This is NOT a thread for people to say they hope it's the decipher game or how good the decipher game was or about WOTC's games. What do people hope to see in terms of game play. whether it's co-op or pvp. What little mechanics would really make you go *OK now THAT's cool*

Personally I'd like to see bounty hunters as potentially independent of any characters or missions coming in and disrupting everything for everyone. And kind of *we're on this mission, the Empires hot on our tales, oh nuts a bounty hunters just turned up and bountied my main hero for the huts*.

Or perhaps some sort of AI component if it does end up PVP.

I think a good dual system should be cool.

A good card :
SPIRIT Power :
Bury target topic.

Bounty Hunters should be a type of neutral faction, though I guess there will be a "Hutt" faction for them. Still bounty hunters by there very definition are able to be hired by anyone for a price.. seams a perfect character type to be neutral and placed in any deck type.. empire or rebel. I still hope the game will be co-op but I also want to be able to play empire.

As for mechanics? Well it is extremely hard to say with no idea of how the game plays, Though I have been playing a lot of coc lattly and really liek the "insane" mechanic that delay the untap of the cards for a turn. I think the zones in this game as we last heard it were you have base, orbit and planet would be ideal for this kind of slow down effect... load up some cards onto a ship... take 2 turns, unload 2 turns, turn to travel.... it could add a level of troop moment management kind of like a board game or something that is 100% unique and nvr seen in a card game...

One thing i do hope for is location, location locations... I want to see the star wars universe not just robots and vechels and people... but planets cards and planet surface cards...

I wouldn't mind seeing separate battle mechanics for blasters and lightsabers. If you have a Jedi and a Sith facing off with blades in close combat, it just seems to me like they shouldn't follow the same rules as soldiers blasting away from a longer distance apart.

booored said:

Hell yeah! If it's going to be anything like previous LCGs, then having some locations that can add bonuses for the factions playing them would be great. There are obvious ones for the Empire, maybe, like Imperial Palace, Carida Training Ground, but the Rebels might struggle somewhat. Alderaan/Graveyard of Alderaan, perhaps?

Rebels would have Yavin, Hoth, Dagobah and Dantooine at the very least.

booored said:

As a bounty hunter fan, I'm all for this. Half of the The Empire Strikes Back bounty hunters worked against the Imperials at some point in their careers (according to the EU novels before Clone Wars screwed it all up and threw Dengar in the CW). Namely, Zuckuss, 4-LOM, and Dengar all took on Imperial targets. Zuckuss and 4-LOM even worked with the Rebels directly. I think making them neutral characters would not be too far off. But when it comes down to it, I think it's been polarized too much. From Decipher to The Old Republic, people have been constantly putting bounty hunters in the "bad guy" category. So if this game makes them neutral, that would certainly make it ground-breaking.

spirit said:

I suppose so. I was just thinking because of the temporary aspect of the bases. I'm not so sure I'd like to see Dagobah as a generic rebel location though - if it only benefits Luke and Yoda, then I'd be fine with it. For me, theme is everything!

spirit said:

I like your stream of thoughts there! Yes - bounty hunters and completing bounties. And no - not all bounty hunters should be "dark side" related, as it was in SW:CCG. Yes, you've told that it ain't the place and I am not going to say how good it was and how should FFS SW:LCG copy the flow. Nhee - let them do something better! What glued SW:CCG together wasn't the universe (well, not entirely) but the system that Decipher patented, but LCG are something different, they have their own nice ideas and they don't need to copy Decipher in any matters.

What I would really like to see is the use of the Force but...not only in the matters of Light and Dark side - there were many times, especially after the first Trilogy, where there were "grey" jedi, using force for their purposes. It would be awsome to start as Jedi Knight then perhaps be lured to the Dark Side and in the end choose something in between.

Also - starships fights - a must!

Let's hope for the best!

Pauelor said:

I guess it depends on what you're looking for in this game. For me, the original announcements seemed to be calling forth nostalgia of the original trilogy when that's all there was in the universe. I really liked the idea of starting with the basics. To me, grey Jedi seem to go against what Obi-Wan and Yoda taught us about the Force. "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny," said Yoda. I don't particularly like grey Jedi and never have (just to disclose where I'm coming from in the following paragraphs). I think a big part of that is because it seems to represent well the prevalent mentality among people today that they should be able to choose their actions and their consequences too. That, to me, is absurd. A particular choice has a consequence fixed to it and if you do X, Y should happen. Period. Grey Jedi want to dabble in the Dark Side without falling to the Dark Side which should be nigh impossible. Anyway, back to the card game . . .

If you did have grey Jedi, how would you measure Force affinity (light/dark affinity)? The mechanics are inherent in how you view the Force, and unfortunately, I believe there are too many contradictory interpretations throughout Star Wars canon. In spite of Yoda's argument that the Dark Side is not stronger, but "easier, more seductive," we have seen time after time where the Dark Side has sheer power compared to the Light Side. So as I understand it, the creation of grey Jedi allows one to wield the power of the Dark Side while preserving justice (as perceived by the grey Jedi). Now outside of a game context, the danger of going grey is that you will fall to the Dark Side, lose what you have fought for, and lose the opportunity to be one with the Force (echoing the notion of losing one's soul). In a game, nobody is worried about losing their character's soul, so given the option, many people will choose grey Jedi in order to maximize their Force options. A game would need to make sure that there is a cost to maintaining a neutral Force affinity. Also, if this game is PvP, what happens if a Jedi character uses the Dark Side enough that they fall to the Dark Side? Does the other player gain control of them? Do they die?

What do you mean by "start as a Jedi Knight?" This brings up the question of customization. I'm not envisioning character customization, rather deck customization, though I could see how you could design a card game around a custom character with a deck that represent's their abilities. This LCG does not seem to be that sort of game, though. Instead, I'd imagine that "Grey Jedi Knight" would be an ally card with a special ability that adds a good amount of damage, but damages the character as well, representing the toll the Dark Side is taking on that character.

Ultimately I think Force affinity is either too complex for a card game and should be kept in the realm of RPGs, or it needs to be implemented in a game that really focuses on the Jedi vs Sith aspect of Star Wars. From what we've seen so far, this game won't fit that bill since it's set in the classic trilogy era of the Galactic Civil War when there are very few Force-users. I think this card game should maintain a strict Dark Side/Light Side emphasis. Save grey Jedi for the RPG.

I see you have some nice insight into the Force, both the Dark and the Light Side, meaning you have had to master both . Anyway, after giving it some thoughts, I too sway to the option that the Force might be just too complex to use, not only the grey one, but Dark/Light as well. The ambiguity of the Force is just too deep rooted into human psyche and to stick to one road might be just too hard - of course this is easily maintained within the deck Light/Dark - no opposing Force cards in the deck, as it was in SW:CCG, on the other hand, I remember that it was kinda painful, because every tournament you went to, you needed to have 2 decks with you, regardless your likes and dislikes towards particular Side of the Force. So far, the game mechanics are straight forward - you are the good guy, need to kill the bad guys, but wouldn't it be excited to be sedduced by the Dark Side of the Force, but then the question arises - what then? Does the opponent really gain control over your character, or you are going into frenzy and starts killing your own allies or just have some negative impact on the game, whatsoever? Difficult to read the future is. Let us hope that FFS will stand up to the challange and do their best for the game to be rewarding both for new players and SW:CCG lovers alike (and perhaps that is one of the reasons why they have postponed the release date, having in mind that they will face SW:CCG players and the play style they were accustomed to back in the days).

At this stage, bounty hunters are a bull's eye, I don't like Jedi/Sith anyway

Well, Pauelor, I think your statement on starship battles was also spot on. I think if you asked anyone what makes Star Wars Star Wars, starship battles would definitely be part of it.

As we saw from previous contents of the SW:LCG, there were starships cards, but still - the complexity remains. Let us look at so far published LCGs: in each and everyone one there are non specific locations, we have capitals in Warhammer and buildings, but in the others there is just "deployment zone" - and I think such solution would deprive SW:LCG of its magic, which is not only in characters, but also locations. On the other hand, I think that locations cards would bring too much chaos into the equation, so I am guessing dividing deployment zones into ground and space would be the best solution and judging by the text on so far shown cards would imply that this is the way FFS went for.

I've been thinking about locations recently. One thing I never liked in SW:CCG was when there were several unoccupied locations in play. One solution could be to have location cards that players put in the various zones. Each zone could be a different location at a given time. When a location is on the table, it delivers a bonus of some sort. If a new location is played in that zone, the old one is replaced.

About the locations...

If they keep this game scenario driven, like it was at the beginning, they could make the locations part of a scenario.

For exemple, you could have a scenario like the ending of Episode 4 where the Imperial forces would have the Death Star and the rebels would have Yavin or something like that.

So you could have many different locations, but they'll be used for different mission/scenarios.

Very good point, Meaxe. If they maintain a scenario-driven game like it was at GenCon, that's definitely the best option, in my opinion. In my post, I was assuming it had switched to a standard PvP setting where the cards are all controlled by the players.

But here's a question: is there a way to maintain scenarios in a PvP environment? I hadn't really thought of it before. For instance, instead of each player laying down various locations, could locations be part of a static scenario deck that affects the whole table? Then each time you play, you have to flip a coin or something to see who gets to pick the scenario deck. Do any other games do this?

One way it could work is to have three or so scenario decks in the core set and in each expansion. Assuming the core set was based on A New Hope, you could see Tatooine, the Death Star, and Yavin IV as locations in the deck, with different parts of each location showing up as various cards that affect play in some way. The Empire Strikes Back expansion could have Hoth, Dagobah, and Cloud City/Bespin. Maybe there'd be 6-10 cards in a scenario deck. Then, assuming they keep the same zones as we saw at GenCon, maybe the Reserve Zone could choose to exhaust X number of characters to change locations instead of increasing card draw. When the scenario deck gets depleted, it just recycles. It might be even more interesting and unique if the scenario decks had specific win conditions for each side, but I have a hunch that would reduce replayability because each side would converge on a certain strategy for each scenario, so you'd see the same cards played for each scenario every time you played that one. And if scenarios had specific win conditions, I doubt it'd be up to one player to decide which scenario. It'd have to be a mutual agreement or completely random.

P.S. I don't know why the font size got so messed up in my last post. That was completely unintentional.

If it is PvP I really like the idea of a set scenario deck that interfered with both players. It could also serve a purpose to regulate play time.

I suppose my thinking is still coloured by what I know of the game that was initially called the Star Wars LCG, but I thought the blend of aspects from other LCGs seemed to be quite interesting, most strongly the LotR/Warhammer thing of competing against an encounter deck, completing a scenario, with cards that get placed in different zones.

This last I think would be particularly apt for Star Wars. The Battle of Hoth, and in particular the Battle of Endor, take place on numerous fronts, so having the space arena and the support arena and the ground arena seems really very fitting. Like Warhammer, it'd be nice if they could produce the cards that fulfil different actions when placed in different zones, too - like a card's power allows you either to draw a card, to gain resources, or to attack depending on where that card is placed. Of course, I don't want it to be a carbon copy of Warhammer, but I think that idea is a lot better than producing zone-specific cards, so if you buy your Force pack and you tend to use decks focused on one arena (did they call them strategies in the initial announcement?) you only get a quarter of useful player cards.

I suppose keeping the arena/strategy arrangement would also allow best to have both starships and characters, otherwise it'd probably just look a bit weird. I know AGoT has, in the Greyjoy deck, boats as well as characters, but these boats function as location cards. Somehow, having a X-Wing as a location seems a bit daft. If they do produce starship cards, having astromech units that function as attachments to provide bonuses seems like a good idea. I just hope they don't produce one game as a character-driven game, and another for starship battles.

How they'll produce a viable Death Star though could be tricky.

I don't think the Force should really feature much in this game, though. Give Obi-Wan some sort of stealth ability, give Luke something, Yoda maybe functions as a Force battery, allow Vader damage reduction and to kill with line of sight, and the Emperor some sort of control ability maybe, and just leave it at that. They're the only ones we really see use the Force in the original trilogy, after all (unless you count Leia right at the end of RotJ). If we then get into the realms of Mara Jade Emperor's Hand, or perhaps Kyle Katarn or whatever, then maybe we could begin to see more Force powers, but they should only be special abilities, and the greater the ability, the greater the penalty. Yoda was, after all, exhausted by lifting that X-Wing out of the swamp. If they bring out a Vader's Apprentice that can destroy everyone on the table as a response or somesuch nonesense, then I'd have absolutely no respect for this game.

Bounty Hunters are a really essential part of Star Wars, and lead in to something I've been desperate to see since August when it was announced, a Fringe element. Some of the most iconic Star Wars characters don't have any affiliation but their own - Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett, even Han Solo himself. While I'm always a little sceptical of Boba Fett incarnations, as most of them I've seen (primarily WotC's SW miniatures) are shameless pandering to the Fett fanboys, it would be nice to see him crop up, hopefully not overpowered insanely. I'm with most other people though in wanting bounty hunters to be a neutral faction and can be hired by any side, even if, in the original trilogy, they were pretty much all presented as antagonists. Maybe having some sort of disruptive tendency - the WotC minis idea of giving bounty hunters bonuses to attack against unique characters can't be discredited, I don't think.

I suppose, if this game does end up PvP, you could just as easily have a neutral deck that either player can include cards from, though without some sort of limitation (such as Dark Side and Light Side), you run the problem with unique cards of both players wanting to play Boba Fett, and it coming down to who can play him first, prohibiting the other player from playing his copy, and so either being forced to throw everything he has into targeting that card or being stuck with a useless card in his own deck.

This is one of the reasons why I thought the co-op version was so much a better idea than it being yet another PvP game. Playing against set scenarios, you can have an encounter deck where your band of rebels goes against Jabba the Hutt and his cronies, whether to rescue a captured friend as in the movies, or to broker an arms deal that goes sour, or whatever. I would imagine, if it is merely PvP, it'd take years for a neautral deck to become viable to play on its own, because the card distribution will most likely favour rebels or imperials, with a bare hint of any neutrals for a long while.

I am really hopeful we'll still get the scenarios, at any rate. George Lucas is a storyteller, not a fight promoter, and Star Wars is about the story for me, so I really do relish the possibility of getting new stories to play with each Force pack. Just getting additional player cards all the time to bolster existing armies of characters and materiel is a very depressing thought.

Such are my disjointed thoughts, anyway! (I had a knock on the head on Friday, so I apologise if some of this doesn't make much sense...)

Something that is broad enough in its scope to draw inspiration from all Star Wars eras, should the design team discover a demand for it.

MarthWMaster said:

Yes! I want that too! Yet another thing to add to my massively long list of the other day...

It struck me as very odd soon after they'd made the announcement that a LCG, something that will grow and grow, presumably exponentially, should have such a narrow focus on just four years of SW history, when the universe has been exploded thousands of years in either direction from the original film. Especially seeing as how ripe for such a game some of the other eras could be!