We're pushing a small build update today that completes the brand change over for the game itself. There are no other changes or revisions in this build- just the logo and opening movie changes to reflect the change to The Lord of the Rings™️ Adventure Card Game.
Have a great weekend!
FFI and Asmodee Digital
News Update June 10th, 2019- Encounter 3 Coming
Hail and Well Met!
Branding Change
As we announced in the news on Friday, we have decided to rebrand the game as The Lord of the Rings™️ Adventure Card Game as part of our build up toward the Full Release out of Early Access and our console release later this year.
We'll provide an updated build later this week to bring the game into line with this change.
Mount Gundabad Awoken Encounter Coming July 23rd!
Our next content release will be an all new Encounter provided free to all users.
Legend holds that in the distant mists of the First Age, Durin, father of Dwarves, built his first forge within Mount Gundabad. Alas, in time Orcs seized control of the mountain stronghold. Though the Dwarves drove them out repeatedly, the Orcs always returned. Even unto the current times of the Third Age, their foul presence remains a constant blight upon the Dwarves' sacred place.
The threat of Orcs—and worse—is on the rise once more. Reports claim that Gundabad swells with increasing numbers of Orcs, evil Men, and other miscreants. The corrupted fortress stirs with renewed purpose… though to just what purpose remains a mystery. Heroes are needed—brave souls who will venture to this desolate place and discover what draws forth the minions of darkness.
In this Encounter your Heroes are faced with a mystery: many Orc factions, as well as evil Men from Carn Dûm and Rhudaur, assemble within Gundabad. Someone—or something—calls to them, but to what purpose? To learn the truth, stealth and guile are called for. Your journey to Gundabad is a search, not an assault. You must use disguise and subterfuge to infiltrate the enemy stronghold and glean its secret, but that's only the beginning! To find the source of the dark siren song, you'll need to navigate the depths of the labyrinthine mountain fortress. Should you overcome the obstacles along the way, you'll face a foe unlike any you've encountered before.
Choose your deck carefully, for you'll need both wits and combat prowess to defeat the foul power that rouses Mount Gundabad and its denizens.
Discord
There's a fan set up and run discord channel where you can reach out and talk to fellow players and look for multiplayer friends to play with.
Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.
Our next stream will be Wednesday, June 19th. We'll be discussing upcoming content, the name change and various other surprises.
Next Update
That's all we have this week. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!
FFI and Asmodee Digital
Understanding the Power Behind a Name
Hail and well met!
Today we have a fairly large announcement that we're excited to be making to continue to better align with the goals and desires for this digital card game that has been evolving since we launched into Early Access. Early Access has been a series of improvements and adjustments based on the communities feedback and this change that we are announcing today continues that tradition.
Henceforth from this date we will be changing the name of "The Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game" to "The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game". Now that the big announcement has been made, let's go over some of the reasoning behind this so that you can all understand why we're making this change.
While the term "Living Card Game" is used in the physical card game world to represent an ever-growing TCG world filled with narrative stories and campaigns, this is not a terminology regularly used in the digital realm. As such we feel that the name "Adventure Card Game" better describes our core value and game design that revolves around a card game in which you adventure throughout the world creating your very own story in Middle-earth. This means that the name now represents something more understandable for the entire community, as well as better representing the full experience offered by the game.
This change is been something we have been longing to do thanks to your feedback that you have generously been providing since release. We hope that the you like the new name, The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game, and that it better meets player's expectations for the experiences they will face as they travel in Middle-earth.
Asmodee Digital and FFI
Weekly Update- June 4th 2019
Hail and Well Met!
Sneak Peek Content
Over the following weeks, we will be sharing more info about the upcoming Encounter: Gundabad Awoken
And the upcoming Campaign: The Witch King's Grasp.
This week we want to share an early sneak peek at the upcoming heroes for the next expansion, which brings some well known friends and a character highlighted in the recent Prelude Tutorial Campaign release.
Let's take a look, though please note that we've zeroed out the stats as we're not quite ready to discuss their powers and stats yet. All of the following are work in progress, so besides the stats, we may change other aspects of their look and feel before launch.
Sam was a card we showed on our twitch streams during early development, but we ended up postponing releasing him until we could add both he and Frodo to the mix.
He also has an alt art, which you can see here...
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Frodo
Since we're bringing Sam in, that means we're bringing Frodo to the game as well. With the ring-bearer's inclusion, you can now make an all Hobbit fellowship to confront Sauron.
Here's his alt art as well...
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Boromir
We are getting closer and closer to having all of the members of the original Fellowship of the Ring with the inclusion of this hero of Gondor- Boromir.
You can see his alt art here as well-
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Rossiel
Rossiel, one of the Elves of Mirkwood was introduced in the Tutorial Campaign. Now you can make a deck around her as one of your heroes.
Here is her alt art...
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So now we leave it up to you. If you are an observant player, you know what sphere Rossiel represents, but you can speculate on how Sam, Frodo and Boromir fit into the puzzle. Which spheres do they represent? What do you think their stats are? What about their card abilities? Let the speculation commence...
Discord
There's a fan set up and run discord channel where you can reach out and talk to fellow players and look for multiplayer friends to play with.
Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.
Our next stream will be Wednesday, June 5th.
Next Update
That's all we have this week. Next week we'll discuss more upcoming content and other news. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!
FFI and Asmodee Digital
Patch Update- May 30th, 2019
Hail and Well Met!
Hello everyone. As we mentioned in the news update yesterday, we have a new patch going live, and we've decided to go live today! You will see a maintenance message while the build is being deployed, but will be able to play the game once again once the build is updated.
Make sure you update your game once the build is live. If you want to be thorough, you can verify files by right clicking on the app name in your library.
If you continue to see any issues, please file a helpshift as outlined here.
We will be posting the patch starting @ Noon US Central Time (UTC-6).
Weekly Update, My 29th, 2019 Patch News and Next Content
Hail and Well Met!
Monday was the Memorial Day holiday here in the US, so this week's update is a day late as a result. Next week we will be back to our usual Tuesday time slot.
Patch
Since the update, we've issued a few updates and later this week we will be going live with a new update that should take care of most of the remaining issues. We will post a new set of patch notes and make a short news announcement when this patch goes live.
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Ongoing Bug Fixes
While we hope that this new patch resolves most of the remaining issues, we will of course be responding to new issues and work to resolve them with future patches and updates. We will also be making small quality of life improvements to the save system, ui and tutorial quests as we go.
Next Content
Now that the major update is behind us, it's time for us to focus on new upcoming content. On that front we will be working on two new pieces of content, starting with a new expansion pack that includes-
Five New Quests as part of The Witch King's Grasp Campaign
4 New Hero Packs
16 New Hero Pack Cards
All new Hero and Quest reward challenges
This new campaign is in development now, though we are not discussing a release date at this time. In this campaign, you will gain four familiar heroes and visit familiar locales like the town of Bree, where criminal activities are on the upswing, and the Barrow Downs, where the ancient kings of earlier ages are buried and someone is searching for a lost artifact. We will be exploring new game concepts and mixing up what you've come to expect from the adventures you've had thus far in Middle-earth.
In addition, we have a new encounter, Gundabad Awoken coming that will be released to all players. The orcs of Gundabad are stirring, but for what purpose?
We will begin to discuss these new adventures in the coming weeks.
Twitch Stream
Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.
Our next stream will be Wednesday, June 5th.
Discord
Did you know that there is a fan made Discord channel where you can further communicate with us, discuss the game with other enthusiasts, look for MP players and otherwise just hang out and talk. We participate in the channel and can provide additional feedback there.
That's all we have this week. Next week, we'll share some details on the upcoming adventures. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!
FFI and Asmodee Digital
Weekly News Update- May 20th Bug Fixes and Patches
Hail and Well Met!
Bug Fixing
As mentioned last week, the update for this week will be a short one. Since we released the big update last week, we've been dealing with bug fixes and improvements as our major focus.
Thanks to everyone who has given us bug reports and feedback here and on discord. This has helped us immensely in tracking down issues quickly. We continue to be committed to using the Early Access period to improve and enhance the game and your participation is a major part of that effort.
Since we released the update last week, we've released at least two hot fix patches and a few server side fixes. We have another patch scheduled next week but might issue hot fixes for issues that come up in between here and then.
We apologize to those who are continuing to experience issues and will continue to work each day to resolve them as quickly as we can. We ask for your patience as we work through each issue.
Discord
Did you know that there is a fan made Discord channel where you can further communicate with us, discuss the game with other enthusiasts, look for MP players and otherwise just hang out and talk. We participate in the channel and can provide additional feedback there.
Save Games and The Tutorial We received a few questions on Save Games and the Tutorial Quests. By design we opted to not include the ability to save your game during the four core tutorial quests. These quest are shorter than a typical quest, and are intended that you learn all aspects being taught in a single sitting. For that reason, you can not save games until you reach the first official quest- Quest 5 of the Prelude Campaign.
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As noted last week,
Early Access Release This release remains Early Access, and while all of the major features are now live, there are a few known issues as well as areas we intend to keep polishing and improving over the coming weeks based on player feedback. Additionally, if there are any elements that require immediate changes, we will issue updates as required.
Twitch Stream
Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.
Our next stream will be Wednesday, May 22nd.
Next Update
That's all we have this week. Next week we'll update you on the latest fixes and patches, and we'll start to discuss more details on the next expansion, Campaign 3. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!
FFI and Asmodee Digital
Weekly Update- May 14th- Major Update Now Live! Save Now Live!
Hail and Well Met!
Today is the Day!
We are releasing the major update we've been discussing the past several weeks later today. You can read more about the changes in our previous news updates below, or you can dive right into the game when it updates to check them out live for yourself.
Changelog We've listed the the update details in our patch notes at the following link.
May 16th Update- We've just issued a hotfix. Patch notes are here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/509580/discussions/0/3264459260603602838/
This is a major update to the game touching many areas of gameplay, user interface, deckbuilding, presentation and more. Most of these elements you'll be able to explore on your own but we wanted to point out some important information included in this update.
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Update Your Game! We will be uploading the new update starting at 2pm Central US time / 7:00pm UTC. The game will not be playable until the update is completed. We expect it to take about an hour, but will post a news update when the build is complete and ready. Please make sure you update your game before playing.
If you encounter any difficulties once the build is fully live, please verify your local files. If you still encounter issues, you may file a helpshift ticket with us and we will assist you as soon as possible.
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Early Access Release This release remains Early Access, and while all of the major features are now live, there are a few known issues as well as areas we intend to keep polishing and improving over the coming weeks based on player feedback. Additionally, if there are any elements that require immediate changes, we will issue updates as required.
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Saves Now Functioning! The issue we had previously has been resolved. Enjoy!
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Mouse Interaction Change In order to improve the user interface while in game, we've changed mouse functionality. The right mouse button is now used to bring up the full view of cards and cameos. This change was made so that players may inspect cards before making selections or targets (such as Legolas' or Arwen's powers). Please be aware of this change, as you may be previously used to left clicking in order to inspect full cards.
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Narrative Resources Change This update adds a number of play balance changes that we are using to improve the game experience across all styles of play. For this reason, we are standardizing the amount of resources that each player receives in all play styles to 3. We feel that with the changes to the play balance, it is no longer necessary to give narrative players an extra resource each turn.
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New Co-Op play mode There is now a narrative style co-op play mode for players who want to quest with friends, but don't want the difficulty associated with Challenge Mode.
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Ping! We've added ping functionality to the new build in Co-op multiplayer. Simply hold the Left-Ctrl key while clicking on the screen to notify the other player about what you want them to look at. There is a 2-second cool down period for this feature so you can't simply spam the other player with pings.
What's Next?
As mentioned, we will continue polishing and improving the update in the coming weeks, but we are hard at work on much more, starting with our next expansion, The Witch King's Grasp. This all new expansion includes four new hero packs and a full new campaign. Though we're not ready to start discussing this expansion in detail, we will give you a small spoiler (spoiler text below...)
You will spend a fair bit of time in Bree and visit the Prancing Pony.
Twitch Stream
Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.
Our next stream will be Wednesday, May 22nd.
Next Update
That's it for this week. Next week we'll have a short news post on the status of any improvements or bug fixes for the update, with a larger news update the following week with more details on Campaign 3. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!
FFI and Asmodee Digital
News Update- May 7th, 2019- Play Balance
Hail and Well Met!
Just a reminder that one week from today, we will be releasing our major new update with all of the changes outlined above and more. The update will be completed by 10am Central US time (UTC -6), so you may have trouble connecting as the update is underway on the servers in the hours prior. Please make sure the game is fully updated before launching the game to check it out, and as always, if you have any issues, please submit a helpshift ticket at LINK.
This is a major update touching many areas of the game and we've outlined the nature of these changes over the last several weeks. However, in case you missed them, you can read more about these changes at the following links:
This week, we continue our series of articles about the coming update as we focus on our new play balancing tools and how they will affect play. As you may recall, we delivered an initial play balance of the first campaign when we released Campaign 2. That was merely a foretaste of the changes we will be implementing moving forward.
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A Better Mode of Play Our goal with the difficulty settings is to move to a more distinct play style rather than just differences in difficulty. For casual fans, we wanted a mode that was more focused on narrative progression and drop in play. For players who are veterans of the table top game, or who are die hard digital card game fans, we wanted to increase the challenges to overcome. That leaves Adventure as the standard mode of play, with challenges aplenty but without the truly difficult challenges of the harder mode.
Thus we went from our previous Easy, Normal, Hard difficulty designations to Narrative, Adventure and Challenge modes of play. However, to realize this design fully, we needed a better set of tools, and that meant overhauling how adventures were designed. In the original game, we had only a few real variables in determining how an adventure plays- varying the number of cards drawn, the number of resources earned, how many resources Sauron earns, and how many cards he can hold in his hand. We wanted a more comprehensive set of tools to adjust the game and to create truly different styles of play. With our upcoming overhaul of the game, players will be able to finally have a more diverse set of options in how the game plays between modes.
The new tools we have at our disposal now include several new ways to approach the game:
Stat differences by play style
Board Setups by play style and by location
Sauron Deck composition by play style
Sauron Card Restrictions by play Style
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Stat differences by Play Style We now have the ability to change stats on cards by play style, meaning we can enhance or reduce an enemy unit's stats by the chosen play style.
While we have the ability to do this on an absolute basis, we chose to restrict these changes to the type of enemies we call Villains ('boss' enemies) only, and only for each Villain's health. The reason for this limited use is overall balance. Attack stats are carefully considered by the number of attacks that enemy has per round and how much damage they can inflict using keywords like Guard, Block or Counter (and via attachments).
Small changes in stats can have a major change in how the game plays out, so we have started with baby steps whenever making changes to the game. In our own playtests, changing Villain health between play modes results in a nice difference in how the boards feel without affecting overall enemy play balance, whereas if we make wholesale changes to all enemies across the board, the result ends up being very chaotic and less fulfilling.
Once live, we will watch the play data to see how this plays out, but for now we have no plans to make changes other than to Villain health (though we will retain this tool in our playbook for the future).
For Example: Here is the Giant Slug in the various play modes...
Narrative Mode
Adventure Mode
Challenge Mode
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Board Setups by Play Style by Location We now have the ability to change what the initial board setups a player will see at each location in the game based on the chosen play style. Previously, you would see the same board setup regardless of play style. This meant that we had to be very selective on the enemies chosen for a location so that it wasn't too difficult for Narrative style players, but yet challenging enough for Challenge style players. This made for setups that really didn't satisfy either and made Adventure style less distinctive.
Now we can create unique board setups for each play style that better suits our goals for each. Adventure play style will retain something akin to the original board setups, while Narrative setups will feature enemies that aren't quite so imposing or punishing. Challenge players will enjoy new setups that require more strategic thinking before play in order to overcome the situations presented.
We can also change these setups for single and multiplayer games so that you might see different enemy board setups between how you approach them in single and cooperative play.
Example- Attercop, Attercop To illustrate how these setups will vary, here are the initial setups for each of the different play modes for the quest, Attercop, Attercop.
Single Player Narrative Mode (Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.)
SIngle Player Adventure Mode (Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.)
Single Player Challenge Mode
(Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.)
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Sauron Deck Setups by Play Style In addition to having only one board setup for all three play modes, we originally had only the ability to offer one Sauron deck for all three play modes. Again, this meant that we could really only create one deck for all three play modes, with the same random chance of cards showing up (or not showing up) for all three modes.
As part of our design changes, we've added the ability to create three distinctly different decks for each play mode. This means we can favor certain enemies, or certain resource costs, or even more events in one play mode versus less in another. This allows us to really tailor the experience for the mode of play moving forward.
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Sauron Card Restrictions by Play Style This is a new tool in our toolbox that was revealed when we released Campaign 2 as well as in our initial rebalance of Campaign 1. We have the ability to restrict what cards Sauron can play on any given location, but the enhancement we've now added is that we can now do this on a per play mode basis.
Additionally, from a design perspective, our game is asymmetric between how Sauron plays and how you play. This means that Sauron can play cards and perform actions that you as a player cannot (and vice versa). In practical terms, this means that, unlike the player, Sauron reshuffles his deck and continues play when he uses up his initial deck. This usually works well, but can result in certain cards being played more often than we would like. For this reason, we can restrict certain cards from being reshuffled back into the deck after they have been played.
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Two Modes of Play for Cooperative Multiplayer Mode In addition to the above changes for balance, we've also added an additional play style to cooperative multiplayer. You may now choose between Narrative and Challenge modes in multiplayer to better suit how you wish to play. We decided to add only one additional play style to cooperative play mode for now so that we can analyze the play data. We will make a determination down the road if there is a need to add all three modes of play in multiplayer mode.
Unlike MP Challenge mode, all health/quest point stats for Sauron cards will be calculated at 1.7x rather than 2x the original unit stat. Fate event costs are determined by the designer, but will roughly follow these guidelines.
Let's look at the board setups for Attercop, Attercop for Cooperative Multiplayer:
Multiplayer Adventure Mode (Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.)
Multiplayer Challenge Mode (Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.)
You can see that with 5 different possible board setups between the single and multiplayer play styles, there is now the possibility for more diverse game experiences. In some cases, the changes will be subtle, and at other times, the differences will be very noticeable. Either way, we hope you will enjoy these changes.
Twitch Stream
Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.
Our next stream will be tomorrow, Wednesday, May 8th.
Next Update
That's it for this week. Next week we'll be discussing what additional new elements we have in store for The Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!
FFI and Asmodee Digital
Weekly Update- April 30th, 2019- Major Update Launch Date!
Hail and Well Met!
Over the last weeks, we've discussed the coming major update and the ramifications for how they will change the game moving forward. These changes include:
Major UI changes
New cosmetic options to dress up your game or celebrate your favorite characters and moments of play
A whole new way to refine and sort your decks
The much asked for save game feature
An all new tutorial campaign
A new scoring and reward system
Plus more changes large and small.
If you missed the previous news about the updates, you can catch up by clicking on these links:
During these past weeks we talked about how we would not announce a release date until we felt it was ready to put in your hands. Today we are very pleased to announce the release date for this update, which will be Tuesday, May 14th.
This update will be free to all players, though you will need to make sure your game is fully updated to see the changes live in game.
We look forward to you tearing into all the new changes, trying out the new tutorial and earning all the great new rewards.
Campaign Challenges
Today, we wanted to show you a sneak peek at the upcoming quest challenges that will be featured in the new update. As we noted a few weeks back, scoring is going to a flat amount of Fellowship granted for completing a quest. In addition, each quest will have five specific challenges that players can complete to earn a bonus of 200 Fellowship each. Some of these challenges will be shared between quests, but every quest will include unique challenges.
Here is an example of the challenges from the quest, Attercop, Attercop.
Click on the thumbnail above to see the full image.
Here is an example of the challenges from the quest, The Silver Claws.
Click on the thumbnail above to see the full image.
You can preview the challenges for each quest on the Rewards tab of the Play menu.
Click on the thumbnail above to see the full image.
Twitch Stream
Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.
Our next stream will be next week, Wednesday, May 8th.
Next Update
That's it for this week. Next week we'll give you more sneak peeks as to what is coming down the road for The Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!
