Is it just me? Or do the boards seem especially dead? No discussion of the new spoilers. No discussion about the relatively new 40 Summons cards. No ideas about ways to stretch the new cards. No tournament results. Is it a lull? Or is there less interest? Are many bored by the new cards? Does Core show any staying power? At least we still function as a place for new players to ask questions. And Antedeluvian is likely announced in a few days...

It has been released...I hope someone put up a spoiler list soon, so we can discuss it to death and beyond strange aeons.

We are still waiting for our league kit, nevertheless we decided to start playing this friday.

But you are right, the board is very quit, but just take a look at the board of the German distributor, no one writes there anymore besides members of our group.

Well, i'll gladly post spoilers and tournament results, the way i feel about the game and all this king of things, but the game here as kinda been put to an halt by the unability of french distributor to provide us with anything but Core Set (yeah, that means no ligue kit and no assylium pack)
So, TBH, the game isn't appealing too much these days : )

could post about my about 200 games in core set construct format, but that has been done countless of times already

Hopefully this will change anytime soon : )

Theres been nothing lately I've felt anything towards posting. But the forums do seem a little quiet nonetheless.

I've been feeling quite noisy and chatty.

We should all be grateful that I quell those instincts, and do NOT post all the drivel which is backed up behind my fingertips.

Chick

The fact that the League doesn't allow creative deck construction takes away a lot of the discussion. Also, the new cards don't offer anything to talk about and aren't even close to being good enough for mixed-borders deck construction. This leaves basically rules questions as the thing to talk about. Quite lame.

No-one hardly realizes a new AP has been released. New products is what keeps a game alive, and the current APs aren't getting the job done.

What I'm waiting for is to see just what will happen after AP 12. We know the packs before that will be, well, boring, so I'm really hoping for improvement.

Bard said:

I've got to agree. I don't know if it's the Amazon ISBN screw up but I'm having trouble keeping track of the new APs. They aren't numbered on the boxes and the coloring is the same. And as I haven't committed to memory the name of each pack, I have to do some double checks to see if an AP I don't have has been released yet.

On top of that, the core set isn't readily available at many brick and mortar stores where I live. The game shop I am establishing a venue at has one, but it's on hold for me since my Amazon order fell through.

I agree about the similar AP boxes. Maybe in the next series of APs they'll put a number on the box to make it easier to keep track. As a new player though, I enjoy the game. I got 160 or so different cards in the base set and at least 1 of each LCG AP, plus a second copy of a few of them. I'm just looking for an nearby adventure league.

I, for one, am excited about this game in it's new LCG format, and I can't wait to find people to play in Seattle...league or no league.

Honestly, though, the ho-hum attitude of veteran players is kind of annoying.

I mean, I know that the new card designs and the tiny card pool don't compare to the old days...but for those of us who are starting new and don't care about old cards, the negative, bored attitude is really a drain on discussion and enthusiasm here.

I, as a new player, opened my Spawn of the Sleeper pack and was excited by the cards I saw and their possibilities. I will probably feel the same when I open the next A.P. I don't think I'm alone in this as a new player.

I think there's a point where older players really need to let go, and where newer players need to take the reigns to build some enthusiasm here. But that's just me.

jl_zao said:

This reflects my experience as well. A lot of the long-time players on this board are really bitter and seem unwilling to say anything good about the new cards (although I can understand their bad feelings to a certain degree).

Since I only know and consider white-bordered cards, I'm naturally more excited about new cards, while the veterans will say something like 'well, it's a slightly worse variant of card X from set Y'.

Finally, because of the game's CCG background it has attracted a certain kind of extremely competitive players in the past which in my experience make for awkward conversationalists. Imho, if you're just playing to win it kinda sucks every fun out of a game.

The more casual LCG format hopefully attracts a different kind of players. But I don't think we'll see much of a transition before AP12 is out. Then we may start to see the first hints if the game has a future or not...

Unfortunately, the difficulties with the ISBN numbers didn't exactly help. I'm also wondering about the League - it sort of hangs in the air at the moment. I was expecting to see something about it in the news this month.

Ok, Ok, .... I'll ramble a bit about our Adventure League in Bethlehem, PA.

We did get our adventure kit for this week's game. We played our 2nd Adventure League game and things are starting to get interesting. For my last game I used the 3 coin Cthulhu ability of drawing 10 cards instead of 8 on the initial draw. Very cool, but then you have the problem of which cards to resource. In the end I won that game .... barely.

I'm not sure how the 2 coin Cthulhu ability works: "Deep One Raid: After you play a Deep One character from your hand, choose and destroy a Support card with a printed cost lower than the printed cost of the Deep One just played." Ok ... is it mandatory? I sure don't want to destroy any of my Called by Azathoth curses!

Anyways .... I'm playing Cthulhu/Agency (Cthulhu as primary faction) and using Core, Spawn, Ancient Horrors and, since it was our 2nd week, added Mountains of Madness.

Oh yeah and also traded for two additional Called by Azathoth, but I gave up a Men without Faces and a Shocking Transformation. So by trading we are starting to build some interesting decks.

The other primary factions are Shub and Yog. The Shub player has added Misc as an ally and the Yog player has added Hastur. And it looks like we will be joined by another player.

For this weeks trade .... I have to decide if I want to trade my Blackmore Estate. And if so, what for? Shotgun Blast, Paul Lemond, short fuse, Deep One Assault (which will be more useful in week 4 and on). Ah ... I got till Monday to decide.

Oops ... Also forgot to mention that we are players from when the game first started and have tons of the older cards, going back to the Arkham Edition.

We are enjoying the Adventure League format and are looking forward to seeing what else FFG has in mind for the game.

As a long time player who started this thread, to be clear, I'm not dissing on the new cards. I love them. I love that there are new cards. I think many are very playable. I think the art remains great. So, critique aside, I'm glad jl_zao mentions that new players need to take the reigns here. Some certainly are. I just wish more would, and that I'd see more of old pals on the boards too. It's that it is quiet that bugs me. But this thread is nice. Jhaelen nicely stated that only some of the old timers are ho humming it. And to those old players, I see, keep it up. You guys are brilliant historians and I want to hear your opinions in this new LCG world. And to chick, help, my fingers won't stop and I've already said what there is to say.

Oh, and I'm finally willing to share my overstock story. I argued long and hard with them about their bait and switch method, error though it was. I didn't get a promise of cores at $10. But I got my spawns shipped to me free of charge, with the amount paid credited toward future purchase. Not cash back or cheap cores, but a satisfactory solution. But boy did I have to make a (courteous professional) stink.

And Blackmore Estate is an important card. I'd not let it go.

well im one of the semi-old schoolers, but i really like this new format. i look forward to a new tourney system. and league is fun, its a good way to try out new cards, whether the intention is there or not. since youre almost forced to use every card of the primary faction with the small card pool, you get to see the card in action. its easy to look at a card and go meh, or crap, or OMG!!!!!!! but new players might not be as easily able to see this, so now they get to see alot of cards in short work, granted combos and synergy is hardly to be found, but the league is a good way to get the ball rolling. i do want a mix format tourney to be around, but im really looking foward to just a lcg format. its time to move on.

every ccg rotates cards out which changes things. i dont see why some coc fans are so upset. some of these cards will be very powerful in the new format, since the whole power shift is happening everywhere. magic no longer has black lotus or chaos orb or any of the mox cards. so dont compare todays cards to yesterdays classics. how much more powerful could the cards get? this rotation of sorts was needed. what next a yig that tackles AO? ithaqua that also grabs characters that are still in play? after the terrible power creep with EE and FC and the first asylum pack, this game needed this.

and i agree some of the negative stuff is getting old. sure not all 20 cards in a pack are going to be good, some might just be plain bad. but there is some fun stuff creeping back in with these new cards.

Tazbro, what card exacly are you trying to figure out. Looked like Arise Children of St. Erasmus.

jl_zao said:

I, as a new player, opened my Spawn of the Sleeper pack and was excited by the cards I saw and their possibilities. I will probably feel the same when I open the next A.P. I don't think I'm alone in this as a new player.

I think there's a point where older players really need to let go, and where newer players need to take the reigns to build some enthusiasm here. But that's just me.

Oh, believe me: many of the old timers did already let go. Also I am quite baffled how new players cannot come up with an interesting interaction, given their proclaimed abundance in the new APs.

jhaelen said:

Imho, if you're just playing to win it kinda sucks every fun out of a game.

Nice strawman there. Taking the reasoning to the extreme, a game with no victory condition is teh funnay! because none can ever play to win.
But I agree to an extent: new Cthulhu is just flipping (poor and badly edited) cards randomly, so it is the kind of environment you might like.

Carioz said:

Since last autumn I discovered Arkham Horror, a cooperative board game and so far everyone I invited for a game has been really enthusiastic about it. I think it's almost self-evident that a cooperative game is more fun than a competitive one. In a cooperative game everyone wins (or loses)!

It's what got me started playing CoC, since I like it thematically, but imho it cannot even hope to compete with cooperative games. On the plus side, CoC games are (normally) relatively short and only require two players. CoC is both a strategical and highly tactical game which I enjoy in a more abstract way, like I enjoy mathematical puzzles. But if I was losing all the time, the game would probably stop being fun for me and I'd look for something else. Fortunately, compared to e.g. chess it also has a random component that can allow a new and/or weaker player to win occasionally against a superior player. But all in all a cooperative variant of CoC would be better in terms of long-term fun.

To all the new players I wish only the best and hope you have fun with the game. The mechanics are very good and the flavor is terrific. Please play the game and enjoy it.

The thing that annoys me, is the the fact that deckbuilding isn't what it used to be. The current situation isn't the same as a rotation in, say, MtG. There you still have a lot of choices to do when building a deck. In CoCLCG, this is not the case. Let's look at the numbers for a bit:

Limits: 2 factions + neutrals from no more than 1 copy of 2 APs and 1 Core Set.

# cards to choose from: 165 from CS, 40 from the APs. It's 55 cards from CS for 2 factions and about 15-40 cards from the APs.

Best case scenario with this approximated number of cards is that you have a card pool of almost 100 cards. 100 single, different pieces of card board that is. That leaves you with very few choices to make when building a deck, since you have to take almost all the cards you have in your pool to your deck. To me, that doesn't allow creative deck construction. It's also the reason I have basically quit playing the game.

(Excuse me with the #s, they aren't accurate. Actually I think you don't have that big of a card pool but instead something like a 70-80 cards.)

However, if one is more of a board game player than a CCG player, this isn't an issue. To all of you, I'm sure you'll love CoCLCG. And I do hope the game will be succesful, because, who knows what might happen in the future.

Jhaelen said:

This is not a strawman. Players who threw a tantrum every time they lost at a game and couldn't stop gloating every time they won was what originally turned me away from board games (and card games) for over a decade. Instead I started playing roleplaying games. RPGs don't have victory conditions, and yes, they're a ton more fun than (most) board games (or card games) could ever hope to be.

Yes, it is. You are equating competitive players with jerks who don't know how to win or lose. Sadly these two descriptors are orthogonal. I played with Bard, which is a competitive player: he does not fit your description at all. I played The Rip-Off. He is as competitive as it gets. And he is a very nice guy.
So you met competitive jerks and you went "All competitive players are jerks". I do not remember what is the name of this fallacy, but it is one.

As for RPGs: most RPGs do not have victory conditions, some have (Agon is one, for example), some are fun, some are utter crap. What limits the "jerk factor" is you have seldom the chance / trouble of playing random people and meeting jerks.

Jhaelen said

it's almost self-evident that a cooperative game is more fun than a competitive one. In a cooperative game everyone wins (or loses)!

By saying winning is funnier than losing you are self describing your-self as a competitive gamer

@Bard: drop me a line over Skype when you have a minute, I might have some nice news.

Well as an ancient-new player i kinda agree with most of you ...

Jhaelen said :
This is not a strawman. Players who threw a tantrum every time they lost at a game and couldn't stop gloating every time they won was what originally turned me away from board games (and card games) for over a decade. Instead I started playing roleplaying games. RPGs don't have victory conditions, and yes, they're a ton more fun than (most) board games (or card games) could ever hope to be.

Amen to that ... i have absolutly no competitive mind, every game i play is for fun and i don't care about winning at all, i do care, however, about having fun, and getting owned without being able to do anything at every game isn't fun at all ... So far it haven't happened with Cthulhu, i win more than i lose, true, but for the few decks i keep losing to, it's pretty tight game, so it's still fun ... I hope it'll stay that way

And true too, i'd love to see a cooperative "battle the ancient one" (or something) AP released every 6 month or so

Bard said :
The thing that annoys me, is the the fact that deckbuilding isn't what it used to be. The current situation isn't the same as a rotation in, say, MtG. There you still have a lot of choices to do when building a deck. In CoCLCG, this is not the case. Let's look at the numbers for a bit:

As a huge fan of deck building, i can only agree to that too ... LCG release about 100 new card each year, CCG 450 ... deck building is bound to be far less consequent.
League play isn't made for deck building, it's for new-commers and testing out the APs, imho.
Nothing stops you from making construct tournament or construct "league" on your own tho, and even with only the core set, you can build a vast variety of decks, not all of them T1 decks, but i've so far managed to build 6 different (with a different combination of faction) and, except for the Agency/Myscatonic investigation rush deck, they pretty much stay together in terms of win and lose.
So maybe you should try it out if you havent : )

Carioz said :
Oh, believe me: many of the old timers did already let go. Also I am quite baffled how new players cannot come up with an interesting interaction, given their proclaimed abundance in the new APs.

This time, i kinda disagree ... New player will need some time to find how cards interacts, first cause they are new to the game and its mecanics, second cause even when you're fluent with a game combo style, you need time to consider each cards or even only the cards that appeals you in an other way than the obvious one.
I played the game for 2 years at first release, came back to it with the core set, never ever stopped playing at least 1 CCG for the past 11 years and well, i'm still not 100% good with all the rules ...
But be sure that, once i'll have my APs, i'll try and find cool way to use the cards and post constructed deck lists : )

sensei yaourt said:

As a matter of fact, I do build decks that are unofficial (mixed-borderes (okay pretty much only black-borders)) and we have tournaments every two weeks. The problem for me, and competitive-minded players in general, is that FFG doesn't support us in any way. It isn't official, so there's just something missing.

The League is the only official format at the moment, and that's why I said there's no room for deckbuilding in CoCLCG right now.

If I could (I really wish I could) decide, things would look like this:

-3 formats:

*Mixed-borders (vintage): All cards except for the Rip-Off and cost reducing rituals legal, 3x limit.

*White-borders-only (standard): Only white-bordered cards allowed, 3x limit of every card.

*The League: As it is, except that the bonuses would be trumped. They are a bad idea. But the League itself is a good starting point for new players, offering a friendly environment.

-Equal support for all formats: this is very important.

-Different card design: more universal cards instead of situational cards.

Got a little sidetracked, but the idea was that for me, the game has to be official to be truly fun. Before people react to that, I'd like to say that I play a lot of games just for fun, play different formats (Drafts, Generated draft, Sealed, Kitchen-Table games with constructed decks etc) and I like it. I just like official playing even more. The European Champs at Castle Stahleck and Finnish Champs were events that I truly enjoyed.

@Carioz: Sorry, I haven't been online in Skype for aeons, I'll try to get there soon (today, tomorrow, something like that).

Bard said:

Bard said:

but youre kinda missing the point that the league is just a starting point. are you a servitor? if you log in and try to set up an event you get a choice between league night and a lcg tourney. so the format is coming which will use deck building of 3x cards and probably all the white border lcg. and then we will have that rotation. my guess is this will happen after the first league and/or the julia packs are all out. which will bring the card pool (300), roughly the size of when arkham first came out. and as we were told lcg is a relauch. its not a continuing from the old.

i think the argument that competitive players are more likely to be jerks is pretty vaild. thats not a blanket statement. its just the way things are. as we already saw it also enables cheaters. if there is nothing special to play for, other than just for the sake of the game things are calmer. if ffg had like a huge cash reward for winning worlds instead of a custom card being made, we'd see more cheating(or attempts) and more jerks that start swearing and yelling about how thats not in the rules, rather than calmly mentioning a mistake.

when i was at regionals the other year i can honestly say everyone there was really really cool. so not all competitive players are jerks. i actually wasnt gonna go because im pretty causual, but i want to just play some games. and check out the event. i was reassured by some of the locals that i didnt have to worry about jerks. i had a great time. and it was because of the other players, cause i didnt win a game haha. they were a nice group. thats why the whole cheating thing sucked and all the negative attitudes towards the new, cause i know that most of the coc competitive group is really cool. its just shocking i guess, first the cheating, which kinda surprised everyone, and now we have all this near hate for the game. just not what id expect after meeting some of the die-hards.

maybe when the new tourney comes around we will get more postitve responses and such. they will be more willing to let the past go and look for cool synergy in the new cards. i think combos are gonna be rare after they way the ccg game kinda bubbled, so i think its card synergy for the most part from here on out. and about new players talking about cards....its kinda pointless cause it seems if you say anything nice about a new card one of the old players will jump on it and say how sucky it is and everything. starting a thread about new good cards is almost like a troll thread on these boards right now.

Carioz said:

And you are, of course, wrong.

So, what did I say? I mentioned in my first post that 'Playing to win' sucks the fun out of a game. Maybe I should have mentioned that not even all competitive players are really following the pure philosophy of 'Playing to win'. What I was referring to is best explained by reading the series of articles of the same name from sirlin. If haven't read them I definitely recommend you do so. Here's the link: Playing to win

Imho, the holy grail of someone playing to win CoC would be to create a (completely legal) deck that will guarantee a victory, regardless of what the opponent is doing. Can you see how that might suck the fun out of the game? Actually, it would kill the game which is why you'll sometimes see cards being banned or cycled out of the game (even if they don't _always_ guarantee a victory).

Then you tried to ridicule the concept of games without victory conditions, so I provided an example to refute your point. I used anecdotal evidence to explain where I'm coming from and how I started to enjoy games where everyone wins. It was never my intention to suggest all competitve players were 'jerks'. (It's by the way worth noting that I was having fun playing rpgs with the same 'jerks' for years! Interestingly, they only behaved like 'jerks' when playing competitive games. Maybe that's something you'd like to ponder.)

It's also interesting btw. that you tried to refute the point you imagined I had made by providing anecdotal evidence in the form of a single competitive player you met who happens to be a nice guy. This is kind of telling...

If enjoying winning more than losing made me a competitive gamer, then everyone would be a competitive gamer. I don't know anyone who doesn't enjoy winning more than losing. I do know gamers who don't mind losing. That's an important difference (and actually key to become a better gamer and thus important for competitive gamers).

I would describe myself as a cooperative gamer because, I enjoy a game where everyone wins (and consequently noone has to lose) more than a game where I win because I defeated everyone else. And if you believe that cooperative gamers are doddering fools who cannot appreciate or are incapable of strategy and tactics, you are dead wrong (I'm referring to your answer to my first post - the part with the 'random card-flipping'. Although, I suspect you didn't actually try to say anything with that comment; it looks suspiciously like a badly-veiled attempt to insult everyone still enjoying the game).

Cooperative games, like Arkham Horrow kinda work that way. Also, there are enough players of games that are completely satisfied to win one out of ten games, but do it in a completely stylish/weird fashion if they do.