booored said:

In theory there's nothing preventing FFG from deciding to cycle sets out at some point in the future.

And besides, LCGs are _still_ a lot cheaper if your goal is to get a complete playset.

I think as important as when is why.

Cycling out cards helps keep the pressure on to have to buy new stuff, otherwise customers with a bunch of OP cards from earlier sets may be able to remain competitive with them.  It acts as a release valve on power creep, which is very useful in a game which is intentionally unbalanced.  It also helps get rid of old mistakes and help clear the design space.  New cards can come in which wouldn't have been used while a more powerful alternative existed.

I'm not sure any of these apply to an LCG.  Now you have a game with a much smaller pool (no need to clear design space for a LONG time), plus it's a game which tries to keep balance so you don't need to prod people towards abandoning old cards to buy new ones.  People will buy the new cards to expand their play, and because they're minimally priced compared to a CCG.

LCG's have restricted and banned lists to do the balancing instead of card cycling out. No LCG has cycled out any cards.

this isn't an argument of ccg models vs lcg models. There is no doubt that the LCG model is better for the player cash wise in the long run. The fact still remains though that if you come late to the game there is a huge outlay to just START playing, while in a ccg model with cycling all you need to do is by cards in the current cycle and you are right in the thick of competitive play.

In a LCG if you come late then you need to buy many packs all in one go.. a game like aGoT this is 100s and 100s of dollars. A cost you need to spend b4 you can even play a single game, unless you all start at the same time of course.

This is the biggest failing in the lcg model, one that could be fixed or at least lessened with faction packs rather than mixed factions packs i think. It is also sort of a hidden cost. The LCG is marketed as a pick and pay kind of system were you can choose what packs you want to build a certain deck, but the fact that each pack only has 1 or 2 card for each faction means that the decks are spread over the entire release of the lcg. Go an look in any of the LCG forum deck lists if you want proof.

Again this isn't a chat about lcg vs ccg… this is a unique problem in teh ffg lcg model and one new players are largely unaware of and should be. The reality is, that if you want to play this game you need to buy a pack once a month and every month.. witch is eactl;y what most people do.. and if you fall behind and then decide to start playing at teh local store or enter a comp, then you will have to buy all the packs you missed b4 you can even make a deck.

 [QUOTE efidm=653682]LCG's have restricted and banned lists to do the balancing instead of card cycling out. No LCG has cycled out any cards.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly my point,

CCG's have the same problem, just in their case you need to buy singles that can cost as much as $295 a card or buy boosters and hope you get lucky with what you get. So the cost of starting up is an issue for both models and not unique to LCG's. At least when I spent a bunch of money and traded in my magic collection I knew I was getting every card for AGoT. Catching up on WoW TCG has been harder so far.

booored said:

I just can't agree with this.  You're saying that you cannot play the game AT ALL unless you own every card.  I think you need to make a distinction between being able to play the game and being able to build any conceivable deck, which is what you really seem to be talking about.  You can start playing with a small collection, as small as just a Core set.  You may not be competitive with a skilled player who has a huge card pool but…

1.  Isn't it natural anyway that a new player in a game of skill and judgement should not expect to be competitive with veteran players when they start? I sure as hell wouldn't expect to be, that's an unrealistic expectation.  Don't just blame the cards as if they're the only thing holding a new player back.

2.  You say "in a ccg model with cycling all you need to do is by cards in the current cycle and you are right in the thick of competitive play".  OK, how *MANY* cards?  Probably 100's and 100's of dollars of them, at least.  I guarantee you can't buy $50 of Magic boosters and be right in the thick of competitive play with people who've spent much more acquiring the powerful rare cards.

3.  Why are you so focused on having to have every card in existence before you can play at all?  You can build a good enough deck to have a good time with a game out of a pretty small collection.  You can build a more competitive deck with a moderate collection.  I'm pretty sure most new players in a game are not concerned yet with whether their deck can win the World Championship tournament, they just want to play a fun and interesting game which does NOT require 100's of dollars of cards.

The problem of the money-threshold for new players exists, especially in games where you don't have a player in your vicinity and which you can't play solo. Then a regional tournament would be a great opportunity to meet many other players, and get to know many well-thought deck ideas.

After playing LotR and being very satisified with that game and especially the LCG distribution model, I thought about starting with CoC and attending the nearest regional for it this year. (My brother doesn't like the game and there's no CoC player around.) But because of the faction splitting in each AP, even a cheap tournament-able deck would cost me roughly 300 € (or even more, I didn't do testing), an amount which I just can't afford right now. Faction-packs would really help me (assuming that the price per card isn't differing too much from usual APs). But I doubt that FFG will create them.

For LCG vs. CCG: You don't need to buy all the cards for the current sets for CCGs, I guess a booster draft or sealed tournament can be pretty cheap.

So I'm waiting excitedly for the new A:N game. It looks very promising, esp. the competitive and assymetric gameplay :-) And buying every month a 10 € pack is much more easier than investing a lot of money immediately.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the LCG model! I will not buy a CCG again, too much money went into it when I've been a kid. With LCGs, you know exactly what you get when you buy a pack, the amount of wasted cards is reduced enormously. But the starting threshold really can be an issue…

I don't know if we'll ever see faction packs.  One reason is that it's not typical to just play one faction, as you might in a miniatures game.

First, a high percentage of decks for Call of Cthulhu (which is also the game that has the most similar faction breakdown to Netrunner at the moment) consist of more than one faction.

And second, it's common to want to switch to different factions frequently.  You may have favorites that you play more, but I know I don't stick to the same ones.  I've got a mono-Syndicate deck I like.  I have a mono-Cthulhu deck.  Right now I'm working on a Hastur/Yog deck.  After this I'd really like to get into a Silver Twilight deck, I don't even know who I'll be pairing them up with yet.  Sometime I'd like to get back to making a new Shub Niggurath "Dark Young" themed deck like I ran at Gencon last year when my collection was still so small that I had to supplement it with Syndicate to have enough cards.

dboeren said:

1 - This just isn't true. Tale a deck made with 1 copy of core and say 3 of the latest packs and go and make a deck that can even make a dent in other peoples decks. Gencon is coming.. lets see how well your deck dose. It will not do anything, do not say that it will.

2 - No, as Pete pointed out you can go to a event and enter a Sealed or a Draft pool for about 20 bucks and have a fun night hanging out at a store with other gamers in a competitive environment. A night at FNM cost less than going to a movie and you cna even make money if you pull a good mythic to sell back to the store.

3 - Well as Pete said.. organised competition is the only way for some people to even get to play this game. And for that you need good decks and for that you need the card pool. If you start playing with a friend, then sure you can start playing with just a copy of core or w/e.. but most people have no one to play with at all, and their only way to play is though player events

Now I like the LCG model, I do think it is cheaper than CCG. As i said this IS NOT a ccg vs lcg debate.. we ALL know how much the CCG model sucks, and LCG is tons better.. that dose not mean lcg is flawless. Pointing out teh CCGs are expensive is like saying the sky is blue. What is your point? Stil this initial cost is a real thing, and one I think is the major cause of these lcgs nvr getting super popular among the gaming comminuty. Well they are popular but many players find they have no one to play with.. why? Cuase a store can not just have a open day and go.. "Hey CoC or aGOT tonigh.. have people turn up and play, The players need to come with 100s and 100s of bucks worth of decks. There is nothing to store can sell them to allow new commers to just sit down and play with vets (like a sealed or draft pool) so the store makes zero bucks and if it is a constructed event, only people that already own teh cards turn up, as no new commer can't even enter with a hope to last 1 round.

This is a flaw in the design of the LCG. A "hidden" flaw and one new comers should be made aware of.. "If you are late to a LCG you have a large outlay of cost b4 you can even start to play" End of story.

I have no idea how you're getting any of those things out of what I'm saying.  Evidently there's some disconnect in communication here, and since I don't want to continue sidetracking the thread, I'm going to drop it.

 Having come about 3 years late into Game of Thrones LCG but also having picked up LOTR on release I found several things to be true of the lcg

- You most definately do NOT need every pack to be competative. In Thrones more and more competative decks utilise around 4 or 5 packs at most, with a core set or two and usually a deluxe expansion. This might be due to the fact that Thrones has the biggest cardpool out of every LCG but FFG seem to be getting better and better at balancing packs and necesity thereof, hopefully they wont make as many mistakes with Netrunner as they have with other LCG games, ie. CoC (seriously, 1-2 cards per faction per pack? That would drive me NUTS)

- Competative at home and competative at tourneys are completely diferent things. If you play casually at a local gaming store or at a friends house you will be Sorted with a core set or two, or a deluxe expansion for your favourite faction (if available) I think out of all my friends only I and another person try to get every pack for Game of Thrones. The other 3 have bought nothing save a core set and the deluxe expansion for their favourite faction. By sharing the card pool and picking favourite factions we have mitigated the cost Dramatically.

- It is Amazing being able to get in from the very start and just maintain your collection. Its the most cost effective way to play Any card game I've ever played. $15 a month really doesnt feel that much if youre into the game, and if you lapse out for a few months you only have a few packs to catch up with on your own time, no searching for rares, no buying mountains of boosters, no frantically trying to catch up.

- Not having to cycle cards is excellent. If you really like the game, a la magic, youll want to be semi-competative to tournament ready most of the time. Which means buying truckloads of packs that you Know will be non-competative in 50% of the game sometimes in less than a year. True the LCG might Feel like it has a high barrier of entry but look at it this way, your investments will Never be for nothing, youre always adding to your competativeness with every purchase.

- And on top of that, to mitigate the cash cost completely, all LCGs so far have a strong community online who play on OCTGN, a virtual tabletop where you can download the card sets and try them out against live players from around the world, for Free. Its incredible for testing decks, gaining competative experience and a feel for the world wide meta, as well as making sure the things you buy Are the things you want!

DerBarchen said:

You are missing one important point. I haven't met any MTG player who buy boosters to get new cards. Everybody just buy singles and if you do that it can be actually very cheap to make some very competative deck. I guess it is cheaper than make competative deck in MTG than in AGoT (not sure b/c haven't played MTG for a long time).

I feel LCG is like board game with monthly expansions. MTG really doesn't work good at all as a board game. It only works as a tournament game but does that good. That is too narrow game for me tho. LCG can work as a great board game and also as a tournament card game if you are willing to invest. But still LCG is a money sink as is CCG also. One thing I don't like that usually in CoC for example there is only one card I would like to have in a pack but I am forced to buy the whole pack. But I prefer LCG model still any day.

And that investment for forever. AGoT is starting to have huge amounts of expansions and that situation can be hard as newbies. So FFG have to make reprints or cycle cards some time if they want to keep attracting new players. They can also just release completely new LCG:s as "resets" for old LCG and let old game die slowly but I hope this is not part of the business plan. With MTG you can be sure that you will find players for it for many years at least. That is part of investment. (I don't like MTG much, it is just good example).

I know know much about Magic (never played), but apparently some people do buy booster boxes, I've read lots of threads where people referred to doing so in both Magic and L5R, claiming it typically gave them 1x all the Rares and a full playset of everything else.

I fully agree about cycles.  I don't want to buy cards and then have a big chunk of them suddenly become illegal to play a year later when the cycle changes.  From a player point of view, that sucks and is a huge deterrent to getting into a game.  If I buy it, it's mine and I want to use it, that's what I paid for.  At least even Magic has various formats that do allow you to use older cards though - but if you feel catching up in an LCG is bad I think Magic Unlimited is going to be much worse.

dboeren said:

I feel cycling cards is a sacrifice you have to make if you want to keep alive and attract new players. But this can be done in a good way. Lets say for example this kind of model: 4 newest small expansion cycles are always legal (I think one cycle is 6 packs in each LCG). Then after a small expansion cycle rotates out there will be a one big expansion which includes 50% of cards of the whole 6 pack cycle. Thus legal cards would include 4 newest small expansion pack cycles and each big expansion. This allows some rotation and fixing old mistakes but every card you buy is likely to be useful for a very long time.

Vtes uses all cards are legal way. I have played that game for over 10 years but I wouldn't recommend that game for new player now. Also Vtes has always been very bad at attracting new players and that is one of the reasons why it is dead now (well it is bit more complicated).

I just hope FFG would say what is the long term plan with their LCG:s. Now I get the feeling that FFG is not cycling cards but rather is cycling whole games. CoC and W:i are already dying. Some useless cards is better than no players to play with. 

As long as they are coming out with new cards regularly, I cannot say they are dying.  We're going by different definitions here I guess.

I've looked into vtes, but there doesn't seem to be a possible way to get into it now.  You have to either have cards, or happen to join a local group with a huge card pool that you can draw from.  Some dead CCGs you can buy lots of cards for cheap on eBay, this is not one of them.  Well, there is also the practical factor of wanting to have 4-5 players.  It will always be harder to get together a bigger group than to play a game with only one opponent.