Basics on how to play n stuff

[Serano]

http://legendsofnorrath.station.sony.com/

Feel free to add to this thread as necessary.

I could not learn this game at all for a number of reasons:
- I had never played non Hoyle based card games
- lack of genuine interest
- Annoyance
- impatience

I finnaly learned one night with a quick tutorial from Isenhart - where he worked thru the above and other annoying behaivioral problems I was having with this game.

The bottom line on this game is that there are several types of cards The primarly ones that affect the flow of the game:
Avatar card - this is your hero and is the focus for most of the game
Quest cards - 4 quest completions is one of 2 ways to victory - killing the opponents avatar is another
Item cards - can have a great impact on gameplay mostly affecting your avatar
Ability cards - the only way you can work on quests is thru playing Ability cards - I could not get this until I was taught by Isenhart
unit cards - These are your armys. They protect your avatar and do battle vs enemy avatar and units

The flow of the turn:

Quest phase - this is where any ability cards that were played in a previous turn but have not been used (exerted) can build towards quest completion. Bottom line if you have an unexerted quest card that has been taken out of your hand, (Excerted is a fancy way of saying that you clicked on the card in order to gain the defence, or special action from that ability in the previous round) then you will be made to choose one of the two quests - the one on right or left. you can click on the quest card to see what it will do if you complete it or play against it. Some don't do anything based on your playing abilities against them but affect units simply by being the active quest card.. after you click the quest card you will do battle with any unit cards from the enemy on that quest card - or just automatically get to choose an ability card to fill in the quest tokens. Each ability card has a differant amount of quest value.

Drawing from your deck and "raids." The word "raid" really made me think hard in LoN at first because I didn't get it. I know what a raid is. Well in LoN "raid" simply means initiating your unit combat against the enemy units or enemy avatar. This is done by clicking the green flag by the quest card that your unit cards are by.

"raids:" There are many coplexities to what makes battles good for you or a failure. You can click your units in order to deal the most damage (sword) to the enemy in order to come in "JUST" ahead of his defence rating. beating an enemy with a defence rating of 1 with an attack rating of 10 is stupid - 2 beats a 1 the same as a 10 beats a 1 so why blow extra units attack. After your sword has swung - if you have any units with an unused combat bonus (looks like a white starry thing) you can click them in order to cause more than one damage. This can be devastating to your opponent if used well.

Drawing cards: Well each new turn you get 2 new cards. you can only draw cards from your hand out onto the Tableu with power costs totalling your Avatars power. Under normal circumstances your power is 3 until the first quest is completed by either you or your opponent. Think of power as mana. it is blue after all. Your Cards each have a power rating. You might have a unit card that costs 2 to play into the unit tableu - and an ability that only costs 1 to put in the ability tableu - this is a great couple cards to have available in your first draw - so lucky you. Once you have drawn cards with power ratings (top left corner of the card) = the power rating in your blue bar you can't really draw more cards that round unless you have special cards or quests that result in freakky extra draws. For example a very common quest is one where you finish the quest card (Fill up 2 tokens on a level 2 quest) and it gives you the right to draw an Item card from your deck. This is great in early rounds when you might be low on cards.

Each card based on its type will have differant characteristics and numbers based on its job.

Unit cards: in general have an attack rating and a defence ratiing. Some unit cards have only one or niether of the above but they have special utility. They have that damage bonus on some cards as well. Each card also has a power rating - and this is what your power bar/mana bar is charged to pull them out of your "hand."

Ability cards can have all sorts of special effects - with differant impact on the game - you will have to read each to see how to use it. For a quester the most important part is that there is a quest rating. This is a golden number that says how many quest tokens will apply to a quest card during the quest phase if you play this ability. The abilty cards also have a power rating - some also have defence ratings as well - with plenty of variations. For starters - focus on the written specials that the card does, the quest rating and the power rating.

Item cards. These have just as large diversity as the ability cards - but do not have direct impact on quests. These are mostly played in order to reap benifits during combat or regenerating cards or units. Some are one time use - some last for a long time.

Tactics cards. These have various uses - some charge power points so must be used with care - others are "free" and just get expended. These ussually affect defence ratings, damage to enemy avatars or units or affect enemy abilities or items

After you have "raided" any units you wanted to have combat your opponents units or avatar, and have no more cards to draw - or exert (use) - there is a "PASS" button to press and your opponent gets to do everything against you now.

This is in no way a comprehensive guide - but should give an idiot, brand new to tabletop RPG/Strategy card gaming, some concepts that were very foreign to me as I tried to step up and figure out this game peeps gave me essentially for free. You simply can not learn until you played - However, I played 4 games and didn't learn anything at all and was very frustrated - because I didn't understand ANY of the above information while I was playing. I didn't know what the hell was going on and got more and more pissed off.

There is something missing from the tutorial - and it is hard to put my finger on it - but I missed a lot of it by going thru the tutorial because I didn't know how to play at the end of it until Isenhart took me by the hand and showed me what the Tutorial tried to teach but I couldn't grasp.

I only had to pay $2.99 in order to trade cards - but everything else about the game is free - providing everyone gets the starter decks that they say are going to ALL EQ players at the end of beta.

[Fenina]

Dunno if this is of use, some info that I've picked up playing LoN.

There are 4 types of avatars which have sets of cards that they can use, and you can create your own avatar:
* Scout (green cards)
* Priest (yellow cards)
* Fighter (red cards)
* Mage (blue cards)

There are generic cards (non coloured) which can be used by any avatar type.

There are three types of factions on cards being: none, light, dark. If you play enough light or dark cards your playmat will go either white or black. Some units, abilities, tactits and quests have special contitions when you are either light faction or dark faction.

I believe a deck requires a minimum of 1 avatar, 4 quests (one of level 2, level 4, level 5 and level 6) and I think a minimum of 45 more cards consisting of units, items, abilities, and tactics.

Combat between units and units, or units and avatars or avatars and avatars seems to behave very similar. In the middle of the screen during combat there are 2 numbers, at the top of the screen is your opponent's defensive or offensive points and at the bottom of the screen are your defensive or offensive points. Above the opponent and below your points are (*)'s which indicate how much damage will occur if you or the opponent wins, the default is 1 (*).

Whoever has the higher number in combat wins, and their opponent takes damge as indicated but the number of (*)'s of the winner. If there is a tie, then both sides take each other's (*) damage.

(*) (*)
3

vs

2
(*)

The 3 will win and you will take 2 points of damage.

[Jahras]

I've messed around with it a good bit but yeah like serano ive had some issues trying to really get into it. Going to try and give it another go with some of the suggestions posted here.

[Horcrux]

I spent most of Sunday playing through a bunch of games, trying out various deck builds, and I think i've quite gotten the hang of it. It's easy to get overwhelmed with options for each turn. Just takes practice to notice when you can do stuff really.

Theres about 3 strats I've come across that can be very helpful to winning.

avatar vs avatar
This one focuses on having a strong avatar (ranger or fighter), and a wide supply of good "item" cards at your disposal. It's key card is the "Boots of the Storm" which allow you to initiate combat between avatars when clicked. With the right drawn hand at the beginning, you can easily start knocking off the hp of your oponent by 2-3 per turn. This will finish a game in about 4 turns unless your oponent has defenses against this tactic.

units vs avatar
This one utilizes masses of units to throw at the oponnent avatar. Best class avatars I've seen for this is mage. Utilizing damage bonus cards to backup strong fighting cards can break down an avatar quick. I've got a strat worked out where I can start dealing 4dmg to an opponent's avatar per round after about 3 rounds have gone by. This strat normally backs the oponnent into a corner and forces them to start playing desperate as they fend off your units.

questing
Overstocking your deck with ability cards, and a few units to block enemy units, can take out quests quick. A helpful, but i think rare, card here is the journeyman's boots which reduce the level of the quest being attempted when you attempt it.

[Fnord Shoggothslayer]

The game seems fine, but god help you if you need to use any of the UIs surrounding trading. Nonintuituve is putting it mildly.

[Ayragon]

so for "loot" cards, they're only available if you buy a booster pack? What happens if you win a fight?

[Serano]

Loot cards are rare - you get one loot card on average from 10 packs opened.

Booster packs cost 3 bucks. You can not trade until you buy one booster pack.

Once you get a loot card you can trade it (Unless you are Venizia and you have a plaugebringer card) to anyone else that has bought at least once booster pack.

After a "game" with another player - one wins one loses. its over. Same as at the end of a game of chess.

However they will be having tounements and events I gather - to which there will be special card prizes or loot awards.

[Horcrux]

Are there rewards to scendario games yet?

[Worff]

If you win a game, do you get some of your opponent's cards? What I mean is, are the cards you possess doomed to deplete down to zero where you always have to buy more... or can you win cards and never have to buy any (say u get real lucky)??

[Ayragon]

still working on the tutorial myself, I did however splurge on 20 booster packs.....got some clicky specter illusion, very freaky

[Serano]

Rewards for Scenarios are in.

Each scenario now gives you a card on completion - and if I read right somewhere - you can win the card again if you play it on each archytype.

Worff, you do not lose cards permenantly in this game. You play them during a game - your opponent can not permanently win or destroy your cards. The only way to get rid of them is to trade them - and I suppose there might be a delete function.

Be nice to see a feature to package up all your trash cards for permenant storage or playermade starter decks of all the dupes that no one wants to give to friends just starting out instead of teadiously having to hand them to someone one card at a time. Not that I am at this point but I bet some peeps have dozens of dupes that are worthless to them.

[Wamadoorn]

Well the good thing about it being a virtual card game is you don't have hundreds/thousands of common cards cluttering the place. The interface just has to display one card as in your collection with a 'count' of whatever (1249 plains rats!). Wonder if there's a limit, where you'll get an error if you accumulate more of one card than the developers thought would happen

Oh and if you want to give away extra junk, I'm pretty sure I saw some entries in the listed persistent trades window with only one side. So it may be possible to 'donate' cards by making your own persistent trade thingie in the interface with only one side to it. WTT a whole bunch of junk, in return for your.... nothing!

[Serano]

WTB a lot of your junk for nothing!

[Worff]

Worff, you do not lose cards permenantly in this game. You play them during a game - your opponent can not permanently win or destroy your cards. The only way to get rid of them is to trade them - and I suppose there might be a delete function.

Ok thanks Ser... well I read in tutorial that sometimes cards get destroyed during game play (not discarded pile), I guess it's just for that hand and you get em back.

[Venerran]

yeah when a card is 'destroyed' during the card name, it's just a fancy word for discard pile.