Arrrrrghhhhh!!!!!

Why coop?

I'm really looking forward to the cooperative nature of this game. LOTR LCG gave my wife and I a card game that we can enjoy together. We are both nuts over Star Wars and will be ready to pull the trigger once this is available. Cant wait....

I have just read the entirety of this thread and feel that a lot of people have made very valid comments for and against a solely co-op game.

I have to say at this point I have never played LoTR LCG. I do play GoT LCG with my partner and a few other people, but we play with pretty standard decks as I am not keen in spending hours building decks and my partner has no interest in deckbuilding at all. I have played MtG and many years ago I was a keen deckbuilder but now my gaming is a lot more casual and MtG started to become more about the ready made decks. I also own space hulk death angel for a comparative co-op card game.

First thing first, I dont particularly dislike co-op but it does take something away from the gaming experience. with death angel it is very possible for a player to be taken out of the game early on. Fortunately the difficulty of the game is pretty high and you do need to work together. Co-op board games tend to be a bit lame but are ok for family gaming nights where players may have different levels of ability or competitiveness.

The PvP card game isnt really great for a casual gaming night. By definition all games of this type are complex, requiring familiarity with the cards to make good use of them, a good grasp of written language is needed to understand all the definitions and effects of cards, and this doesnt sit well with a casual group. Of course this is why PvP card games work so well in a tournament scene as they are great for competitive people to build the best decks and try and win.

Finding great card combinations is an art that requires a lot of thought and therefore is only good if every player owns their own cards. With the LCG box sets generally one person buys the box and everyone plays from that. That is a good reason why these big box LCGs will work better as a co-op game than a PvP. Co-op should also be cheaper as not having all the best cards only increases the difficulty and therefore the replayability of the game. The LCG format is not the best set up financially for uber deck building.

Personally I am more excited by the star wars theme and I will research the game, and see the reviews it gets on board game geek before buying. I do think this is something I would be able to play with my partner but Im looking forward to x wing more.

I was so excited when I seen this game announced (which was just the other day). I was reminiscent of the Star Wars game published by Wizards of the Coast years ago. Me and a friend of mine miss that game dearly and talk of it often so I was thinking this would be something we could get into to fill that void. Sadly however after reading up on it, it turns out that it's coop playing the Rebel Alliance only.

Many of the iconic Star Wars characters are by definition "Villains". Taking away being able to play those characters, especially in a card game where the power struggle between Alliance and Empire makes a great fit doesn't make sense to me in many ways. I can see the coop thing adding that "good guy" mentality of a few versus many to defend the galaxy (too which I say congradulations for those wanting that type of game, this will probably be a great game for you)... but what about those players who want to concur the galaxy? Where is the answer for when I want to just feel like playing the iconic Vader, or even plopping down a few bounty hunters to do my dirty deeds? To me eliminating the empire as playable eliminates more than half the fun of the game.

I'm not saying this game won't be good for some. I'm just saying it's not a good fit for probably around half the Star Wars fan base (me included). I would be on board with enthusiasm if this were a PvP type game. I would even be on board somewhat if it was possible to play coop as the Empire to eliminate the Rebels. But as the game stands right now I'll probably pass. I may pick up the starter deck sometime just to say I tried the game, but I think that's about as far as this game will go for me in this format.

While I do love the original trilogy, I just have no desire to play as the Rebels. Co-Op is alright by me, if you could do whichever side you wanted. If I were forced to play the "Heroes" I wouldn't mind the prequel setting to be honest. I will probably also get the starter and that will be about it, was hoping for something to fill that Star Wars void without the WoTC one.

Personally i'm stoked for this game. Loving the lcg concept and the coop, yay for playing a star wars game WITH my girlfriend

I just hope this game never EVER have anything to do with the crappy prequels.

Star Wars LCG for coop, X-Wing for pvp... 2012 is gonna be great!

I have to admit, part of me is kinda happy that so many "Can't play the Empire?! PFAUGH!" players have lost interest in this already. Coming from a long period of observation during the Decipher years, players with that mentality really prefer a PvP experience, and often tend to maintain this mentality in a co-op setting, which I usually find...um...let's just say, uncomfortable. I just don't share the bloodthirstiness, and I wouldn't particularly miss it from these forums. I guess that's what X-Wing will be for. I'm sure that game will welcome the surge of Imperials looking to crush some Rebels.

On the other hand, the other part of me is sad (and a pinch worried) that many just won't get what I expect to get out of this game, and there goes half the fanbase. A game not played is a game not bought...and a game soon discontinued.

Pages 4 and 5 of this thread had many comments about tournaments and the problems with set encounters. I agree that it does seem strange to go to a competition to play against an encounter you've mastered. There has to be some uncertainty for a tournament to work. I think FFG did a good thing by introducing "The Massing at Osgiliath" at an event as a special pack and then releasing later. That tactic provides a method for introducing a challenging, unfamiliar encounter. Unfortunately, you can't count on a new pack for every single tournament, especially local ones. I just don't see how tournaments could work out with this format (but I haven't read the LotR threads about this yet). Still, that's fine by me because I've never been in a tournament in my life. Another way to get the unpredictability involved is to have people bring their decks and then randomly assign people to work together. That could get difficult with unique characters, but it would force adaptation. Maybe with SW, if there are no multi-tactics decks (which is the impression I get from the base cards), you just split the participants into 4 groups based on tactics and randomly put them together. Then you can take score like they have in LotR and see who has the best average/total score for the tournament.

The folks over at LOTR have said that tournament scenarios would be never before seen scenarios, much like the Osgiliath example. Personally, I'm yet to be convinced of the viability of tournaments with this kind of format. I have the suspicion that anyone that gets into co-op looking for tournament action might be playing the wrong game. I've seen some interesting ideas, such as having two teams go head to head and watch each other play. That would cut down on having to have a referee watching every game, which would be manpower intensive.

Recently, they've also modified the scoring system, which was terrible, to add a value for every turn that it takes to beat a scenario. A step in the right direction, but will they ever make it work, that I don't know.

Honestly, I think it is "bad" that so many games set in the Star Wars universe are PVP. The whole point of the original trilogy is that the rebels are the heroes and the Empire are the villains.

It is like playing an RPG (D&D, WFRP, etc) and wanting/expecting to be able to play Orcs and Undead and other evil PCs. The players are/should be the heroes, not the villains. That paradigm should really be the default for this setting, but unfortunately this has gotten corrupted for Star Wars over the years.

As mentioned by someone earlier in the thread, in all honesty the Empire should have the advantage when facing rebels, and only through luck and the efforts of extraordinary individuals should the rebels win...occasionally. This does not make for good PVP balance, but makes for a great co-op experience. It is the struggle against the odds, the underdogs fighting the powerful, that makes for the best moments in games and cinema.

I think co-op is the perfect format for this game.

really happy for this new game

really happy that it is a co-op, meaning can play alone, can share easily with "small" players,

really happy that it is a LCG format

Of course it is sad that we won't be able to play Vador / Palpatine ... but nevertheless I'll take one (at least )

dvang said:

What they ought to have done, IMO, is made it so that you are playing both sides: Empire and Rebellion. But it's tricky to do games that way, and FFG appears to strongly prefer multiplayer card gaming anyway. Both LotR and SW are settings that can only support multiplayer if more than one player is sharing the same "side." Though why couldn't they make it a team-based game, where one team is the Rebels, and the other team is the Empire, with support for 1v1 games also existing? 1v1 deckbuilding would be its own animal, because whereas in a multiplayer game you can count on another player's deck to compensate for your own deck's deficiencies, in 1v1 your deck must be entirely self-sufficient.

What would be decent is if FFG provided support for a format in which the Imperial deck is controlled by a human player, who faces the combined forces of his Rebel opponents.

It is a shame that you won't be able to play as the Empire, but I suppose when it comes down to it, I prefer to play as heroes struggling for freedom! It would've been interesting, I suppose, to see how this game might have worked if they had done it along the lines of Warhammer, or A Game of Thrones, but to be fair, the Imperial deck would be replete with untold billions of stormtroopers and massive fleets of newly-made starships, whereas the rebel deck would be stuck with decades-old ships that are falling apart (except one or two notables) and a small bunch of freedom fighters. Unless the main focus of the rebel deck is Ewoks...

spalanzani said:

I think that this concept could be reflected while keeping the game fair. Keep in mind that the Empire is slow and ponderous, while the Rebellion is quick and resourceful, and avoids facing the Empire directly except in extreme cases, preferring instead to perform hit-and-run tactics, sabotaging shipyards and the like. Not to mention it has the support of most non-Human races in the Galaxy. The Empire may have a strong material advantage, but what the Rebellion lacks in brute force and numbers, it more than makes up for in its tenacity.

And well, they're the good guys and stormtroopers and TIE pilots can't shoot worth a darn.

With recent new to re-design game I expect a game PVP with factions, maybe 6 or 8 (half of light and half of dark), with diferent strategies for every one and a lot of game options like:

-1vs1 or multiplayer with factions.
-1vs1 or multiplayer with light or dark factions.
-2vs2 mode.

I'm really excited about the possibilities that a game does not co-op offers, especially being SW.

Kaworu said:

That would be cool. Wizards did that with Star Wars Miniatures, and it worked fairly well. What would be an improvement upon that, is a game that assigns two features to a card: its Affiliation (Rebellion, Empire, etc., or Neutral), and Alignment (Light, Dark, or Neutral), and then allowed you to build an appropriate deck depending on the format. I would kill (or at least maim) to play something that gave me the tools to build an ace deck spanning all ages of Star Wars lore (since ultimately, the Old Republic is my favorite Star Wars era), while also providing for the part of me that likes to play within a specific theme, or at least scope of time.

What I would like to see FFG do, should they go this route, is to have the game's Core Set, and its first six-month cycle, both focus strictly on the Classic Era. Once there are enough cards around to support various Rebel and Imperial decks, then they could begin adding factions. Otherwise, players who only enjoy the Original Trilogy would be forced to mix-and-match in their decks for a time, and that wouldn't be a positive experience for them.

I have to say I'm delighted this is a co-op game, and I hope it stays that way. I can appreciate the feelings of those who'd like to play the Empire, but the whole drama of Star Wars is based on the camaraderie of a small group of out-gunned heroes pulling off the Hail Mary throw of the universe. The excitement for me is based on facing huge odds and succeeding. There are other games out there were people can play overwhelming evil empires (and games where they can create their own!); Star Wars is a cooperative story and a co-op game like LotR best fits the bill, in this one person's opinion.

Also, as someone who finds it hard to find people to play the games I like--especially themed card games like this--I rejoice that it's a solitaire/co-op game like LotR.

And, of course, I'll enjoy it however it turns out.

Early on there were murmurings about how FFG should just make two games, one co-op and one PvP, but such ideas were shut down because it would "split the fan base." Given the radical polarization of the potential player base for this game as it stands now, is that not a viable option?

Please ffg drop the co op. make it a real game!!!!

Budgernaut said:

It is. But if it's possible to make one game that will satisfy both cooperative and competitive fans while being perfect for both modes of play, why not do that?

MarthWMaster said:

Why not, indeed! I would be very interested to see how they could go about doing it, my only fear being that trying to produce both would inevitably leave one aspect watered-down, but still, it's an exciting prospect!

msommi said:

Please define "real game."

Grudunza said:

game/gam/

MarthWMaster said:

Co-op games are competitive. You are competing against an opposing system. And they are certainly a form of play or sport.

MarthWMaster said:

Aw, crap. All those quarters I spent playing Pac-Man in 1982, and it wasn't actually even a game...