Something else I'd like to add… It's entirely possible to serve both ends.

One group says that 1x is the best because of no wasted cards and the end user gets to see a greater variety of cards in the box.

The other group says that mixed distribution is best because it's more like a built deck, providing a smoother gameplay experience.

There is no reason that you cannot have both. As I've stated in another thread on BGG, in any CCG/LCG there are usually multiple cards which provide a similar function. The bigger the pool, the more of them there are, but even starting out there will be cards with roughly similar uses, or FFG can choose to select more cards with roughly similar uses.

Therefore - for every instance of a card where you were thinking about putting 2x or 3x copies of that card in the Core set, this may be replaced by using only 1x copy of that card supplemented by different cards of similar function.

The original description is I think then a false dichotomy. You can provide fully 1x cards in the set AND still provide a better semblance of a tuned deck by using cards which are similar but not identical.

What say you, gentlemen?

I'm buying 3x core set!

Put me down for preferring x1 copy per card for the Core set. It's just cleaner and easier for collecting, and offers the widest variety of cards.

With this model, players who are more competitive or who enjoy deck-building can buy multiple Core sets without owning a bunch of less-than-useful duplicates, and those players who don't like to deck-build (and there's a surprisingly large number) end up with a greater diversity for casual "highlander" play. In the end, it makes the decision of how many Core sets to purchase, as well as recommend to newer players, more straightforward.

I play both W:I and CoC. I own x3 Core sets for Call of Cthulhu, but only x1 for Warhammer: Invasion due to the mixed x3/x2/x1 card distribution. And it's another reason I decided to pass on the LotR LCG. Having said all of that, I will be surprised if Netrunner doesn't follow the same model as W:I and LotR.

Buying more than one core set does not give as many "useless" duplicates as some of you seem to think. A lot of cards can go in multiple decks and having extras comes in handy especially if you build as many decks as I did for AGoT

I'll be buying a single copy of the core set and playing it. If it provides a good out-of-the-box experience, I'll probably buy a second or third set as needed or justified depending on how much play it sees. If it's not a good out-of-the-box experience, then I've got a lot of other games on my shelf.

The highest priority for me (and, I think, for Fantasy Flight) is that the core set be a fun, self-contained game: that it be accessible, easy to teach, and that the included decks are consistent enough to follow a strategic theme. If they can provide that out-of-the-box came with a 1x 252 distribution (or even a x3 distribution), then I'll be fine with that. But if they prioritize ease of collectibility over out-of-the-box fun, they'll run the risk of failing to capture a wide enough pool of players, which will cut the game's life short.

I think a Core Set with a mixed distribution can still present a quality compromise between completists and casual gamers. If it provides an enticing, quality experience, casual gamers are more likely to become completists, fueling the development of the game. As for the out-of-the-gate completists, even assuming that the distribution is x1 of 42 cards, x2 of 42 cards, and x3 of 42 cards, it would still be $120 RSVP for a full playset of 126 cards, which is still cheaper, more reliable, and less wasteful than randomized boosters.

My two cents.

Toqtamish said:

I have heard the "Multiple deck" excuse quite a few times. I don't buy it.

My own experience doesn't match yours and I build quite a few CoC decks to be ready to play at any single time. I also play in tournaments whenever I am able to. I never felt the need to have 9X of cards, or even 6x for a single players pool to choose from.

And on the very rare occasions that I did need 6x of a card, it was maybe 2 or 3 cards in the entire pool of call of cthulhu cards. That still leaves the majority of cards that I have sitting in a box from before FFG went to the 3x distribution in their expansion packs.

So the 3x/2x/1x distribution model has not illustrated anything other than wastefulness to me.

I don't understand multiple decks argument either. If the distribution is 1/2/3x there might be situation easily where I might want 3x of a card to two different decks but card comes only 1x in a core set. So I have to buy 6x core set anyway to be able to make multiple decks. I will almost surely lose in the 1/2/3x model anyway if I want to have multiple decks as I would lose in 1x model also. Then there is argument that you don't "need" 3x each card. Of course there are many things I don't "need" but the whole game is balanced with 3x card limit and you are allowed to put 3x card in your deck.

Hellfury said:

What is there to buy ? I have 9 decks for AGoT, trust me I have 9x of some of the cards as I was able to buy some singles plus I bought two core sets for the game. I don't play CoC so maybe that is the difference.

Either way this whole thread serves little purpose but I guess every LCG has to have this thread a few times in its forums. FFG will not change the core set model that they have been successful with for 4 other LCG's now.

Hellfury said:

Yep, it says everyone (a small vocal minority in a within the hardcore players who themselves are a vocal minority of the people who will buy and play this game) would end up making decisions that would almost certainly have the LCG games fail. CoC is the only one which uses a x1 format and it is the smallest game in player-base out of all of them. Those may not be related, but it is interesting.

The Core Set is a play out of the box experience. x1 sucks for that. Even CoC which is a brilliant game, but when compared to the other games out of the box (though infinitely better than ccg out of the box experiences) it leaves a LOT to be desired.

So yes, FFG is making decisions that are best for their bottom-line which not-coincidently is what is best for the game continuing to be published.

If the out of the box game suffers people don't continue to buy into the game. It gets bad reviews, sold or traded cheap, and generally dies on the vine.

I'm willing to bet we'll see each faction have multiple copies of agendas, ice-breakers and ice as appropriate. I'd expect those to all be x2 or x3. I expect the neutral cards to be x1, x2, and maybe x3 per faction per side. The more situational cards you play from hand for effect or stack in play for effect nodes and operations etc. will probably be x1.

If the having a good out of the box experiences is going to keep some hardcore players away… well, that is too bad, but that good experience will attract a lot new players and I will revel in having dozens of new players at my FLGS.

I think it's due to the number of factions. Call of Cthulhu has the most factions, which means there are fewer cards for each faction, which in turn limits how much deck building you can do out of a Core set. In games with fewer factions, you get more cards per faction and you can do a little more tuning of your deck.

Netrunner has always played well with a small set of cards anyway, I'm not too worried about that.

Penfold said:

Good point. At first I only thought in terms of card variety and completionists' demands. But like you said, there's a third one, the out-of-the-box play-experience, and now I agree it is probably the most important one. I guess I want to change my mind about "1x every card is best"…

Play experience with the core set of LotR is really good, and perhaps this is a reason for its success. Like dboeren said, the 1x distribution could be caused by the high number of factions. (LotR only has 4 Spheres, so FFG could create pretty nice decks.) If this should be a problem, it's solvable. One way would be to not only vary the card quantity 1x/2x/3x, but also to vary the number of cards per faction. 2 corp factions could be the main faction and get a lot of cards, and the 2 other corp factions could get less cards and serve as a support faction. This way, the player has 4 choices of combinations for a corp deck, and the main faction could be optimized to provide a good out-of-the-box experience. Later on, FFG could provide a "complement pack" which includes all the cards missing to the 3x limit, and which is announcced in FFG news when A:N core is released. (A complement pack has been suggested in the LotR forums, but I think FFG can't do it anymore, because some players already bought 2 or 3 core sets…)

Penfold said:

I see this bit differently. My main problem with FFG LCG is that they build nothing to last. FFG releases a LCG and support it for 1-2 years and then release a new LCG. You can just see how little focusing CoC has gotten form FFG after release. There is not even any tournament or demo support. 6 LCG is a lot for one company and naturally some games will suffer because there are not players for every game. With releasing a new LCG some players will just jump to that and forget the old one. This seems to happen every 1-2 years. FFG is first company I see doing this and I find it a bit cheap. With board games I am totally ok with this. But LCG/CCG can be a huge investment. If I spend 200$ I want to able to find players for many years and play the game.

My main CCG is Vtes. I have played that game for 10 years. There has always been enough players. That game had last expansion released about 2 years ago and that game is dead now. But even still biggest tournament in small Finland draw close to 100 players and I think this won't change for some years. I feel I got my money worth. But I can't see this kind of situation happening with any FFG LCG at all.

Hellfury said:

COC is a very different game. The resourcing system causes a very different set of build decisions, so lack of neutrals to generate resources across the factions, and too many neutrals actually making resourcing harder rather than easier in multi-faction decks means it is far easier to have 3-5 decks with very little need for multiples of any card beyond a playset (unless of course you want all your decks to be tournament winners, but that is a different story).

You can't do that to the same extent with any of the other LCG's because the resourcing systems don't really support that structure.

dboeren said:

The thing is though they could have made Cthulhu differently. They could have made it follow the x1/x2/x3 model and each faction could have potentially played as a solo faction in the core set (which given the number of factions and card counts seems like what they are doing with Netrunner). If each faction was capable of fielding a solo faction deck, playable out of the box, the deck customization would have been through the roof for CoC. I honestly think that because CoC is so modular with so much freedom in deck building they chose to go with a route that highlighted that, rather than create the best experience out of the box which would have been solo faction decks for your first experience and then deck building for the advanced experience. I honestly thing CoC would be much more popular if it had been constructed in this manner. I love the game, but finding people to play against is hard, and after introducing several people to the LCG line, CoC gets a lot of nods and smiles, in the discussion, or with customized decks, but the core set gets frowns.

Netrunner should absolutely be packed in whatever form is going to create the greatest retention of players and transformation of super casual boardgame play to investment and deckbuilding.

So I wonder… what percentage of players come in through just a Core set and nothing else? Obviously for a brand new game there may be no other way, but once a game is established and there are expansions I don't know. I'm not just talking about how much PRODUCT they buy, but also the idea of starting cold without another player either. Even Netrunner does not leave people in this position, there are plenty of people who know the old game who can provide advice to a newbie.

Personally, I'm the sort of guy who researches games. I read reviews, or watch videos, talk to players, try it out, whatever. It's very hard for me to imagine there are such people who would walk into a store with so many games on the shelf and just grab a box at random and say "Hey, let's buy this!" Some of them might be drawn by the theme, but still… to not even talk to anyone or read anything first seems odd.

If they did talk to anyone or read anything, they would see similar advice all over, that for Call of Cthulhu you should get a Core set plus Secrets of Arkham for a much better start, so that you have a bigger selection of cards to do deckbuilding.

I guess what people are saying is that there are a lot of non-gamers who buy these Core sets? I've honestly never seen one myself, so it's hard to guess how big a demographic this might be.

Now, I also don't know how much the actual set of cards is to blame for a "bad Core experience" either, I think part of it is the lack of instructions, which is why I mention access to other players as an important part. In Call of Cthulhu, it's very common for beginners to go through a phase where they feel stories lock up, are too mathy, nobody goes to stories at all, etc… Then they ask a veteran who tells them to use more Events and suddenly the stalemate is broken. Things are no longer so predictable and they start enjoying the game. If this had been stressed in the rulebook, I'd be willing to bet that the game would have more players because less of them would be turned off through frustration of not understanding the proper way to play the game.

I think there is lot of players who just buy the core set to test it. That is why core set should offer a great play experience out of the box but I hope it would offer a great card distribution also. I feel CoC didn't offer so great play experience out of the box but I blame rules about it more. Rules just said put two different factions together and start playing. There should had been more guidance with deck lists what kind of decks to build and play against etc. AGoT and W:I did a way better job with this (like every card numbered for which deck they go to). W:I even had a draft mechanic in a box.

One thing to keep in mind, CoC was the first of the LCG's.

Also, core set needs to be the best out of box experience. I only own the LotR core set, I am glad I didn't buy more but also I am glad the core set is fully playable on it's own.

dboeren said:

I say Balance will kick you in the balls so hard you'll have trouble sitting >.> In seriousness though, I love the idea, and I wish it worked like that, but the problem is that toolbox cards should not be an easy pick-n-mix, otherwise it creates a problem for the cards those tools were designed to interact with/against. I'm not sure how Netrunner works, never having played it, but in games like CoC or AGoT certain utilities (card removal, trait manipulation, saves from terminal effects) are scarce to some factions, not scarce to others, hard to balance or hard to find the cost for. Recently in AGoT a cheap, netural way to take out Attatchments was introduced and now playing anything other than a 0-1 cost attatchment seems dumb because almost everyone else runs it, leaving all the 2-3 cost attatchments in the dark. Before only 1 faction out of 6 was able to deal with attatchments so easily, now everyone can!

I think if cards that served the same purpose were to be made, they would have to be either cost balanced (ie, sure you can run all of them, but some of them will give the same effect at a much higher cost/risk) or every card designed would have to take into account its natural fragility or potency (Depending if its being targeted for removal or buff) and will have to balance its strengths very, Very carefully to stradle the line between overpowered and not worth the fragility.

That said, as I mentioned somewhere before, this is not FFG's first trip to the LCG rodeo and if anyone can maintain intricate balances its them. (Wow, this ended up as a huge tangent)

I would like to point out, the neutral attachment removal is precisely what players had been asking for about 2-3 years. They got it, and now pretty much everyone just wishes they had STFU and let FFG develop the game the way they had been. Sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you is to get exactly what you asked for.

This, btw, is why I trust FFG more than the players, even when they are extremely experienced. The balance in a game like this is pretty difficult to even properly conceive, let alone maintain over years. Not to say players are always wrong or that they can't even be more correct than FFG at times, just that only one of these groups has a proven track record of creating awesome.

If it proves to be too much of a problem, FFG can make it a Restricted card or even a Banned card. I assume this same system exists in AGoT, right? It's worked pretty well in the past for Call of Cthulhu to deal with cards that were a little too powerful.

Penfold said:

Really?

I guess every idea that FFG does is attributed solely to them.

Such as the 3x distribution model. The same one some naysayers were claiming FFG would never do and how much of a horrible idea that is.

The same naysayers clamoring over and over about how FFG were gods among board game companies for coming up with such a brilliant idea.

By the way, from those of us who fought long and hard to make FFG see why 3x was a good idea for everyone in the face of caustic internet forum users who claim to know the ins and outs of why FFG does anything…

You're welcome.

Toqtamish said:

Wjhat is there to buy? Why, a bunch of extra crap nobody but you apparently think is a good idea.

I am not fond of buying product to just not use it. If YOU want to pay extra money for cards that you can sprinkle through other decks, knock yourself out.

Myself, I would rather pay money for cards that do not sit in a box because absolutely nobody wants or needs the duplicates.

As for your second paragraph, well if the discussion serves little purpose, then way are you making yourself a part of it? Nobody is stopping you from not posting here anymore.

Seriously why are you being such an ass about it.

And by buy I was referring to your "I don't buy it" comment.

If YOU don't want to buy extra cards, then just buy one core set and live with the fact you do not have a playset of all of the cards.

You also make way to many assumptions and constantly say everyone when in fact you mean YOU. Do not assume you speak for everyone or even a vast majority.

Hellfury said:

Wow thats a sweeping statement there lad. What about the people who share games and build multiple decks out of the same pool? What about the people who give the dupes away to friends or sell them as singles ( a small market though it may be) what about the people who just Like having large collections? Besides, youre acting as if every card is made equal. In every pack/box/whatever you will get some cards that are duds, that only work for decks youre interested in or ones you just dont thematically like. Are you saying buying that pack was a waste too? If there are some cards in a pack that you want and some you don't you don't start complaining that they should release a "my personal greatest hits" expansion just for you. That's the same with the box, it just hapens to be more expensive. There are cards youll want, cards you wont want, deal with it

@Penfold. This is probably sidetracking a little but I actually think the attatchment control ended up doing the meta some good, I think the only way to do control in a game is to either make everything fragile equally or make everything hard to control equally. Now characters and Events are pretty easy to control, attatchments are (maybe a bit too easy) easy to control too. All we need is some location hate and were at the sweet spot where nothing is safe. This design theory comes with its own problems too but hey, I guess its just turning into that kind of game? That said you're perfectally right, short of the Serious lack of updates sometimes FFG do a much better job at being a game company that 99% of us would

Yes, there are things you can do with extra cards. You can loan them to other players, maybe use them in spare decks, build card houses, frame them on your wall, pick things out of your teeth, etc…

But I think his main point that a card you can put in your deck is worth more than a card which only has "spare" uses due to already having the maximum number of that card is clear enough. You may value extra non-playable cards more than Hellfury does, but it seems a little silly to act as if they don't exist or you don't understand what he means.

Personally, I don't think there will be much market for singles of cards that so many people have extras of. They'll be worth little enough that nobody's going to bother setting up site for trading them - I don't think there is any such thing for the existing LCGs, is there?