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Geisladisk
Sep 15, 2007

Dismissing price concerns by pointing out that Magic is about on par with a cocaine habit in terms of expense is pretty dumb. The appeal of a LCG is supposed to be that it offers the experience of a traditional CCG at a lower price point by doing away with the gambling of boosters.

The price point right now is such that current CCG won't be dissuaded, but it is also so expensive it dissuades a lot of people outside CCGs from getting involved - Which seems to me to be the main demographic targeted by LCGs.

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HidaO-Win
Jun 5, 2013

"And I did it, because I was a man who had exhausted reason and thus turned to magicks"
It's the same price point as previous though, just compressed a bit. The advantage is deck construction options for the Dynasty side now actually exist and the constructed format will have a lot more actual choice.

The drip feed dynasty packs are a good model for tricking people into spending a small amount of money, but it's actually bad for the metagame as a whole.

Additionally apparently 70% of LCG players never buy the dynasty packs, just the core set and the deluxes, which probably means the model is due for revision.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




HidaO-Win posted:

It's the same price point as previous though, just compressed a bit. The advantage is deck construction options for the Dynasty side now actually exist and the constructed format will have a lot more actual choice.

The drip feed dynasty packs are a good model for tricking people into spending a small amount of money, but it's actually bad for the metagame as a whole.

Additionally apparently 70% of LCG players never buy the dynasty packs, just the core set and the deluxes, which probably means the model is due for revision.

To say it's the same price point is totally disingenuous, a pack a week for 6 weeks is in no way the same at a pack a month for 6 months. There's basically no reason to split them over the 6 weeks really, just dump them all out in week 1 and be done with it.

I really think this could be very damaging to the uptake of the game amongst some people. Either people thinking about starting or people who just have starters to say then in 2 month you're going to want to buy another £90 worth of cards on top of the £105 they spent on starters is risky. Yeah you might be able to pick up some in a sale on black friday but that's hardly the point. Making it so soon after the core release just makes the core release seem even more incomplete.

alg
Mar 14, 2007

A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.

If you've played their other LCGs you will understand their decision. The games die between slow releases because deck building gets extremely stagnant. This game, with 3 cores, is very limited in terms of customizability. It needs an injection of cards quickly to keep the hype going. $90 is one dinner and beers for two. Or one small model in 40K. Or one box of one expansion in Magic.

This will be great for the long term health of the game.

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



ProfessorCirno posted:

Hey for what it's worth I read all this and like it, as I've also always had issues with Actual Satan being at the gates for literal centuries while everyone else somehow just doesn't ever worry about this. It also adds rather interesting conflict to the Yasuki, who are very much not supposed to be dealing with the gaijin who they are charged with literally keeping out, but gosh that would be worth a lot of money, wouldn't it? And then the Tortoise step in. In fact, maybe that's how it plays out - the Yasuki are of course openly mercantile, and probably use this to try and eliminate any kind of public gaijin goods market, and go back and forth between waging bizarre economic shadow wars with the Tortoise (who's main thing is trading with gaijin), and allying with the Tortoise when those foreigners start to get unfriendly and now it's go time.

Tortoise Clan rules.

LaSquida
Nov 1, 2012

Just keep on walkin'.
So, what's their deal? Unfamiliar with them frim my brief time with L5R.

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



Their deal was basically they were barely above peasants so everyone pretty much disliked them and ignored them, but secretly they did the dirty work for the Emperor that he couldn't be seen being involved with. And I guess that they couldn't trust the Scorpion with. Mainly they traded illegally overseas with Gaijin, but were also spying on them and spreading disinformation about Rokugan.

Macdeo Lurjtux
Jul 5, 2011

BRRREADSTOOORRM!

Lord_Hambrose posted:

Their deal was basically they were barely above peasants so everyone pretty much disliked them and ignored them, but secretly they did the dirty work for the Emperor that he couldn't be seen being involved with. And I guess that they couldn't trust the Scorpion with. Mainly they traded illegally overseas with Gaijin, but were also spying on them and spreading disinformation about Rokugan.

And through the early editions they were trusted with this because they were the descendants of the gaijin captain from the Battle of White Stag and the Empress that fled with him. Then AEG changed that when they wanted ghost pirates in their samurai game.

vandalism
Aug 4, 2003
They would have done battle packs that have 3 of each card for 2 armies or something like that and then a pack of neutral stuff with a generic neutral holding and neutral dynasty/conflict deck that would have been cool.

I don't know that there's a good way to do a core set that's inclusive for 7 factions and neutrals.

I AM CARVALLO
Apr 19, 2007

Head Kicker GOTY
Include more cards in the core set, increase price, and then still have people complain that the game is too expensive.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot
It sure seems like a pickle. The poor game company has to choose between releasing a huge core set, or 6 expansions in the course of six weeks, there are literally no other options available to satisfy those spoiled consumers.

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



I wish it was a little slower. One every two weeks would have been perfectly fine. (and way less intimidating to non CCG players)

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot
Man, if only cards weren't perishable and they could release the sets a little further apart. Maybe someday, science will solve this problem.

Lord_Hambrose posted:

I wish it was a little slower. One every two weeks would have been perfectly fine. (and way less intimidating to non CCG players)

This is crazy talk, where would they even store all those cards? They'd have cards up to their eyeballs!

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Aramoro posted:

To say it's the same price point is totally disingenuous, a pack a week for 6 weeks is in no way the same at a pack a month for 6 months. There's basically no reason to split them over the 6 weeks really, just dump them all out in week 1 and be done with it.

I really think this could be very damaging to the uptake of the game amongst some people. Either people thinking about starting or people who just have starters to say then in 2 month you're going to want to buy another £90 worth of cards on top of the £105 they spent on starters is risky. Yeah you might be able to pick up some in a sale on black friday but that's hardly the point. Making it so soon after the core release just makes the core release seem even more incomplete.

You know, you don't have to immediately buy 3 starters. Or all 6 chapter packs. Like, it's totally an option.

And honestly, $15 a week isn't much at all. If you're a dude who already managed to get 3 cores, you can swing spending $90 over 6 weeks as opposed to 24. And if you can't, you probably didn't have any business buying 3 cores to start with.

Honestly, I wish (like someone mentioned earlier) they would've rather done a quick deluxe expansion or two than the chapter packs (as that would've been easier for stores to carry vs. messing around with 6 different products each a week apart) but getting new cards into the game quickly can only help things. Pretty much all of their LCGs since Netrunner have had the same pattern of a huge initial demand, followed by a wane in interest as deckbuilding stagnates over the next 3-6 months while they get enough cards in the game system to actually support all the factions. I can understand why from a balance point they have started walling off too much faction bleed in their games, but it does really choke the cardpool, especially early in a game's life. The fact that they're actually recognizing this gives me hope for a lot of their LCGs honestly-even if it's slowly it shows they're starting to learn.

(Feel free to mockingly quote that back at me in 6 months/ 1 year when the next NEW THING is out and AGoT is on the chopping block, L5R has stagnated, and they've discontinued Netrunner and SW LCG)

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Also I've always thought that LCGs shouldn't focus so much on price as a selling point. The advantages are a) the games are actually typically well-designed and b) you don't have to chase cards-you can easily get full sets of everything you need. It just so happens that you can do those things at a vastly cheaper price than CCGs.

SuperKlaus
Oct 20, 2005


Fun Shoe

HidaO-Win posted:

Additionally apparently 70% of LCG players never buy the dynasty packs, just the core set and the deluxes, which probably means the model is due for revision.

Wow, seriously? What drives this? An overpowering desire to avoid cards that ever rotate?

ProfessorCirno posted:

Hey for what it's worth I read all this and like it, as I've also always had issues with Actual Satan being at the gates for literal centuries while everyone else somehow just doesn't ever worry about this. It also adds rather interesting conflict to the Yasuki, who are very much not supposed to be dealing with the gaijin who they are charged with literally keeping out, but gosh that would be worth a lot of money, wouldn't it? And then the Tortoise step in. In fact, maybe that's how it plays out - the Yasuki are of course openly mercantile, and probably use this to try and eliminate any kind of public gaijin goods market, and go back and forth between waging bizarre economic shadow wars with the Tortoise (who's main thing is trading with gaijin), and allying with the Tortoise when those foreigners start to get unfriendly and now it's go time.

Haha thank you. :hfive: We all like knowing our nonsense is noticed. I had actually forgotten about the Yasuki for a moment there but you're absolutely right. Reconfiguring the Wall to be about gaijin more than or at least as well as Fu Leng opens up some really great stories with the Yasuki. Great point.

Of course, that will only ever be ~*my canon*~ for my table, because forever war with Hell is already cemented in the new game lines. That won't change officially, but there's something else that can.

Fellow RPG players, I ask you to please bring the power imbalance between kata and kiho/invocations to the developers' attention. I assume anyone posting on this forum is a veteran of the Long Grog Wars over fighters and wizards and is already very well versed in the topic. I also assume you're with me in preferring balance between character types like was found in DnD 4e. Well, L5R 5e is shaping up to have a "BMX Bandit / Angel Summoner" issue in a very serious way. Study the kata and kiho and invocation rules and if you disagree with me please let me know how and why. As I see it, Rank 1 kata are, at their flashiest, throwing a sword (now you don't have a sword). Rank 1 kiho are punching people through wormholes in the earth and Rank 1 invocations are shooting fire bolts. And then kiho and invocations are of course also sensing the invisible, making things invisible, curing poison, and so forth, while kata only ever hit man with sword. The problem grows with Ranks - at Rank 3, for example, kata are knocking weapons from hands (saving throw allowed) while kiho are immunizing you to exploding kegs of gaijin pepper (Grasp the Earth Dragon) and invocations are granting telepathy (Know the Mind).

I feel the restrictions on invocations are completely toothless (in fact, they just get extra power options from Channeling, Preparation, and Offerings) and kiho have no restrictions. I've written a polite but firm email to the dev team already. I am losing faith that they read or pay attention to emails. Still, anyone else concerned with keeping a promising game from falling into an ancient RPG design trap, please write your own polite and constructive forum posts or emails to the devs. There is still time to avoid grognardy in L5R design.

SuperKlaus fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Oct 12, 2017

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




alansmithee posted:

You know, you don't have to immediately buy 3 starters. Or all 6 chapter packs. Like, it's totally an option.

And honestly, $15 a week isn't much at all. If you're a dude who already managed to get 3 cores, you can swing spending $90 over 6 weeks as opposed to 24. And if you can't, you probably didn't have any business buying 3 cores to start with.

I mean yeah if 'poors get out' is what you want in your game then it's fine. Right now you simply cannot build a fun deck from a single core, just impossible. So that's off putting for people not already invested in the game. Try to think about someone swithering over if they should get into the game or not, 3 cores is pretty much non negotiable to build a fun deck maybe 2 if you're prepared to compromise. So now it looks like it's a $200 buy in to start playing the game properly. Now that's nothing to a CCG nerd but if there were enough CCG nerds playing L5R already then it wouldn't have died in the first place.

All it does is give a greater impression that the cores are incomplete. It's not really 6 extra packs, it's a 360 card second part of the base set. Usually places run tourney once a month or something so it's not as if there will be an evolving meta with the packs, splitting them out is just weird.

Like I say maybe it's fine, but I thin it's a risk that they'll put people off. Doesn't make much difference to me as I'll buy it anyway, I just hope they don't kill it before it really starts to get going.

OB_Juan
Nov 24, 2004

Not every day is a good day.


Dinosaur Gum

SuperKlaus posted:

There is still time to avoid grognardy in L5R design.

I'd only started looking over the rules, but I'll take an extra look at this. Is there a thread about it on the ffg forums yet?

SpaceViking
Sep 2, 2011

Who put the stars in the sky? Coyote will say he did it himself, and it is not a lie.

SuperKlaus posted:


Haha thank you. :hfive: We all like knowing our nonsense is noticed. I had actually forgotten about the Yasuki for a moment there but you're absolutely right. Reconfiguring the Wall to be about gaijin more than or at least as well as Fu Leng opens up some really great stories with the Yasuki. Great point.

Of course, that will only ever be ~*my canon*~ for my table, because forever war with Hell is already cemented in the new game lines. That won't change officially, but there's something else that can.



I liked it a lot too. I had been trying to come up with a way to have supernatural stuff be a more common occurrence when I run the RPG, but was kind of just leaning towards the Wall having a slow leak. I think instead I'll borrow some of your stuff. I like the Crab being able to actually have wars with people too, clans actually fighting each other is an important part of involvement in the setting, and the Crab missing out on that is a shame.

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*




While you are definitely correct, what campaign of L5R are you playing where anyone is a shugenja and not a bunch of cool bushi? I feel like you really need to play up social stuff to make L5R work, as opposed to running it as D&D with curvy longswords. Murder hobos without a lord to serve are just honorless dogs.

FFG is notorious for ignoring open playtesting,which is disappointing.

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

SuperKlaus posted:

Wow, seriously? What drives this? An overpowering desire to avoid cards that ever rotate?

LCGs occupy this niche between card games like Magic which boast a player base that's extremely competitive and board games which are by and large made up of a much more casual audience.

This is the whole reason that we have the core set pricing and buyin scheme because the sub $40 price tag is exactly targeted at the board game crowd that will buy into the hype and not have to sacrifice purchasing many other products to give it a go. If for example the price tag was $100USD then board gamers would be put off because they could buy 2-3 games for the price of that one.

To further this, largely thanks to Kickstarter, but also due to things like the Dice Tower/Sit Down Shut Up/etc. The hype train on these games goes out of control and players that don't even particularly like what they're buying are doing so in order to keep up with the Joneses. Thus FFG, and L5R, can profit from that as well. For reference you can also look at how many people buy product at Gencon that they have no idea what it's about, and in this instance how many core sets of L5R were bought by people who could have cared less about the tournament. I'd guess less than 20% of people that bought L5R at Gencon were competitive players, while many more just heard about it via word of mouth and wanted in.

The fact that the cards are fixed means that there's no randomization or rarity that players need to worry about, so if you buy a copy and I buy a copy: I don't need to learn new cards if I go to your house and you want to play. The fact that these games are built around being able to customize and choose the cards that go into your deck doesn't matter to a lot of people as they walk in expecting to just be able to run the Core decks against one another forever in a balanced environment.

PaybackJack fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Oct 12, 2017

Chill la Chill
Jul 2, 2007

Don't lose your gay


You can definitely buy into LCGs with the assumption that they are "complete" games with optional expansions much like you do with any other board game that involves cards like Dominion. My LGS will have a competitive scene because the people who frequent it were hardcore L5R fans back in the day. But, there's plenty of people who came into the release event who are going to treat it like star wars: empire vs. rebellion or any other 2P card game. Personally, I'll just play with the cards my hardcore friends bought and if i like the design of it as it continues, I'll buy in.

quote:

To further this, largely thanks to Kickstarter, but also due to things like the Dice Tower/Sit Down Shut Up/etc. The hype train on these games goes out of control and players that don't even particularly like what they're buying are doing so in order to keep up with the Joneses. Thus FFG, and L5R, can profit from that as well.

It's still funny to me that the hype train for destiny was less than a year ago and now there's L5R to replace it.

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

Aramoro posted:

I mean yeah if 'poors get out' is what you want in your game then it's fine. Right now you simply cannot build a fun deck from a single core, just impossible. So that's off putting for people not already invested in the game. Try to think about someone swithering over if they should get into the game or not, 3 cores is pretty much non negotiable to build a fun deck maybe 2 if you're prepared to compromise. So now it looks like it's a $200 buy in to start playing the game properly. Now that's nothing to a CCG nerd but if there were enough CCG nerds playing L5R already then it wouldn't have died in the first place.

All it does is give a greater impression that the cores are incomplete. It's not really 6 extra packs, it's a 360 card second part of the base set. Usually places run tourney once a month or something so it's not as if there will be an evolving meta with the packs, splitting them out is just weird.

Like I say maybe it's fine, but I thin it's a risk that they'll put people off. Doesn't make much difference to me as I'll buy it anyway, I just hope they don't kill it before it really starts to get going.

Anyone who's played with the Cores can see it's a very shallow experience if you just play 1 clan.

Also if you go to game night and play competitive, unless you have some real assholes in your group, there's no reason why you couldn't expect them to let you borrow the cards you needed to play in a tournament. poo poo, the first L5R tournament I ever went to I had over $100 of rares from other people in my deck that I had been lent by people who barely knew me for a month.

And if you don't play competitively then who cares when you purchase the other packs. If you still want to just roll down to a store, print proxies of whatever you're running in your deck. If people poor shame you because you can't afford the cards then gently caress them. Most competitive players I know have dozens of cards proxied across their decks anyway.

Chill la Chill posted:

It's still funny to me that the hype train for destiny was less than a year ago and now there's L5R to replace it.

I occasionally watch Team Covenant vlogs and there was one where they have a viewer question: "Is Destiny dead?" and the host gave this ponderous sigh and thought for a moment before answering "...no..."

Once that hype train slows down, people act like the game is dead. Same thing happened with Star Wars LCG; as far as a lot of players are concerned that game is dead because nobody they know plays it.

PaybackJack fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Oct 12, 2017

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Aramoro posted:

I mean yeah if 'poors get out' is what you want in your game then it's fine. Right now you simply cannot build a fun deck from a single core, just impossible. So that's off putting for people not already invested in the game. Try to think about someone swithering over if they should get into the game or not, 3 cores is pretty much non negotiable to build a fun deck maybe 2 if you're prepared to compromise. So now it looks like it's a $200 buy in to start playing the game properly. Now that's nothing to a CCG nerd but if there were enough CCG nerds playing L5R already then it wouldn't have died in the first place.

All it does is give a greater impression that the cores are incomplete. It's not really 6 extra packs, it's a 360 card second part of the base set. Usually places run tourney once a month or something so it's not as if there will be an evolving meta with the packs, splitting them out is just weird.

Like I say maybe it's fine, but I thin it's a risk that they'll put people off. Doesn't make much difference to me as I'll buy it anyway, I just hope they don't kill it before it really starts to get going.

As I said, if you're able to afford dropping the 100 bucks or so on three cores right out the gate, you're nowhere near poor. And while I'll easily admit a single core isn't a great experience, two makes it much better. And as for the packs, nothing forces you to buy them immediately. You can buy just the ones you want cards from, or none, or wait. If you're not playing in a competitive area it doesn't really matter (if you really want, use proxies until you get what you need-people do this constantly in MtG). And if you do have a competitive scene, there's a large chance you can borrow what you need.

I just don't see how it's not a good thing. If you don't want/can't afford them right when they come out-just don't buy them! Nothing forces you to buy everything, immediately, all at once. When I started into AGoT 1.0, I got 2 cores and deluxe expansion of the faction I wanted to play (this was when they had about 5-6 cycles out, as well as all the deluxe expansions). I'd then pick and choose which packs to get based on the cards I wanted for whatever deck I was thinking about building. I didn't just immediately buy everything.

Chill la Chill
Jul 2, 2007

Don't lose your gay


PaybackJack posted:

I occasionally watch Team Covenant vlogs and there was one where they have a viewer question: "Is Destiny dead?" and the host gave this ponderous sigh and thought for a moment before answering "...no..."

Once that hype train slows down, people act like the game is dead. Same thing happened with Star Wars LCG; as far as a lot of players are concerned that game is dead because nobody they know plays it.
My community has been on a destiny downswing because of design choices made in the second set, but it's gotten some favorable upticks with the recent one. The bolded part is the downside for the hyped marketing surrounding board games nowadays. Or it's like what you said and people really didn't want to play it competitively. The release events for Destiny are still large and packed here, but you wouldn't guess it when there's maybe 1-2 stores who hold weekly events with maybe 6 people in each one.

It's probably easier to keep up the hype for L5R because of the storyline events. FFG does have their quarterly kits, but the lead time on those seems to be long so I wonder if they can really integrate that well enough with the large Kotei events for anyone but the hypercompetitive to really give a poo poo about them.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot
Maybe i have a weird local gaming scene, but when people here see too many releases too quickly, they bail. Yeah, technically you could just skip some, or wait, but so many cards in such a short time looks like dumping trash.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




alansmithee posted:

As I said, if you're able to afford dropping the 100 bucks or so on three cores right out the gate, you're nowhere near poor. And while I'll easily admit a single core isn't a great experience, two makes it much better. And as for the packs, nothing forces you to buy them immediately. You can buy just the ones you want cards from, or none, or wait. If you're not playing in a competitive area it doesn't really matter (if you really want, use proxies until you get what you need-people do this constantly in MtG). And if you do have a competitive scene, there's a large chance you can borrow what you need.

I just don't see how it's not a good thing. If you don't want/can't afford them right when they come out-just don't buy them! Nothing forces you to buy everything, immediately, all at once. When I started into AGoT 1.0, I got 2 cores and deluxe expansion of the faction I wanted to play (this was when they had about 5-6 cycles out, as well as all the deluxe expansions). I'd then pick and choose which packs to get based on the cards I wanted for whatever deck I was thinking about building. I didn't just immediately buy everything.

Again I'm not talking about the players who can or already have dropped 100 for thier cores. Im talking about the people wondering if its the game for them. L5R does not have enough players to sustain itself so it must attract new ones im not sure this strategy does that.

You say you can simply not buy the sets but the LCG format is explicitly to stop Mr. Suitcase from stomping people. The fun comes from the fact its a level playing field. Do you honestly think that there won't be some chase cards for each faction in each pack? I mean yeah you're free not to buy them but the guy who bought 3 core all the packs has an advantage over the guy who spent less and thats not fun right at the start of your game.

Issaries
Sep 15, 2008

"Negotiations were going well. They were very impressed by my hat." -Issaries the Concilliator"

Aramoro posted:

Again I'm not talking about the players who can or already have dropped 100 for thier cores. Im talking about the people wondering if its the game for them. L5R does not have enough players to sustain itself so it must attract new ones im not sure this strategy does that.

Yeah. This is me currently. I played lot of other ccg:s in the 90:s and early 00's. L5R sounds intriguing, but these little things make it harder to sell to myself and my friends. I'm not interested in a new card hobby. I'm more interested about it as a new boardgame to be played occasionally with a common pool of ready decks.

1. 1 starter isn't enough to play real game
Too many factions make it so that there isn't enough cards for 2 legal decks to try out. Why not start with 4 factions and replace other 3 with more neutral cards?
You could introduce other factions in later midsized expansions.
Or if you really have to have 7 factions in starter, why not make less faction specific cards and more neutrals.

2. I can afford 2 starters to test/demo it to my friends. If I was still student, I wouldn't spend 80 to 'test' anything. Even with real income, I'm not sure is it worth it.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

adhuin posted:

Why not start with 4 factions and replace other 3 with more neutral cards?
Because that's half the fan base that would be instantly and irrevocably pissed off at you for not including them in the initial release. If you buy up an IP, you never want to say "this half of the existing fan base matters more than this other half" which is exactly what only including half the clan in an initial release would be saying. Plus, it would look like a very lovely attempt at a cash grab from all the people who want to play [core] clan with [xpac] clan splash, or vice versa.

Issaries
Sep 15, 2008

"Negotiations were going well. They were very impressed by my hat." -Issaries the Concilliator"
Doomtown Reloaded did exactly this:

Original Doomtown had 10 factions.

For Reloaded they cut it down to 4 factions.
1. Law Dogs: From the original Doomtown and includes Sheriff's office and good upstanding citizens
2. Sloane's gang: an Outlaw gang that is pretty similar to Original Doomtowns Blackjacks, but with different backstory
3. Fourth Ring: Evil circus Hucksters and Abominations. Somewhat resembles original badguy faction Whateleys, but in fiction completely different.
4. Morgan Cattle company: Big business factions that combines aspects from Sweetrock mining CO and Collegium factions. Amoral western capitalists.

a Later expansion introduced 2 more factions
5. The Eagle Wardens. Similar to originals Sioux faction.
6. 108 Righteous bandits. Maybe similar to Maze rats.

The Agency and the Texas Rangers (North and south US factions) have been relegated to neutral cards.
The Flock/Lost Angels still MIA.

a single Doomtown Reloaded starter was all you needed to test out all 4 factions. Default decks were competitive enough with each other and didn't have any overlap in style or function. There were lot of neutral stuff, so you could really customize your decks. Even more if you got yourself a 2nd box. (full playset)

Issaries fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Oct 12, 2017

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
Hey, since we're debating whether or not $120 is a reasonable entry point to the game, I'm a person who hasn't bought in yet and would like to, but having to buy three core sets for over a hundred dollars total to get full playsets of important cards (and winding up with a lot of duplicates that go well over what you need or can use, which seems like a huge waste to me) isn't exactly appealing or an easy decision for me. I mean, it's actually impossible for me right now, but even if I had more disposable income at the moment I'd still really rather not. If I had to, I'd at least prefer to, like, just buy a full core playset without the wasted cards, even if it was more expensive than a single starter set, because there'd be less waste and it'd be cheaper than three cores as a result.

That seems like a pretty good way to sell it really; just, full pack of all the cards (or maybe split up some into individual or groups of clans), and include sample deck lists for people to pick from if they aren't ready to get into full deck-building yet. Or something. I don't know, I might do what I did for Netrunner and see if I can find someone selling a full core playset for less than the price of three cores, when I have the money to spare. Or one or two friends who magically happen to want to play different clans than I do so we can split the costs and cards or something.

Edit: As for the comparisons to Magic, yeah, Magic's even more expensive. That's why I stopped played it.

Lord_Hambrose posted:

While you are definitely correct, what campaign of L5R are you playing where anyone is a shugenja and not a bunch of cool bushi? I feel like you really need to play up social stuff to make L5R work, as opposed to running it as D&D with curvy longswords. Murder hobos without a lord to serve are just honorless dogs.

FFG is notorious for ignoring open playtesting,which is disappointing.

Counterpoint: The Kuni are awesome. (As are the Moshi, but they're not in the beta.) At least, based on my limited knowledge of them; before I didn't really look into the Crab much, so I might not be aware of some older lore stuff, but at least based on the concept and stuff the Kuni seem cool.

And yeah, while I agree that the balance seems off, L5R at least should have more court stuff going on and all that to enforce balance, and a shugenja just going around immolating everything seems like something that would attract negative attention from both other people and irritated kami. (Though that doesn't stop a monk from going around magically punching everything I guess.) It'd be good to bring things to a closer level mechanically of course, but at the same time the setting and type of game this is, or at least should be, seems like something of a balancing factor. (Also, I hate spell slots.)

Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Oct 12, 2017

Dick Burglar
Mar 6, 2006

Lord_Hambrose posted:

Their deal was basically they were barely above peasants so everyone pretty much disliked them and ignored them, but secretly they did the dirty work for the Emperor that he couldn't be seen being involved with. And I guess that they couldn't trust the Scorpion with. Mainly they traded illegally overseas with Gaijin, but were also spying on them and spreading disinformation about Rokugan.

So... they're Scorpion under another name.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




Dick Burglar posted:

So... they're Scorpion under another name.

Everyone wants to be the power in the shadows so they just kept adding layers like some sort of subterfuge onion.

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!
The big thing to understand about the Scorpion is that they are, in the end, still a noble house of landed elite. They'll dress like a peasant to get close to their (noble samurai) victim, or to blackmail their (noble samurai) victim, but they won't exactly mingle with the dirty poors, that's beneath them. Like, the Scorpion peasants are NOT well treated or happy. They're probably the worst to their peasants second only to the Lion. That's why the Scorpion have so many celebrations - to keep the riots at bay.

As for the Tortoise, what most people in-setting know is that they are a minor house who's job is to maintain the capital city and house of the emperor, which legally makes them like, the Rokugani equivilant of second cousins to the emperor. Which in turn means giving members of the Tortoise poo poo - even if they absolutely deserve it - is a quick way to find yourself holding your own wakizashi at your own midsection. Of course, being neigh untouchable means the Tortoise get away with a lot. See, the Tortoise aren't VILLAINS like the Scorpion. They're just scumbags. They aren't creating vast complex networks of betrayal, they're just forging your clan symbol and selling it and spending all that money on rich foods and then bragging about their obesity. They aren't doing the Emperor's dirty work as the UNDERHAND, they're just kinda assholes.

The catch is that their actual reason for existing is something the other Clans are very much not supposed to know about, because the emperor themselves isn't supposed to know about it, much less sign off on it, because the Tortoise's job is keeping track of the gaijin. They actually maintain secret trade with other countries, because it turns out the best way to keep other countries away is to make sure they never give a poo poo about your country to begin with, so the Tortoise bring Rokugani goods (but never the best stuff) and trade it for gaijin goods, which they then keep track of in Rokugan to make sure no samurai ever get too interested and maybe think about contacting said gaijin. And yes, EVERY emperor knows and signs off on it, which again, is very explicitly not a thing most of the Great Clans would be cool with, so it's all gotta stay hush hush. So nobody is allowed to touch the Tortoise, in fear that their secret would come out.

So why aren't the Tortoise a big deal? Well, think about the Scorpion. They're sexy and dramatic. They have bloodline curses and cursed swords of ambition and secret societies and all that poo poo. The Scorpion are kinda lousy at their job, but they're great at making drama. But the Tortoise? They're explicitly bland and forgettable (and in fact will sometimes intentionally ugly themselves up) because they don't want to be noticed. They happily and easily mingle with commoners, because they're dealing and trading with commoners. They don't really have problems with arrogance and ambition because, quite frankly, life for the Tortoise is easy street, and they see no reason to change this fantastically good thing they got going on. They're also perfectly servicable ambassadors and diplomats, and happily help out the other minor clans in court, because, again, they don't give a poo poo about the Great Clans. A Fox and a Lion are gonna have problems because the Lion is gonna treat the Fox like trash and the Fox has to suck it up - a Lion tries that with a Tortoise, and suddenly . So they gotta play equals with this ugly motherfucker who's practically got a gold tooth and you know nothing about them is legit. The Scorpion was founded by a god who was way too dramatic for his own good; the Tortoise was founded by an anglophile nerd and his Portuguese boyfriend.

Also, as the previous storyline got more wrought and bizarre, they lost their niche. "I deal with gaijin poo poo" doesn't work when the entire empire invades another country. And as the Mantis grew in popularity (don't get me wrong, I love the Mantis) they became more and more connected to "deals with outsiders" which, well, WAS the Tortoise's whole thing.

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo

Ahaha, that's pretty great. I didn't know much about the Tortoise before, but that sounds amusing. Shame that, like a lot of things, they kind of lost their thing as the plot went on and got weird. Maybe the restart will help that out this time around.

Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Oct 12, 2017

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

adhuin posted:

Doomtown Reloaded did exactly this:

Doomtown was a revival of a game that had been dead for a decade and had a fairly small player base when it was active. As you noted you needed a second box for a full playset and we'll have to agree to disagree that you could full get the feel for a faction based on a single DTR core.

L5R was at one time the 2nd most popular CCG behind Magic and the idea of Clan Loyalty was what put them on the map and distinguished them from other games.

Could they have cut down and added in faction later as they have done with other games? Yes, but as we were just talking about the other day there's plenty of salty Shadowlands/Spider players that are pissed their faction didn't come in straight away; and that's not to mention the Mantis.

If you just want to test the game and see if it's for you then 1 core is exactly what you want. Not having a legal deck doesn't change the rules or the flow of the game, it simply streamlines the decks into more efficient versions of what they can do. The difference between 3 core and 1 core decks is pretty much the same as the difference between someone playing with a starter deck and a couple boosters and someone with a full playset of every card in the previous CCG. Magic figured out that was pretty terrible a long time ago and started putting out their preconstructed decks so that a player jumping in could have a more streamlined and efficient deck, but even those are still miles away from competitive decks.

The only games where you have all the options available from the get go are games with much smaller card pools and that are more interesting in being a complete game out of a single product; like Ashes or Codex. With any competitive card game that has an expanding card pool, the cost to buy-in with a full playset is going to be high.

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo

PaybackJack posted:

If you just want to test the game and see if it's for you then 1 core is exactly what you want. Not having a legal deck doesn't change the rules or the flow of the game, it simply streamlines the decks into more efficient versions of what they can do. The difference between 3 core and 1 core decks is pretty much the same as the difference between someone playing with a starter deck and a couple boosters and someone with a full playset of every card in the previous CCG. Magic figured out that was pretty terrible a long time ago and started putting out their preconstructed decks so that a player jumping in could have a more streamlined and efficient deck, but even those are still miles away from competitive decks.

The only games where you have all the options available from the get go are games with much smaller card pools and that are more interesting in being a complete game out of a single product; like Ashes or Codex. With any competitive card game that has an expanding card pool, the cost to buy-in with a full playset is going to be high.

You wouldn't have "all the options" with just the core set either; that's what all the packs they're continuously releasing are for, after all. But a more comprehensive core set or some other means of getting a playset of core cards, besides buying three core sets, with would mean both a lower barrier to entry for people who do want to stick with the game, and fewer wasted cards that people will never, ever use.

Also, comparing the core set as-is to a thing you admit is terrible isn't really an argument in favor of the current core set.

Edit: You know what would be nice, actually? A "Core Completion Set" or something. No cardboard tokens or other fiddly bits, just 1-2 each of the cards there isn't already a set of three of in the core set. Then you could have the core set as an entry point, and people who want to get more into the game and play with people other than others just using core decks buy that set to round things out before picking up the expansion packs. Bam, smaller barrier to entry that will probably sell better and be cheaper to make because all the extra pieces aren't needed and stuff.

Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Oct 13, 2017

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

Roland Jones posted:

Edit: You know what would be nice, actually? A "Core Completion Set" or something. No cardboard tokens or other fiddly bits, just 1-2 each of the cards there isn't already a set of three of in the core set. Then you could have the core set as an entry point, and people who want to get more into the game and play with people other than others just using core decks buy that set to round things out before picking up the expansion packs. Bam, smaller barrier to entry that will probably sell better and be cheaper to make because all the extra pieces aren't needed and stuff.

The problem with this is that you're adding another product to the marketplace that a) confuses consumers, and b) pisses off retailers who have to gamble on how much to order.

Mage Wars went that route and it wasn't particularly successful. And you're really not saving that much money as a consumer as the price point for a "Core Completion"(CC) set would be fairly expensive. Your CC would contain 464 cards, which is a second copy of all the province cards, conflict cards and dynasty cards. Deluxe expansions MSRP for $30 and contain 155 cards(.19/card), while packs contain 60 and are $15(.25/card). Lets be generous and say that they sold the CC for .15/card, you'd be looking at a $70. Congrats consumer you just saved $10. Is that really worth it for them to have to go through the production of having to create a separate product listing and packaging?

You're looking at this with the 'I want to play X deck and nothing else' mentality. They didn't just arbitrarily choose this production scheme. Core sets provide a large variety of cards that allow players to experience what each faction can do at a price point that's reasonable for casual gamers to speculate on.

They previously had greater quantities of certain cards in the core set, see Netrunner, and that really led to 'wasted' cards. They refined the distribution more with aGoT2e and I consider L5R to be the optimum in that everything for clans is x1 with the neutrals being x2. That means that as you buy x3 cores, you can build decks easier.

The Magic comparison was to illustrate that you can't put out a product that has an entry level price that's also expected to be competitive if the basis of your game is an expanding card pool.

PaybackJack fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Oct 13, 2017

Roland Jones
Aug 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo

PaybackJack posted:

The problem with this is that you're adding another product to the marketplace that a) confuses consumers, and b) pisses off retailers who have to gamble on how much to order.

That is fair; I considered this myself actually, and while I was thinking if they could make it clear that it's not a playable set on its own, people would still make mistakes. Particularly people buying the thing as a gift for someone else.

quote:

They previously had greater quantities of certain cards in the core set, see Netrunner, and that really led to 'wasted' cards. They refined the distribution more with aGoT2e and I consider L5R to be the optimum in that everything for clans is x1 with the neutrals being x2. That means that as you buy x3 cores, you can build decks easier.

Oh, really? That's a better way of doing it then; I admit I was assuming they were doing it like, well, Netrunner again.

Hm, I wonder if I could find someone else who's A. Into this, and B. Has completely different clan interest than I do. Three sets would offer one each of complete clan sets and two neutral sets, which would split between two people fairly well, even if one person gets an extra clan. $60 (or a bit more or less if the person getting the extra clan pays more) for a full set of everything I care about wouldn't be nearly as bad, and splitting the cost of the smaller packs could be an option going forward as well. ...Outside of the need for extra neutrals and stuff.

Thank you for putting in the time to write that all out, by the way. I appreciate your explanation and stuff. Sorry for being a bit rude earlier. $120 is still a high price point and has its disadvantages, but that does make more sense now, and as you say at least they're really mitigating the drawbacks of it this time around. I'll have to see if I can find someone else who's willing to share costs for this, meanwhile.

Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Oct 13, 2017

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PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

Roland Jones posted:

Thank you for putting in the time to write that all out, by the way. I appreciate your explanation and stuff. Sorry for being a bit rude earlier. $120 is still a high price point and has its disadvantages, but that does make more sense now, and as you say at least they're really mitigating the drawbacks of it this time around. I'll have to see if I can find someone else who's willing to share costs for this, meanwhile.

You're not being rude, it's just that this argument has been going on in the LCG thread for years. I, myself, once advocated for CCs but when you do the math you wouldn't end up saving consumers enough to justify all the other costs that would go into making them. If you look at it from the perspective of retailers and FFG, they're really providing you the consumer a good value, and from the consumer standpoint it's really not reasonable to expect a company to create an entirely separate product so I can save $10 and not have what I consider to be 'extraneous' product. I put that in single quotes because there's only no value in the tokens/cards if you toss them in a box and never use them.

With Netrunner, I took a bunch of the extra faction cards, and used them to make demo decks and donated them to my local store. I tossed all my extra tokens in a bag and left them at the store for tournaments and demoing.

PaybackJack fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Oct 13, 2017

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