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When playing coop I like luck, otherwise with the kind of people I play we would either "solve" the game in just a few plays or just feel like we have to trudge our way through what the developer thought was appropriate difficulty (and might well not be) if that makes sense. Anyway a coop game with no luck / perfect information sounds dreadful to me and pretty devoid of replay value. E.g. Sherlock Holmes, that game is praised highly but we found it quite boring - if you've actually read a few mystery or detective books, it's far too easy to piece things together in a totally no-luck approach. It's fun the first time around but by the third case it sucks (for me) When playing competitive, I abhor luck - I want to win or lose by my wits and skill, and the difficulty is not some arbitrary wall put there by the developer but it's in playing against other human beings - no need to explain that I guess 
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Feb 20, 2018 19:23
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There are different ways to implement luck. The smart way it's implemented in Robinson Crusoe is that you can avoid failure entirely by doubling up your actions or you can choose to take the risk by splitting them up. The dumb way it's implemented in Robinson Crusoe is the Event deck, which can hit you with unmitigatable damage even if you make the wisest tactical decision every step of the way. Do you really enjoy playing a game for several hours only to lose through no fault of any of your decisions? To me, that's far less satisfying than "solving" a game, and it's why many people consider Robinson Crusoe, Tales of the Arabian Nights, etc. to be "experience generators" rather than games. I'll go even further: almost everything in RC is determined by random card draws combined with dice rolls. You can concentrate all your efforts on building the best shelter (better hope the random animal deck gives you good skins/damage ratios!) and still get slaughtered if you roll double snowstorms every single time. Who wants to keep playing a game once you realize "Oh, we didn't get any more skilled at playing this, we just got better rolls this time." CaptainRightful fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Feb 20, 2018 |
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Feb 20, 2018 19:51
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CaptainRightful posted:There are different ways to implement luck. The smart way it's implemented in Robinson Crusoe is that you can avoid failure entirely by doubling up your actions or you can choose to take the risk by splitting them up. The dumb way it's implemented in Robinson Crusoe is the Event deck, which can hit you with unmitigatable damage even if you make the wisest tactical decision every step of the way. Do you really enjoy playing a game for several hours only to lose through no fault of any of your decisions? To me, that's far less satisfying than "solving" a game, and it's why many people consider Robinson Crusoe, Tales of the Arabian Nights, etc. to be "experience generators" rather than games. You can get to that point in pandemic (forbidden desert/island too of course) and that's when one usually stops playing!
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Feb 20, 2018 20:26
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My justification to people weirded out that a Legacy game "can only be played once" is a pretty simple one. Pandemic Legacy is going to be played between 12 and 24 times. I don't get to the table probably as often as y'all but the most played game in my collection is probably in that range. I'd be really happy to get that much use out of every game I own
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Feb 20, 2018 20:28
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taser rates posted:Yea, those long white generic folding tables from like Target are good for pretty much any game. Menards has a great selection of folding tables. Wide ones, skinny ones, round ones that fold, etc.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:33
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I got spirit island a month or so ago and it fast becoming one of my favourite games we've managed to win it each time so far at the base difficulty. But my favourite thing about is is just how flexible the difficulty and complexity can be.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:45
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Tree Dude posted:My justification to people weirded out that a Legacy game "can only be played once" is a pretty simple one. Pandemic Legacy is going to be played between 12 and 24 times. I don't get to the table probably as often as y'all but the most played game in my collection is probably in that range. I'd be really happy to get that much use out of every game I own Yeah, like, oh no I can only play this game 12 times. I'd be really loving happy if I could get any other medium-weight game I own to my table 12 times.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:51
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No resale value though
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Feb 20, 2018 20:53
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Rumda posted:I got spirit island a month or so ago and it fast becoming one of my favourite games we've managed to win it each time so far at the base difficulty. But my favourite thing about is is just how flexible the difficulty and complexity can be. How do you think it holds up for solo play? Does it need to be double hand style or can the spirits mostly handle solo (assuming the support ones aren't being solo'd).
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Feb 20, 2018 21:00
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silvergoose posted:You can get to that point in pandemic (forbidden desert/island too of course) and that's when one usually stops playing! Pandemic turn 1 epidemics or the "get hosed" double epidemic turns are normally GG without any player agencies. It's my biggest issue with the design in general but I don't think there's a way to really change it.
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Feb 20, 2018 21:04
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TorakFade posted:When playing coop I like luck, otherwise with the kind of people I play we would either "solve" the game in just a few plays or just feel like we have to trudge our way through what the developer thought was appropriate difficulty (and might well not be) if that makes sense. Anyway a coop game with no luck / perfect information sounds dreadful to me and pretty devoid of replay value. Nailed it. If I was 2 hours into Twilight Struggle and drew a card that immediately moved the defcon to Nuclear War, I would be pissed because it should have been mine to lose. But drawing a card that can immediately move the doom counter and trigger a fail condition is a much different experience and keeps us on edge knowing it's there, emphasizing that it's us against the world(building).
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Feb 20, 2018 21:16
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PJOmega posted:Pandemic turn 1 epidemics or the "get hosed" double epidemic turns are normally GG without any player agencies. It's my biggest issue with the design in general but I don't think there's a way to really change it. When you're sorting the deck for epidemics you could shuffle the epidemic into the bottom half of each deck fraction. Then the epidemics would be evenly spaced. Doing it just for the first epidemic cars might make sense if you want a smaller difficulty tweak.
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Feb 20, 2018 21:19
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If there's one thing that bugs the hell out of me in the Arkham LCG it's the complete lack of any rising challenge in a game. Like, the first card you can draw, before you have anything equipped or even anything of worth in your hand, can be the toughest enemy in the game and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except restart because you're hosed. It's a frustrating pain in the butt to deal with, and I think would've been remedied by certain cards in each 'set' have a 1,2, or even 3 on the backs so that you could sort them all into phases of the adventure. So, like, the first few phases would be minions that aren't too bad to take down, but can be problematic if they build up, and effects that wear down a couple resources without destroying you, whereas by the time you're reaching the third phase of the adventure, you're coming up against some real nasties that are stretching your resources thin, forcing you to use the equipment and abilities that you've picked up throughout the adventure to take them on. Edit: This would also allow certain doom events do things like 'discard from the deck until you reach phase 2', or 'find the first phase 3 card in the deck and play it, replace the top of the deck with the cards in the same order', etc.
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Feb 20, 2018 21:25
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Morpheus posted:If there's one thing that bugs the hell out of me in the Arkham LCG it's the complete lack of any rising challenge in a game. Like, the first card you can draw, before you have anything equipped or even anything of worth in your hand, can be the toughest enemy in the game and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except restart because you're hosed. It's a frustrating pain in the butt to deal with, and I think would've been remedied by certain cards in each 'set' have a 1,2, or even 3 on the backs so that you could sort them all into phases of the adventure. So, like, the first few phases would be minions that aren't too bad to take down, but can be problematic if they build up, and effects that wear down a couple resources without destroying you, whereas by the time you're reaching the third phase of the adventure, you're coming up against some real nasties that are stretching your resources thin, forcing you to use the equipment and abilities that you've picked up throughout the adventure to take them on. Tiered decks would fix a lot of games. Terraforming Mars for one.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:20
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al-azad posted:It's the best argument for human nature impeding democracy. Even if an agenda benefits you no strings attached, if it benefits someone else slightly more it'll get down voted without hesitation unless you start greasing the wheels. I definitely wouldn’t go that far. He’s not talking about benefitting somebody else more with a move, but a weird loss aversion reaction where people don’t see their possible win because of a non-winning gain for another player. I enjoyed doing TI 4 once, but it seems like another fiddly FFG game where it becomes more fun the more you have the fiddly details memorized so you know what your real capabilities are.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:20
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FulsomFrank posted:Tiered decks would fix a lot of games. Terraforming Mars for one. It's part of the reason I like Valley of the Kings so much. Cheap cards early, expensive cards later.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:28
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Most of the actual super tough cards in Arkham LCG are set aside and only introduced into the play area or mythos deck after certain triggers have happened.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:32
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One system that I really liked from the old LOTR CCG (not the LCG) was that actions would feed resources to the other player. So if you wanted to be cautious, you can be cautious, but if you wanted to go balls out, you can go balls out and suffer the consequences for it. Obviously it would mostly strip these games of their solo play capabilities, but having someone play the Mythos deck and show some degree of controlled malevolence would have been fun.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:42
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Picked up Mansions of Madness 2nd edition so my gf and I could play together without being at odds - while the first edition was fun, we like working together more. Plus, having the app run everything makes set up so much easier! We failed the first and second missions miserably, although I think we almost beat the first mission. Spoilers if people care for the first two scenarios of MoM2ndEd First scenario: I think we spent too much time exploring parts of the house that didn't matter. The high priest finished his ritual, the roof of the attic was torn off, and a star spawn ate my partner. It was left to me to try and close the portal in one attempt - no such luck. I'm *terrible* at those cypher puzzles. I get the feeling that if we had saved the butler (we ignored the sounds from the kitchen), we might have had a better clue for that one. Also, I'm a little confused on the barricade rules - if we barricade a door that hasn't been explored yet, but the app spawns a monster from that door, does the monster still spawn? Does it destroy the barricade? The app doesn't say. Second scenario: wow, this one was fun even though I have no idea how close we got to winning. We were making our way to the docks as the mob began to burn down the hotel. I saw the boat in the lake so I figured if we made it to the docks we could escape. Unfortunately we must have missed something because even though we were able to light the lamp at the end of the dock, we weren't able to do any more signalling. In the end the mob tore the dock down so we lost. I think my two turns of convincing the drunkard to give me his key was a pointless time waste. I think we'll try both of those again and see if we can win before moving onto the third scenario.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:45
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SettingSun posted:It's part of the reason I like Valley of the Kings so much. Cheap cards early, expensive cards later. Man, that game is so great.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:55
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Servoret posted:I definitely wouldn’t go that far. He’s not talking about benefitting somebody else more with a move, but a weird loss aversion reaction where people don’t see their possible win because of a non-winning gain for another player. I enjoyed doing TI 4 once, but it seems like another fiddly FFG game where it becomes more fun the more you have the fiddly details memorized so you know what your real capabilities are. I'm definitely arguing that. The politics of TI4 are the most interesting feature because it's like a thesis on game theory. Agendas generally fall into three categories; either a benefit for one player exclusively, a benefit for everyone to various degrees, or a punishment for everyone. In my case one player had a massive military, practically unbeatable without the combined effort of everyone else. A demilitarization agenda popped up that would basically cut that player's military in half but if it failed then everyone had to exhaust their technology planets going into the next round. I played a technology rider, a card that makes me sit out of voting but would let me research a tech. The motion failed. Everyone who voted against it, except for the guy who had the most to lose, did it because they didn't want me to get a free research. All of them had to exhaust their technology planets, of which they each had 2-3 but to them me researching something new was more important to stop than Space Hitler's fleet of death stars. Sure enough, a round later that player won. We all conceded in the last round instead of playing out what would've been a vain attempt to take enough planets from him to stop the winning score. It's just a great example of human failings getting in the way of policy making. When given a choice between maintaining the status quo or suffering to ensure someone else doesn't gain, the default choice almost always becomes the status quo. But the status quo, well, benefits the status quo but people rarely look at it that way. If I initiated a bill called "Give everyone free money" bill but Bob got like 10% more money, it's guaranteed everyone will shoot down the bill even if it means nobody gets money. I wish the political aspect of TI4 was in a better game. I always look forward to the tabletop and bullshitting but the rest is a chore even though I can't say I've ever been bored with the group of sharks I play with. If I played Diplomacy or Game of Thrones with these people you'd hear about the multiple homicides on the news.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:57
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al-azad posted:It's just a great example of human failings getting in the way of policy making. When given a choice between maintaining the status quo or suffering to ensure someone else doesn't gain, the default choice almost always becomes the status quo. But the status quo, well, benefits the status quo but people rarely look at it that way. If I initiated a bill called "Give everyone free money" bill but Bob got like 10% more money, it's guaranteed everyone will shoot down the bill even if it means nobody gets money. Are we playing a game where the winner is the person with the most money in this hypethetical thing? Because your bill reduces to "give only Bob free money" if so. Is Bob in last place or is he a contender for a win? I feel like this example is incomplete.
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Feb 20, 2018 23:17
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So 1862 is one of the two 18xx titles GMT is going to publish. Might grab that one.
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Feb 20, 2018 23:36
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16 corps on 37 hexes what the christ.
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Feb 20, 2018 23:46
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Morpheus posted:If there's one thing that bugs the hell out of me in the Arkham LCG it's the complete lack of any rising challenge in a game. Like, the first card you can draw, before you have anything equipped or even anything of worth in your hand, can be the toughest enemy in the game and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except restart because you're hosed. It's a frustrating pain in the butt to deal with, and I think would've been remedied by certain cards in each 'set' have a 1,2, or even 3 on the backs so that you could sort them all into phases of the adventure. So, like, the first few phases would be minions that aren't too bad to take down, but can be problematic if they build up, and effects that wear down a couple resources without destroying you, whereas by the time you're reaching the third phase of the adventure, you're coming up against some real nasties that are stretching your resources thin, forcing you to use the equipment and abilities that you've picked up throughout the adventure to take them on. Literally the first mission in the tutorial has a boss monster show up at the end that is significantly harder than the other monsters to the point where if you aren't prepared it can pretty easily kill an entire party. The act and agenda decks already do this. Have you actually played the game?
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Feb 20, 2018 23:47
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Mister Sinewave posted:Are we playing a game where the winner is the person with the most money in this hypethetical thing? Because your bill reduces to "give only Bob free money" if so. Is Bob in last place or is he a contender for a win? I feel like this example is incomplete. Those are the kinds of questions you should be asking in this scenario. Assume it is a game where the winner is the person with the most money. Bob gets 10% more, but what if I'm capable of doubling my investment where Bob can't? In practice this law is more beneficial in the long term than it is for Bob in the short term. But at the table I find it almost universally comes down to denying someone a minor benefit even if it costs you what you would've gained. It's a lack of perception exacerbated by the single minded idea that the path to victory is never giving ground, even temporarily.
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Feb 20, 2018 23:49
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FulsomFrank posted:Tiered decks would fix a lot of games. Terraforming Mars for one. What are the true downsides to a tiered deck from a design perspective, anyway? It seems Really Good and makes every game I've played with it better, so why isn't it used more?
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Feb 21, 2018 01:01
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Makes setup more annoying and it's a bit harder to design I guess.
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Feb 21, 2018 01:03
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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Some Numbers posted:I have not played RC, but from what I've heard, the issue is not that no strategy is assured, but that there are definitely optimal moves and the game may decide that those moves are irrelevant and you're going to lose no matter what you do. I have played RC once, and from my limited experience that's about right. The way I would express it is that Arkham Horror is a game where luck can rescue you from your lack of skill (e.g. not knowing which gate locations should be closed and which sealed), while Crusoe is a game where no amount of skill can prevent you losing to luck.
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Feb 21, 2018 01:29
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Morpheus posted:If there's one thing that bugs the hell out of me in the Arkham LCG it's the complete lack of any rising challenge in a game. Like, the first card you can draw, before you have anything equipped or even anything of worth in your hand, can be the toughest enemy in the game and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except restart because you're hosed. It's a frustrating pain in the butt to deal with, and I think would've been remedied by certain cards in each 'set' have a 1,2, or even 3 on the backs so that you could sort them all into phases of the adventure. So, like, the first few phases would be minions that aren't too bad to take down, but can be problematic if they build up, and effects that wear down a couple resources without destroying you, whereas by the time you're reaching the third phase of the adventure, you're coming up against some real nasties that are stretching your resources thin, forcing you to use the equipment and abilities that you've picked up throughout the adventure to take them on. It's already been addressed, but the game does this already. There are cards set aside at the beginning of most scenarios that are either spawned directly into play or added to the mythos (aka "gently caress You") deck. There's also an organic method in individual decks where some enemies can only spawn in specific locations. Of that location isn't in play then the enemy fails to spawn.
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Feb 21, 2018 01:59
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GrandpaPants posted:One system that I really liked from the old LOTR CCG (not the LCG) was that actions would feed resources to the other player. So if you wanted to be cautious, you can be cautious, but if you wanted to go balls out, you can go balls out and suffer the consequences for it. Obviously it would mostly strip these games of their solo play capabilities, but having someone play the Mythos deck and show some degree of controlled malevolence would have been fun. It sounds like what the Arkham LCG need is Gandalf. I played the hell out of the LOTR LCG for a few years. They got pretty creative with the mechanics in later expansions, but a lot of the player cards seemed kinda boring or gimmicky.
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Feb 21, 2018 02:08
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misguided rage posted:Makes setup more annoying and it's a bit harder to design I guess. I hope it's the latter, cause the former is stupid as all gently caress given that a bunch of games have different decks that you have to separate after the game's over.
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Feb 21, 2018 03:58
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cenotaph posted:So 1862 is one of the two 18xx titles GMT is going to publish. Might grab that one. Yea, I'm rather surprised as it's a rather chromey game, was expecting another relatively simple one.
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Feb 21, 2018 05:12
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taser rates posted:Yea, I'm rather surprised as it's a rather chromey game, was expecting another relatively simple one. As someone who’s been unsuccessfully looking for a while for a copy of 1862 at a non-extortionate price (as OOP 18XX games tend to go for), I’m stoked. But I didn’t expect them to print a title that’s on the more complex side of things, at least not as their second 18XX ever. There’s supposed to be two P500s in total - I wonder if the second one will be another more “newbie friendly” game like 1846. 1889 would seem like a solid choice since it’s never been commercially released in English, but I’m not sure they’d want to compete with the excellent, freely-available PnP version that’s already out there.
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Feb 21, 2018 05:54
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Jedit posted:I have played RC once, and from my limited experience that's about right. The way I would express it is that Arkham Horror is a game where luck can rescue you from your lack of skill (e.g. not knowing which gate locations should be closed and which sealed), while Crusoe is a game where no amount of skill can prevent you losing to luck.
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Feb 21, 2018 06:08
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Spirit island has a really great system for dialing in The difficulty with ~10 difficulty levels.
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Feb 21, 2018 07:10
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Spirit island has a really great system for dialing in The difficulty with ~10 difficulty levels. and judging by the So Very Wrong About Games podcast it went through an extensive playtesting process to balance it all. Speaking of, you guys should really give that one a listen, at only 13 episodes in it's easily the best board game media out there.
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Feb 21, 2018 07:27
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al-azad posted:It's a lack of perception exacerbated by the single minded idea that the path to victory is never giving ground, even temporarily. I definitely have to agree with you there. That reminds me of a great scene from the movie Walker where Ed Harris is walking through a hail of gunfire for basically no tactical reason while the men he's leading ask him what the hell he's doing. "The only thing I know how to do: advance," he says. "You dumb-rear end!" is the reply. Servoret fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Feb 21, 2018 |
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Feb 21, 2018 07:29
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I preordered Dice Wars: Heroes of Polyhedra the other day! I'm hoping it'll turn out fun once it ships late March/early April. I think I'm the only one in this thread who might be excited about it though, idk, I think I'm the only person to have mentioned it. Basically it's a hex-based strategy game with miniatures, but the miniatures are dice that you roll at the game's start. Then you just go fight against the other player and try to win by either taking over and holding on to cities for enough turns, killing all of the basic soldiers, or killing the unique general/captain/whatever unit. Maybe once it arrives in a couple months, I'll make a thread for it. It seems like a fun little game and I appreciate that instead of having a bunch of stretch goals, they just threw all of the extras in with the base game as optional add-ons. So there's an additional map with different terrain on it, or special upgraded units, or army-buffs based on what color army you are, special items that give you bonuses, but they're all optional rules that you can just leave in the box if you want. I dig that. Seems like a criminally overlooked game though.  
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Feb 21, 2018 08:16
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KPC_Mammon posted:Literally the first mission in the tutorial has a boss monster show up at the end that is significantly harder than the other monsters to the point where if you aren't prepared it can pretty easily kill an entire party. The act and agenda decks already do this. There is a problem that if you just have the base game with a single core, the recommended decks are pretty much trash. You'll be carrying around a ton of stuff you'll never use, and have single cards of all of your key equipment. I can understand that they did that, so you can immediately see how to improve your deck and become invested in the deck building and upgrades, but it's amsuing thinking back to how hard that first mission was at the time, given how basic is actually is.
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Feb 21, 2018 08:47
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