Mattr0polis said:

I suppose the Death Star is as good a metaphor for the growing influence of the Dark Side as any! I'll start to think of it as simply a DS counter, then! 

Is it just me though, or do 12 turns seem to make for a very short game? I mean, it is a bit overly-proscribed, this whole game, don't you think? Does the Light Side have any way to pull the DS dial back down? Does it go down when a Dark Side objective is destroyed? I can't recall now (and don't have the time to watch the whole video again) If it represents the Dark Side as a growing influence in the galaxy, then surely every time you play Luke, or even Yoda, that should be seen as a setback for the growth of the dark, which in game terms would translate to stopping the dial moving up at the very least, don't you think? Destroying a Dark Side objective would also throw a spanner in the works for galactic dominion, so should also stop the dial, or even put it back? 

Mattr0polis said:

Of course. I insist in not having enough information nor specifics about many cards in the game and that I would love this to be THE GAME. The rush versus stall mandatory construction of the decks thing is just a first impression based on what I believe is, given the victory conditions, a must in the strategies of each side, which I sadly think is unbalanced favoring the DS and has not many variations per side. And, again, with a solid control of the balance of the Force (a slow killer with Nightsisters), a Vader and a couple bodyguards (plus the tons of killer events + There is no escape) you can easily win the war by attrition (in less than 12 turns) even with a gambit of one or two of your objectives in case the light side has managed to build a ferocious line of attack. And, if not, you have also the chance to obliterate the light by attacking if you manage to get a ferocious offensive and your opponent does not.

Unbalanced and not very imaginative strategies by the moment, that's all, because of the victory conditions. Easily fixable IMO. And I hope they do it.

Bolfa Fluffbelly said:

Thank you very much.

 Also, wouldn't it make more sense if you're main goal was to complete your own objectives instead of destroying your opponents. I guess that at the start of your turn when you get resources for your objectives is a metaphor for this but still… I like to complain.

Bolfa Fluffbelly said:

The naming of the cards as "Objectives"  is probably meant in the adversarial sense, like my "Heart of the Empire" Objective card, is actually your "objective" or "target" to attack.  As well, like you mentioned, they give you resources, and some other kind of help, so it represents an asset that would be a huge loss for your opponent to have destroyed on them.

cleardave said:

I get the abstraction but i'm still not diggin' it.

Maybe their can be "objectives" that you must defend or you'll lose the game like heart of the empire or secret rebel base. You gain alot of resources but with a risk. Then their is objectives like journey to dagobah and jedi training wich you try to advance and complete. When during your refresh phase you have no more objectives to draw and have no more to advance & complete you win the game. I rather have a mechanic like this instead of the DS counter.

Ofcourse i'm just brainstorming… Maybe it's to hard change at this stage of development or to hard to balance but i can see alot of thematic fun.

Bolfa Fluffbelly said:

Yeah, I still hope we might see objectives like this, if not in the core box, then in future expansions. There does seem, to me, to be a lot of fun that can be had with these cards, the way I think I understand the game to be at the minute. I'm just hoping FFG will use all these demos to really fine-tune what they have and, if not add this kinda thing into the game from the off, at least include something in future games. 

Something like completing your own objectives while your opponent keeps targeting them, in particular, can definitely add another layer to the game, to my mind. Some hope for this kinda thing has sprung up when you bear in mind what the designers over on Warhammer: Invasion are doing with their game. The core box as it stands is a pretty quick game, I've had games last about 20 minutes (or less, with my now-famous poor card draw), which does seem really fast for me when I want more depth to my games. But while the first few cycles and deluxes have just given an increased card pool with some increased synergies or whatever, the current cycle and the planned next cycle of battle packs are focusing on specific aspects of the gameplay and adding that kinda depth into them, so that it doesn't become a race between people to get the most units out to attack/defend, you can actually spend a lot of time building up your strategy beforehand. Which makes for a better experience, in my book. So hopefully we'll see something similar here, where you aren't just trying to race to the finish. 

Perhaps…

spalanzani said:

For those that don't know, or don't remember, this is how Star Wars CCG evolved.  Getting your brilliantly-crafted deck up and running still relied entirely on the luck of card draw.  When Jabba's Palace came out, 3 years after Premiere, we got the Starting Interrupt, which lets you select an Effect to deploy on the board right away.  This greatly helped, when the only thing you knew for sure you could have at the start of the game was a location of your choosing.

Special Edition took this further when they introduced the Objective card type, again, 3 years after Premiere.

The point is, while Star Wars CCG was certainly fun in its own way, prior to Special Edition, it became a lot more streamlined and fun from Special Edition onwards, which is ironic considering the films seem to get the opposite response from the viewership.

So, we can expect the Core Set to pretty functional, and that FFG will release future expansions that add more mechanics to the gameplay as we go.

I personally don't like the idea of a turn counter. I'd be happy to see it gone in favor of something else for instance specific objectives or old fashion points scoring when the deck run out.

spalanzani said:

I don't think 12 turns is too short. Consider that you draw up to a full hand every turn instead of drawing a single card. If you go crazy on your edge battles, you could run through your whole deck in under 10 turns or so, before the counter even reaches 12. So there are other things besides the time limit that will make this game short, but unlike The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, you'll probably see most of your deck each game. At least, that's my guess, based on what we know.

cleardave said:

I get what you're saying but i'll rather have as much greatness in the core as possible than waiting 3 years for me to really enjoy the game. I know the game/rules and all that are not out yet but i just have to express my concern for something i think will be bad for the game. Ofcourse i cant know it WILL be bad but i THINK it will, with what i know about it right now.

I can also come up with a house rule or two to fix this "problem" right now but as i said, i rather have it out-of-the-box. Maybe i'm just greedy and ungrateful…

Bolfa Fluffbelly said:

Nothing wrong with wanting the "full" experience in the Core Set box, I just wanted to remind everyone that looks back on SWCCG that it took years for it to evolve into the game we all loved, and it wasn't that awesome on the first set.

From a business perspective, if they gave us "everything" in the Core Set, they'd have nowhere to expand to, in terms of keeping the game experience fresh.

cleardave said:

I don't think i ever mentioned the old swccg in any of my posts, mostly 'cause i never played it.

I'm just trying to bring some constructive criticism on some aspects of the game i'm not totally sold on. I know it's not a final version. I know they wont release everything in the core. I know i'm just dreaming.

Budgernaut said:

That is actually a very good point, I'd forgotten about that. Looking at it that way, 12 turns could well be too long, if you lose when you run out of cards. Which would give the Dark Side player more incentive to destroy Rebel objectives and advance the clock further… 

spalanzani said:

Well, the DS player also gets a tick on the counter when they win the Force Battle.  If you go heavy on Force and defensive characters you could end the game in 6-7 turns without doing anything but stalling. 

The only way the clock makes sense is if FFG already knows that the DS factions are going to be weaker.  If the two sides are evenly matched but one side has a bonus victory condition, then that makes no sense.  But if the best characters (Luke, Yoda, lots of other Jedi) are all on the LS then it makes more sense that the DS has this clock as a balancing mechanism.  Of course it's thematically strange to think of the DS as the weak side at this moment in the films, but since the LS characters do win out in the movies despite overwhelming odds a case could be made that the DS is actually the weaker one (at least until the Death Star is fully operational). 

Still, even if some sort of balancing mechanism is needed, why not just give the DS objectives more hit points?  Or just give the DS more resources.  The LS gets the cool Jedi but the DS can send out waves of stormtroopers and bounty hunters.  Or use the ships as a balancing mechanism.  The LS has better units but once the DS can get the Imperial Fleet into a support position then suddenly they have overwhelming power.  The LS is best at quick strikes and one-on-one battles while the DS is slow but with a higher potential power when all the pieces are in place.  That sounds like a fun way to have asymmetric decks.  I'm sure some of this is already in the game to some degree, but why not just continue to work with those elements rather than stick this artificial timer on the game?  As has already been said, the card draws already guarantee a quick game.