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Mayveena posted:Blizzard releasing Diablo 3 in its original state has to go down as the worst AAA game ever. Not really the topic in this thread, but Anthem, Cyberpunk, Fallout 76 and multiple others have this beat handily.
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Mar 6, 2022 11:05
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Aramoro posted:I asked a question about Charterstone once and Jamey told me I was playing it wrong. Not that I had the rules wrong or anything but that I just shouldn't do the good thing because it wasn't really how you were supposed to play the game. That stuck with me as an insight into his design philosophy. Isn't there a story about Tresham or one of the other progenitors of either 18XX or Civ games experiencing game groups where there was a big focus on "not playing wrong"? Someone more plugged in can probably relay the anecdote better than I could, but I'm curious is there is or isn't a throughline there, since you do hear that from gamers a fair bit. Which isn't to say it's good; I think the idea of "playing wrong" is baloney unless there is a serious reason the game rules could not better encourage 'right play'.
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Mar 6, 2022 11:08
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Magnetic North posted:I think the idea of "playing wrong" is baloney unless there is a serious reason the game rules could not better encourage 'right play'. You find it a lot in peoples first games, or games only playtested by friends etc. I don't believe it's intentional but you get a big difference between someone teaching you a game and how to play it vs just reading the rules and working it out yourself. It turns it from a game about conquering France into a game about getting VP tokens. Leaving the designer saying 'hey why aren't you conquering France?' I think the original Marco Polo is a great example of that. A game about building the silk road! Wait why aren't you building the silk road? Aramoro fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Mar 6, 2022 |
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Mar 6, 2022 11:18
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Jedit posted:There's only two straight up busted faction/board combos in Scythe, one Rusviet and one Crimean. That's not awful out of 49 possibilities. The Nordics are also a bit weaker than the other factions and Crimea are maybe a little too strong. Overall, though, I've never seen someone completely hosed out of the game just by their starting position; by the time someone gets their sixth star everyone usually has 3 or 4 and is close to a couple more. So as you say, it feels nice and you won't notice the problems if you play to play rather than play to win. Not true that there are only two busted combinations. Nordic/innovative is as bad as patriotic/Crimea is good, which is an impressive achievement. Albion/mech manages a 3 player win rate of 10%! But you've touched on another fun issue, why did he ban rusivet/industrious combo when it's not close to as good as patriotic Crimea, despite knowing that patriotic Crimea was broken? It's all very weird. I don't think Scythe is very playable as a competitive game with the rules as written, you need to introduce an auction for playmat combos otherwise the disparities in the combos can be suffocating. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 12:27 on Mar 6, 2022 |
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Mar 6, 2022 12:16
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Aramoro posted:I asked a question about Charterstone once and Jamey told me I was playing it wrong. Not that I had the rules wrong or anything but that I just shouldn't do the good thing because it wasn't really how you were supposed to play the game. That stuck with me as an insight into his design philosophy. He did that to me as well with Charterstone. I asked if there was an app for it and he said he didn't want people looking at their phones (like the game could stop you) during game play. People look at their phones anyway, geezus  All said I do think the thread is a bit hard on him as well. His approach is correct, I like the way he acknowledges issues that come up, he seems to be trying to do the right thing even though he doesn't always get there and I can't ask for much more than that. Yes he misinterpreted his Tapestry data, but folks still love the game so 
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Mar 6, 2022 15:11
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His games may be mediocre but his marketing is top-notch.
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Mar 6, 2022 15:30
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Mr. Squishy posted:His games may be mediocre but his marketing is top-notch. The four months between when I am able to buy a Stonemeier game and when reddit/BGG/SA convince me I should not are a long four months.
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Mar 6, 2022 15:47
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Is Rise of Queensdale random per game or is it the same layout of stuff for each box? Rise of Queensdale is the legacy civ building game where you use a plunger to lift tiles up from the map to discover what kinds of resources and stuff are underneath and then you can build stuff there.
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Mar 6, 2022 17:22
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FirstAidKite posted:Is Rise of Queensdale random per game or is it the same layout of stuff for each box? IME rise of Queensdale got REALLY samey after a while
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Mar 6, 2022 19:03
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Mr. Squishy posted:His games may be mediocre but his marketing is top-notch. Do you think people like Scythe because of the marketing? I had not thought about it that way.
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Mar 6, 2022 20:44
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Mayveena posted:Do you think people like Scythe because of the marketing? I had not thought about it that way. For sure. This isn't specifically a response to you, but more an informative observation on all the things they got right with that game's marketing. I have a background in product launches and pricing (my specific industry is gazillion dollar enterprise computing and software as a service, but the same principles apply). What Scythe did well all applies to Wingspan too. Digging back into undergrad marketing classes, here are the marketing Five P's: Product, place, people, promotion, price. The product itself is really attractive. The artwork, miniatures, and components all look beautiful. It's got amazing shelf appeal and stands out. Even just the cover art invites curiosity. Foreground is a bunch of 19th century looking farmers harvesting wheat with hand tools, but there are giant mechs belching black smoke in the background? You don't already have a game at home with that theme, let's pick up the box and look at it. Big part of why people buy tabletop games (and most of GW's business model) is for the cool doodad, the object of wonder. Same reason why vinyl has come back in a big way in music. They addressed Place by building buzz on Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a fantastic tool for gauging market interest and getting hard data on what people are willing to pay before you actually print it, and it also allows you to add a sense of urgency and opportunities for upsell (more on that later) The most important place to get seen, really, is at dedicated hobby stores that sell designer board games. People perceive an added value in curation, and feel that if something is sold at a Real Game Store For Enthusiasts, the product itself must be of a higher quality than the games you can find at Target. This is also why demo copies work so well as promotions. People is the element that people who work in marketing create for themselves to make them feel like their jobs have meaning. Otherwise it's sorta fulfilled by sending review copies to all the usual suspects, getting them to play it 2 or 3 times and then make a 20 minute commercial for you. Promotion is really all the stuff we'd think of as traditional advertising. Kickstarter campaign is here (including all the slick ad copy and videos), engaging on BGG and Reddit forums, campaigns with online retailers, sending demo copies, doing the trade show and convention circuit, etc. Kickstarter is awesome here too because you can both pull in discounted pre-sales through the threat of scarcity and collect extra money from the completionists who want all the exclusive and special doodads. Pricing is where more of my experience lies, and they do it pretty well here too. One axiom of pricing is that you want the same item to have the same cost for the same user, throughout any channels. Setting the price at $80 does a few things. First, it makes it possible for the game stores, the place you prefer people buying your prestige game from, to actually make money selling it. All else equal, game stores would rather move one $80 game for a $20 profit than two $40 games for the same $20 combined profit. Second is that it sets a value anchor that you can then price up or down from. In Kickstarter, you'll tell the backers that we'll sell this $80 MSRP game to you for $60, but if you wait too long you'll never get a chance to buy this again at $60. Then in the upper tiers of Kickstarter, you're able to extract extra money from people who are willing to spend more! Add some upgraded tokens, "exclusive" things, or even multiple copies of the game. Now you've got people volunteering to spend an extra $50 on your game for another $10 of doodads, hooray! The whole concept of sales and discounting is a tricky balancing act. There are people who would buy at $60 who wouldn't buy at $80. But you also want those people who would buy at $80 to actually give you $80, not buying on sale at $60. Kickstarter lets them time-bound the pricing. Once it was released, I recall Scythe flying off the shelves with a good sized waiting list of people who wanted to buy at full price. The scarcity also encourages purchases, but taken to the extreme people will eventually lose patience and interest. They did a lot of things right there, and did a lot of the same things right for Wingspan
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Mar 6, 2022 22:05
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Given the modern gameplay environment, how many people actually play a game 5 times? 10 times? I play my collection pretty heavily and with that said half my games are played less than 5 times. Thanks to the pandemic+kids I basically only play online, at this point I could replace my game shelf with boardgame-themed wallpaper and lose nothing.
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Mar 6, 2022 22:26
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The more I play Ark Nova the more I like it. Every time we finish playing we spend like 20 minutes afterward discussing strategy we saw and what we could do in the next game. I haven't done that for a game since learning Spirit Island. After half a dozen or so plays I can totally see why people rate it so highly.
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Mar 7, 2022 04:35
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I know a few playgroups of people who know I'm into board games but who I know for other reasons, and several of them were like "we bought this game Scythe but we can't figure it out" It has an extremely attractive box and it often gets pride of place in local game stores for that reason.
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Mar 7, 2022 05:56
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CommonShore posted:I know a few playgroups of people who know I'm into board games but who I know for other reasons, and several of them were like "we bought this game Scythe but we can't figure it out" Buying it and liking it are two different things right? I can see why people buy it but once they play a few times I don't see how they like it .
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Mar 7, 2022 06:03
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Mayveena posted:Buying it and liking it are two different things right? I can see why people buy it but once they play a few times I don't see how they like it Well yeah but many groups will own 2-3 games and that's it - they like what they have. Scythe is a pretty solid game on the wider scale of games, even if there are hundreds of games better than it, there are so many more that are worse. E.g. if your choice is Scythe or Talisman, what do you pick?
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Mar 7, 2022 06:30
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CommonShore posted:Well yeah but many groups will own 2-3 games and that's it - they like what they have. Scythe is a pretty solid game on the wider scale of games, even if there are hundreds of games better than it, there are so many more that are worse. Talisman, because then I can have fun, silly hijinks in a game I know is hilariously unbalanced, generally while drinking beer with friends.
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Mar 7, 2022 10:33
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How is Ark Nova with 2 players?
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Mar 7, 2022 10:33
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CommonShore posted:E.g. if your choice is Scythe or Talisman, what do you pick? Fluxx
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Mar 7, 2022 10:45
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CommonShore posted:E.g. if your choice is Scythe or Talisman, what do you pick? I would say "thanks guys I'm good, I'll just sit this one out." e: I do most of my gaming at public meetups, but I'd chill out in somebody's kitchen for a bit, I'm a man of principle.
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Mar 7, 2022 10:48
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My experience with a lot of gamers is that they are, to put it bluntly, not very discerning. So 90% of the battle is just getting the game in their hands and on their table, and they will have fun because they're playing a game, regardless of what the game necessarily is. I think a lot of people have the same attitude as Jamie as well and will not be trying to play optimally and will frown upon people who do. Plus the whole thing that most gamers probably don't play that many different games and/or only play the games they've got a handful of times so don't plumb the depths of any issues.
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Mar 7, 2022 10:51
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The thing with game balance is that ~99% of the time, the biggest source of game imbalance is that some of the players round the table are better than others. Imbalanced factions, handed out randomly, very often end up being a net gain in terms of fun, challenge and perceived fairness. Hence why they tend to be feature of many of the most enduringly popular games, those that standup to a lot of repeated play if semi-fixed groups. If a balanced game means one player wins 99% of the time instead of merely 90%, is balance good?
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Mar 7, 2022 13:34
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MikeCrotch posted:My experience with a lot of gamers is that they are, to put it bluntly, not very discerning. So 90% of the battle is just getting the game in their hands and on their table, and they will have fun because they're playing a game, regardless of what the game necessarily is. This is our group. The family that we play with own many games SA hates but we still have fun talking and socializing with them. Scythe is a game they enjoy and we suffered through. My wife and I have introduced them to Anno, Andean Abyss, Brass, and Tinners Trail among others.
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Mar 7, 2022 13:37
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Mayveena posted:Buying it and liking it are two different things right? I can see why people buy it but once they play a few times I don't see how they like it Having played with a different group of people with the Steam version, my enthusiasm for it has dulled as they have min-maxed the hell out of it, which like with most other games, takes all the fun out of it and really shows the games warts. I still feel like the game does a lot of things well and has some really interesting mechanics that I had not seen before that I wish I saw in more games.
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Mar 7, 2022 13:40
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radmonger posted:The thing with game balance is that ~99% of the time, the biggest source of game imbalance is that some of the players round the table are better than others. But then what if the experienced player gets the op faction, and the game is guaranteed decided before it starts, instead of likely?
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Mar 7, 2022 14:21
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Yeah when I was doing TI drafting I made sure players were aware 'this race is the statistically superior race from your choices' when players requested recommendations. One day I'll get my copy of TI to the table without some Historical Event loving things up 
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Mar 7, 2022 14:32
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silvergoose posted:But then what if the experienced player gets the op faction, and the game is guaranteed decided before it starts, instead of likely? Not to mention, more skilled players are going to be better at spotting and exploiting the imbalance, so any imbalance is going to be more likely to work to their favor than not. A balanced-ish game with a healthy dose of randomness throughout is going to be a better fix than an imbalanced game with a single game-defining random draw to start.
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Mar 7, 2022 14:47
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Play Talisman with dark fate rules to make it much meaner and funnier.
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Mar 7, 2022 14:56
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One of the big things for me with imbalance and "unfairness" is how long the game takes. I'm much more forgiving about a game that is unbalanced and takes an hour to play Vs one that takes 4 hours, especially if it's multiplayer and you're just having to slog through with a subpar faction or whatever for ages.
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Mar 7, 2022 15:05
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silvergoose posted:But then what if the experienced player gets the op faction, and the game is guaranteed decided before it starts, instead of likely? If the group is aware of the imbalance and cares about winning, maybe they don't let that guy have the op faction?
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Mar 7, 2022 15:24
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PerniciousKnid posted:If the group is aware of the imbalance and cares about winning, maybe they don't let that guy have the op faction? Ah, and now we get to handicaps! I love handicaps. More games and game groups should be okay using handicaps. They do work a lot better in 2p games, though.
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Mar 7, 2022 15:34
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My group has a handicap for me in Talisman: if i draw the Sprite character, everyone gangs up on me and murders me immediately. I feel this is fair. (I unironically love talisman, if you can't tell. It's definitely in the top 10 of the things I own).
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Mar 7, 2022 15:41
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medchem posted:How is Ark Nova with 2 players? I have only played it at 3 players but I can see it going fine at 2. Probably easier to pinpoint which actions to take to royally screw your opponent's momentum. It's really about building up your zoo faster than your opponent(s) anyway.
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Mar 7, 2022 17:05
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silvergoose posted:Ah, and now we get to handicaps! I love handicaps. More games and game groups should be okay using handicaps. It's a main reason I love Go!
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Mar 7, 2022 17:34
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medchem posted:How is Ark Nova with 2 players? It's totally fine with two players. I think it's still recommended with two on BGG but I see that changing to a recommendation with more players as folks play it and get experienced with the game.
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Mar 7, 2022 18:30
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Quote-Unquote posted:(I unironically love talisman, if you can't tell. It's definitely in the top 10 of the things I own). Let's not say things we can't take back...
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Mar 7, 2022 19:24
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Good weekend of gaming. First we did a seven player game of Mega Civ western map. Two total newbies, one of which I had to dissuade from being demoralised before the game even started thanks to that dogshit video SU&SD did for Western Empires. I set up the night before and we got properly rolling by about 11:00 and called it about six hours later. I had Minoa, which is very fun to play as and not that difficult even though I screw up here and there. BUT, the only thing I agree with Quinns about and it still astounds me to this day, is how goddamn bad the graphic design on the map is in a practical sense. Playing as Minoa is an exercise in carefully stacking chits and putting them in just the right place so that you can see what's beneath them. Throw in the fact you're going to have boats that are twice the size as normal chits for almost the entire game and you've got yourself a frothy soup of frustration. You also really need someone to be on the ball with census and someone else responsible for handling the trade cards. I came in second and made plenty of mistakes. The winner was Hellas who played well but also had the luck of the Irish because he ended up drawing round after round of no calamities and even when he did get some, was able to mitigate them with the help of his previous purchases. Was very happy that everyone had a great time and the one person I was referring to earlier even sent me a message after saying how much he enjoyed the game and he'd play again any time. You love to hear it. And then the next day my wife and I sat down and played another game of Coal Baron and had another fantastic time. I blew her out of the water this game though. The game plays so quickly and simply with just enough tricky decisions and risk-management to make it exactly at the right crunch level. Very quick set up and take down too.
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Mar 7, 2022 19:36
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Unfair balance is not inherently a problem, it's only a problem if you expect a balanced game (which is, overall, a fair expectation). Consider something like Memoir '44, where each scenario specifically notes how likely each side is to win, with some being like 80/20. It works because you know you're probably gonna lose, but you still have meaningful and interesting choices. And for some gamers, it doesn't matter if it's exactly fair, as long as you have meaningful choices that could conceivably lead to victory, even if you're screwed over by your starting position.
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Mar 7, 2022 19:38
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Crackbone posted:Let's not say things we can't take back... I have all the expansions. It takes up my entire 6' x 3' table for four players so you have play standing up in order to reach your piece. Game owns. A couple of the expansions are a bit poo poo, though. Especially the Dragon one which makes an already very long game take even longer with a bunch of unnecessary extra complications.
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Mar 7, 2022 19:56
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Had some friends over and decided to show them War of the Ring. We lost to a Free People's military victory. Couldn't roll a single six on a hunt, either. I am forever shamed.
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Mar 7, 2022 20:29
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