

If you go selective, you buy a pack for a must card for your clan and no so good or cards that will never see the light, maybe in 6 months that must card enter in RL or is banned(AKA the shoju's incident 🤣 )

I think I expressed myself wrong. The idea is not that they don't buy everything, it's that they can buy it slowly and sustainably, instead of spending a lot of money in one go (1 dollar here is 3.5 soles, so the price more than triples for us), without sacrificing options. If they need some cards they ask and someone volunteered to lend them.

Some tried buying the stuff and dividing the cards between themselves, but it quickly turned out to be a bad idea due to splashing and because to many newer players, clan identity is not that important, they have a favorite clan but like to play them all occasionally. A better solution for us here was to encourage people to buy slowly until they catch up, and to rely on the community for missing cards as they developed their collection

17 hours ago, RafaelNN said:

I think I expressed myself wrong. The idea is not that they don't buy everything, it's that they can buy it slowly and sustainably, instead of spending a lot of money in one go (1 dollar here is 3.5 soles, so the price more than triples for us), without sacrificing options. If they need some cards they ask and someone volunteered to lend them.

Some tried buying the stuff and dividing the cards between themselves, but it quickly turned out to be a bad idea due to splashing and because to many newer players, clan identity is not that important, they have a favorite clan but like to play them all occasionally. A better solution for us here was to encourage people to buy slowly until they catch up, and to rely on the community for missing cards as they developed their collection

I understand you, I think too that the only way to introduce people to the game is to be UNICEF and "sponsor a child"

Sometimes a catch somebody who have fun with decks I build.

The problems come when I explain how to build a deck, what do you get when you buy expansions and the RL, banned and errata cards.

Always is a, "no, thank you"

Yeah that part can be a problem. The thing is you shouldn't overwhelm the players I think. They don't need to know all of that at first. Begin with premade decks. Then teach them how to build them and let them play with all their cards. After that, explain to them how the restricted and ban lists work, and so on. When teaching we even sometimes didn't teach all the rules at once. We sometimes skipped the ring effects. We just told them "the rings have special abilities that trigger when you win, but don't worry about that for now". Same, just tell them "there's a banned and restricted list, but don't worry about that for now" and teach them the basic stuff first. Technical details can wait a bit. In the end, always, you can make things easier, but ultimately it's up to the new guy to want to play though. If he does research (which I imagine everyone does with any game they're interested in) they'll know its a deep and complex system, if they won't be up for that, no matter what you do it will fail, that person wasn't the target audience, maybe he'd be better with keyforge or something.