What do you think? Is it a good thing that this game is getting more and more new mechanics, or should they just stop after X cycles and call it a day? Remember what an endless stream of new mechanics did to a game like Carcassonne 
Counterpoint: M:tG is 20+ years old and still going strong (⌠I guess, do not play it myself).
I was listening to the last episode of Terminal 7 this morning, and they brought up how this summer, for about two weeks, people were seriously considering quitting the game because Marcus Batty had broken everything. Obviously, the gameâs fine and Batty is a powerful but niche card that doesnât see much play.
I guess what Iâm saying is, the designers of Netrunner have shown us time and again that (a few core set balancing issues aside) they know what theyâre doing and have a firm hand on the rudder. Until they show me otherwise, Iâm going to trust them to do whatâs best for the game.
After all, if they donât print new mechanics, the only thing they can do is print more cards that do whatâs been done already. The only possible outcome there is making cards that are better or worse than what we already have, and both binder fodder and power creep kill games.
21 Likes
I think Alliances are edging the line, because they make deck checks a bit weird. Apart from that, I think Netrunner is fine. The base mechanics (run, ICE, agendas) are strong, and I donât think there are too many new mechanics that are completely out there. A new win condition for either player would be something that I would not like to see, for instance (at least for tournament play).
3 Likes
The Alliances thing is really only the actual new mechanic being introduced with Mumbad and itâs strictly related to deck building, and even then itâs really only an out growing of the current influence system.
I personally really like what LLDS is doing with Mumbad. It seems like itâs going to take the game in an interesting direction. Hopefully weâll see a few new deck archetypes come around that really stretch the game in different ways.
5 Likes
With the ever growing list of mechanics, before it could be a problem, cards will start to cycle out. Like when the Lunar cycle cycles out, Iâm sure they will print more currents or maybe they will be a thing of past and will be replaced with a new mechanic. It also helps to keep the game from getting into a rut and being boring
Currents are here to stay - theyâve been in big boxes, and Sol isnât rotating out.
3 Likes
You are correct, I forgot about that completely
Flip IDs were the first actual ânew mechanicâ, shortly before face-down Runner cards, shortly before alliances. It took 2.5 years before making new mechanics, so I think the sharks are unjumped.
15 Likes
6-per-deck and Alliance are quite simple for players to grasp imo.
I do agree that they add some obtuse checks for judges though, and Iâm sure some fatigued people may get DQâd or play with illegal decks due to the mechanic. But judging is an opt-in job, and people who judge will typically be on their toes and aware of such things. Especially if a big deck comes out of using the Alliance mechanic (Jeeves maybe Saleemâs Hospitality)
Flip IDs are activated ability on Corps. Iâm sure its been dreamt since the very beginning.
1 Like
Hmmm, I donât know about facedown runner cards, I donât agree that it should be a new mechanism. I mean, there are circumstances that could leave cards face down and Apex simply installs them face down without ever allowing anything to flip them back up. Now if the rules introduced something like âclick: turn the card face up paying all costsâ, it would be a new mechanism imo.
But that was not the point of the thread either 
what are these circumstances outside of apex-faction cards? Iâm pretty sure there arenât any, as the insert for D&D had to include a âwhat are the rules for installed-face-down runner cardsâ section.
Back on topic: I agree with other posters, most of the mechanics listed either a) are purely deckbuilding related and thus add no complexity to actual gameplay, or b) are pretty simple to understand, such as flip IDs and facedown cards.
I feel they have a long way to go before complexity creep becomes a problem (though to be fair this is largely because the base game itself is quite complex, so it would take a lot of creep to really ruin whatâs good about the game) and I have a feeling that rotation will deal with that pretty well.
All that said, I wouldnât be opposed to a ânetrunner 2â a few years down the road. buy-in cost for potential new serious players is getting pretty daunting, and rotation will only slow this problem, not reverse it. Plus it would give them a chance to revisit some of the biggest design missteps that happened in core and elsewhere.
If, and this is a big if, this were to happen, what are the biggest potential rule and card changes?
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Astro as a 3/1 or 4/2, nerfed Account Siphon, maybe buff tracers a bit in the core set, nerfed ETF and Kate
[quote=âPolynomial_C, post:13, topic:6344, full:trueâ]
Astro as a 3/1 or 4/2,[/quote]
Reasonable.
[quote=âPolynomial_C, post:13, topic:6344, full:trueâ]
nerfed Account Siphon, [/quote]
Specifically how?
[quote=âPolynomial_C, post:13, topic:6344, full:trueâ]
maybe buff tracers a bit in the core set,[/quote]
Reasonable.
Specifically how?
My personal suggestion would be to make Bad Pub just a general recurring credit for the runner as opposed to a recurring credit for every run.
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Not a rule/card change but pick a paradigm for tags and stick with it! Either they have moderate effects that scale with tag quantity or powerful effects that rely on the digital state of âtaggedâ. No blending of Psychographics and Scorched Earth. The latter makes tags so dangerous that the former is rarely useful.
7 Likes
Kate: at least, remove the 1 link, and a) limit discount to either programs or hardware only or b) lower influence to 12 or so
ETF: get a credit on install in either remote servers or central servers only, maybe limit to corpâs turn only
What does this line of discussion have to do with the thread?
6 Likes
It follows the idea of Netrunner âjumping the sharkâ and needing a 2.0 reboot to sort some things out.
I personally donât feel like there is anything in the game that needs a complete overhaul, which means the game is probably in a pretty good spot and hasnât âjumped the sharkâ.
I think that so long as any ânew featuresâ are things that add interest and variation to the core of: the Runner runs, using programs to get through the Corp defences and tries to find agendas, then weâre fine. If things veer decidedly away from this, I think weâd be starting to lose Netrunner a little bit.
In that sense an extreme deckbuilding archetype of the âDLR and friendsâ variety that in extremis could only attempt to make one run per game and not actually steal any agendas, is edging that way in my view.
Iâm not sure the potential is there quite so much for the Corp to veer into âunNetrunnerâ, since ultimately theyâre the one with the clock on their head and always need a plan to score agendas and protect them from theft.
The closest they came were the power shutdown/accelerated diagnostics CI decks that moneyed for 10-15 turns and then played solitaire for 5 minutes as they calculated a win. Luckily, that phase of the meta didnât last long.
5 Likes