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The only BGG ranking worth looking at is the Thematic ranking.
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Nov 2, 2015 06:38
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"Yes, but is this game worth taking pictures of next to my wife so I can post pictures of her to the internet where strangers will tell me how much they want to gently caress her?"
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Nov 2, 2015 06:49
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I actually think the BGG rating is pretty darn reliable for most euros and war games in the sense that most games with about a 7.8 or higher are generally worth at least considering and are rarely complete trash. The obvious exceptions are highly thematic games wth popular support like DoW but there really are very few of those - you could probably make a very short list of games in the top 100 that really shouldn't be there. It also feels like this is a pretty recent phenomenon linked to Kickstarter, this didn't used to be so much the case (excepting maybe Arkham Horror). From memory I think Eclipse indicated the start of this trend as I recall it rocketed up into the top 10 which before then tended to favour medium-heavy euros attractive to a different audience (brass, twilight struggle, gric, Puerto Rico etc). Terra Mystica then did it again from memory almost before it was widely publicly available. Both of those are good games but I think they represented the start of highly popular games busting the BGG ratings system. However, if you see a game you haven't heard of (eg Euro with a dorky name, German town etc) with a high rating it's probably worth looking into. It's just those flavours of the month which bust it up. Blamestorm fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 07:33
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There's more diversity than there was a few years ago but you still see a bunch of efficiency engine euros that are largely redundant with each other. Like Caverna and Agricola are both in the top 10. Then you get The Resistance and also Avalon, Dominon and Dominion expansion, War of the Ring and the previous edition of War of the ring, three Commands and Colors games, etc. edit: Railways of the World, Steam, Age of Steam. edit2: three Ticket to Ride games. As someone who doesn't really like your average efficiency engine euro very much the rating and ranking system isn't particularly useful to me. Everyone who wants to use BGG as a tool to find games should try to find people who like the same stuff you do and add them to your geekbuddies. If you're like me and your tastes don't fall in line with the popular stuff then it's pretty much the only way it's useful. For example Clans is rated a whopping 6.57 but one of my geekbuddies rates it a 10 and it sounds like a hoot to me. Would I have found it at Abstract Rank 79 or Boardgame rank 899? Nope. cenotaph fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 07:57
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Rutibex posted:The only BGG ranking worth looking at is the Thematic ranking. Blamestorm posted:I actually think the BGG rating is pretty darn reliable for most euros and war games in the sense that most games with about a 7.8 or higher are generally worth at least considering and are rarely complete trash. The obvious exceptions are highly thematic games wth popular support like DoW but there really are very few of those - you could probably make a very short list of games in the top 100 that really shouldn't be there. It also feels like this is a pretty recent phenomenon linked to Kickstarter, this didn't used to be so much the case (excepting maybe Arkham Horror). From memory I think Eclipse indicated the start of this trend as I recall it rocketed up into the top 10 which before then tended to favour medium-heavy euros attractive to a different audience (brass, twilight struggle, gric, Puerto Rico etc). Terra Mystica then did it again from memory almost before it was widely publicly available. Both of those are good games but I think they represented the start of highly popular games busting the BGG ratings system. Basically, trust the top 100 for generic recommendations, unless the game also scores high on the thematic rating, because theme=fun.
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Nov 2, 2015 09:41
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Andarel posted:Splendor is actually a pretty decent answer to the baseline question of "how can we make the simplest possible engine builder thatis still engaging and not overly random." "Without adding anything to make it possible to come back from getting hosed by random draws in the early game" would appear to be the answer. It's literally Snowballing: The Game. Also Deck III may as well not exist; by the time you can buy from it you can buy Deck II cards for free, which is a more efficient use of actions. Played Terra Mystica at the weekend, and while it's mechanically sound I have no idea why it's rated so highly. It's just a Euro version of Small World at twice the length.
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Nov 2, 2015 09:56
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Man, you have some weird opinions on games. You always make me scratch my head and wonder how you come to those conclusions. It wouldn't bother me if you didn't act so smug about your bad judgement and claim it all as fact. Edit: but you do like Kemet, so not all is lost. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 09:59
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Jedit posted:It's just a Euro version of Small World at twice the length. So it's... completely different? Exactly the same? Help me out here.
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Nov 2, 2015 10:09
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Bottom Liner posted:Man, you have some weird opinions on games. You always make me scratch my head and wonder how you come to those conclusions. It wouldn't bother me if you didn't act so smug about your bad judgement and claim it all as fact. "You don't like what I like, so your judgement is bad. I wouldn't mind, except you act so smug about not having good judgement like me". gently caress off.
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Nov 2, 2015 10:41
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I would like to try Terra Mystica again but the people who introduced it to me made two fundamental flaws which made me realise that, while going to a regular gaming group is fun, I do much prefer playing with my friends and family: 1 - The rules explanation took over an hour. 2 - The two guys teaching the game paid no attention to making sure us three first-timers were correctly managing our mana supply and making sure we got the correct reward tiles at the right time. This led to many turns where we were playing with incorrect amount of mana or without reward tiles we should have gotten. They also gave no indication as to which races might be good for first-timers. I choose dwarves, only to be told at the end of the game (after 3.5 hours) that I "wasn't going to do well with dwarves anyway, they're a experienced race." Gee, loving thanks. Managed to get hold of a copy of The Game: Spiel...so lange du kannst! which is a nice little co-op card game in the same vein as Hanabi. My girlfriend really likes it so that's a massive plus whereas she hated Hanabi. Now, I've played Hanabi a few times and while I see the appeal of it, I'm not really fussed by it as I think it's a game that you need a regular group to play with so you can develop a consistent meta. The Game has solo rules too so it'll be a good one to take with me when away on business.
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Nov 2, 2015 10:49
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Jedit posted:Played Terra Mystica at the weekend, and while it's mechanically sound I have no idea why it's rated so highly. It's just a Euro version of Small World at twice the length. What I don't get is the simile to Small World, which it is unlike in every possible way apart from 'put stuff on a map'.
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Nov 2, 2015 11:00
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Tekopo posted:What I don't get is the simile to Small World, which it is unlike in every possible way apart from 'put stuff on a map'. It has dwarves and giants, duh.
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Nov 2, 2015 11:05
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Tekopo posted:What I don't get is the simile to Small World, which it is unlike in every possible way apart from 'put stuff on a map'. Drastically imbalanced fantasy races compete for area control. Different routes, same path.
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Nov 2, 2015 11:05
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A lot of the imbalance is inherent in the map, and the game isn't so unbalanced that it is impossible to win with the lower tier races, as a friend of mine has proven to me over and over again, and imbalance does get smoothed out with experience in the game. The expansion goes a long way to fix some of those issues as well. Trying to draw negative comparisons apart from superficial ones is pretty dishonest considering the games involved.
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Nov 2, 2015 11:10
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Jedit posted:Drastically imbalanced fantasy races compete for area control. Different routes, same path. Mage Knight and Munchkin are basically the same too: Fantasy heroes with different starting abilities exploring stuff to get XP and loot. 18XX and Ticket to Ride are both about getting some trains onto a map for profit. While the comparisons are strictly true, it doesn't really say a lot about the games in question, because they are so broad. Your first post basically said "the mechanics are good, the game is bad" with no explanation. No one is against you stating that opinion, it just leads to the question "why?", and when your comparison is not obviously meaningful (because it is about pretty generic characteristics), it comes of as "I have an opinion, it is evidently true, I don't have to explain anything", which is a bad starting point for a discussion.
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Nov 2, 2015 11:48
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BonHair posted:Mage Knight and Munchkin are basically the same too: Fantasy heroes with different starting abilities exploring stuff to get XP and loot. Obligatory Comment: and they're both poo poo, so what's your point? I never said Terra Mystica was bad, by the way. It just isn't inspirational or exciting and I don't know why it's rated #2 on BGG when it's not even the best game in its specific niche. I rate it a 6.
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Nov 2, 2015 11:56
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Jedit posted:Obligatory Comment: and they're both poo poo, so what's your point? It's hard to tell if you're deranged or trolling or just have really eclectic tastes. Surely you must realise that you are on the outside of common opinion much of the time, right? (QED https://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/Jedit?rated=1&subtype=boardgame&ff=1 )
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Nov 2, 2015 12:11
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Jedit posted:Obligatory Comment: and they're both poo poo, so what's your point? TM doesn't really shine until you've had a chance to play it more than a few times and understand the strategic depth to it.
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Nov 2, 2015 12:12
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The End posted:It's hard to tell if you're deranged or trolling or just have really eclectic tastes. Surely you must realise that you are on the outside of common opinion much of the time, right?
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Nov 2, 2015 12:16
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Tekopo posted:Can we not trash people's tastes, no matter what they are? Bringing up his review/score history as if it is somehow 'shaming' is really loving stupid. There aren't common opinions when it comes to gaming, only personal ones. My intent wasn't shaming, just more to say that he dislikes a bunch of stuff that is largely considered good by a large number of people. Personally I don't give a poo poo if he likes what I like or vice versa. Just seems like he might want to qualify his posts from time to time. I like death metal. Doesn't mean I recommend it to everyone I meet. Just to out myself here (to 'square the scales' a bit) I think the 1st Edition of A Study in Emerald is an awesome game. A lot of people despise it. poo poo happens. The End fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 12:22
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Jedit posted:Obligatory Comment: and they're both poo poo, so what's your point? I forgot your Vlaada-hate, sorry about that. But even if they're both poo poo, surely you can agree that they are poo poo for different reasons? Munchkin is poo poo because it is 99% politics and luck, while Mage Knight, if anything, is not all that interactive and has a lot less (though still some) luck involved. Mage Knight would be poo poo because it's just a puzzle generator, with too much mathing and not enough playing (I guess, I like the game). In the same way Small World and Terra Mystica could both be crap and superficially similar, without the similarity being relevant in explaining why they are crap. I have not actually played TM, an I am kinda on the fence about trying it out, especially since by best geekbuddy was not impressed by it, so I'm interested in what parts of it are the bad parts so I can make a more informed decision about pushing it on someone.
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Nov 2, 2015 12:29
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For what it's worth, I didn't love Terra Mystica the first time I played it either but it's really grown on me with repeat plays using different races.
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Nov 2, 2015 12:31
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"Forbidden Desert: Broken game. It isn't possible to win without cheating even at the lowest difficulty." Is this in any way accurate?
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Nov 2, 2015 13:02
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Nique posted:"Forbidden Desert: Broken game. It isn't possible to win without cheating even at the lowest difficulty." No.
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Nov 2, 2015 13:06
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To expound, I've beaten forbidden Desert at multiple player counts and varied difficulty. It is winnable, it's just hard.
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Nov 2, 2015 13:07
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Nique posted:"Forbidden Desert: Broken game. It isn't possible to win without cheating even at the lowest difficulty." Basically with any Jedit opinion about anything you need to take it with a pound of salt at least.
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Nov 2, 2015 13:13
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^^^ The last time we played Forbidden Desert (at the Normal difficulty) we had great luck at the start of the game, found three parts and located the fourth with everything under control, then got so brutally hosed by a perfect storm of bad luck that the game's owner donated it to charity. I may be mistaken about the impossibility of beating it, but I'll defend my opinion that it's a lovely game to the death. Tekopo posted:TM doesn't really shine until you've had a chance to play it more than a few times and understand the strategic depth to it. The problem with that being it's a long game. And while I know enough people who own and enjoy Terra Mystica to get those plays I could spend the same time playing Eclipse or Hyperborea, which are similar games of similar length and which have both grabbed someone so quickly that they declared their intent to buy their own copy the first time I brought them to the table. Jedit fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 13:27
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The End posted:It's hard to tell if you're deranged or trolling or just have really eclectic tastes. Surely you must realise that you are on the outside of common opinion much of the time, right? lol you hate Terra Mystica but give Eclipse a 10/10? Its the same game 
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Nov 2, 2015 13:33
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Also is the Coup rating based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the rules?
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Nov 2, 2015 13:35
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Jedit posted:The problem with that being it's a long game. And while I know enough people who own and enjoy Terra Mystica to get those plays I could spend the same time playing Eclipse or Hyperborea, which are similar games of similar length and which have both grabbed someone so quickly that they declared their intent to buy their own copy the first time I brought them to the table.
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Nov 2, 2015 13:42
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Jedit has Bad Taste In Games, but is also Incredibly Bad At Rules, so I don't know which is at play this time.
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Nov 2, 2015 13:51
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Is it a 10thh time rating or a first time rating?? The strength of TM is how all the factions on the board affect each other in both direct and subtle ways. Once you understand the game and how it really works, there is simply no way you are comparing it to Small World. It's highly rated because those faction impacts are intricate and subtle and different every time. Now it might not be everyone's number 2, but it has a right to be in the top five. I think it's totally legit that some people just don't want to have to play the game that many times with people who have also played the game that many times to really get the game, they'd rather move on to games that are more obvious in how they play.
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Nov 2, 2015 14:46
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Tekopo posted:Eclipse had the similar experience for me that Terra Mystica had, but I actually had the reverse experience where I liked it less the more times I played it. Maybe it was due to the swingy dice combat but the strategic space seemed to diminish after the first few games. Eclipse games tend to get samier and samier as they get figured out, in my experience. Exploration should mix things up but in order to balance the game it all ends up being about the same (by design) and once that's done the only question is how best to send your missileboats/gunboats to the couple of tiles that matter if you got unlucky enough to draw bad combat VP tiles. It's a decent game but it's definitely a minor exercise in space combat for eurogamers and it doesn't really mesh into something particularly exciting. Terra Mystica on the other hand plays a lot of systems into each other really nicely and the game opens up both strategically and competitively with a couple of plays. It's definitely one of the best uses of variable player powers in a Euro I've seen, along with Marco Polo, and it lets you both get huge plays and interact with opponents in ways that aren't immediately obvious (adjacency, fighting for certain spots determined by color, racing for a couple of power actions).
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Nov 2, 2015 14:51
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I have a question for you guys, which comes to mind after playing all these new Essen games. Is a game that has shorter turns intrinsically better than a game that has longer turns? Argent and Tzolkin are two games that come to mind that have shorter turns. You make a decision on what to do, you do it, next turn. Food Chain Magnate on the other hand, has each player doing this each turn: 1. Recruit employees 2. Train employees 3. Initiate marketing campaigns 4. Get food and drinks (many times you have to figure this out, it's not a simple number in front of you) 5. Place new houses and gardens (this again involves figuring out the board) 6. Place or move restaurants Ships also has a lot to do on your turn. Now you can imagine that Food Chain Magnate has a LOT of downtime between your turn. Is this good/bad/indifferent/time to take out your phone or tablet?? I'd like to know your thoughts as I'm divided  .
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Nov 2, 2015 14:53
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Games that have long turns, and actual downtime during other player's turns (no decisions potentially required from you, for example), are really good for correspondence formats. They can be a bit of a pain in over-the-board play, since either you have players goofing off (which makes the downtime even worse when they're catching up on what happened since their last turn) or you have players bored out of their minds watching what the active player is doing. Games that have lots of "fake downtime" where you don't have any real choices to make but still get called on to make decisions that are of not much importance or have an obvious choice are quite sucky in both cases.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:01
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Games that divide rounds into lots of "micro-turns" are nice because they tend to reduce AP and give people the opportunity to react to lots of little things as opposed to giant masterstrokes. When you have a game that takes full turns, the turns need to have relatively small effects - see Dominion, where big turns just result in gaining some cards (and maybe opponents doing the same) or Mage Knight where turns might be complex but tend to result in movement, location interaction, maybe gain cards/abilities. I don't think one is inherently better than the other, but micro-turns are harder to mess up on the AP front.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:03
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I don't mind downtime if the game is complicated enough that I can spend that downtime planning my next turn. As an example, I don't like Alien Frontiers because it forces the players to do all the tedious calculation on their own turn, while there's nothing to do between turns. A super simple game with long turns are the epitome of bad in my book.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:05
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Low downtime is better, in my opinion. My top game from Essen thus far is The Gallerist, which not only has fairly short turns (each player performs one action with a few small steps) but also you often won't have to wait for your next turn before you're playing again. The big problem we had last time we played was toilet breaks - it's about 30+30/player, but there's no point where you can excuse yourself for two minutes because you know you won't be doing anything. On the other hand, short downtime has the problem of not being able to plan ahead so easily. Players with AP will delay any game, but it's more pronounced when downtime is usually short.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:09
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I think that games support longer turns as they become more complex. Something like Agricola shouldn't have a long turns because of how little a player can accomplish on their individual move. However, longer turns are fine in complex euros because there's a lot to think through. When everyone else's turns are long, that's time you can spend planning your own turn. Games like Mage Knight or Vinhos are good for this. I think that if there's a LOT of denial or ability to be impacted by what your opponent does on their turns then long turns become less good. At that point you lose the "prep time" that is other players' turns.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:16
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Long player turns when you can be planning your own next move are fine. Long player turns when there's no real ability to plan ahead (cf. Five Tribes with people who want to math out their turns) is not what I want in a game.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:27
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