The ramblings of a madman.

Gee Wiz let the guy post on lore. Ozawa is a known entity, what amazes me is people who try to argue with him to either try to make some weird internet points or something.

On topic, I would be amazed if they didnt refresh the lore.

I keep score and trade them in for coupons, as is my duty as Great Old One of Lore.

Got to get your jollys somehow I guess. Guess arguing and maybe poking fun of Ozawa is yours.

Matthew 25:15, I give quips to each according to their ability...to irk me.

Ozawa must have your number Utremeld, he is your lex or joker to your superman or batman. That could be some fun lore, some kind of necrotic doppelganger of a hero, maybe a twin or something.

The only groups i really cared for from the last batch of sets were the Blightbark and Void guys, but i could nick pick on the Void guys as well. Their whole modus operandi are corrupters and schemers. They should have never been so openly involved in the tournament like they were. It would have made much more sense for them to either install a puppet faction (Lixil's Necrotic faction) they could move through or just manipulate the whole conflict from behind the curtain.

All the other factions were just... meh. I couldn't take the Caravan or the Pack seriously at all, and the Luminaries took such a hard and abrupt turn to sadistic torturers that they were completely ruined to me. The entire story arc was like that. The culmination was nice, with the shattering of Frostheart, Lixil getting "freed", and Hogarth getting his comeuppances and learning from it, but everything though? Kinda blah. A huge lore changing event, but everything proceeding it felt like it a bad side quest. Other than Lixil and her Necrotic, it had like no connection whatsoever with the rest of the world.

As i said in the other thread, if they're keeping the same lore for a possible Hex 2, they need to just use the plot device that is the Ender to wipe the slate clean save for the bare bones.

What do you mean by "consistent lore and mechanics"? Considering your earlier post, it sounds like you want the 2 original factions as well as the 5 factions from the last 3 sets to indefinitely remain in their initial form. Assuming I understand that right, I adamantly disagree with your premise. My objections are based both in lore and logistics.

Keep in mind what lore actually means. The lore of the game is the story of the game. In a card game, the overarching narrative is told through the artwork, mechanics, and flavor text of the cards in each set (as well as any supplementary information provided by the developers). It is necessary for evolution to occur, because it would be boring for the factions to stagnate. You may not like the story that is being told, but it isn't your story. Just look at the names of the 9 sets: 1/3 of them are "Herofall", "Scars of War", and "Doombringer". Entrath may not be Westeros, but this is not a world where anybody should expect to emerge unscathed from hundreds of years of warfare and potentially-apocalyptic events. New factions will form, because new stuff keeps players interested. Those factions will face adversity, forcing them to either adapt, die, or slowly fade into obscurity.

Even the original "Ardent" and "Underworld" factions evolved. Shards of Fate and Shattered Destiny focused on humans (inspire), orcs (rage), dwarves (artifacts), and shin'hare (battle hoppers). Then, Armies of Myth and Primal Dawn moved on to focus on elves (resource generation), coyotle (prophecy), necrotic (shift), and vennen (spiderling eggs). Those early sets focused on each of the 8 races individually, while acknowledging the factional rivalries in passing. From there, the lore progressed and the factions evolved. Herofall and Scars of War brought the two factions together again with shared lore and mechanics across the different races within them: Valor for the Ardent and Dreadlings for the Underworld. Where were all of the signature race-specific mechanics from the prior sets? Some were still present in limited capacity, while others were absent entirely, because they didn't fit anymore, and removing old mechanics allowed interesting new mechanics to become the main focus. If the game had remained in development long enough for the Ardent and Underworld (or some other permutation of the 8 main races) to return to the forefront, their lore would be different, impacted by the events of Frostheart, Dead of Winter, and Doombringer. Some mechanics would be recycled, but new ones would also be added.

Logistically, meanwhile, it is beneficial to give secondary factions only a transient focus. Consider the implications otherwise. Already, by having the 5 'new' factions take the forefront of the last 3 sets, the Ardent and Underworld got pushed aside. (There are barely any new troops of the 8 main races in each of them, except for humans, and that's only because of the Luminaries.) Having very minor archetypes building in the background with only 1 or a few cards per set (dragons, Eternals, and Nulzann constructs come to mind) is acceptable because they only take up a small percentage of the set's total cards. Factions, however, need a significant percentage of the card pool to be viable.

So, if we keep the Ardent, Underworld, Luminaries, Pack, Blightbark Citadel, Merry Caravan, and Void all around forever, the problems should be obvious. Especially if the lore/mechanics of those factions remains "consistent" (which I take to mean maintaining the same shard colors and general strategy), then there aren't many permutations of different factions that would make sense to have in the same set. Multiple of those factions would have to be present in each set, so none is ignored for too long, and it also becomes difficult to fit any *new* archetypes in around them. And then, when entirely new factions are introduced later, are they allowed to evolve or die if they happen to be around for more than two sets?

Hex's lore was designed in pairs of sets at a time. 1-2 and 3-4 introduced the 8 races. 5-6 focused on the Ardent and Underworld. 7-8 introduced the 5 new factions. 9-10 (I have to speculate) phased the 5 factions out, whether by destroying them, fulfilling their purpose, or changing them beyond recognition. That would have provided a clean slate for 11-12 to begin the next story arc (which I assume would have focused on the Ardent and Underworld again for a time, but then probably would have ended up introducing even more temporary minor factions later).

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Of course, I could be misunderstanding. Maybe you liked the original lore of the 5 factions, would have been fine keeping them around in that form for 2 sets, and let them happily run away to avoid the Enders' onslaught and perpetuate their own existence. I'm not sure that would have been thematically appropriate, but it would have been mechanically sound. More than 2 pairs of sets featuring essentially the same thing from 5 major archetypes, on the other hand, would have felt repetitive.

Personally, I love that the factions in Hex were changed so much. I liked how they were originally but factions should be changed by big events.

As you mentioned, the faction that is least changed is the void based faction. This to me is perfect. They are driven by unfathomable alien goals and run by Elder beings we cannot comprehend. This, to me at least, means that events that would change the oyher factions would have no (apparent) effect on them.

Ultimately, change makes the world of hex a far more dynamic and interesting place. Even if I don't like how each faction changed I am still happy that groups goals and motivations will not stay static.

While I understand and appreciate that factions change, I do think the last sets have been going about it the wrong way. Blightbark castle was destroyed, the Merry Caravan mourns their lost companion, Locke completely lost himself, and the Luminaries were corrupted beyond recognition. With all the factions being put down, and with such a spiral of negative events lasting this long, it makes it hard to get attached to anything in the lore. Some things dying/changing, sure. ALL things dying/changing? Not so much. (For the record, by 'changing' in this instance, I mean 'changing beyond recognition', like Luminaries -> Sisters of Suffering)

It also casts a bit of a bad precedent for card sets and designs, mechanically, because it signals that if a mechanism isn't 100% working, it will never be expanded upon to patch up the holes and make their sets complete. If some faction's mechanism is missing a reliable engine, well, too bad, they got doom'n'gloomed and now there's no chance that they ever will get it.

Change is a thing, death is a thing, but it doesn't have to be all the things, all the time. It's fine for factions to lose their spotlight, but to cull them entirely is a waste of potential and player investment. It's possible to put out much smaller side-stories that can slightly expand on the 'what happened after' stories. For example, what if the Luminaries, which up until now have only been female clerics, turned to a new source of insight and wisdom? Coyotles are known for their deeper understanding of the cosmos, and fate, so wouldn't it make sense for what is left of the true Luminaries to seek shelter and guidance with Coyotle wisemen? Lyvaanth's light may be gone, but the stars are just as bright.

Cue story of Luminaries finding refuge with Coyotle guidance, introduce new Coyotle figure. Pure diamond Coyotle cleric with 'Prophecy: The next troop in your deck gets Illuminate 1. If it is a human cleric, it gets this power.'.

That kind of thing can preserve player investment and help shine little lights of hope in an otherwise pretty heavily grimdark setting.

To be fair, the Blightbark are probably one of the only factions that could survive after all this. Coming back from death is their whole shtick after all. Lord Blightbark said he would turn himself into a lich right before death, Lady Blightbark is already a vampire that specializes in draining the life out of beings to keep herself health, and the castle itself itself is half animated corpse/plant hybrid. Meaning they could simply regrow the whole thing from the ruins that are left.