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Kai Tave posted:With 20 hours to go I'm giving some thought to pledging to L99's Millennium Blades Kickstarter. If this is liable to be a terrible idea (based on quality of the company/the company's output/past Kickstarter disasters etc.) now would be a great time to let me know. The stuff they've made over the last few years has been solid, I think. e: Except maybe 7 card slugfest? S.J. fucked around with this message at 05:45 on May 17, 2015 |
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May 17, 2015 05:42
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Speaking as someone who tried really, really hard to like 7CS, it was bleh. Unfortunately it's also the closest game under their belt to Millennium Blades as far as I'm aware. Since it's always quite well funded I would wait until the official release and get some other people's opinions.
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May 17, 2015 05:47
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I'm holding out to see if it's any good. The theme isn't selling me even thought I like the idea a lot. I love drafting and the collection mechanics look neat. The thing I hate the idea of is teaching people two separate rule sets; the meta-game and the actual "tournament" game. I just don't see it getting much play unless you have roommates or something that are already into CCGs. Plus January is a long loving time to wait.
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May 17, 2015 05:54
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I read the rules and they seem pretty simple and straightforward, if a little loose. I do like that there's a rule governing infinite combos (you skip the rest of the tournament and your deck is removed from the game, you score maximum points for all cards in your deck and points for the tournament as though you had won first place). L99 seems to make pretty solid games, but I haven't found one that of them I like yet. I'm hoping Argent will be the one.
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May 17, 2015 05:57
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Argent was made by a different designer recently added to the company, it feels a lot different compared to their other titles. I love it.
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May 17, 2015 05:59
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L99 is one of those companies whose games I keep hearing about (BattleCON, Argent) and meaning to look into but I just never seem to get around to it. I admit that I'm kind of tickled by the whole "CCG simulator" aspect of Millennium Blades and think it might actually help sell some of the folks at the FLGS on giving it a shot given how many are also into Magic, but at the same time I'm concerned that a game with approximately one hojillion cards and an estimated two hour playtime might cause fatal levels of analysis paralysis in some folks.
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May 17, 2015 06:02
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Kai Tave posted:L99 is one of those companies whose games I keep hearing about (BattleCON, Argent) and meaning to look into but I just never seem to get around to it. I admit that I'm kind of tickled by the whole "CCG simulator" aspect of Millennium Blades and think it might actually help sell some of the folks at the FLGS on giving it a shot given how many are also into Magic, but at the same time I'm concerned that a game with approximately one hojillion cards and an estimated two hour playtime might cause fatal levels of analysis paralysis in some folks. It's certainly possible, their games might not be for your play group.
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May 17, 2015 06:06
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S.J. posted:It's certainly possible, their games might not be for your play group. I think the problem is more that I don't have a playgroup per se so much as an amorphous semi-constant cast of gamestore regulars, so one night I might go and be able to find four people eager to throw down in Kemet and then the next night I go all anyone wants to play is Machi Koro and Werewolf.
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May 17, 2015 06:08
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Kai Tave posted:I think the problem is more that I don't have a playgroup per se so much as an amorphous semi-constant cast of gamestore regulars, so one night I might go and be able to find four people eager to throw down in Kemet and then the next night I go all anyone wants to play is Machi Koro and Werewolf. That's fair. It'd be an easy sell if any of them are or were into pokemon/yu-gi-oh/magic.
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May 17, 2015 06:09
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I'm a little late to the Betrayal At House On The Hill talk but I have to say at least when the rules gently caress up they gently caress up in a fun way. My favorite Betrayal game was one where we drew "traitor with an invisibility potion wants to kill you" but he was playing the skinny old man and we had the football player and the soccer chick in play and we just ran to his last known location and clotheslined him to death. I also love Cosmic Encounter which apparently makes me a badgames lover but whatever. I have a copy of Samurai Swords but I've only ever gotten to play it once, back in the 90s, and I both anticipate and dread playing it again.
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May 17, 2015 06:14
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S.J. posted:That's fair. It'd be an easy sell if any of them are or were into pokemon/yu-gi-oh/magic. That's what I'm thinking...the store does a brisk trade in Magic (I mean it's a game store that isn't, as far as I know, on the verge of bankruptcy so duh) and I'm pretty sure that a lot of the people there at least know enough about Yu-Gi-Oh to appreciate what Millennium Blades is aiming for (thankfully none of them actually play Yu-Gi-Oh). Like, honestly I feel like BattleCON would be a harder sell even though I'm interested in trying it when the BattleCON: Fate intro set comes out because I don't know if anyone there is really into the whole fighting game aesthetic and it's primarily a 1v1 game (I know there are some options that support more but they aren't really the game's main focus). However I go on this one I'm definitely looking into Argent as I don't have any worker placement games of my own and it sounds pretty rad based on the reviews here.
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May 17, 2015 06:24
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I just wanted to gush about Letters from Whitechapel for a bit. I still haven't decided if I like the game's balance, but I love that it's a hidden movement/deduction game with most of the chaff ripped out. I had a fantastic time playing it.
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May 17, 2015 06:27
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Dr. Video Games 0069 posted:I read the rules and they seem pretty simple and straightforward, if a little loose. I do like that there's a rule governing infinite combos (you skip the rest of the tournament and your deck is removed from the game, you score maximum points for all cards in your deck and points for the tournament as though you had won first place). L99 seems to make pretty solid games, but I haven't found one that of them I like yet. I'm hoping Argent will be the one. Actually, the infinite combos rule was a gigantic loving red flag to me, for a variety of reasons:
I remember looking at Millennium Blades when the KS started and going on a roller coaster ride from "lol level 99" to "real time, huh? sounds interesting" to "why don't any of the videos actually describe the game in specific terms?!" to "the rules talk about some intriguing things" to the stupid infinite combo poo poo. I'm not convinced, but it's Level 99 so I was never concerned that the game wouldn't be funded (Christ, what a broken system). I am going to assume the game sucks until the retail version is out and play reveals otherwise.
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May 17, 2015 07:22
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L99 Games games tend to have really novel mechanics that are in desperate need of a technical writer. For the most part, the rules are entirely serviceable, but when you hit that edge case, it all starts to fall apart. I really like their games enough to overlook that aspect, though.
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May 17, 2015 07:23
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Kai Tave posted:That's what I'm thinking...the store does a brisk trade in Magic (I mean it's a game store that isn't, as far as I know, on the verge of bankruptcy so duh) and I'm pretty sure that a lot of the people there at least know enough about Yu-Gi-Oh to appreciate what Millennium Blades is aiming for (thankfully none of them actually play Yu-Gi-Oh). Like, honestly I feel like BattleCON would be a harder sell even though I'm interested in trying it when the BattleCON: Fate intro set comes out because I don't know if anyone there is really into the whole fighting game aesthetic and it's primarily a 1v1 game (I know there are some options that support more but they aren't really the game's main focus). However I go on this one I'm definitely looking into Argent as I don't have any worker placement games of my own and it sounds pretty rad based on the reviews here. If you want to try BattleCON, go ask to jump in a PBP in the Level99 Thread, or download the free print-n-play version. Much better than dropping cash on a box and finding out you can never table it.
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May 17, 2015 07:42
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Yeah, the print and play for Battlecon was really useful for me. It's well done and a great way to trial run the game.
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May 17, 2015 07:51
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Broken Loose posted:Actually, the infinite combos rule was a gigantic loving red flag to me, for a variety of reasons: I guess it's my turn to step up and defend something based on the dreaded "theme," but given the history of CCGs is rife with degenerate infinite combos (I quite clearly remember going up against several decks designed to do exactly that back in the days when I regularly went to Magic tournaments) I'm going to suggest that infinite combos in Millennium Blades aren't a bug being bandaged over but an actual intentional feature, so the reason why they're being "left in" seems obvious to me. Note that I'm not saying that this is necessarily going to be a good inclusion to the benefit of the game or anything, that remains to be seen I suppose, but I think it's erroneous to assume that the inclusion of infinite combos and the rules to resolve them are an unintentional result of slipshot design being hastily papered over in this particular context.
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May 17, 2015 07:51
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I haven't played in many years but I'd argue infinite combos were rarely that relevant in tournament magic. They did pop up but most of the legendary combo decks don't go infinite because doing 'enough' will usually be faster/stronger. Trix, Jar, Academy, High Tide, Bargain, Dredge, these aren't infinite combos. So even thematically I'd expect infinite combos to be a rare occurrence if the payoff is "win everything", and at that point I wonder if it isn't better to just design them out.
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May 17, 2015 08:19
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That's really just an excuse, though. As much as I talk about conveyance, I wouldn't necessarily praise a zombie game that required you to physically bite another player. Yeah, I guess Millennium Blades is supposed to be paying homage to bad games, but that goes counter to the concept that MB is this ancient and perfected game in-universe. On top of that, it's not really laudable to make a game purposely bad as a meta-joke, like people pretending to be idiots on the internet. In fact, that's identical to a bad game in every observable way for the end user.
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May 17, 2015 08:30
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Kai Tave posted:I guess it's my turn to step up and defend something based on the dreaded "theme," but given the history of CCGs is rife with degenerate infinite combos (I quite clearly remember going up against several decks designed to do exactly that back in the days when I regularly went to Magic tournaments) I'm going to suggest that infinite combos in Millennium Blades aren't a bug being bandaged over but an actual intentional feature, so the reason why they're being "left in" seems obvious to me. An "infinite combo" in a CCG isn't usually much different from a finite combo though. Like, in Magic you might have the combo of Pestermite and Splinter Twin, or you might have the combo of Glistener Elf plus three copies of Giant Growth. One of those combos is "infinite", the other is not, but that's not particularly relevant to anything - the most important feature is that they both win the game on the spot if your opponent can't interact with what you're trying to do. Whether or not a particular card (or combination of cards) is "degenerate" has basically nothing to do with whether it's an "infinite" combo.
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May 17, 2015 08:41
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Why are infinite combos inherently bad?
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May 17, 2015 08:47
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Jabor posted:Whether or not a particular card (or combination of cards) is "degenerate" has basically nothing to do with whether it's an "infinite" combo. Well that's why I used both adjectives together instead of just one, nobody cares about the guy who can bounce an Ornithopter in and out of his hand a million times whenever he pleases. I suppose I'm looking at the fact that there's an actual process in place for what happens when someone in Millennium Blades manages to create some sort of infinite loop combo instead of the game throwing its hands up in the air and shrugging in a more generous light than Broken Loose, perhaps because I'm a filthy casual scrub, either way it's not like I've actually played the game so I have no idea how it shakes out in practice.
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May 17, 2015 08:48
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Kai Tave posted:Well that's why I used both adjectives together instead of just one, nobody cares about the guy who can bounce an Ornithopter in and out of his hand a million times whenever he pleases. The process in Magic is pretty straightforward and clear as well - you get to jack off your infinite combo as much as you want, and you shortcut the whole process by saying how many times you're going to repeat a particular sequence of actions. Then you have to stop and do something different (which, if your combo is anything sensible, usually involves winning the game). Making any repeatable series of actions mean "oh you win this round" (regardless of whether it's a loop that actually achieves anything) seems totally backwards.
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May 17, 2015 08:59
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Jabor posted:The process in Magic is pretty straightforward and clear as well - you get to jack off your infinite combo as much as you want, and you shortcut the whole process by saying how many times you're going to repeat a particular sequence of actions. Then you have to stop and do something different (which, if your combo is anything sensible, usually involves winning the game). Making any repeatable series of actions mean "oh you win this round" (regardless of whether it's a loop that actually achieves anything) seems totally backwards. Well it's worth noting that the "tournament" portion of Millennium Blades isn't actually you and everyone else at the table playing 2-5 player Magic against each other based on the videos I've watched, it's very much an abstraction. There are ways that you can interact and interfere with other players but that doesn't appear to be the primary method of stringing your cards together to score points. In this case I'm okay with a blanket rule that says "if you manage to string together some sort of infinite loop, then A, B, and C happens, and scene" because I'm not even sure if such a thing as an infinite loop that achieves literally nothing even exists within the game itself. A lot of this is basically speculation at this point.
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May 17, 2015 09:20
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The game itself is a point-salad sort of thing where each player is trying to amass as many (temporary) points as they can, and then at the end of it players get permanent VPs based on their ranking. There just doesn't seem to be a point to an infinite-loop rule that just basically says "you win the round", because if your infinite loop does anything productive then you can just let it happen and that player will end up winning the round anyway.
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May 17, 2015 09:27
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Why are infinite combos inherently bad? They take forever to resolve. One thing BL hasn't mentioned is that if the rule for an infinite combo in this game is that you (personally) stop playing and immediately score the maximum possible points, then the entire game is based around creating these combos.
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May 17, 2015 10:44
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Played Sheriff of Nottingham and it was really kind of meh. The risk/reward doesn't seem to be all there and there is no real way to tell if someone is bluffing or not. Sure, if you have a bag of only contraband you can get dinged, but if you have, for example, 3 legal goods and one contraband, you don't stand to lose much even if your bag gets opened. The bluffing just isn't there either, either: you can load a bag legally, then offer the sheriff a low bribe for not opening (1 or 2 coins) and if he doesn't open, you don't lose much, but if he does, you gain a lot more. I almost feel like that if you open a bag and it contains an item of contraband, you should 'confiscate' the legal goods, instead of just letting the person have them. A good strategy seems to be just get lucky and get the same good and just sprinkle some contraband in once in a while. I dunno, it was an interesting idea but all bluffing seems to be almost done in a vacuum.
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May 17, 2015 11:07
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I started doing a lot better in Sheriff of Nottingham once I offered people extra legal goods or contraband from my already-played piles to help them get first in the end-of-game bonuses in exchange for them to not open my contraband-filled poo poo. Honestly, bluffing is pretty bad compared to negotiating your way through situations with whatever leverage you have and by knowing about how the person you're dealing with may go. I think most groups starting out just play the bluffing mechanic, which makes for a dull game because there's really no game in bluffing, but once you actually start wheeling and dealing to scrape by, things get a lot more interesting. I still think it's a mediocre game that's pretty luck-based in what cards you get, but it's better once you're going full-hog with negotiation. Think I'd still prefer Bohnanza if I wanted a negotiation game, though.
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May 17, 2015 13:09
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Jedit posted:They take forever to resolve. Considering that deck building has both random and interactive components, and the tournament is somewhat interactive, I'd imagine that actually constructing and pulling off an infinite combo would be rare enough that focusing on them wouldn't be a viable strategy. Discarding your deck for cash (presumably representing rule changes to fix the infinite combo) seems like it would make the next deck building round difficult enough that it you might be better off avoiding infinite combos even when you can make them.
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May 17, 2015 14:41
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Jedit posted:They take forever to resolve. In practice they really don't, though, unless it's one of those nondeterministic not-quite-infinite combos like Eggs. And if resolution time is the only issue, doesn't this rule solve the entire problem? Jedit posted:One thing BL hasn't mentioned is that if the rule for an infinite combo in this game is that you (personally) stop playing and immediately score the maximum possible points, then the entire game is based around creating these combos. That depends on how easy it is to assemble those infinite combos. In MtG assembling a Coalition Victory makes you personally stop playing and immediately win the round, but the game isn't based around achieving Coalition Victory. It depends on how difficult these "Exodia combos" are to assemble compared to just winning normally.
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May 17, 2015 16:17
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Pictomania crew, what solution do you use to allow everyone easy viewing of all the cards? I've only done six-player games around a dining room table (which seems most optimal so everyone has room to draw and keep their chits in handy), but setting up the two stands of cards on opposite sides of the table results in a lot of people straining around. Solutions?
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May 17, 2015 17:18
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Deathlove posted:Pictomania crew, what solution do you use to allow everyone easy viewing of all the cards? I've only done six-player games around a dining room table (which seems most optimal so everyone has room to draw and keep their chits in handy), but setting up the two stands of cards on opposite sides of the table results in a lot of people straining around. Solutions? Lazy susan?
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May 17, 2015 17:22
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We usually just crowd around one end of the table and put the cards on the other. Then everyone is close for chit-grabbing as well.
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May 17, 2015 17:38
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If Millenium Blades being a single deck deckbuilder bothers you. Just cut the single deck in half and then let people choose which deck to purchase from! Genius!
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May 17, 2015 18:25
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AMooseDoesStuff posted:If Millenium Blades being a single deck deckbuilder bothers you. Just cut the single deck in half and then let people choose which deck to purchase from! Genius! This shouldn't bother anyone, since the game is not a deckbuilder: "building decks" is a thematic element, not a mechanism. From what I've seen I would call it a tableau builder. And while it does have a "market row" from a single deck, it makes 9 cards available at any time... face down. You buy in real-time and only know what sets they're coming from, with some information on the back about what you might get. So one of the main issues with single market row deck builders (obvious buys showing up on one player's turn and nobody else getting a shot at it) is gone. This isn't to say it won't have its own issues - it seems like card/set knowledge from many plays will be a huge advantage.
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May 17, 2015 18:37
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Tekopo posted:Played Sheriff of Nottingham and it was really kind of meh. The risk/reward doesn't seem to be all there and there is no real way to tell if someone is bluffing or not. Sure, if you have a bag of only contraband you can get dinged, but if you have, for example, 3 legal goods and one contraband, you don't stand to lose much even if your bag gets opened. The bluffing just isn't there either, either: you can load a bag legally, then offer the sheriff a low bribe for not opening (1 or 2 coins) and if he doesn't open, you don't lose much, but if he does, you gain a lot more. The bluffing aspect of the game is a bit overblown. At its heart it's a set matching game where everyone is trying to manipulate the board to claim the king/queen bonus. I've found the best strategy is to sneak in unclaimed legal goods so you always have something to offer. Contraband should be an all-or-nothing affair. In a 5 player game after everyone's had a turn at the sheriff, you almost always reach a point where the discard piles are 90% contraband and someone has completely outclassed you in legal goods. So the three worthless apples on my board are worth an extra 16 points to a Sheriff whose trying to move up from apple queen to king while the three crossbows I actually have in the bag are worth 24. My bag passed inspection? Great. Oh hey, apple Sheriff. I have royal apples in my contraband I'll give you one if you open Player B's bag. Now Player B has to offer something. Maybe I just gave away points to player B who's harboring legal goods, I don't care, the sheriff loses money and I'm going to give him some pepper because gently caress the police. I don't agree with the sheriff confiscating legal goods as well, but I'm curious how the game would play if you got to keep confiscated goods instead of discarding them. Most people are trying to get legal goods in greater number than illegal but there's added incentive to open bags if you can steal the items.
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May 17, 2015 19:29
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al-azad posted:The bluffing aspect of the game is a bit overblown. At its heart it's a set matching game where everyone is trying to manipulate the board to claim the king/queen bonus. I've found the best strategy is to sneak in unclaimed legal goods so you always have something to offer. Contraband should be an all-or-nothing affair. In a 5 player game after everyone's had a turn at the sheriff, you almost always reach a point where the discard piles are 90% contraband and someone has completely outclassed you in legal goods. So the three worthless apples on my board are worth an extra 16 points to a Sheriff whose trying to move up from apple queen to king while the three crossbows I actually have in the bag are worth 24. My bag passed inspection? Great. Oh hey, apple Sheriff. I have royal apples in my contraband I'll give you one if you open Player B's bag. Now Player B has to offer something. Maybe I just gave away points to player B who's harboring legal goods, I don't care, the sheriff loses money and I'm going to give him some pepper because gently caress the police. The annoying thing I've had in Sheriff of Nottingham is that people just won't agree with you if they think you might be getting something past them, even if you're giving them a great deal otherwise. I will say "I'll give you 4 coins and a contraband if you let my bag through. There is two contraband in this bag and you will get 8 coins from it if you open it. Though you could open the bag, if you look objectively at the numbers you will get more if you let me through." and they'll just go "Nope, opening the bag now". Negotiating openly and honestly with the Sheriff has never gotten me anything but pain in that game.
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May 17, 2015 20:32
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Deathlove posted:Pictomania crew, what solution do you use to allow everyone easy viewing of all the cards? I've only done six-player games around a dining room table (which seems most optimal so everyone has room to draw and keep their chits in handy), but setting up the two stands of cards on opposite sides of the table results in a lot of people straining around. Solutions? I take the worst spot for myself and just try make sure everyone else can see properly. Then I win anyway because I'm the pictomaniest.
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May 17, 2015 21:01
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The weird thing about Sheriff of Nottingham is, if you hand the sheriff a bag of legal goods he's in a no-win situation. No matter what he does the player will keep all of their goods, the only question is whether he also has to pay a fine for opening the bag. We tried out a house rule: if the sheriff returns a bag unopened and it's owner didn't lie about the contents the sheriff gets $1 from the bank for each card that was in the bag. It's not a silver bullet or anything, but it seemed to help discourage the usual trend of never putting contraband through, which is good.
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May 17, 2015 21:44
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Diosamblet posted:This shouldn't bother anyone, since the game is not a deckbuilder: "building decks" is a thematic element, not a mechanism. From what I've seen I would call it a tableau builder. And while it does have a "market row" from a single deck, it makes 9 cards available at any time... face down. You buy in real-time and only know what sets they're coming from, with some information on the back about what you might get. So one of the main issues with single market row deck builders (obvious buys showing up on one player's turn and nobody else getting a shot at it) is gone. This isn't to say it won't have its own issues - it seems like card/set knowledge from many plays will be a huge advantage. I'm sorry for being bad at jokes. I too am excited for millenium blades.
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May 17, 2015 23:50
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