I'm against co-op because of my experience in LoTR LCG.

In LoTR, there is 3 missions. After 2 week i build a deck that overkill the first two (it's impossible to win constantly against the third alone) in 95%.
I wait more than a month to have a new challenge, and 2 day after the first pack, I have the same issue that before... So I waiting the next pack...
Cool, I play 2 or 3 time a month.

In a 1V1 game, if I always win, my opponent would adapt and I can lose after. This is why the meta evolve.
In a Co-op, when you find the way to win, you stop playing...

Juzam66 said:

Yes! Yes! To Juzam you listen!

Agreed 110% with Juzam, that is why I stopped buying LotR after the core set. Got old real fast.

I will always be a devout lover and player of Decipher classic star wars CCG. I never liked the WOTC Star Wars TCG. It just felt too limited and restrictive, but then that was right after Deciphers ccg so that may have been why i couldnt appreciate it.

Now its been many years since Deciphers glory days and while it will always and still does hold a special place in my heart i think the direction of an LCG is a new unique and fun way to go.

As many of us feel I would love a revival/continuation of the Decipher CCG archetype, or something very very close. But for now im actually very excited by this and cant wait to delve into it headfirst.

Not being able to play Imperial or Fringe decks will be missed. But this can help too because now ppl cant complain that the IMP decks are too strong. (always hated the whiners, "Oh u only one cuz u had Vader or the Executor or Boba Fett lol"

But its funny, My friends and I find ourselves arguing even MORE during COOP games of LOTR. General none of my friends wanna risk losing any of their allies and many times end up murdering the rest of us because they are overprotective of a dwarf that should easily be cannon fodder.

But back on topic i think this will be a fun and inventive take on star wars.

Juzam66 said:

Different Strokes For Different Folks.

When I beat Mass Effect 1 and 2 I proceeded to play both of them numerous more times with different characters at different levels. For me a game isn't beat until I have won every permutation of it.

I beat it with a Spirit Tactics deck? What about Lore Leadership? What about Lore Tactics? Etc. Etc. Now I have to try all the quests with the same deck without resetting my Threat counter. Etc. Etc.

Like I said though, different people look for different things.

spirit said:

HAve you played the game yet? If you haven't I'm going to have a hard to believing this to be anything other than wishful thinking. I did play the demo, and unless they make some major changes to it before release there is no easy way to just make it pvp without a complete rules rewrite. Which of course is always a possibility... but why bother? IF you are going to go that route, why not just put out another game entirely? Especially when you consider that balancing a single card for two different rule sets is going to be a monster job.

I think it could be done. However it wouldn't be pretty with the current wording on cards and it would pretty much require a whole new set of Imp cards.

The basic gameplay however I think could lend itself to pvp easily. I'm not sure how close the demo'd version is to the pvp version they initially designed but I could easily see the 4 zone gameplay be mirrored and the strategy cards dictating randomly per turn where and who gets to attack.

Gaius Marius said:

This! Though that may change having just picked up my first LCG, AGoT. Do these games lend themselves to switching formats, co-op one game, pvp the next?

zelq said:

No, none of them switch. GoT, Cthulhu, and Warhammer are all PVP. LotR and SW (by all indication) are all coop.

Is it 2012 yet?

I want the new game NAOWWWWWWW! We'll prolly only have six months at most to enjoy it anyways, since the world is going to end 12/21/2012. Let's go out with a BANG!

I had wondered about the posibility of a second star wars LCG that was pvp but to be honest I can't see that it would add to FFG or the license. I can't see people who already play the co-op also playing the pvp.

spirit said:

I would definately play both. However at the In Flight Report at GenCon they didn't sound like they were considering another LCG BUT they made it very clear that they would be producing other Card Games based on the SW license and implied that you'd get to play as the Dark Side in them. I was alittle disappointed because I think the co-op games are more suited for big expansions (supplimented by pnp scenerios) and that the PVP games are better suited to the LCG format.

After Deciphers star wars ccg its hard for me to enjoy other star wars vs games, ive tried both the Decipher offshooters, Young Jedi and the other one, didnt like em, i tried the Wizards of the coast Star Wars TCG didnt like that either, just felt to dumbed down. I think the Co'op is a fun new direction, I would give a VS a try but i mean unless they get the rights to the Decipher mechanics for the classic CCG i highly doubt it would be something I would devote myself too. The new LCG however I will because as i said before, its a cool new direction and i think ill really enjoy it.

Darksbane said:

I am obviously biased against the new fad in co-o games, but I have played enough LotR LCG to agree with this regardless of my bias. The long term success of this game may very well be hindered by the fundamental design of the game. The highly prized SW IP can only carry a game so far before it fizzles. I do hope I am wrong though because I hate to see any design lack success as it takes hard work to design even lackluster games.

Penfold said:

Agreed. It really needs to be one or the other. Half assing it by attempting to please both markets will make both markets displeased. Best to just stick with one course and deal with the failure or success of the design (or riding the coattails of a successful IP as it were).

LCG's should be PvP and the stand alone games would be better format for the co-op titles that FFG is making right now. I like how Rune Age is actually both depending on the scenario you use.

Hellfury said:

See I think the Co-Op is more in tune with the stated goals and actual process of an LCG. In Game of Thrones and Warhammer Invasion there are a lot of times where I get a Chapter/adventure/force pack and use maybe one card out of it. In Lord of the Rings you use all or almost all the cards and they are resuable when you do the quest again. The fact that each chapter pack actually expands the game by adding a new quest/scenerio really makes it a living game it grows with eachpack. How many times in AGoT does a theme not really flesh out in the first chapter pack its in. So far the three adventure packs (one soon to be released) all add a different dynamic and are immediatly implemanted upon release. Furhtermore, LCG is supposed to be about getting a bunch of people together and playing every so often and less about min maxing to death a deckbuild. It doesn't take away the min/max, as nightmare mode screams for min/maxing, it just allows the game to not be defined by it.

As to getting bored with deck building, well the deck building mentioned is only focusing on half the game. That stagnate AI does not have to be stagnant. Dig into those encounter cards and quests cards and see what kind of scenerios you can put together. Beat Massing at Osgl and Dol Gondor too easily? put them togther and shuffle the quests into a random order and give it a go. Or travel from one to the other in nightmare mode with stop at the carrock in between. Once you've min/maxed your deck to beat the scenerio as printed, min/max the scenerio.

There is nothing stopping them from releasing an "Imperial" version of the game where you play as the Empire instead of the Rebel Alliance.

I disagree. PvP allows pretty infinite replayability without being required to purchase new packs depending on the deck construction and the opponents intellect.

With Co-op it gets 'samey', 'predictable', and ultimately 'stale'. Unless of course I buy their readily avilable adventure packs then I can regale myself with a nother hours worth of entertainment again until you rinse and repeat the predictablle and stale nature and then wait for the next injection of a quest to ignore the snoozefest. The possibilities are inherently finite.

That may be cool for many people and apparently it is, but for me, the value stinks and the IP cannot save the predictable nature of the game.

As for playing imperials against an A.I. rebel antagonist...*yawn*... more of the same with a slightly different theme. Big flipping whoop.

Hellfury said:

So don't play and the rest of the SW fans will have a fine time playing the game. :shrugs:

Lars said:

But by the official rules the encounter deck is stagnant. If there were official rules and guidelines to do this I might be interested and I've actually got a thread hoping that they do something like this for Star Wars but with official rules and costs to guide the construction. otherwise I'm not the type of player to play variants. It just seems like a slippery slope if you start doing that where do you draw the line.

"Think the deckbuilding is boring and scenerios are too easy? Well just play with an encounter deck of 30 Hill Trolls"

I enjoy the cooperative aspect of Lord of the Rings and I am really excited that Star Wars is as well. For someone who has lots of friends to play against or who enjoys going to the game store and playing others I see the reasoning why they are upset that this is cooperative. But for others like me who's friends are not into card games, or that don't care to go to play in tournaments at the game store the cooperative mode with a solo option is nice. Another good reason is that I actually can get my wife to play Lord of the Rings with me because she can be on my team, so i'm sure it would work with Star Wars as well. If more of my friends were less into xbox and more into card games maybe I would be unhappy about the fact that this is cooperative, but seeing as how that's not the case I for one am glad to have another cooperative LCG so thanks FFG!

CrowOfPyke said:

If you only play to win, obvious PvP is better for you. A monthly pack that you will play a few times will be fun for awhile but too expensive to keep up with compared to the potential metagame of a PvP.

But that is not the only way to play, and fans of co-op games are generally not this kind of player. If I can consistently beat a co-op game with one strategy (whether it be a standalone game or LotR LCG), I don't go to sleep and set my alarm for the next release -- I try something different. Experimenting with different decks in Lord of the Rings is a lot of fun, especially now that we're starting to get enough player cards to make more interesting design choices with our decks. I've only played Arkham Horror once, but I won fairly easily with one character. I could probably do it again that way, but I'd rather try another character and do something new, see what happens.

Co-op will never please everyone, but it is not an inferior style of game by any means (not that anyone specifically said this, but I do get that impression from some posts). It's a great option for those who want to enjoy a game for the experience, who want a break from the tension and antagonism of a PvP conflict game, or who just want a card game they can play alone.

Avalanche said:

There are cooperative formats for most PvP games. Try them out, your wife may just enjoy them. I got my sister into Magic in the same fashion.

A good game store should actually have non-tournament play nights for any game with a decent following, or just open gaming nights. I got to my local most Tuesdays for just that reason. Check out the game stores in your area. If they don't do such a thing you could always talk to the owner about starting one up!

Adam, PvP games are not automatically about just playing to win. They do not inhibit experiencing the game, and there is no need for antagonism or conflict. People who can't handle themselves inject these faults. Do not presume to know the thoughts, motivations, and actions of everyone who plays and enjoys PvP games. Were I to do the same I could accuse all of the co-op supporters of just being afraid to lose or other such faults.

Friendly competition can be great fun, and one will always learn more from a loss than a win.

Let me also confirm that I was indeed calling co-op inferior to pvp for lcg/ccg/tcg games. Not in general, just for these sort of games. Had this been announced as a stand alone game I'd be rather pleased. Especially since expansions could contain entire new encounter decks instead of a few cards to add to the existing one each month. But it just feels like co-op has been crammed into a place where it does not fit or belong. There are no tournaments, no draft or sealed, the opponent is automatically inferior to a living one, and most pvp card games had co-op formats to enjoy. Not to mention that players can only play as the rebel alliance. It seems too many sacrifices for gaining just solo play.

I also can't help but think that experimenting with decks would be more fun if you didn't know what your opponent was doing every single time. A game of football can't be much fun if one team has the other's playbook. Part of the enjoyment is in the challenge.

Also, I don't quite get what you meant by this

"A monthly pack that you will play a few times will be fun for awhile but too expensive to keep up with compared to the potential metagame of a PvP."

Would you mind clarifying slightly?