The biggest issue is avoiding cumbersome rules down the road. Like should stuff that affect a "ring-bearer" (i.e. Return to its Master) affect key-bearers too with a rule mentioning things as synonymous or should they be kept separate?
Separate. That's why there are built-in pluses and minuses to having a Key-bearer instead of a Ring-bearer.
Return to Its Master would be useless against a deck using a Key-bearer... however think of the many cards that do bad things to a companion "except the Ring-bearer." A Key-bearer could still be targeted by those nasty things. And that's how we avoid cumbersome rules, by just sticking to what the card says it does.
The big thing with generics is to allow some strategies to be filled out and have some variable adventure constructions. A way of creating more than 9 sites with a specific terrain for deck building without having to test all possible iterations of sites with text. In theory, once enough sets have released, generics will self-phase out once people have enough sites with text.
The site path has never been very variable in sets prior to Shadows. Even if we just had one set of region-specific variable sites, I still think that would offer more variation than traditional sites offer, though less variation than currently exists in Expanded and Open... which I think most people would see as a good thing.
The only problem with losing the region twilight bonus (which I do go back and forth on) is that right now it keeps degenerate choke decks in check (say that five times fast) by putting a cap on how much they can reduce twilight while moving by 3-4. Set up strictly site numbers and we have to watch (or just not create) twilight reduction cards less a 9 twilight site end up producing 0.
I've played against lots of choke decks, can't say I remember any of them reducing a site's twilight number by anything approaching 9. There are choke decks that take twilight out in Fellowship, but that isn't going to affect the twilight generated by the next site.
Besides ALL the problems I have with the new shadow cultures (and there are so many), the biggest issue is going to be one of distinction. For example you have Goblin Runner vs Scurrying Goblin. Both are the exact same card (one is just balanced more) and designed for the same strategy: facilitating swarms. If you do one, why do the other?
Because the way Moria traditionally swarms is completely different than the ways that Orc culture swarms. The two cultures feel completely different to me.
You're going to hamstring yourself in design and start causing headaches as everybody tries to figure out whether this new idea for Uruk-hai someone had should go in Uruk-hai culture of Isengard.
IMO the reason the new cultures were created in the first place, was to minimize the amount of backwards compatibility new cards would have, so it was easier to avoid unforeseen broken card combos. Figuring out which culture a new Uruk-hai idea should go in, should (more than anything else) be determined by which culture won't produce a broken card combo with the new idea. This is actually easier to do with two cultures, since with one culture there is no choice; you either make the new card and X-list something, or don't make the new card.
I do too and would ideally love to see it never be implemented. BUT if things ever got to that point, at least set the game up so it doesn't fall apart when rotation is.
Or we can just decide up-front to not do any rotation, beyond what has already been implemented in the rarely-played Standard Format.
The idea would be the game starting over from scratch (with some things reprinted and/or updated with new text so those of us with cards could still use them).
Says who? Not my idea! I'm interested in adding to what we've already got, not starting over from scratch. Starting over from scratch was basically the largely failed experiment of Second Edition.
Way back when, events kept falling out of favor because they would clog the hand (I know, I tried running an event-heavy deck during Fellowship when the game first started), that's why the game started releasing so much love and pump for events in later sets.
That's basically my point: I see plenty of events get used in Expanded. I don't see any need for cards that make events even MORE useful than they already are, because they're already plenty useful.
Say what you will about G, Lady Redeemed (and boy could I) but at least one thing they did get right for her was an alternate use for events.
I think most players would say that
GLR's alternate use for events was something Decipher got
wrong, not right. Too powerful.
I don't like this, lots of cards reference the dead pile, I think that mechanic needs to stay.
See above on restarting.
See above on
not restarting. I want 100% backwards compatability, or else it's not really the return of LOTR TCG. And there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
Actually it occurs to me that in a lot of ways, Followers make more sense as a shadow card and Allies as fellowship (I mean, seriously who believes Sam would drag his young son into battle?). It would certainly make wargs & their riders interesting.
Shadow should never have any more followers than their single Saruman follower. Followers are too powerful for Shadow to have access to, beyond that single one.
"Indomitable" would just be loading a keyword with text that's already on a bunch of cards. I'm also open to any other suggestions for repeated texts that could be combined into a keyword.
Again, I say no new loaded keywords, not for a good long while. Adding loaded keywords adds to the "cumbersome rules" you were talking about, things players have to remember that aren't just written on the card. I don't see the need for it. Just use the same text that's been used before. What, are you feeling the need to have more space on the card, so you can cram yet more game text in there in addition to the loaded keyword?
"Foresight" is kind of like that only not as much. It's mostly just a way to give the elves a mechanic more distinct from the other cultures without cluttering up a bunch of text.
Elf telepathy is already EXTREMELY powerful as a mechanic. You're thinking of putting this on a bunch new Elf companions, as a loaded keyword? No thanks!
Nope, sorry, hate this. IMO Response actions should continue to operate the way they currently do.
Can you make a stronger case for why?
Can you make a stronger case for why not? Before we go changing the rules, I think there needs to be a really good reason for doing so. You've said there is, but I haven't heard it, nor have I experienced it in play.
Because a lot of problem cards came about because they didn't put limiters on them and responses was a common one.
For example? Give me some examples of these problems you've encountered with the way response actions currently work.
It would also allow us to harmonize more things like instead of "each time... you may..." just do what originally was there: Response.
That's no good, because on conditions and a characters, "response" actions are a special ability, and special abilities can be canceled by certain cards. "Each time you may" text is generally
not a special ability, and is thus something that tends to be more dependable. Lumping these two categories together and making them one thing is, IMO, not a good idea.
Thx for the feedback, is there anything YOU would want to see changed or different if the game was reloaded?
Well, for one thing, "reloaded" does not mean "restarted." "The Matrix Reloaded" was a sequel to the first Matrix movie, it was not a reboot. If we see more LOTR TCG, I want it to be sets that add to what we have so far, not some kind of reboot or reset. That idea frankly repels me even more than those new cultures neither of us like, that Decipher implemented with Shadows. I don't want to start over, I want to continue on.
Other than that, I'd just like to see the characters from the new Hobbit movies integrated into the game. That's pretty much it, really.