Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters

PRADA SLUT posted:

the real Pro Gamer Move is to play tmb on the hexes from too many scrolls

or the buildings from Burncycle :getin:

it was originally just going to be four-lane front/back row with no spacial component, which is why the grid ended up 4x4

check out this doo doo beta map



radlands and TMB cards are essentially the same build

Dunno, there's something that can be said about an abstracted combat map, but everything absolutely needs to be designed around that explicitely.

Anyway, played a 2-player game of Cat in the Box last night. Considering it's a trick taking game at heart, there's a lot to keep track of (and that's just with 2). You're trying to block off your opponent from getting a good line of tokens on the board, while getting a line of your own tokens, but it's based on the cards you have, so you have to figure out what cards they have to know how to block them, but also make sure that as you're putting down cards you're not heading towards a paradox, but also only win the correct number of tricks if you want that bonus, but do you have the cards to do that or are you risking paradox, or maybe just say gently caress it and go for as many tricks as possible and screw the bonus (but still block them), and

Looking forward to playing it with four.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

GreenBuckanneer
Sep 15, 2007

I hear too many bones is good, but it's also over my budget, I get massive fomo from not having the all-in and TMB is at like $500 of content now

Of course the other issue I have is solo games tend to be overtuned I'm finding, or at least, it's "a thing" that they are rather difficult and there's no very easy mode unless someone's come up with a house rules on BGG or elsewhere.

One of the reasons why I just can't get into One Deck Dungeon/One Deck Galaxy, being a struggle just to "win" after spending an hour+ isn't a valuable use of my time. If I wanted that kind of difficulty, I'd pick up Dark Souls again. I'd rather the game have a default "story mode" with "now that you're confident in how to play the game, try the hard modes and see how far you can get!" But, not enough games do that, instead overburdening you with the 101 different mechanics that would be more valuable to you once you've got the swing of things instead of struggling to understand the workflow while also managing the rules, but that's probably a manual being poo poo issue. Like for example, Veilwrath I was super excited about, but then you play it and you're just expected to lose, and lose often until you eventually figure out how to beat the game. Then, there's an expansion that increases the difficulty even further. I was so excited but once I played a few times and just was beating my head against the wall, and then looked at that, I just shelved the game indefinitely. Before that, I did a house rule that allowed you to mitigate some of the bullshit coming at the character, and when I brought that up to the dev, he was dismissive about it, which irked me as well.

Anyways, long rant to say that maybe TMB is good, but blowing that kind of money on a game and then not liking it because it's not really designed for a smooth experience on True Solo really kills my interest. I've tried other solo-style games, like Arkham, but that you also can't really do true solo, you have to dual character, and it's still "difficult". I almost feel like with that game you want to have another human body playing with you to mitigate the mental load by offloading the other character to someone else.

GreenBuckanneer fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Jan 25, 2023

Chainclaw
Feb 14, 2009

I wouldn't want to play Too Many Bones solo. I've been looking for some solo games to have some more non-screen hobby time, and I have Too Many Bones, but it does not sound fun solo.

I did back Chip Theory Game's upcoming solo tabletop game thing https://gamefound.com/projects/chip-theory-games/20-strong but I don't think that ships until June or later?

panko
Sep 6, 2005

~honda best man~


GreenBuckanneer posted:


Of course the other issue I have is solo games tend to be overtuned I'm finding, or at least, it's "a thing" that they are rather difficult and there's no very easy mode unless someone's come up with a house rules on BGG or elsewhere.

One of the reasons why I just can't get into One Deck Dungeon/One Deck Galaxy, being a struggle just to "win" after spending an hour+ isn't a valuable use of my time.

so, and forgive me if this reading is uncharitable, a very easy game that you beat swiftly without expending much effort would be a valuable use of your time? because then you’d feel good that you were able to win? further, you complained to a game designer that you couldn’t beat their title without house-ruling several elements, and were irked when you perceived their response to be dismissive?

maybe consider Gate.

GreenBuckanneer
Sep 15, 2007

MizuZero posted:

so, and forgive me if this reading is uncharitable, a very easy game that you beat swiftly without expending much effort would be a valuable use of your time? because then you’d feel good that you were able to win? further, you complained to a game designer that you couldn’t beat their title without house-ruling several elements, and were irked when you perceived their response to be dismissive?

maybe consider Gate.

It was more of asking for help, and then explaining how I (unintentionally) read the rules incorrectly, but that doing so helped enjoy the game more, and he responds dismissively, bothered me. Like "well that's not how you're supposed to play the game". At least with the One Deck Dungeon dev in a similar situation their response was "hey it's your game if that works then go for it!".

But to be honest, yeah, especially when learning a game for the first time, I think there should be the option for training wheels or an easy mode. You can make things more difficult later but I think it seems to be harder to make things easier without blowing things out. At least the option would be available one way or the other. I'm more likely to give up on a game if it's difficult right out of the gate than if it's easier and I can just take on more challenges when I'm more confident.

Thank you for the suggestion, haven't heard of Gate, so I'll check it out.

edit: In terms of context, I almost never play video games on hard mode, opting instead to do the easiest mode available, often times because hard modes just do boring difficulty challenges, like the boss just has more HP and you do less damage, which isn't a "challenge" as much as it is a "time investment" because the boss is now a bullet sponge. That's not worth my time. A hard mode where the boss gets more phases or AI changes? That would be worth my time. Regardless, the option is there to increase the difficulty later if I wanted to, and I do sometimes, if the game is too "braindead" otherwise.

GreenBuckanneer fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Jan 25, 2023

CitizenKeen
Nov 13, 2003

easygoing pedant

MizuZero posted:

so, and forgive me if this reading is uncharitable, a very easy game that you beat swiftly without expending much effort would be a valuable use of your time? because then you’d feel good that you were able to win? further, you complained to a game designer that you couldn’t beat their title without house-ruling several elements, and were irked when you perceived their response to be dismissive?

maybe consider Gate.

That's not what they said. There is a significant spectrum between "having a thing for being rather difficult" and being "very easy that you beat swiftly without expanding much effort".

Ninja Edit: Yeah, agreed about the training wheels. For me, solo games need to have scaling difficulty. If a solo game just starts at really hard and only goes up from there, I'll never buy it. You can make games like Arkham Horror (the card game), Spirit Island, etc., very difficult, but you can also make them easy.

Azran
Sep 3, 2012

And what should one do to be remembered?
It's interesting because a solo game of Aeon's End is much, much more binary for me than a solo game of Spirit Island, where I feel like I'm more in control and RNG isn't as overwhelming. IMO it has to do with Spirit Island having more dials for adjusting difficulty than Aeon's End, where it's just basically 'pick an easier Nemesis'.

Azran fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Jan 31, 2023

homullus
Mar 27, 2009

This may be of use to somebody somewhere, but I had read nothing but praise for Too Many Bones, so I saved up and got it. I was very disappointed. The labor poured into their physical design is not matched in rest of the design.

The good:
* Components are as good as you've heard, though PVC cards slide around a lot
* The Gearloc visual design and high-level differentiation are good
* It's not an easy game and can be played solo
* Several bosses and card decks keep the experience variable
* Lots of great dice to roll

The bad:
* The player aid sheets are both indispensable while learning the game and almost unacceptable to use for this purpose. Information that should have been on the dice mats is crammed onto these two-sided reference sheets ("see other side for explanation of this explanation"), to make room for a big picture of your character
* Like all board games that print walls of "story" text on their cards, after the first time or two, you only care about the mechanical pieces. Like some games that print walls of text, they could have used an editing pass. It's a lot of misplaced design effort and classic telling-rather-than-showing. Candyland doesn't give you a paragraph about being stuck in the Molasses Swamp: you're just stuck there, and the narrative emerges from that
* The beginning of the game out of the box is very rote (more variation available via expansion)
* The graphic design on the cards is mediocre to bad, often darkish with plain graphics and busy backgrounds
* The bosses don't just have challenging abilities -- their encounters often/always feature a "gotcha" that's revealed at the start of the battle (e.g. you have to face the boss serially one-on-one rather than as a group)
* The tactical space for the battles is small and remained featureless until the Undertow expansion, from what I could tell

The game had its first and second edition in 2017(!), and its third in 2018(!!). Three editions in two years, and I bought the nominally-best edition of the bunch. I have been playing Elder Scrolls games since Daggerfall; based on my TMB experience, Chip Theory is an appropriate board game steward for the past 29 years of Bethesda jank.

Chainclaw
Feb 14, 2009

Things I really like about Too Many Bones are:

The play variety between the Gearlocs. They're all very different, so it feels like playing a new game when you switch characters. Some of the other coop RPG board games feel like the characters are different, but not vastly different that I would want to play as a different character. This also really helps prevent one player from just running the game and playing solo while the rest of us sit there and wait. I've had that problem in the past with other coop games, one player is constantly calling out "the best decision" to take and it just ends up frustrating and boring for everyone else. I can't imagine someone doing that in Too Many Bones.

It feels like you're earning new abilities all the time. This is something I'm frustrated with in a lot of other games in this genre. It feels like it takes forever to get the good stuff. I know it's comparing apples and oranges a bit with Gloomhaven and Too Many Bones in that Gloomhaven is a multi session campaign game and Too Many Bones is a single session game with no permanence (we haven't tried the campaign expansion yet to TMB). While I love a lot of Gloomhaven, it can feel like after a month of playing once a week for ~6 hours, I've earned two or three minor upgrades. With Too Many Bones, I feel like I'm getting big, noticeable upgrades constantly, twice an hour or so. Oathsworn's what our group is currently playing in the campaign RPG genre, and it's pretty common that we'll finish a 4 hour session, and basically end up with mostly the same gear (swapping one item for something roughly the same) plus some upgrade that comes up maybe once every other session (bonus to rolling a certain skill check in the non-combat session of the game that we might not encounter in every non-combat session)

There also aren't a ton of these single session cooperative RPG games, a lot of them focus on multi session. That's great with a consistent group, but sometimes we're down a person or up a person (people hate dropping into a long running campaign game), and that's where Too Many Bones especially shines. A few players in that group don't like competitive games, which is why we focus on coop.

I would add as a downside / upside the quantity of expansion content. It can feel overwhelming to look at the available list of Gearlocs for separate purchase. On the other hand, this both gives the game a ton of extra life, and has become great gift list fodder. The $30 character expansion hit the sweet spot for a lot of people looking to get Christmas/birthday gifts, so I've ended up with a few that way.

It's probably one of my favorite board games at the moment, but we purposely don't play so often we burn out on it. I think a lot of homullus's points would become really grating and frustrating if you tried to play this once a week for several months, as a swap out for a campaign driven board game. But as a once every few months ago, I really like it.

Chainclaw fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Jan 25, 2023

Kerro
Nov 3, 2002

Did you marry a man who married the sea? He looks right through you to the distant grey - calling, calling..
I owned TMB for a while and probably played through 5 or 6 full sessions. There's quite a bit to like there, but ultimately not enough for me to want to keep it. The poor graphic design and need for the giant reference sheets was definitely frustrating, but the bigger issue for me was that the game felt too repetitive across repeat plays. This seemed to be largely down to two factors: the battle board is simply not big enough to make interesting tactical decisions, and in many cases you basically get stuck next to an enemy just whacking it and hoping you roll well. There were occasions where positioning mattered, usually a few turns in each fight, but overall it felt far too constrained.

The second problem that fed into this was that most of your characters' special abilities could only be used once per fight, meaning that in most longer fights you spent a significant amount of time just rolling basic attacks. The range of not-one-off character abilities still meant that it felt like there was some variety between characters, but not a great deal - after you've used your main special abilities most of the characters felt fairly similar and unexciting to me and there were very few abilities that felt like they significantly changed the rules or strategy of the game in ways that would lead to interesting strategic or tactical decisions. Overall I found it good but not great, which is in no way sufficient for a game at that price point.

Speaking of expensive games, we just finished the first cycle (basically the first campaign of three in the core box) of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey and had a great time. I really really enjoy boss-battler games, and this one is up there with anything else in the genre. Like a lot of these ultra-dense campaign games it's expensive, fiddly, a ridiculous table-hog, is almost impossible to play correctly due to the incredible number of rules and abilities and gear cards and edge cases to remember, but still a ton of fun and amazing at creating emergent narrative and giving you the tools to pull off crazy and seemingly-game-breaking builds and plays. The story writing is surprisingly good too, though for my taste there is too much of it in comparison to the amount of crafting/fighting/technology-tree-unlocking which is what I enjoy the most in games of this type.

Also received my copy of Stationfall and played a first game that isn't on TTS or with a PnP version and it's certainly a lot nicer having the real components. The game is pretty fiddly so it really helps having well produced bits to play it, and probably knocked at least 5 minutes off the setup/breakdown time compared to the PnP version. This is probably the game I enjoy the most that I'd be the most reluctant to recommend to anyone else as it's so niche - basically a party game for heavy gamers who don't mind sitting through a 30 minute rules explanation before you can play a game that's chaotic and ridiculous and ends in about 90 minutes.

PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so
Base + Undertow is a better experience than like Base + whatever the gently caress people seem to buy. Though, I would assume that Too Many Scrolls will largely replace Too Many Bones for most people.

Chainclaw posted:

It feels like you're earning new abilities all the time. This is something I'm frustrated with in a lot of other games in this genre. It feels like it takes forever to get the good stuff. I know it's comparing apples and oranges a bit with Gloomhaven and Too Many Bones in that Gloomhaven is a multi session campaign game and Too Many Bones is a single session game with no permanence (we haven't tried the campaign expansion yet to TMB). While I love a lot of Gloomhaven, it can feel like after a month of playing once a week for ~6 hours, I've earned two or three minor upgrades. With Too Many Bones, I feel like I'm getting big, noticeable upgrades constantly, twice an hour or so.

This was like the biggest stain on Gloomhaven. I had missions that went like two hours long, taking all the Pro Gamer Skill I had to barely make it through, and it was like "you get three xp. do this four more times and you get a new card."

Every TMB combat feels like there's something valuable on the line, and the constantly depleting adventure deck forces you to make risk/reward decisions into how risky you want to engage, since the boss at the end is coming whether you're prepared or not. The threat of actual loss in the campaign makes combat more meaningful, since losing a combat not only damages your next encounter, but denies you critical skills and items that you will need for the boss.

Other games are like "oh, you died, it's okay, just try again until you get it, we believe in you and here's how you can make the game easier <3", and TMB is like "lol idiot, lets see you fight the upcoming boss without that skill point". Developers all want to be World of Warcraft, and CTG decides to go Dwarf Fortress. When I read the next page in Gloomhaven, I expect some linear, well-manicured increase in story, when I flip the next card in too many bones, I go "oh christ what's going to happen to us this time".

Though, it's not a game I play with people who get butthurt at some perception of fairness or loss, since the game generates the experience it wants, fairness be damned. It is a game I play with people who take a thrill in overcoming completely stacked odds and treating combat as a weird, pseudo-unfair tactical puzzle. And the supremely diverse gameplay of each character makes for wildly different experiences game-to-game. Everyone gets that moment where they get the spotlight and they turn combat around, without the game forcing this convoluted "everyone takes turns being the hero" (if you have so-and-so in your party, read this thing and get a thing).

And there is something supremely gratifying to me about overcoming these near-impossible situations. There's a weird enjoyment in going "it's okay guys, I've saved THE BIG SKILL for this very situation", the table gets excited that we all live to see another day, you roll bones, watch everyones collectively deflate, go "well poo poo, are we screwed?", and then everyone scrambling to look for an out, like an escape room that you're missing some of the clues. It's like being in the middle of some perverse comedy, not unlike Space Alert or Galaxy Trucker when you're down to one engine and you see another asteroid flop.

I play a lot of "crafted narrative" games (Gloomhavens, Etherfields, Sleeping Gods, Splendent Vale), but there's maybe two other games that pull off this "let's balance the group on a knife's edge the entire time" and I wish developers would make more. Here's hoping CTG makes Too Many Scrolls, not Gloomscrollin.

PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jan 25, 2023

Chainclaw
Feb 14, 2009

I like "Elder Bones" more than "Too Many Scrolls" but both are good dumb names for that upcoming game.

The Eyes Have It
Feb 10, 2008

Third Eye Sees All
...snookums
The old Witcher Adventure Game had flaws, but it also had some great elements. One of them was how it handled (for lack of a better term) "leveling up".

There were no XP to spend or anything, you just did it as an action. Take two cards (or was it three?) and keep one. They were ALL good. No "+1 to X on Tuesdays" nonsense, they were all good.

So what's to keep someone from just powering up endlessly until they can stomp anything in their way? Nothing! Except the fact that actions are relatively few, so the ideal amount of upgrading is just enough to get past your obstacles, and no more. Because actions are so few, any action you spend upgrading is an action you're not spending to get VPs, which means the player who upgrades the least (enough to avoid getting wounded / stuck) without overdoing it will have an advantage overall.

Again, the game had its flaws but the combat system and the "leveling up" were good parts.



Speaking of upgrade systems I like, I'm reminded of the technologies in Omega Centauri which are all split into two versions: level 1 (which anyone can get) and level 2 (only one exists, first one to get it locks everyone else out). The technologies are all straightforward, meaningful, and deterministic. For example: Targeting Computers. At level 1 you always shoot first, unless opponent also has Targeting Computers in which case they cancel out. At level 2 (again, only one exists) you ALWAYS shoot first. I vastly prefer such things to little accumulative type stuff like a +1 here, +1 there, etc.

Crackbone
May 23, 2003

Vlaada is my co-pilot.

PRADA SLUT posted:

tmb drop



schtick is having that draw deck and drawing/burning cards to create various pokeresque hands, which you can trade in to Do A Thing. dice help you stack the deck or manipulate draws



PVC playing card deck with foiled red/gold, different face cards for each suit :kiss:

Can't wait to see this poo poo wash up on shores lodged into a dolphin's blowhole

Infinitum
Jul 30, 2004


Known killer of Dolphins: Board Games

PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

Infinitum posted:

Known killer of Dolphins: Board Games

Tuna Many Boats

Crackbone
May 23, 2003

Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Infinitum posted:

Known killer of Dolphins: Board Games

every component being non-biodegradable is pretty lovely

Infinitum
Jul 30, 2004


Each year entire schools of Dolphins die tragically by swallowing 10,000 board games via their blowholes, you can help prevent this tragedy by donating to 1800-DUMB-TAKES

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters

Crackbone posted:

every component being non-biodegradable is pretty lovely

A hundred-dollar set of components that will sit on shelves and tables, not in trashbins, is not the same as the millions of pounds of plastic one-use trash waste that is produced on the reg.

Like, this isn't a $15 copy of Sorry that's going to be binned cause the box was crushed under the weight of a box of shoes.

PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

Ojetor
Aug 4, 2010

Return of the Sensei

Only played TMB once but it seemed to me to be similar in spirit to Mage Knight except it costs like $500 for a full set. MK does a similar one-session RPG going from being a weak rear end dude to a city conquering sorcerer warrior over 4 hours, but it's far more engaging, imo. And only like $100 for the ultimate box with everything.

SettingSun
Aug 10, 2013

You’re not even a weak dude in MK! You start tough and charismatic on only gain more strength. It rules!

The Eyes Have It
Feb 10, 2008

Third Eye Sees All
...snookums
The power curve in Mage Knight is pretty :slick:

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

The Eyes Have It posted:

The power curve in Mage Knight is pretty :slick:

The learning curve isn't.

Selecta84
Jan 29, 2015

I love that so much about MK.

I have no other game that offers this kind of "oh poo poo, an Orc" to "pfff, that City is gonna be toast in no time" feeling within a 2-3 hour time span.

Are there any other game that can match that?

Bottom Liner
Feb 15, 2006


a specific vein of lasagna

Selecta84 posted:

I love that so much about MK.

I have no other game that offers this kind of "oh poo poo, an Orc" to "pfff, that City is gonna be toast in no time" feeling within a 2-3 hour time span.

Are there any other game that can match that?

Spirit Island. You go from treading water as the encroaching threats close in to causing volcanoes and massive tidal waves that wash away cities.

Selecta84
Jan 29, 2015

Bottom Liner posted:

Spirit Island. You go from treading water as the encroaching threats close in to causing volcanoes and massive tidal waves that wash away cities.

Oh yeah, I have that one, but I haven't played it in a long time. And I have trouble bringing it to the table atm. I like the struggle at the beginning, but the ending always feels kind of anti climatic for me. But I never played with higher level adverseries. Maybe that helps

Don't know, maybe I have to give it a few more goes.

Kerro
Nov 3, 2002

Did you marry a man who married the sea? He looks right through you to the distant grey - calling, calling..
Yeah Spirit Island and Cthulhu Death May Die are the only other two games I've played that have that insane level of 'this feels broken but is somehow still balanced' power curve in a single session game. Planet Apocalypse is close but not quite as absurd.

Doctor Spaceman
Jul 6, 2010

"Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."

Selecta84 posted:

Oh yeah, I have that one, but I haven't played it in a long time. And I have trouble bringing it to the table atm. I like the struggle at the beginning, but the ending always feels kind of anti climatic for me. But I never played with higher level adverseries. Maybe that helps

Don't know, maybe I have to give it a few more goes.

Events and higher difficulties help address the anti-climactic feel but I think there's only so much it can be reduced within the framework of the game.

OperaMouse
Oct 30, 2010

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Events and higher difficulties help address the anti-climactic feel but I think there's only so much it can be reduced within the framework of the game.

In lower difficulties, the race is to see if you can fire off that major once before you win the game.

At higher difficulties it really becomes a struggle.

SettingSun
Aug 10, 2013

Yeah, a lot of games in SI end with "look, there's one city left on the board and I can smoke it in the fast phase, we're done here" but I never really marked that as a con. Ratchet up the difficulty a little bit and more drama will unfold.

Jewmanji
Dec 28, 2003
Is there any consensus forming as to the best/worst individual spirits in Jagged Earth (or best combos?). I haven’t played it enough to suss it out (still have a couple spirits left to play truth to be told).

Some Numbers
Sep 28, 2006

"LET'S GET DOWN TO WORK!!"

Crackbone posted:

every component being non-biodegradable is pretty lovely

counterpoint: dolphins are gigantic assholes

Pryce
May 21, 2011

SettingSun posted:

Yeah, a lot of games in SI end with "look, there's one city left on the board and I can smoke it in the fast phase, we're done here" but I never really marked that as a con. Ratchet up the difficulty a little bit and more drama will unfold.

I find the difficulty curve of a single game of SI to be fascinating. There's always a turn where you finally crest the parabola of difficulty midway through the game, and then the rest of the turns are just cleanup. It's a very weird feeling when you win because it was already fairly clear a turn or two ago that you had it covered. It's that middle part of the game where it goes from "OH poo poo OH poo poo" to "Okay I think we got this" where it feels best, whereas the actual 'we win' moment is less thrilling.

misguided rage
Jun 15, 2010

:shepface:God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title:shepface:

Jewmanji posted:

Is there any consensus forming as to the best/worst individual spirits in Jagged Earth (or best combos?). I haven’t played it enough to suss it out (still have a couple spirits left to play truth to be told).
Dunno about consensus, but from my games the only spirit I think is noticeably underpowered is Mist, which is too bad because they're really fun to play. I think they're my most played JE spirit but every game it feels like they end up just a bit short of being able to stop things from collapsing.

Lure/Starlight/Fractured Days all seem really strong, although I only have one play myself of Starlight and Days. Lure maybe has a bit more trouble in 2 player games (unless they're paired with ocean) but in 3+ they seemed fantastic.

Not technically a JE spirit but I have had absolutely no success with Finder of Paths Unseen. I've heard other people rate them pretty highly though so I can totally believe that I just don't understand how they're meant to work.

Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

misguided rage posted:

Dunno about consensus, but from my games the only spirit I think is noticeably underpowered is Mist, which is too bad because they're really fun to play. I think they're my most played JE spirit but every game it feels like they end up just a bit short of being able to stop things from collapsing.

Lure/Starlight/Fractured Days all seem really strong, although I only have one play myself of Starlight and Days. Lure maybe has a bit more trouble in 2 player games (unless they're paired with ocean) but in 3+ they seemed fantastic.

Not technically a JE spirit but I have had absolutely no success with Finder of Paths Unseen. I've heard other people rate them pretty highly though so I can totally believe that I just don't understand how they're meant to work.

Lure is not the most complex spirit but oh man it is so much fun setting up a mosh pit. Last time I played, it was a Lure/Ocean/River game, and I was playing River just shoving invaders into the mosh pit or the ocean. Tons of fun.

Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

Pryce posted:

I find the difficulty curve of a single game of SI to be fascinating. There's always a turn where you finally crest the parabola of difficulty midway through the game, and then the rest of the turns are just cleanup. It's a very weird feeling when you win because it was already fairly clear a turn or two ago that you had it covered. It's that middle part of the game where it goes from "OH poo poo OH poo poo" to "Okay I think we got this" where it feels best, whereas the actual 'we win' moment is less thrilling.

It's a combination of getting/playing more cards and the lowering of victory conditions as you generate more fear. The more you destroy towns and cities the easier it is to win. It quickly goes from "How can I contain all of these invaders!?" to "O I just got destroy this one city left on the island to win."

sirtommygunn
Mar 7, 2013



The game is built to snowball in both directions, which is good for making sure you don't end up with a long rear end stalemate but bad for the pacing of the game with the current victory/loss conditions. My table is good with considering the game over the second we're sure about the outcome so this isn't as big a problem for us but it is still a bit annoying. I wish I had more opportunities to play the really flashy/expensive major powers.

Infinitum
Jul 30, 2004


Infinitum posted:

Eagle Gyphon games wanted to gently caress around with "We can only partially refund" when I requested a cancellation, so I did a chargeback.

Infinitum posted:

* - Looks like I might have something I cancelled still getting delivered.. will post results if this tracking info is legit.

So uh...

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Spiteski
Aug 27, 2013



I'm very jealous of that situation.
Rococo is great, and Weather Machine looks like it could be fun.
Kanban meh, free things are cool at least.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply