More Singles in Cores give 1st time users more variety in cards, more interactions to discover, and get a feel for the theme of the faction (hopefully). I think was the idea with the AGOT cores?
It is more variety in cards, but they could have kept the same variety AND reduce the number of 1x cards by making some of the 3x copies 2x. That makes any deck miles more consistent and means you can make do with 2 cores. Plus some of the cards they rescued from rotation really weren’t worth keeping.
That stuff isn’t that hard to work out. If you’re agenda flooded and you’re looking for your second punitive so you can flatline the runner, but by the time you find it they’re on match point, I’m sure even a complete beginner would realise that 3x punitives would’ve helped. I know people who spent months and months intensively grinding out single-core-only games and got really good at this game before they bought a single other card. I don’t think those same people would have stuck it out long enough to get hooked at the game if their first experience was core 2.0, because it lacks the impactful skill-testing cards like Siphon, and it has a lot of important cards in single copy, making them hard to find.
Obviously with 3 copies of that set everything changes, you can make quite interesting decks. But I think there will be a decrease of first-time buyers who will choose to make that investment.
Assuming you are correct – which we as the player community may never know – it may not be a bug but a feature of the game. Damon Stone likes to point out that competitive players are a small minority of the market for the game. People who are interested in consistency, skill-testing cards, and efficiency may not be the primary audience the designers had in mind when assembling Core 2.0.
You seem to think the single core, kitchen table market for ANR will be upset by having a lot of 1x cards, but it is possible that they are not as interested in the things that make a good competitive deck-building game and want the variety and variance that come with 1x cards.
I frankly do not know which case is true, but I did want to raise a possible different reason for FFG’s choices.
I think I can “mea culpa, sort of” me too but I have still concerns with the game how it is.
Because the rotation banned quite a number of small cards that were problemtic if it stayed like it was. It is not only the problem of flagship cards : marked account out makes a better situation for NEH spam right now.
Marked account, that small card ? Yes, that one. Because with 1 inf marilyn, pad, nasx (which is so fine !) and sandburg, that was quite difficult for the runner to compete if there was 1/2/3 more asset ticking for creds. Now, that deck is fair. Strong, but fair.
I imagine other stuff was done for other archetypes. I have to revise my judgement. But still, I don’t understand at least the semi ban of aesop, if not others (temujin, clone chip).
Jackson out is… Mmm. I can’t say. Not sure it’s fun, not sure it’s the end of the world too.
I think there is also something to do for facechecking, which is very tough for the runner now, because of old ratio ice : I think perma clic econ should be granted for runners. Without, it makes the runner having to draw endgame + run + find econ. becaus of this, endgame now are a lot lot less tense (the “who is winning” situation is clear, not blurred like it was).
Well, core sets full of 1x are much better deals because there’s no waste, so hardcore players of other FFG games may be more likely to give Netrunner a try with more 1x. I LOVE the Game of Thrones core model and the fact that 3 cores had no waste was very appealing when buying into the game, after playing Netrunner but really disliking the core model. If L5R is mostly singletons too, that would greatly increase my chance of buying into that game.
Yeah, L5R is singles for the faction stuff and 2x for the neutrals. (So you get two play sets so you can have two decks built out of 3xcore.)
On the other hand, I was pretty unhappy with 1x everything in Call of Cthulhu. That may partly just be a matter of taste, but more likely games are different, and a card distribution that is fun and good for deckbuilding in one won’t necessarily be good for another.
I’m just wondering whether the inconsistency of single-core decks may end up frustrating people, and damage their chances of being converted into long-term customers who buy more packs (which surely is what both we as players and FFG as, well, the sellers of those packs, all want). New players might not understand the value of deck consistency (although that’s a big assumption, many experienced gamers pick up netrunner), but they’ll still feel frustrated when they can’t find the card they’re looking for and their game plan goes to shit. 1xSpecial Order is particularly egregious, I’m sure a lot of newbie runners will spend 5 turns drawing for breakers while the corp scores out unmolested, because they won’t know how to force rezzes elsewhere and drain the corp’s money.
And if they’re new to card games and genuinely don’t understand the value of deck consistency, they might well blame the game for losing to bad draws rather than the fact that they only have 1xSpecial Order, and get turned off. That could be someone who would’ve loved the game and bought one of every pack, and was turned off it because FFG wants to make everyone buy 3xCores. It’s literally stepping over dimes to pick up pennies.
PS. Ok, “metaphorically”!
Much better deals if you were already committed to buying 3x in advance, sure. (Although I think less waste doesn’t mean better deal, frankly, if there were more 2x cards you would ahve had 2 playsets of them with 3x cores, isn’t that also a good deal cause it lets you have 2 built decks with those cards?) But if you’re a beginner and you buy 1 core, it’ll make you less likely to want to buy more.
There are 33 3x cards in Core 2.0. They break down as follows:
- Neutral economy: 4
- Decent non-neutral economy: 6
- Neutral binary ice: 2
- 3/2 agendas: 4
- Icebreakers: 9
- Other: 8
I wouldn’t want to see any of cards in the categories I mentioned reduced to 2x, because I think they’re good cards for keeping the inconsistency of these decks from getting too out of hand. I know that for breakers, this is more copies than most competitive decks run, but there aren’t many tutor or draw effects, and not finding breakers is very frustrating for new players.
But that would mean that only eight 1x could be raised to 2x by reducing the number of copies of 3x cards. That would still leave 35 non-identity one-ofs, so it wouldn’t be much of an improvement for people who want fewer one-ofs.
Still a helluva lot of one-ofs… I’m genuinely concerned about how new players will react to this. Obviously it’s a better set for those of us who have the cards already, as it means more Spin and Genesis cards staying in the game. But still.
I don’t think new players will be turned off by the lack of cards like account siphon and parasite. This is a complex game even when you are just playing money and ice. There is a lot to discover, even things like how high-trash assets don’t need to be protected by ice, or how you can never-advance an agenda, or how you can check for traps by running hq first and seeing if the agenda is still in there, etc. and that is enough to get someone interested in the game. Starter decks for M:tG don’t have land destruction or infinite combos in them
Well, it would depend on the kind of player I guess. Some people get excited by balanced, cerebral battles of wits, bluffs, and efficient marshalling of resources. Others are degenerate combolords and get excited by siphons and tag’n’bag plays. I honestly don’t know if Netrunner would’ve appealed to me strongly enough to get me hooked if it weren’t for those iconic cards! There’s plenty of other such cards in the full cardpool of course, so their removal fromthe Core hasn’t ruined the game for ME personally, but I really think you need those power cards in Core to get certain types of new players excited by the game!
Not many tutor effects, if only that 1-of special order could’ve been bumped somehow, then we could’ve reduced the number of icebreakers and had room to increase the 1-ofs, however there’s no room so special order has to stay 1-of.
Not keeping Special Order as a 3x is the most confusing thing. Like… Look, I get it, we want to change up the status quo and remove some of the more difficult things in the game.
But why, by all that is holy, would you make it harder to play the game?
I disagree with a lot of the changes in Core2.0, but Special Order is the only one I’m completely unable to see the opposing view on. I think its 100% objectively wrong, while everything else is just my opinion.
Yeah, it’s a pretty annoying change. Of course, they did it to strengthen the corp’s ability to rush behind cheap ETRs iin the early game (when playing with just a single core set). They MAKE you include 3x of each breaker (partly cause there’s so little tutoring, partly cause there just aren’t enough good cards to fill your slots with), but you have to draw for them manually.