75 replies to this topic

[mnBroncos]

agency is crazy weak right now though they need some powerful cards. miskatonic box is very good nothing broken but lot of solid cards. 

[mnBroncos]

faq is aimed only for tournament scence though casually you can make your own restricted lists f

[Wilbur]

Tragic, I think you're presenting a bit of a false dichotomy: sure, the sales that make a game like Call of Cthulhu are overwhelmingly driven by what you're calling casual players. The perennial refusal to reprint Dreamlands is proof of that. However, for every major games company (and most minor games companies, too) - with the glaring exception of Wizards of the Coast, who orchestrate huge, successful, masturbatory MTG only events - events like GenCon are CRITICAL to keep the games and the company relevant. FFG has one of the biggest booths there, so these events are clearly not an afterthought in their larger marketing plans. These events offer competition to competitive players, but they also produce essential market visibility to FFG as a market-dependent organization, as their investment in these events (or similarly spectacular investment from companies like Mayfair and Paizo) demonstrates. The idea that competitive players and casual players are populations without reference to one another does not stand up when one considers what Fantasy Flight and other game companies actually do to promote their products.

[Zephyr]

Restricting "Speak to the dead"???

Is that Damon saying "you want bans? here are bans"

 

Speak.... to.... the... dead....

 

really?

 

Peaslee nerfed so much?

Tesla... why ban tesla when you restricted most of it's engine...

 

Why not restrict Migration+Lost Oracle+Studying the void period, this sounds reasonable.

Or just ban/errata Migration to have some limit and errata Lost Oracle, Studying and Scout to 1 per turn.

With this much of ban hammer it seems like designers don't really care and just swing EBR everywhere... especially after this much time where Yhtaians were untouched...

 

And Yog needs a new box as most of its cards are now useless...

 

At least 1/once is finally written in a sane way, with minor detail of not clarifying discard pile "once" explicitly.

 

I think the Miskatonic box was rather on the weak side

Woot? MU was leagues behind, this pack did really much to get them up to strength. And managed to not make MU dominant. IMO MU pack was the best pack ever, doing exactly what it should without breaking much.

[mnBroncos]

yog is still maybe the most powerful faction card for card. 

[Zephyr]

Since when?

[edit] ok there are some nice things left in yog box and there are more good violet cards than i remembered, but "most powerful" ? really?

[Wilbur]

Since when?

You're kidding, right? Put 3x Faceless Abductor, 3x Pushed Into the Beyond, and 3x Stalking Hound on the table. That's nearly 20% of your deck, all of which is extremely useful for any deck whatsoever. It's only at this point that you even need to THINK about what you actually want to do with the deck you're building, and you've already made a great start. Peaslee? Frozen Time? Many Angled Thing? None of this is restricted.

I get that you're surprised, but be reasonable, dude.

[mnBroncos]

Who is better? In my opinion best factions in straight power is yog, shub, mu, syndicate, cthulhu, agency, hastur, then silver twilight. Cthulhu maybe higher since box haven't played with the new cards yet. Of course combination of factions are different comparison

[MagnusArcanis]

Speak to the Dead was an unfortunate casualty of Lost Orcale and Studying the Void being abusive. 

Tesla, apparently has his own OP deck on the rise despite other the other changes.

 

Tragic, I'm not sure why you're being so tragic.  With the FAQ the game will reach it's healthiest metagame in years. 

 

Every box! Has been a home run. They serve to help weaker factions compete with strong ones, serve as a great entry platform for new players. Each box provides several viable ways to build a deck out of it and crazy amounts of avenues to go when paired with other big boxes. Frankly they've been a stroke of genius on a level that I'd question whether or not FFG designers were just lucky or not.

 

That being said, obviously things weren't perfect. Some of the earlier boxes were designed within the scope of a metagame that was MUCH faster than what we have now. So, since the new direction, we've seen some scaling back. Casual players should be rejoicing over this, not condemning it. It allows FFG to not power creep, and keep faction balance as close to the core as possible. Ie. the way it was intended.

 

Competitively though, the yog box had some HUGE mistakes. I've even publicly apologized for the part I played in that and I have personally dedicated a lot of effort into fixing those mistakes. And frankly, I think we've finally got there.

 

Ya, the damage looks bad, but the game will be healthier for it. With "super combo yog" finally dealt with ALL players will have a better experience. This includes casual players! Remember all those posts and threads dealing with the issue of how the Y-Train was killing their community? Those get to go away now. Problem solved. 

 

And they did it WITHOUT killing the Yog box. It's still a strong box to use with plenty of avenues for deck building. How does not everyone win in this scenario?

 

Oh wait... I know. People who, above all else, can't stand to see the FAQ grow. I have a feeling that's what this is all coming down to. I get it. It looks ugly. Hard to remember every friggin detail. Frustrating all hell when you're building a deck only to see it get squashed by... THE LIST.  Etc....

 

No one wants it. FFG most of all. But frankly... get over it. FFG really has two options, fix it and attempt to move on or let the game go. I for one, prefer the former. 

 

Anyway, back to you Tragic. I'm curious, what would you have FFG do? If you were in the driver seat. Your decision decides the fate of Call of Cthulhu. How would you cater to the 'casual player' in a way that would put the game on a better path? (not trying to be snide, I actually want to know. willing to take such a conversation off forum if need be)

 

Any case, hope my train of thought didn't get too lost there. Typing this on a phone while rushing it isn't helping. All in all though, I feel and believe that steps taken in this FAQ were good and necessary steps required put this game into a healthier state. And to anyone that says otherwise... I dare you to come up with a different/better solution before disagreeing. 

 

 

Not saying no one can come up with answer or that there isn't a better way, but please do consider what FFG was dealing with.

1. A drastically warped metagame. Where virtually the same deck dominated your more prestigious event of the year so far.

2. Cries from the player base.

3. Entire countries banning an archetype

4. Entire metas choosing not to play/purchase one of your products

5. The higher ups in the company demanding a solution.

6. Less than 2 months to do it in.

 

Pretend you're in Brad and Damon's seat. Resources, include but aren't limited to... past designers/developers, other members of FFG, Eric Lang, playtesters, tournament records, and your player base. 

 

Your goal? Fix cthulhu, and make it so I (or anyone) can't re-break your game with the Yithians (or anything else, but i'm trying to people a fighting chance here).

[Tragic]

Maybe I am being a bit pessimistic, I have just seen the strongest decline in players during these "modern times".. maybe it is partly due to massive crowd pleaser like ANR.. but something is different, I may be wrong about what, but CoC is a ghost town now.. when it used to not so much thrive but at least had a steady group of regulars and most importantly, I haven't had to teach it in years.

[Saldre]

If the main problem was Yithian Mill, than Banning Interstellar Migration should resolve the issue. Forcing to a player to pick "One" card in a deck out of a list, in a world where no cards are perfectly balanced, means that one of these cards is simply going to virtually never see play again. 

 

Alternatively, you have cards like Master of Myths, who are plugged into virtually any deck that needs a restricted card in it "because they don't have one".

 

I am not a big fan of the restricted idea, as I don't like to force players to play One card over another card- I think all cards should have a home in a deck, and those are that problematic enough to ruin world events or divert the point of the game should be shown the door. 

 

The Yithian subtype was cohesive and flavorful, and, save for a few problematic cards (and really, ONE problematic card) could have been saved instead of being butchered. Granted, it didn't take a bachelors to make a Yithian deck, just plug in all the cards that say Yithian and there you have it but still... I am looking forward to the day where they raise up the minimum amount of cards required in a deck so that more cards see play instead of less. 

 

Edit- I really would like to add again, that I am just putting in my two cents, which, in terms of CoC LGC, are worth considerably less than those of all of the prominent tournament players that have commented on this situation due to both my inexperience and  the casual nature of my playing style. I am completely capable of ignoring the restricted list and still building a horribly incompetent deck, all while imposing even stranger conditions on which cards I am allowed and not allowed in my deck simply based on the Art or the Title . I've never participated in a tournament, and defer to all of your experience in determining whether or not this direction is ultimately the best - though, in my opinion, it doesn't encourage me or attract me further towards a tournament scene. 

[Kwakkie]

Maybe I am being a bit pessimistic, I have just seen the strongest decline in players during these "modern times".. maybe it is partly due to massive crowd pleaser like ANR.. but something is different, I may be wrong about what, but CoC is a ghost town now.. when it used to not so much thrive but at least had a steady group of regulars and most importantly, I haven't had to teach it in years.

 

That is probably only your local meta. We've seen a huge increase in players over here.

[dboeren]

Maybe I am being a bit pessimistic, I have just seen the strongest decline in players during these "modern times".. maybe it is partly due to massive crowd pleaser like ANR.. but something is different, I may be wrong about what, but CoC is a ghost town now.. when it used to not so much thrive but at least had a steady group of regulars and most importantly, I haven't had to teach it in years.

 

We've had more players here, and the number of people in the Gencon tournament has been going up slowly over the past several years as well.  I've also heard from quite a few people that the new core and new faction boxes are successful in their areas.  Granted, it's still a small community though and one of the biggest problems of being (as you said) a largely casual game is that you can't FIND the players.  They are out there.  Packs and boxes disappear, but too often they are bought by people who play in their basements which deprives everyone of having a larger local scene.

 

Splitting the vote is also a legitimate problem we all struggle with.  A person can't realistically play all the card games anymore.  If you want to be good at them, you can really only play a couple.  The more good LCGs there are on the market, the bigger this problem is because you're taking your potential player base and dividing it up.  I used to be scavenging around looking for more good card games just because I couldn't find enough of them.  Now it's flipped, I have to cut games that are pretty good because there are too many.

[Yuggoth]

Well I do not mind the changes, less things to worry about for the decks I play the most, even though I would have prefered the more simple solution of banning interstellar migration.

Got plenty of ideas for deckbuilding and this opens up even more, also more tempted at experimenting with some mono yog.

I like the yog box (even though Yog Sothoth was a little underwhelming, but had amazing artwork). I will miss playing some of the yog cards.

 

Also some side discussions I do not want to comment on too much (since I am a new player) but some thoughts that popped up;

 

About game design:
Designing the game for competitive play equals ballance which is _needed_ to have proper tournament play.
Designing the game for "casual" play equals munchkin and lots of random broken cards slipping through.

 

About the growth of the game:

I think the game can grow alot but there is a lack of promotion in favour of other card games (everything that requires a license to publish) and the huge mainstream popularity of their themes (star wars/lord of the rings/a game of thrones).

 

Also a strong healthy tournament scene is key to the growth and survival of a game (might be the only chance some people have of getting some games played).

As well as an easy entry point into the game. (faction boxes etc)
Look at magic, the more they promote their tournaments the bigger the game gets, and when they started broadcasting tournaments and such the growth just exploded.
Stuff like magictv and such also help alot plus all other extra content from people everywhere to delve into.

Something that makes the players feel less isolated.

[WWDrakey]

Having recently been pulled back into being a Cultist from the beyond, and subsequently committing myself to hosting the first ever Finnish Store Championships next year (here in the middle of nowhere!) I've been thinking a lot about CoC, it's competitive state, it's health as a game and whatnot. As ever, the first thing I figured would be useful to know were... numbers.

 

Here's what I managed to glean for GenCon/Worlds participation:

2009 - GenCon: 12 players (source)

2010 - GenCon: 16 players (source)

2011 - GenCon: 16 players (source)

2012 - GenCon: ~20 players (source) & Worlds: 13 players (source)

2013 - GenCon: 22 players (source) & Worlds: 12 players (source)

2014 - GenCon: 24 players (source) & Worlds: Not held yet

 

European Championship:

2011 - 26 players (source)

2012 - 22 players (source)

2013 - 32 players (source)

2014 - Not held yet

 

Ok, so that's not at all bad, apart from Worlds 2013 and European Championship in 2012, there's a slow but clear growth going on, ever since the LCG began. Australia looks to have had 9 players in 2013 for Nationals (source), and 16 for 2014 (source). According to the Facebook page France had 14 for Nationals in 2014 (source), UK had a Regionals, which pretty much corresponded to a Nationals and that got 16 players (source). And... I figured I'd save a bit of my sanity and cut my delving there.

 

Overall, based on those numbers i find all the doomsaying with regard to the game quite unfounded.

 

Then there's the comparison to Warhammer: Invasion, which I guess is where all of the rumours of the game "ending" have sprung from. And the facts there are that: 1) both CoC and WH:I were moved to the "only Deluxe Expansions" model at the same time, 2) WH:I got discontinued in 2013. But it also pays to mention that simultaneously AGoT stopped receiving any more Deluxe expansions (which did not get an announcement, but still happened all the same). So, it was actually a concerted effort in slowing down card input for the longer running games, as the cardpool was reaching it's optimal size. Now, I think it pays to have a look at *what* was printed in those Deluxe Expansions for WH:I and CoC. For CoC, the Deluxes started pushing individual faction boxes, which are really a kind of "new starter" type of element, if you look at them. Decklists for new players, offering easy entrypoints etc.

 

For Warhammer they pushed... Cataclysm, which is pretty much a "get added multiplayer value from your existing cards" (without coming up with a new Multiplayer format for Competitive) and then Hidden Kingdoms (which fleshed out some of the existing mini-factions that were kinda too thin). Both of those are clear "end game" content, if you look at it. 

 

Meanwhile, it's also good to look at what FFG came out with close to the time they discontinued WH:I. There we have two things happening: Diskwars (which uses the exact same IP, in a more "fresh" way but with a similar expanding/competitive aspect) and Warhammer: Conquest (which also overlaps quite hard due to the 40k/WHFB IPs sharing a playerbase). Further, it pays to remember that FFG most likely needs to pay quite a bit for licencing the Warhammer, so they need to try and maximize it's potential, which I think Conquest is trying to hit on quite hard, and possibly even succeeding.

 

Now, from what I followed with WH:I, the number of players on the Competitive side was in a downward spiral for a while near the end, and the game didn't seem to have gained enough of a Casual following either. CoC on the other hand, largely due to the nature of the Mythos to begin with, has one of the clearest Casual followings (fed into by the boardgame players coming through Arkham/Eldritch/etc.), does not incur licensing costs and actually any art produced for it can be re-used in their board game line, making it a much better investment from a company standpoint. I'm not saying I know any of FFGs plans for the game, but... neither does anyone. Hell, it's quite likely even FFG might not at all be sure of what they'll be doing... and when!

 

I guess it all boils back down to LCGs being a whole new thing, and understanding the "health" of one is pretty hard. Very different from CCGs for example, where there's usually a much clearer correlation between Casual and Competitive players. And in the end, the Casual side is what brings all the profit for FFG, Competitive is more of a way of offering vested fans additional support, as well as raising the profile of the games. When I look back, AGoT was pretty much in a similar state as CoC is now on the competitive side, back in 2009-2010 when I started playing it. A lot of things happened, to kick it into the growth it ended up getting, but player enthusiasm in growing metas and increase in online play were what was done on the community side. But most of all it was the game being good, and HBO happening.

 

There's probably not going to be a similar stroke of luck with CoC as with HBO, but from what I've been following since the beginning of the LCG, the game is now (post Yithian bombardment) in one of the best states it's ever been in.. and offers much better entrypoints than AGoT, for example, where FFG is needing to look at solutions for lowering the entry barrier for new players (building a 60+7 card deck where most cards need to be 1x, each from a different pack... can reach pretty silly costs, especially with the House-specific Deluxe expansions not having a solid enough power-level or otherwise functioning as a secondary entry point). So, if the game is good, all we need are people enthusiastic for growing it (and luckily there seem to be quite many of them), and maybe dragging more people into playing online, so that people have an outlet where to play while working on building a local meta.

 

That's one of the things about LCGs, nobody will build the metas and groups for us, we need to go out there and gather them ourselves. Why's that different from CCGs? Well, the profits to be gained from LCGs are smaller, hence there's less money to go around for marketing, offering cash prizes etc. In a way, it's the "fairness" of the whole model biting back at us. In CCGs it's easier to just "be a player" - you get a good deck, go to a Tourney and maybe even get prizes. The shops run the events, since the company's can afford to push them, you don't need to worry your pretty little head about that one bit. In LCGs, people need to be more like Ambassadors to the game. Go out there, show people how much fun it can be... and you can (hopefully) end up with a playgroup. It might not be all competitive at first, most likely more of a combination of Casual and Competitive people, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just a different one. You'll probably need to pressure your local shop to get a Tourney hosted, or host on yourself. It can be a bit time consuming, but... it can also be hella fun.

 

It's interesting how wide an effect Ambassadors to a game can have. I got drawn back in by: Danigral's articles, Tom's Tourney videos and mnBroncos enthusiasm... well, and Terror in Venice art looking so appealing. Meanwhile, while growing the game locally recently, I ran into local Netrunner players, who had been really interested in CoC, but had read online forums with people saying that "it's dying" and "completely broken game due to Yithians" etc. That had been enough to dissuade them from even trying it out casually. That's a whole other way of being an Ambassador, if you think about it. End's up, the Netrunner guys loved the game when they actually tried it, and somebody wasn't whispering portents of doom into their ears. More Cultists for my Cult...

 

NOTE: I did a lot of digging up of information here online, without talking to people who might know better, please let me know if I misrepresented something so I can get my story straight!

[mnBroncos]

wow was only 12 people last year yea we are going to bet that this year almost positive. mn regional had nine so if everyone of them come we are already at nine. Heard rumors some of the local thrones players may try it as well since they don't have interest in melee. I can't wait very excited hoping we get enough people that we get to play five or six rounds not just four like regional and store championships are. 

 

PS amazing write up wwdrakey. 

[OKTarg]

We Miss You, WWDrakey. 

 

Come home to Thrones. 

 

Come home.

[Greynomad38]

No, he's ours, now.

[mnBroncos]

We Miss You, WWDrakey. 

 

Come home to Thrones. 

 

Come home.

 

maybe you should just join (: i manage. 

[Tragic]

Come home to Thrones.

he is now cultist.. all glory to great space vampire!