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ZhanGuo is very bad and is in fact one of the baddest games available that uses all of the Good Mechanics.
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Apr 17, 2017 19:52
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Countblanc posted:
Doing an exhaustive amount of research and then, after much deliberation, landing on the wrong conclusion is Quinn's M.O. at this point. He and Paul need to split their duties between heavier and lighter games more cleanly - Quinn just doesn't have the right perspective to understand why something heavier than Castles of Burgundy is good or bad. He can sell games he likes and trash those he doesn't, but he doesn't really have a clear method of engagement - he just likes or dislikes them. (You can see this most apparently when he talks about how something 'feels' in a game rather than how it works.)
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Apr 17, 2017 19:57
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Impermanent posted:Doing an exhaustive amount of research and then, after much deliberation, landing on the wrong conclusion is Quinn's M.O. at this point. Is it the wrong conclusion though? Would people care this much about Gloomhaven over Mage Knight if it had ten short scenarios (like the D&D Adventures games) that weren't interconnected? I'm sure it'd be successful, but it wouldn't be the big deal that it is now.
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Apr 17, 2017 20:04
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Someone talk me out of kickstarting Brass Lancenshire and Birmingham
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Apr 17, 2017 20:14
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The KS is up for those???
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Apr 17, 2017 20:20
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the panacea posted:Someone talk me out of kickstarting Brass Lancenshire and Birmingham Roxley titles are always available at CSI/MM a month or so after the KS backers get the games at a 30% discount to MSRP.
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Apr 17, 2017 20:23
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We played 1822 on Saturday. One player screwed up a rule (or at least I think he did, his interpretation of a rule was totally overpowered) and another player put back a train that should have left the game, which screwed up the train rush. We conceded the game after nearly 8 hours of play, but 1822 is a very long game so the length of it wasn't a surprise. I came last by a huge percentage but that was because I didn't examine the board well enough. I like 1822 but I don't understand the balance with the destinations, some are easy to get and pay a lot while others are difficult to get and on top of that don't pay much. I guess the designer assumed people could see that (which they can but I hate AP'ing over stuff like that) and deliberately unbalanced them to give more interaction. Hopefully we'll play again soon properly and maybe I'll come in second next time  .
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Apr 17, 2017 20:34
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Countblanc posted:SU&SD mentioned Gloomhaven in their news writeup today, and I was sorta baffled by Quinn's comment: Eh, it's Quinns. Dungeon crawls are most definitely not his kind of game. I wonder if he's actually played, because if he was going to like any dungeon crawler, Gloomhaven would be the prime candidate. You can seriously hand someone their cards, explain the basics of combat in 5 minutes and immediately start playing. This is no exaggeration, I've done that multiple times now. The fact that Gloomhaven is obscenely huge in scope is also quite impressive but ultimately secondary to the mechanics. deadwing posted:Is it the wrong conclusion though? Would people care this much about Gloomhaven over Mage Knight if it had ten short scenarios (like the D&D Adventures games) that weren't interconnected? Would people care as much about anything if it was a worse version of itself? Probably not, but that's a worthless conclusion. Quinns seems to be implying that Gloomhaven is only good because of it's size, and not it's gameplay mechanisms, which I would say is definitely a wrong conclusion. Gloomhaven blows all other dungeon crawls out of the water.
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Apr 17, 2017 20:54
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Ojetor posted:Eh, it's Quinns. Dungeon crawls are most definitely not his kind of game. I wonder if he's actually played, because if he was going to like any dungeon crawler, Gloomhaven would be the prime candidate. You can seriously hand someone their cards, explain the basics of combat in 5 minutes and immediately start playing. This is no exaggeration, I've done that multiple times now. I thought the SU&SD guys had a major hard-on for Descent? I could've swore I watched a video (maybe a re-upload of older stuff) where they were gushing about it. Warrior Knights, maybe?
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Apr 17, 2017 20:58
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Quinns says something hilariously boneheaded at least as often as he says something clever and thoughtful. What else is new?
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Apr 17, 2017 21:05
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While I don't disagree with the Quinns Criticisms (Quinnicisms???), I was actually willing to take his claim at face value and was more curious who all these megafans he talked to were who are like "yeah, uh game isn't great, but there's 90+ sessions of not-great-game so who cares".
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Apr 17, 2017 21:10
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Yeah, I'm also baffled by the logic of "this game's not very good, but there's so much of it!" Like, doesn't that apply to Munchkin too?
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Apr 17, 2017 21:13
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I know people who completely believe in more content = more better, but again, it doesn't really apply to Gloomhaven when the actual gameplay is as good as it is.
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Apr 17, 2017 21:15
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Sure, I know people who balk at the idea that Tragedy Looper and Legacy games have "limited" content. But again, most games have "infinite" replayability, so I don't understand why "this game has so much content" is a selling point.
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Apr 17, 2017 21:26
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FulsomFrank posted:I thought the SU&SD guys had a major hard-on for Descent? I could've swore I watched a video (maybe a re-upload of older stuff) where they were gushing about it. Warrior Knights, maybe? Yeah, they are super into Descent. I think they prefer 1st edition, too. I'm honestly most surprised that none of the crew have played Gloomhaven, yet.
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Apr 17, 2017 21:26
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fozzy fosbourne posted:Yeah, they are super into Descent. I think they prefer 1st edition, too. To be fair, having played both 1E and 2E, I vastly prefer the combat mechanics from 1E. There are parts that 2E do better, but the combat's pretty bad.
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Apr 17, 2017 21:27
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Hmm, I missed this:quote:Now, with the launching of this second Kickstarter two weeks ago, the editorial staff of Shut Up & Sit Down had an option. We could have borrowed a copy of Gloomhaven and squeaked a review into our timetable before this second Kickstarter ended, just like we did with our Kingdom Death review. But ultimately, we decided not to, for reasons I’ll probably go into in the next donor newsletter.
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Apr 17, 2017 21:35
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Some Numbers posted:Sure, I know people who balk at the idea that Tragedy Looper and Legacy games have "limited" content. Tragedy Looper has a few example scenarios, its meant for you to design your own. Saying it has limited content is like saying D&D has limited content because there is only one example dungeon in the book. The Legacy games on the other hand are designed to only be played once, which is a waste frankly.
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Apr 17, 2017 21:34
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Rutibex posted:Tragedy Looper has a few example scenarios, its meant for you to design your own. Saying it has limited content is like saying D&D has limited content because there is only one example dungeon in the book. The Legacy games on the other hand are designed to only be played once, which is a waste frankly. It's fine though. The legacy games, when played to their full extent, would have received more play than what many people here admit for their most beloved games. The fact that the BGG 10x10 challenge is a thing is proof of that. Ten plays! Ten plays is a challenge for a lot of people. 
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Apr 17, 2017 21:44
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RE: SU&SD and Gloomhaven, I am chalking his statement up to their strange and vaguely adversarial stance toward KS in general. They just seem to have this bias going into any game that starts as a KS project that it's going to be over-hyped and bloated with extraneous components (which, sure, is probably true more than half the time), that I think it would be a real uphill battle for them to play a game like Gloomhaven and come away with an impression better than "oh, not so bad for an over-hyped and bloated game with extraneous components!" Meanwhile, "oh hey back our Monikers expansion on KS guys!" Mikey Purp fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Apr 17, 2017 |
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Apr 17, 2017 21:46
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Chill la Chill posted:It's fine though. The legacy games, when played to their full extent, would have received more play than what many people here admit for their most beloved games. The fact that the BGG 10x10 challenge is a thing is proof of that. Ten plays! Ten plays is a challenge for a lot of people. Its not fine though! A board game, if properly maintained, can last longer than the life span of its owner. Even if those games are played rarely, it is doubtful they will simply be thrown in the trash at any point. I have raided my grandparents attic for old board games from the 70s, and picked up all sorts of things at garage sales. A disposable game ensures that it will never be played again
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Apr 17, 2017 21:51
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I'm sure my friends and I will get together and play on our risk legacy Dickboard TM (it looks like Superbad Seth's notebook) in 10 years, but your mileage may vary. Heck, we even said whoever makes it big in their career gets to display it in their office.
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Apr 17, 2017 21:57
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rchandra posted:Blitz is fun to save time, as are the variety of competitive scenarios. Alright, co-op skills would be a nice bonus for sure. I think we're very heavily under-utilizing spells in general at the moment, have to work on our overall strategy in general now that we're getting the rules down fairly well. We also completely missed the rule about alternating Advanced units once you reveal a core tile, so there's that.  Seriously tempted to KS that Gloomhaven reprint as well, game looks cool as heck. 
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Apr 17, 2017 22:13
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Mikey Purp posted:RE: SU&SD and Gloomhaven, I am chalking his statement up to their strange and vaguely adversarial stance toward KS in general. They just seem to have this bias going into any game that starts as a KS project that it's going to be over-hyped and bloated with extraneous components (which, sure, is probably true more than half the time), that I think it would be a real uphill battle for them to play a game like Gloomhaven and come away with an impression better than "oh, not so bad for an over-hyped and bloated game with extraneous components!" In the same post he mentions this, though: quote:Quinns: Backed! I literally back games like these just to read them and luxuriate in all of the ideas within, just as if I was sinking into a bubble bath. Being able to then actually play them from time to time is a delicious bonus. I think it's wildly successful kickstarters that they seem apprehensive of.
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Apr 17, 2017 22:15
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Been a while since I've posted, and I've even played some games to boot! The Battle at Kemble's Cascade - The premise of this game is that everyone is playing a vertical scrolling shmup like Galage or 1942. There are 5 'trays' onto which you place cards that feature enemies, obstacles, health, powerups, or empty space. You move around and kill things on the board created by the tray and the cards trying to kill things and each other to get points and currency. At the end of each round, the bottom tray is moved above the rest of the trays, new cards are placed on the tray that was just moved, and all of the players ships that were on that row bump down. The turn order is determined by choosing an initiative card from the two that you are dealt, ranging from 10-400. On the player's turn, you choose to either attack or rest. If you attack, you can move around and shoot things; you get one move and one shot per turn, and you can expend health to gain an additional shot or move. If you choose to rest, you gain two health and the ability to shop for new weapons and upgrades. You get points by completing a secret objective dealt to each player at the beginning of the game, global objectives, some generated enemies, and having another player die (especially if you have current damage on said player). The game handles damage in a unique way that took me way too long to grok, but it's essentially the way that Baseball Highlights 2045 determines base running. If you are supposed to get shot, you gain a resource called threat. Threat from the current turn is resolved the next turn, so you have a chance to deal with it. You reduce threat 1 space for every space that you move, and then you lose life equal to the amount of threat that you have. The only time you immediately take damage in the game is when you collide with something. While the premise was cool, I had a few issues with it. - The initiative cards are too variable. They are dealt at random, and you have no chance to filter them. If you're dealt a 10 and a 130, you cannot possibly go before a player who was dealt a 150 and a 240. - The secret objectives and powerups seem terribly unbalanced. I had an objective to end 4 turns at 1 life (btw there is no way to actually track this so you have to depend on the honor system) that was worth 4 points. The easiest way for me to do this was to sit in the corner of the board, not really advancing my game state at all. One opponent had an objective that could be fulfilled multiple times for 3 points each time to destroy asteroids. This netted him like 9-12 points, gave him incentive to interact with the board in a way that no other player intrinsically had, and it pushed him toward a competitive game state by encouraging him to buy a laser. Those two are not on the same level. The only other objective I explicitly remember was moving 3 spaces 3-4 turns, which again is pushing you toward interactive game play and upgrades. I could have ignored the mission, but I had no frame of reference for the difficulty and quality of the missions. The power ups were similar. I had a power up that gave me two points if I were next to a black hole (black holes automatically kill you if you collide with them). Other players got extra moves and double damage. Maybe I just got raw deals, but even so that is an issue. - The game encourages ganging up on the weakest player. If a player dies, each opponent gets two points, plus one point for each current threat placed on the player (placed from shooting at the player). If a player doesn't have the upgrades to compete, or is near death, the quickest way to get points is to fire everything into that player. This is behind the global achievements, or maybe even ahead, in methods to score. - The game took about 5 turns too long to play. Part of this is colored by 3 of the other 4 players taking forever to take their turns and not thinking on other players' turns, but the victor was already decided about 4-5 turns before the end of the game. Runaway leader and all of that. In the game's defense, one of the players was a man child as soon as he wasn't in the lead (literally slamming pieces down on the table and was unrepentant when the owner asked him to treat the game with more care), so he was unengaged. Also, the game shares the same issue as Five Tribes where the board will change entirely before you can take your turn, so you have limited ability to think about your turn proactively. I wouldn't play it again, but I applaud it for what it tried to accomplish and the conveyance of theme. Gloomhaven - A goon (his alt handle was crispymartyr) was generous enough to teach a buddy of mine and I the intro scenario on TTS. I really wanted to like this game, but I just couldn't. I enjoyed the combat and the roles each class can play up...up until the damage modifier deck. The teacher assured me the deck changes a lot though leveling up, but my criteria of a game is having my choices matter. Having a -2 on my attack (I was playing Tinkerer) and ensuring I did not damage was just really dumb and should be taken out of the game imo. Also, I wasn't fond of how many enemies there were . The first room had 6 guards for a 3 player game, and the other two rooms had something like 6 enemies each as well. The game was easy enough to learn, and had promise, but I am neither a dungeon crawler nor a tabletop RPG player so the idea of event cards has a negative effect on me. Let's be honest: I barely get to play games anymore, so a game whose selling point is years of content is kind of moot for me. I'm also thankful I don't have to deal with the set up, tear down, and organization of that beast of a box.
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Apr 17, 2017 22:35
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!Klams posted:We played a few games of Scythe and it went down a storm. The second game was a bit of a stomp, one player won with 85 points having placed 6 stars, and the next highest was less than half of that with only 3 stars, but in retrospect, I'm 90% sure he'd misunderstood some rule, because I never managed to get an upgrade star, despite gunning for it almost exclusively with the 'industry' board, while he managed to get all of the player card-completionesque stars? Thinking about it, is that even physically possible? Difficult to pay attention to another 6 players though. Maybe he just hit perfect events? Of note he was Rusviet, and I was Albion, I don't know what his player board was. Did they get a factory card that let them do a bottom-row action? That can accelerate. Also the Rus can just do the same action over and over. If they had a resource-gen action like produce or trade in column 1, they could get a pretty good stockpile built while upgrading.
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Apr 17, 2017 22:51
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Shadow225 posted:Gloomhaven - A goon (his alt handle was crispymartyr) was generous enough to teach a buddy of mine and I the intro scenario on TTS. I really wanted to like this game, but I just couldn't. I enjoyed the combat and the roles each class can play up...up until the damage modifier deck. The teacher assured me the deck changes a lot though leveling up, but my criteria of a game is having my choices matter. Having a -2 on my attack (I was playing Tinkerer) and ensuring I did not damage was just really dumb and should be taken out of the game imo. Also, I wasn't fond of how many enemies there were . The first room had 6 guards for a 3 player game, and the other two rooms had something like 6 enemies each as well. The game was easy enough to learn, and had promise, but I am neither a dungeon crawler nor a tabletop RPG player so the idea of event cards has a negative effect on me. Let's be honest: I barely get to play games anymore, so a game whose selling point is years of content is kind of moot for me. I'm also thankful I don't have to deal with the set up, tear down, and organization of that beast of a box. While I think many games, especially in the genre, go too heavy on randomness, it would be a big change to remove/nerf the modifier deck. To be clear, you can change your modifer deck over time, with options dependent on character, but you'll always retain the possibility of flat-out missing - and while I don't generally like "post-decision randomness", I don't think it's a mistake at all here. It's overshooting by quite a bit to suggest your choices don't matter because you missed once (on, in this case, a low damage attack): GH is a reasonably high-skill game that will punish you for poor decisions (and especially for bad strategy), while, on the flip side, luck will generally even out over the course of a mission (which will normally see you flipping many modifier cards). That's not to say you couldn't make a low-randomness Gloomhaven. You could take the modifier deck out, move to fully open communication, maybe even have the monster decks flip first, and play it out as a more deterministic puzzle. I kind of like this idea in abstract, but I think it'd be a slog in practice. As it stands, you can't really have conversations like "if you do 6 damage, I can do 3 to these 2 to finish off him, and then this other guy will end up in this spot, then..." - and that's for the best. It keeps the game moving briskly (especially important at 3 or 4 players), keeps your communication on an appropriate level thematically, and rewards some flexibility in planning. In terms of the mission having lots of enemies.. well, there's a lot of different missions. Some have more than I like (especially f'ing Oozes). Some have very few. Having variety is good, as it rewards different tactics and setups on different missions. jmzero fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Apr 17, 2017 |
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Apr 17, 2017 23:40
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I've played the TTS scenario about 5 times now and after the first group I've offered the nerfed modifier deck as an option (turn the x0 and x2 cards into +0). People seem to prefer that, or at least prefer the idea of it since I guess I'm the only person who has tried both.
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Apr 18, 2017 00:11
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Shadow225 posted:
He set up the scenario wrong. Should have been 6, 4, and 4. But yeah, the game is a superior dungeon crawler. If you don't want to play a dungeon crawler, the best dungeon crawler around is still unlikely to change that preference.
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Apr 18, 2017 01:01
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Countblanc posted:I've played the TTS scenario about 5 times now and after the first group I've offered the nerfed modifier deck as an option (turn the x0 and x2 cards into +0). People seem to prefer that, or at least prefer the idea of it since I guess I'm the only person who has tried both. If you've played on TTS make sure to check out the official mini-campaign scenarios uploaded there with Isaac's blessing.
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Apr 18, 2017 01:03
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Looking at the Brass Kickstarter I'm definitely interested in the reprint of original, but I'm wondering what the chances are the sequel will actually improve on the original. I'm guessing slim.
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Apr 18, 2017 01:24
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SilverMike posted:If you've played on TTS make sure to check out the official mini-campaign scenarios uploaded there with Isaac's blessing. Do you mean the Kickstarter ones? Or are there others?
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Apr 18, 2017 01:29
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I'm thinking of just getting both, I haven't played Brass before but it seems like my kind of game and I don't know which one I'd like better. Figure I'd try them both and if we like one significantly more than the other I can sell it to recoup most of the cost. I definitely prefer the aesthetics of Birmingham though and tend to prefer games with variable setup.
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Apr 18, 2017 01:35
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FulsomFrank posted:I thought the SU&SD guys had a major hard-on for Descent? I could've swore I watched a video (maybe a re-upload of older stuff) where they were gushing about it. Warrior Knights, maybe? They're really into Descent, Imperial Assault, and especially the new Conan game. As I recall they were lukewarm on Warrior Knights.
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Apr 18, 2017 01:38
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Going to play my first game of Great Western Trail as a learning game with my roommate tonight. Anything I should watch for rules-wise, or specific to two-player games?
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Apr 18, 2017 01:38
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Megasabin posted:Looking at the Brass Kickstarter I'm definitely interested in the reprint of original, but I'm wondering what the chances are the sequel will actually improve on the original. I'm guessing slim. For what it's worth, here's what they had to say about Wallace's involvement: quote:Martin created the initial board layout and industries in the game. Myself and Matt then took the base and grew it into what it has become today. Matt and I's contributions ended up being beyond the scope of merely "development". So the 3 of us agreed that it should become a codesign. From a game design perspective, our contributions to the project are equal with the obvious caveat that the game is based on Martin's incredible core system. I got both because with shipping, getting only one would definitely be a "wait and CSI" sort of thing, whereas both of them at once I would imagine would be comparable to CSI's prices. Plus Roxley makes good games.
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Apr 18, 2017 01:40
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Brass is a beautiful looking game in either edition, but I am hoping for some play throughs of the newest edition.
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Apr 18, 2017 01:43
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going to stream FCM on twitch https://www.twitch.tv/systranerror/ in like 2 minutes. I'm misplaying SO BAD in the last three games I did, so I expect those misplays to continue. Only reason I'm doing this on twitch is so I can move to Youtube with minimal hassle later edit: I will also be having 0 interaction with any chat, not even reading it edit 2: looks like the stream hosed up and didn't work anyway... angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Apr 18, 2017 |
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Apr 18, 2017 03:30
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GrandpaPants posted:For what it's worth, here's what they had to say about Wallace's involvement: Same. I've yet to be disappointed with a Roxley game, either on the rules side or on the components side.
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Apr 18, 2017 03:41
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Countblanc posted:Do you mean the Kickstarter ones? Or are there others? Just the KS ones, any others are being kept private so far.
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Apr 18, 2017 06:06
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