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Ojetor posted:Not sure how this is an indictment of Terraforming Mars specifically as opposed to one of drafting as a whole. In any drafting game, the more cards you get, the more narrow your focus is likely to become and the fewer cards are viable for your chosen strategy. You're usually not taking science or military cards in 7 Wonders in the third age if you don't have any at that point. You're usually not taking random off-color cards in the 3rd pack of a Magic draft, regardless of any tribal or other linear mechanics in a set. I've never played terraforming mars, so take this with a massive grain of salt. Isn't the real problem with the game that 1) Playing without drafting is way to random 2) Playing with drafting hangs the game around drafting and greatly extends the duration of the game. However, the game doesn't have enough depth/complexity to survive as a 3+ hour game experience with drafting. Drafting is cool, but imho it works best when either it's a sushi go length experience or it's Inis style where drafting is the ying to the rest of the games yang - and it's quite suggestive to me that Inis is ~50% or less of Terraforming mars' play time.
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Aug 7, 2017 01:53
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Kai Tave posted:I would unironically like to see someone in this thread try to defend Sentinels of the Multiverse without defaulting to the Appeal To Fun argument. Yeah, no. The last time I attempted to talk positively about Sentinels in this thread y'all were such colossal assholes I wasn't planning to ever read this thread again. Only my intense hype for Gloomhaven discussion brought me back.
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Aug 7, 2017 01:58
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Lol
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Aug 7, 2017 02:03
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You can like a game the rest of the thread doesn't like nor does it make you a bad person. My friends and I love police precinct as our coop game and it's pretty terrible. I don't bring it up here because nobody else will share my enthusiasm. 
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Aug 7, 2017 02:03
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Ojetor posted:Not sure how this is an indictment of Terraforming Mars specifically as opposed to one of drafting as a whole. In any drafting game, the more cards you get, the more narrow your focus is likely to become and the fewer cards are viable for your chosen strategy. You're usually not taking science or military cards in 7 Wonders in the third age if you don't have any at that point. You're usually not taking random off-color cards in the 3rd pack of a Magic draft, regardless of any tribal or other linear mechanics in a set. it's definitely an issue with drafting games in general, but i felt like it was more pronounced in TMars than some others, due to having cards that are only good early or late in the game in addition to cards that are only good in specific engines. there are cards that are literally unplayable if they show up past a certain point in the game and I think that's not great design for this kind of game, regardless of whether you're drafting or just drawing off the top.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:12
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Ojetor posted:Not sure how this is an indictment of Terraforming Mars specifically as opposed to one of drafting as a whole. In any drafting game, the more cards you get, the more narrow your focus is likely to become and the fewer cards are viable for your chosen strategy. You're usually not taking science or military cards in 7 Wonders in the third age if you don't have any at that point. You're usually not taking random off-color cards in the 3rd pack of a Magic draft, regardless of any tribal or other linear mechanics in a set. My issue is Terraforming Mars is closer to a long MtG booster draft, rather than 7 Wonders/MtG cube draft. Many cards do not come out in a typical game. So, you can get an early focus, especially with some of the variant starting companies, and then have a long period where no one draws your preferred card type. Sushi go has a small enough card variety that you don't really need to worry about this, as well as being much more tactical. The cards are guaranteed to come out for someone in a 7 Wonders/MtG cube draft.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:16
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I also played Terraforming Mars for the first time last night and wasn't impressed. Granted, we played without drafting because only one of us had even played the game before and we didn't really know what to look for, and I could see it being a bit better with drafting, but I'm not really sure how much. It would at least help mitigate the luck of the draw issues we had last night. Having a single deck to play from is bad enough, but the problem I had is that the quality of the cards had a huge variance. I was drawing low cost low reward stuff for most of the game, and I just never felt like I could meaningfully influence the board state. Another player had the corporation that starts with 10 titanium, and one of his first cards was a 41 cost behemoth that he only had to pay one credit for and gave him enough economy help to put him way ahead of all of us for the first 2/3 of the game, until the luck of the draw finally kind of evened out. He was getting and playing cards with costs in the high 20s and 30s nearly every turn, and meanwhile the cards I'm drawing were in the single digits or low teens for cost with correspondingly lower rewards and weren't synergizing well. The only reason he didn't run away with the game was that he basically forgot about the milestones and awards, and he won anyway despite losing out on milestones he should have had.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:16
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Chill la Chill posted:You can like a game the rest of the thread doesn't like nor does it make you a bad person. My friends and I love police precinct as our coop game and it's pretty terrible. I don't bring it up here because nobody else will share my enthusiasm. Oh, believe me, the thread not liking Sentinels does nothing to diminish my enjoyment of it or make me feel bad about myself. But neither is there any compelling reason to try to sell people on it when their minds are already made up and they poo poo all over anyone who tries.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:23
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Kai Tave posted:I would unironically like to see someone in this thread try to defend Sentinels of the Multiverse without defaulting to the Appeal To Fun argument.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:30
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Kai Tave posted:I would unironically like to see someone in this thread try to defend Sentinels of the Multiverse without defaulting to the Appeal To Fun argument. "Explain why you like a game, but you aren't allowed to say it's because it's fun."
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Aug 7, 2017 02:38
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I played Sentinels only once in a convention demo many years ago. I am not being obdurate when I say that I cannot even imagine anything being said that would convince me that it is An Actually Good Game.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:39
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rydiafan posted:"Explain why you like a game, but you aren't allowed to only say it's because it's fun." Adding the word "only" makes it accurate, fyi.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:42
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It's mechanically simple. It's thematic. It's cooperative. The variety of heroes, villains, and environments means it has functionally infinite variety of possible games. It's quick. I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of the game, but it's not like it's impossible to find features that people might consider benefits.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:45
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It's mechanically simple until you start playing cards. At that point it turns into superheroic accounting.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:46
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Superhero 18xx when?
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Aug 7, 2017 02:48
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I could see it being a fun game with better art and a better way to track modifiers. I enjoyed it briefly, before the newness wore off and the tedium surfaced. And I can see how someone with more enthusiasm and cherry picking the best heroes and villains across expansions could enjoy it. I don't think it's that much worse a game than LotR LCG, which is pretty popular.
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Aug 7, 2017 02:58
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PerniciousKnid posted:I could see it being a fun game with better art and a better way to track modifiers. I enjoyed it briefly, before the newness wore off and the tedium surfaced. And I can see how someone with more enthusiasm and cherry picking the best heroes and villains across expansions could enjoy it. I don't think it's that much worse a game than LotR LCG, which is pretty popular. Yeah, that's why I enjoy the digital implementation. It keeps track of modifiers automatically, and simplifies hand management to make playing 4 characters at once easy. Under those conditions, it's enjoyable. With 4 players around the table, there's just not enough puzzle to go around and there's too much accounting, as stated. I do like the theme and I do still play it occasionally.
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Aug 7, 2017 03:17
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Chill la Chill posted:Superhero 18xx when? I'm surprised nobody has made a phone or internet 19XX game. The late 90s were like the 19th century train boom where you have dozens of companies running lines before eventually they're all bought out by mega-corporations that let their routes languish. But man, nerds really really love loving trains.
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Aug 7, 2017 03:26
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Jedit posted:You can edit your BackerKit survey. I've done this to add in a friend already. I know, but I dont know when it closes, and I dont want to hold out if no one shows. I'm just not going to post it too many times in case it's considered spamming - even if it helps goons out. Kashuno posted:Finally finished Mechs Vs Minions last night and that was a pretty fun game! My only complaint is that it was a bit too easy, with the last mission being the only one that got us worried about actually dying. Most of the schematics were good, and none of the heroes felt particularly overpowered though they did have their missions where they were better than others. I probably won't go back and do the post game stuff, but if an expansion came out I think I would pick it up My group just finished it an hour or so ago. It's a great game, but I think we got poo poo card pulls, cause the last 3 missions, we were BARELY scraping by. I will agree that the schematics are good, but as we had terrible pulls, it was hard to really build around what we had set up for schematics. Hard mode seemed okay at best, but was more novelty than really for "the challenge".
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Aug 7, 2017 04:03
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rydiafan posted:It's thematic. What's thematic about it?
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Aug 7, 2017 04:31
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Countblanc posted:What's thematic about it? You get to really immerse yourself in what it must feel like to be Tony Stark's accountant.
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Aug 7, 2017 05:09
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Hey c'mon, I'm giving that person a fair shake here. I just genuinely don't know what you could find thematic about that game, it doesn't feel terribly heroic at all to me, but I might not be understanding what the game is trying to evoke.
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Aug 7, 2017 05:25
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Countblanc posted:Hey c'mon, I'm giving that person a fair shake here. I just genuinely don't know what you could find thematic about that game, it doesn't feel terribly heroic at all to me, but I might not be understanding what the game is trying to evoke. Each character/villain deck is fairly unique, cards all have flavor text with fake comic book covers/panels, there's a bunch of weird locations, and you fight through henchmen to beat up a boss. Theme is not something it's lacking.
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Aug 7, 2017 05:41
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Anyone heard anything about Charterstone? It's up for preorder at my local gaming store and I'm debating pulling the trigger. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of reviews out and about.
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Aug 7, 2017 05:55
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I think the main thing for me when I played Sentinels is that I didn't feel like a superhero playing it. Sure, the cards have flavour text, there are different environments and the bosses act differently depending on who you fight, but in the end it felt more that I was playing cards for their mechanical effect and just trying to squeeze as much damage as possible out of them. To me superheroes are about truly using the enevironment around you to fight (not just being impaired by it on a mechanical level), or working together in meaningful ways. I DMed a game of Masks this weekend and the focus of that RPG is not to just perform damage on your enemies, but to be dramatic about it, and it works to get that experience across. I think the term convaince is still an important one to consider and although the theme in Sentinels is there, the overall convaince is low. On another point, I remember playing a hero that damages himself in order to do damage, but then I got cards that healed me if I did a combo with some other cards, so in the end I was just doing the same damage I would have done but through a fairly circuitous route. And it felt like I was going through the motions rather than making choices. So I both felt like the theme wasn't delivering what I wanted, along with rules that didn't let me be inventive in terms of how I approached the game (there was one optimal play and it felt always pretty obvious what it was).
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Aug 7, 2017 06:04
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Anyone heard anything about Charterstone? It's up for preorder at my local gaming store and I'm debating pulling the trigger. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of reviews out and about. Yep! It's a worker placement Legacy game designed by Stonemaier games. They've been pretty tight lipped about it, because of the Legacy aspect.
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Aug 7, 2017 06:32
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Some Numbers posted:Yep! It's a worker placement Legacy game designed by Stonemaier games. They've been pretty tight lipped about it, because of the Legacy aspect. Yeah, I was hoping for some reviews before splashing out the $100 dollarydoos. The closest thing I've seen is a very direct comparison by Jamie to Viticulture with the random decks replaced by a 'card river' I'm hesitant in part because has anyone made a good competitive legacy game yet? The legacy blockbusters that spring to mind are strictly coop.
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Aug 7, 2017 06:56
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:I've never played terraforming mars, so take this with a massive grain of salt. Isn't the real problem with the game that 1 is true. I would never play without drafting. 2 isn't strictly true. One aspect of Terraforming Mars is that game length is variable, because it depends on the players actually doing the actions which cause the game to end. I've noticed newer players focus way too much on their cards. They buy lots of cards and spend their turns setting up an engine, and never actually terraforming Mars, which is the end condition. If multiple people are playing like that, it can go very long. Essentially the classic Dominion "Village Idiot" problem. Haven't played Inis yet, sadly.
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Aug 7, 2017 07:04
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Yeah, I was hoping for some reviews before splashing out the $100 dollarydoos. The closest thing I've seen is a very direct comparison by Jamie to Viticulture with the random decks replaced by a 'card river' Well there are only three legacy games so it's hard to judge, but given that Risk was one of them and was super well received I think we can say that yes somebody has made a good competitive legacy game
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Aug 7, 2017 07:07
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Tekopo posted:I think the main thing for me when I played Sentinels is that I didn't feel like a superhero playing it. Sure, the cards have flavour text, there are different environments and the bosses act differently depending on who you fight, but in the end it felt more that I was playing cards for their mechanical effect and just trying to squeeze as much damage as possible out of them. To me superheroes are about truly using the enevironment around you to fight (not just being impaired by it on a mechanical level), or working together in meaningful ways. I DMed a game of Masks this weekend and the focus of that RPG is not to just perform damage on your enemies, but to be dramatic about it, and it works to get that experience across. I think it's not really feeling like a "hero" as much as enjoying the atmosphere of "cool, I'm in a comic book situation", followed by a "puzzle" (if you will, wording may vary) of how said heroes defeat villains/environment in a Saturday morning cartoon-esque style fight. I honestly am a huge fan of Sentinels, but only because I tend to have a few people that'd be willing to play on a consistent basis to try out these "puzzles". That being said, as you mentioned, a lot of these heroes almost end up having some sort of very specific combo that can ruin the enjoyment of the game if you end up never getting it, or getting it too late as the villain ramps up against you.
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Aug 7, 2017 07:14
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Mojo Jojo posted:Well there are only three legacy games so it's hard to judge, but given that Risk was one of them and was super well received I think we can say that yes somebody has made a good competitive legacy game I completely blanked on Risk. Great reviews so yeah, someone has made it work. I think I was biased by the terribleness of Seafall. Ojetor posted:1 is true. I would never play without drafting. Makes sense to me. Whats the playtime like with 'good' players and drafting? I'm guessing 2-2.5 hours? Which probably puts it at a bit over twice Inis' length with 'good' players? Not that I've played much Inis either, so this is totally speculation based on 2nd hand accounts!
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Aug 7, 2017 07:29
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kinkouin posted:I think it's not really feeling like a "hero" as much as enjoying the atmosphere of "cool, I'm in a comic book situation", followed by a "puzzle" (if you will, wording may vary) of how said heroes defeat villains/environment in a Saturday morning cartoon-esque style fight. Going back to the subject of theme, the fight itself didn't really feel like a Saturday morning cartoon-esque style fight. It felt like my character was almost stationary and just trading blows with whatever mook or villain came up. To me those style of fights are about zipping around, avoiding the blows of the villain, suddenly getting in the way of that energy blast to help a downed team-mate, diverting something so that a bus filled with school children isn't hit etc etc. This might be beyond the scope of what Sentinels can provide, but the world of Sentinels never really felt that alive to me. I tell my team-mates whatever combo I do with my cards, and they were largely outside of that (although I think there were possibilities to damage boost your allies using specific cards, I think), but even then, it just felt like I was manipulating numbers to make numbers on other cards go up. There was a notable detachment from what I was doing in the game, and what I felt like I was doing.
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Aug 7, 2017 07:41
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Makes sense to me. Whats the playtime like with 'good' players and drafting? I'm guessing 2-2.5 hours? Which probably puts it at a bit over twice Inis' length with 'good' players? Not that I've played much Inis either, so this is totally speculation based on 2nd hand accounts! For us it's under 2 hours, closer to 1.5 most of the time. Do note my playgroup plays faster than most, as far as I can tell from our playtimes on various games compared to other groups.
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Aug 7, 2017 07:42
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Ojetor posted:For us it's under 2 hours, closer to 1.5 most of the time. Do note my playgroup plays faster than most, as far as I can tell from our playtimes on various games compared to other groups. If you guys can set up Gloomhaven in 15 minutes you are some sort of wizard/ninja, but I'm tempted to switch over to the app to get that setup time reduction.
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Aug 7, 2017 07:55
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Sentinels biggest flaws are 1) it doesn't use keywords or symbols in it's on-card rules, 2) about half of the original cast and a couple expansion characters are awful in comparison to the rest of the cast (and a couple starting members are too good) 3) a number of bosses need to die a full two rounds earlier to be well paced, or kick off their gimmicks faster 4) way too much reliance on +1/-1 counters and having to go through individual card triggers once the board state gets busy enough. The location decks are okay, but too often don't interact with the board or force you to take them into consideration. The game's not bad, but it needs tightened waayyyy up. I can see why people would rather play the app version. Almost everything that came out after the original core set was much more well designed, but it was still operating inside the same book keeping box. Despite all of that, I've really enjoyed playing it. We just do random setups on hard mode all the time. Tekopo posted:Going back to the subject of theme, the fight itself didn't really feel like a Saturday morning cartoon-esque style fight. It felt like my character was almost stationary and just trading blows with whatever mook or villain came up. To me those style of fights are about zipping around, avoiding the blows of the villain, suddenly getting in the way of that energy blast to help a downed team-mate, diverting something so that a bus filled with school children isn't hit etc etc. This might be beyond the scope of what Sentinels can provide, but the world of Sentinels never really felt that alive to me. I tell my team-mates whatever combo I do with my cards, and they were largely outside of that (although I think there were possibilities to damage boost your allies using specific cards, I think), but even then, it just felt like I was manipulating numbers to make numbers on other cards go up. There was a notable detachment from what I was doing in the game, and what I felt like I was doing. This feeling happens on hard mode quite often in my experience. Although honestly the location deck is about 50/50 for making you care about it - some add great tension, some do basically nothing half the time. I do think the game is way too easy when you aren't on hard mode, and even then, it needs another difficulty track. S.J. fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Aug 7, 2017 |
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Aug 7, 2017 08:04
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Some Numbers posted:Yep! It's a worker placement Legacy game designed by Stonemaier games. They've been pretty tight lipped about it, because of the Legacy aspect. The intriguing thing to me is that it lists player count as 1-6 - having a competitive legacy game also work as a solo experience seems difficult and I wonder if the full campaign will really be satisfying for a single player.
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Aug 7, 2017 08:24
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Chill la Chill posted:They're not similar aside from both being kickstarters that people are enthused about, which was my clumsy point. Fair enough. Mojo Jojo posted:Nobody would say that. When you say a logistics game, could you give a few examples of what you mean?
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Aug 7, 2017 11:32
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The closest thing to a "thematic" superhero game I've played is HeroScape with custom fan-made cards for just about every comic book character under the sun, but that's a game that's really heavy on the dice chucking, And it really still just ends up being a superhero flavored slugfest skirmish battle game. But at least there are lots of evocative character abilities like "Whoops, you thought you took out Dr. Doom? Sike, it was a Doombot" even if a lot of them rely on more dice chucking.
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Aug 7, 2017 12:25
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Sentinels is a kinda fun game but I don't get much out of playing the physical version with friends. I'd rather just pull up the app and play through a game of it through a couple bathroom breaks.
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Aug 7, 2017 14:14
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:I think I was biased by the terribleness of Seafall.
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Aug 7, 2017 14:36
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