This is getting absurd. Now there is errata to cards I haven't even been able to play with yet. You folks do realize there is a pandemic out there yes?

I think most of the gameplay for this game is actually taking place through one of maybe 3 different gameplay services. It has to be the results from that and not physical events they are choosing to change the cards based on.

I do not see an issue with that. If the reason for the errata is sound i am all for it. Ofc it would be better if the card was correctly designed to begin with. But it wasnt. Keeping toxic cards around is simply a bad idea. The scorpion province erratad is simply put unbreakable for some decks. This is very clear. So why do you want to experience this forseeable misery?

Just because FFG can't officially recognize the Jigoku online platform doesn't mean they aren't paying attention to player feedback from it. Unofficial online play has been going strong since paper play hasn't been an option for most players, and is regularly discussed on the L5R Discord server, which the FFG team has been pretty well connected to since the LCG launched. Would OP events and koteis give more data? Sure, but as has been noted, the cards being changed are pretty clear cut cases for fixing...it's a pretty reasonable assumption that more data is only going to further confirm the need for these changes.

8 hours ago, Monty Pillepalle said:

I do not see an issue with that. If the reason for the errata is sound i am all for it. Ofc it would be better if the card was correctly designed to begin with. But it wasnt. Keeping toxic cards around is simply a bad idea. The scorpion province erratad is simply put unbreakable for some decks. This is very clear. So why do you want to experience this forseeable misery?

Have the Scorpion cards consistently been a problem ever since the game first launched? They seemed to be quite unbalanced when the game launched and if they are still a problem now, I can only wonder if there was a period during the past two years where they weren't consistently considerably better than any other clan.

24 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Have the Scorpion cards consistently been a problem ever since the game first launched? They seemed to be quite unbalanced when the game launched and if they are still a problem now, I can only wonder if there was a period during the past two years where they weren't consistently considerably better than any other clan.

Scorpion have consistently been one of the top clans in the game. Who knew that one clan having access to almost all the tools in the "colour wheel" would be OP.

Previous updates to the restricted/ban lists have knocked Scorpion down a peg or two, at least in the short term. I haven't been following the meta or anything in the last couple months, so not sure how they're faring since the last rules update. I do know we've also had some stretches where Scorpion was just one of the best rather than definitely the best...Phoenix in particular has stood out as a top clan for a while now, though they've been knocked down pretty hard a couple times by the rules updates.

I'm sure a lengthy discussion can be rehashed about Scorpion cards, respective player skill, etc. but the short version is, it feels like rather than try to outright nerf Scorpion into the ground or "fix" them, the long-term goal is to try and bring the other clans up to their level. Unfortunately as we've seen from the Dominion Cycle, sometimes those efforts get a bit out of hand and need fixing themselves (and Scorpion agents still sneak broken cards through playtesting). 😆

39 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Scorpion have consistently been one of the top clans in the game. Who knew that one clan having access to almost all the tools in the "colour wheel" would be OP.

I don't know about "color wheel", but virtually all the other clans have a very straight-forward design. Crab uses a few big guys and attacks during military phase, Lion uses small guys that can be pumped up and attacks during military phase, Unicorn uses a few big guys and kind of needs to have everything in the open but can avoid defenders and has a better chance of attacking during political phase than Lion or Crab, Crane attacks during politics phase and negates opponent's characters, Dragon uses medium guys that can be boosted using weapons/tattoos in battle and is balanced between military and politics so you can hit the opponent wherever they are weak, Phoenix uses a few guys who can be pumped using spells and is mostly politics but can hit during military better than Crane can....

Actually, I am not so sure about the Phoenix there. I suppose they have a few control elements too.

And, of course, if you decide to focus on other families within the clan instead of their most default playstyle it is theoretically possible to mix that up and the meta can become such that a non-default style can become the best strategy for a bit.

But Scorpion is pretty much the only one that is very much focused on control. They are the one who is all about winning using "tricks" rather than having a straight-forward design. They should be the other "political attack phase" specialist besides the Crane, but they seem to be so good at eliminating/controlling the enemy that they can do both just fine. So when the people designing the game just balance out most clans by throwing down flat numbers on the cards and have a pretty good idea of how they would play in a simulation, but when it comes to the Scorpion that's when they put in all the really powerful tactics that could theoretically go wrong or be ineffective under certain circumstances, it just edges out everything else unless one just put too big of numbers on one of the more straight-forward clans.

It also probably helps that Scorpion's card pool is probably the best at punishing the opponent for mistakes, and tbh when players are roughly equal skill, this game is won or lost by those mistakes even when Scorpion isn't in the equation.

1 hour ago, Kaito Kikaze said:

It also probably helps that Scorpion's card pool is probably the best at punishing the opponent for mistakes, and tbh when players are roughly equal skill, this game is won or lost by those mistakes even when Scorpion isn't in the equation.

That and especially at launch the relative strength of dishonor over honor. The game was built as a slow side towards 0 rather then gain with so many inherent rules designed to drag honor totals down (unopposed honor loss, dishonored people leaving play, card draw) coupled with several staple cards having an honor cost (Banzai, Assassination) that Scorpions slight edge in dishing out honor losses and dishonored tokens really gave them a serious advantage against even good players if they weren't careful.

And then once they had Backhanded as a tool it just got worse.

I mean, if we are talking about fundamental flaws that make the game not as functional or fun as it could be...

I mean, there is the fact that you get as many resources on turn 1 as you get on turn 8 unless you are using some very specific cards which means anything you could conceivably drop during any turn of the game can be dropped on turn 1. Couple that with the fact that the game is designed around losing your guys at the end of the turn which makes bowing a guy just as good as killing him most of the time, and basically for the game to function at all taking provinces on turn 1 has to fundamentally be a viable thing or else it would be impossible to take a province on any turn.

And losing your guys at the end of the turn also means that defending is all but entirely pointless. You just lose any characters you put on defense regardless of whether you win or lose anyway and you don't deprive them much by winning. All you will have gotten out of the effort is to have spent your characters and cards delaying them a turn, but next turn they will have as many resources to buy things as the previous turn and get to try again. As a result games seem to very much revolve around two people generally ignoring their own defenses and just going all out in trying to knock down each other's provinces first.

Most games never even make it to round 4 and I feel like the CCG very rarely ever got to such a point. I could make a theme deck in that and, even though I wouldn't win, I would at least get to feel like I played some of my cards. In this LCG, I feel like there is way too much pressure on every decision and I get trampled before I even get to play anything.

Honor running was not possible in the starter set and I am sure it has just gotten worse as more and more characters who can easily knock down provinces on their own get released. And since no one can honor run anyway, that also means no one is inherently taking necessary steps to mitigate dishonor.

Also-- it feels super weird that it costs you the same 1 fate token to keep around a 7 cost guy or a 1 cost guy for an extra turn. It actively makes lower cost characters even less viable for play than they would if paying fate to get an extra turn out of a card was simply not a thing at all.

Just so many fundamental about the game that I am sure sounded like nifty ideas at the time and definitely there are some people who enjoy it, but I wonder how many people put up with it primarily due to loyalty to the IP and how many really think the game is better with these sorts of rules. But it really seems to me after playing it enough times that the whole game was already starting on the backfoot before any questionably designed cards hit the printer. The sheer number of banned, restricted and errata'd cards certainly makes it seem like those in charge aren't even denying that there are some deep problems. Some of the worst offenders were even some of the very first cards printed meaning there isn't even some basic point one could roll back to and say "the game feels good and runs well under these very basic conditions" before adding in imbalanced cards and mechanics bloat.

7 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Honor running was not possible in the starter set and I am sure it has just gotten worse as more and more characters who can easily knock down provinces on their own get released. And since no one can honor run anyway, that also means no one is inherently taking necessary steps to mitigate dishonor.

Actually, honor running has improved, at least to an extent. Last I checked, Lion had a competitive honor running deck, Phoenix was getting there (despite gripes from players that the deck wasn't interactive enough), Crane had a lot of pieces for one if not a strong deck for it, Unicorn had turbo yurt...not sure how that deck fares anymore. Design has really made an effort to boost honor gain options in the game. I'm not sure how things are going to turn out with this next cycle, what with being the Temptations Cycle, maho, all that...but I wouldn't be surprised to see some more honor-focused cards released at least for the clans that are being built towards that theme.

21 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

I mean, if we are talking about fundamental flaws that make the game not as functional or fun as it could be...

I mean, there is the fact that you get as many resources on turn 1 as you get on turn 8 unless you are using some very specific cards which means anything you could conceivably drop during any turn of the game can be dropped on turn 1. Couple that with the fact that the game is designed around losing your guys at the end of the turn which makes bowing a guy just as good as killing him most of the time, and basically for the game to function at all taking provinces on turn 1 has to fundamentally be a viable thing or else it would be impossible to take a province on any turn.

And losing your guys at the end of the turn also means that defending is all but entirely pointless. You just lose any characters you put on defense regardless of whether you win or lose anyway and you don't deprive them much by winning. All you will have gotten out of the effort is to have spent your characters and cards delaying them a turn, but next turn they will have as many resources to buy things as the previous turn and get to try again. As a result games seem to very much revolve around two people generally ignoring their own defenses and just going all out in trying to knock down each other's provinces first.

Most games never even make it to round 4 and I feel like the CCG very rarely ever got to such a point. I could make a theme deck in that and, even though I wouldn't win, I would at least get to feel like I played some of my cards. In this LCG, I feel like there is way too much pressure on every decision and I get trampled before I even get to play anything.

Honor running was not possible in the starter set and I am sure it has just gotten worse as more and more characters who can easily knock down provinces on their own get released. And since no one can honor run anyway, that also means no one is inherently taking necessary steps to mitigate dishonor.

Also-- it feels super weird that it costs you the same 1 fate token to keep around a 7 cost guy or a 1 cost guy for an extra turn. It actively makes lower cost characters even less viable for play than they would if paying fate to get an extra turn out of a card was simply not a thing at all.

Just so many fundamental about the game that I am sure sounded like nifty ideas at the time and definitely there are some people who enjoy it, but I wonder how many people put up with it primarily due to loyalty to the IP and how many really think the game is better with these sorts of rules. But it really seems to me after playing it enough times that the whole game was already starting on the backfoot before any questionably designed cards hit the printer. The sheer number of banned, restricted and errata'd cards certainly makes it seem like those in charge aren't even denying that there are some deep problems. Some of the worst offenders were even some of the very first cards printed meaning there isn't even some basic point one could roll back to and say "the game feels good and runs well under these very basic conditions" before adding in imbalanced cards and mechanics bloat.

A lot of this sounds like theory crafting that doesn't apply to how the game actually plays.

The problem of these erratas, RL and bans is that they don't come because a strange combo/interactions with multiple cards.

It come for the card itself that is bad designed.

If we see a 2.0 game I hope it have another designer.