I will answer this question after 1 year of releases.  At that time I think I will be able to adequate decide if I like it or not (specifically when I have many pods to choose from when building decks)

I posted in the wrong thread. Please ignore.

Budgernaut said:

But, how can I just ignore this ill-placed comment? I mean, how can you just post here and ask me to just move on with my life? What ARE You, the Thought Police?!?

Dobbler's response is the most sensible one, but my knee-jerk reaction is positive. Anything that makes deckbuilding simpler will lower barriers to entry and allow new players to enjoy the full game experience that much easier.

Also, as I've said elsewhere, I think the pod system could allow FFG to maintain balance and mitigate the effects of power creep in SWLCG fairly easily. We'll see if the company actually does so, but it could be a huge boon to parity.

I'm excited about it- I'm always willing to give something new a chance, and this could be a very interesting way of doing things.

No i dont, I dont like that they r forcing decks on us, one of the fun things about customizable card games is well, customizing. I like the challenge of creating decks that can decimate an opponent. Now my friend who I will be playing with likes the idea cuz hes lazy and doesnt like building  decks lol. But yeah, I may end up playing x-wing more then this at this point.

 I say "Cool, I'll try a new mechanic." I find it hard to find a lot of opponents (although there is a tournament scene down in Portland I am interested in checking out), which means I'm more casual and am not too concerned about it. I'll pick up the core set at least, and go from there.

The way I see it if they went back to the drawing board once already (and lost a little face) they are dedicated to making a great game.

yagyu said:

So with no idea how the actual "Pod Mechanic" will work overall,  you feel comfortable making that assessment?  I mean we literally knowing nothing except that the Objectives you choose will have some direct effect on your deck.  We don't know how strict (OBJ 1 comes with cards A, B, C) or how loose (OBJ 1 comes with cards A, B, C, D, E, F pick 3) that effect will be.  So how exactly does anyone feel comfortable giving any sort of opinion on the matter at this point?

ScottieATF said:

Because they've said that you pick an objective and that objective has 5 cards that go with it into your deck. They made that very clear. Now, they may change it between now and then, so, yeah it's a bit too soon to judge. But, based on what they've told us, I feel comfortable with the assessment at this point in time.

herozeromes said:

To expand on what herozeromes said, we do know that each objective is part of a series, as they are all numbered X/6, where the Objective is always #1 in the set, with 5 other cards that go with it.  As I've shown in another thread where I compiled all the card images from cardgamedb to see how the Objectives and associated cards line up, it looks like they are grouped fairly well together.  I didn't see anything that looked like "dead weight" attached to a powerful card.

You can expect Vader's Lightsaber to come in the same pod as Vader, as shown in the card images, which is obviously a good idea, since you can imagine wanting to take that card if you were running Vader.  Similar loadout goes with the "Heart of the Empire" Objective with the Coruscant Defense Fleet matched up with it.  I think from what we've seen, it's not going to be a huge restriction to build a deck this way.

The only foreseeable drawback I can address at this point, would be having a limited number of Objectives to draw from at the start of the game's life span, with the Core Set Box.  There are at least 36 different Objectives in the box, and if we are to imagine there were 4 Factions evenly represented, and they went with 10 unique Objectives each, that would be 40 Objectives.

So 10 Objectives each factions means "out of the box" playability would lead to identical decks, but then you're always free to by another Core Set to run multiple copes of Objectives, since you can use up to 2 in your stack of 10.  Already you've doubled your options by faction.  From there, you're waiting for the Force Packs (or whatever name they go with) and the Big Box expansions to flesh it out more.

cleardave said:

I really hope they're not expecting completionists to buy two of every Force Pack. That could seriously kill this game for me.

MarthWMaster said:

Given 60 cards per Pack as in some of the previous LCGs, it means 10 groups (pods) of cards (5 per side ?). It should easily mean that there is room for duplicated groups in a given Pack. For instance, with 1 unique group and 2 duplicated ones per Side, that amounts to 36 new cards per Pack, which is already in the high range of new cards per Pack  for a LCG. To avoid having too many new cards per Pack and still having a correct number of cards per Pack, I guess that duplicating non-unique pods should be the rule.

Personally I think it is a great idea, and will put deck-building on its ear a bit.  I truly didn't think I would like it, but after further review it adds a layer of complexity and decision-making to deck-building.

Dobbler is right though - we will see how it is handled in practice.  And how competative play will work when the inevitable broken card comes out (probably erratta, but if not enough ban the whole pod?). 

rings said:

That's an interesting thought. I guess one thing they could do is restrict that pod to 1 per deck like some other pods will already be. And if that won't work or the card is really bad then errata or ban. But yeah, if they just ban 1 card then they'd have to get us a replacement for the pod, so errata or ban entire pod seems more likely.

Yes, the real new thing since most of them were imported from other games (as Legend of the 5 Rings).