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One thing that's hard to explain without actually playing is that BattleCon should be a lot fiddlier than it is. You'd think with the cards, the tokens, the different play options, all the characters to pick from, it'd be a pain in the rear end to set up and take down. Same thing for play too, since you'd think it would be a pain learning the different characters. They've done a great job of making that not the case, and I was pleasantly surprised.
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Dec 15, 2013 04:42
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Mikan posted:It's clever how they organize the cards for each character. There are cardboard folders for each character so all you need to do is grab the right one and start playing. The sleeves actually do fit snugly I'm the dividers if you flatten out the sides. It's actually kind of nice because it prevents them from sloshing around. The tokens are another story, though.
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Dec 15, 2013 05:59
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I'm pulling out some card-sized "ziploc" plastic bags (you can get them at a craft store) I used to organize War of Indines to separate all the characters tonight. War of Indines had so many fiddly tokens that would be trivial to lose otherwise, for about half the time I was organizing it I was convinced I'd lost something or other, though in the end I hadn't. I got a bunch of ULine plastic bags, 3" by 6", 2mil thickness. I stick the cards in the sleeve, and stick the sleeve, tokens, and standee in the bag, one for each character, with the tokens and standee on the front of the sleeve so the text is unobscured. That way it's easy to paw through the bags, read the summaries, and choose a character.
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Dec 15, 2013 06:22
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Couple of things: How much fluff comes with the game? Is it possible that Juto and Borneo might be viable if they fought as a pair against a single standard opponent, or are they not quite that underpowered?
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Dec 15, 2013 07:47
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Saguaro PI posted:Couple of things: How much fluff comes with the game? Each character has a paragraph or two in the back of the book. I kind of wish there was more, though, the characters are all pretty neat. quote:Is it possible that Juto and Borneo might be viable if they fought as a pair against a single standard opponent, or are they not quite that underpowered? They are not quite that underpowered. I think if you made either of them EX mode, they would be just fine in a one on one match against a non-EX character. EX mode is stupidly easy to do for them, too: > Set their life to 30 instead of 20 > Give them +1 Power to all their attacks Done! Normally, EX mode is done by looking up a characters' EX ability in the rulebook, setting their life to 30 instead of 20, and replacing their Bases with a more high-powered set of bases, and giving their Unique base +1 power. Borneo and Juto do not have a better EX ability in the book and do not have the normal bases. All of their bases are Unique. So. +1 power to all attacks and 10 extra life. We tried it once and Juto barely pulled off a win against Caesar.
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Dec 15, 2013 08:42
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gnome7 posted:Each character has a paragraph or two in the back of the book. I kind of wish there was more, though, the characters are all pretty neat. Awesome, cheers.
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Dec 15, 2013 08:58
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What's the relation between Devastation and War? Is War an entirely separate game, or is it just a different set of characters that are fully compatible with Devastation? e; vv alright, thanks. I'll way for Devastation, then. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 12:34
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War's sort of the first draft of the game. It's largely the same, with 18 different characters and a few rules differences. The special card is a little different, burst doesn't take you back as far (which means it was very difficult to disengage in WoI) and characters only have one super. The biggest difference is that each character doesn't have a reference card with all their moves on it, which made it harder to predict your opponent's actions if you weren't familiar with their character. E: Oh! And 3 and 4 player games are super fiddly bullshit nonsense involving two tracks of squares, like you're playing Fatal Fury: King of Fighters. They're much better in DoI. Mystic Mongol fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 14:35
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It's also important to note that the overall quality of War is terrible compared to Devastation. The art in particular is pretty bad. I've heard that there's a second edition in the works that might be worth waiting for.
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Dec 15, 2013 18:22
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If you get the Devastation Extended Edition bonus set, it comes with a set of errata cards for War of Indines to make it compatible with Devastation. I just finished sorting them in. Mostly this consists of giving the War characters new super moves to match the changed super move mechanics in Devastation, but many of them have significant card replacements. Luc feels like he got practically half of his cards errata'd, and Magdalene has her leveling mechanic change quite significantly, for example. The big drawback of War is that the art is somewhat rough art (that often clashes between fighters). It also has the drawback where the tokens are really, really tiny, and that's that got me to bagging each character kit. I mean, look at this poor guy.   I got the full set of Devastation and Extended Edition and it took me many hours to sort out each character kit with all their alternate versions and standees, and it's finally done and ready to play. 
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Dec 15, 2013 20:29
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I wish I had some of the character sleeves and enough room in the big box to merge the War characters in. Hell, I can't even fit all the stuff from DoI in there. Has anyone given the dungeon run a good whack? I'm curious as to how that plays.
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Dec 15, 2013 20:34
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This game looks super fun, I'd definitely grab it if I had the money. One of the guys behind level 99 playtests at my game store every Thursday, but none of those games ever really caught my eye (probably because they were being tested). Very nice guy.
The worst submarine fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 20:50
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The worst submarine posted:This game looks super fun, I'd definitely grab it if I had the money. One of the guys behind level 99 playtests at my game store every Thursday, but none of those games ever really caught my eye (probably because they were being tested). Very nice guy. I heard they're roughly planning a purchasable demo game with a handful of unique characters, or you could get the print-n-play of the first Flight. Between the cost for the files, printing in full color at your local office supply shop, and sleeves, it'll run around 15-20 and still give you quite a bit of playtime.
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Dec 15, 2013 20:58
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Looking through the box to make sure nothing had been missed, I just realized somebody personally signed my receipt with "Enjoy the games & promo characters!" I couldn't identify the signature initially, but matching it with the one in the rulebook... it looks like D. Brad Talton Jr. signed it personally. Classy. I think I'm actually missing two tokens; it looks like a misprint where Kajia only has 5 insect counters (supposed to have 7) and Cesar has 6 threat level counters (supposed to have 4). I'll have to contact Level99, but folks want to make sure they have the right #s as well.
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Dec 15, 2013 21:03
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I think I'm actually missing two tokens; it looks like a misprint where Kajia only has 5 insect counters (supposed to have 7) and Cesar has 6 threat level counters (supposed to have 4). I'll have to contact Level99, but folks want to make sure they have the right #s as well. Don't bother contacting them, this is actually a very common misprint. It was mentioned in the latest update in the Kickstarter - it was so common they can't actually do anything about it. Their official response was "Kajia almost never gets more than 4 or 5 insect counters on a guy at the same time anyway." And Kajia has no maximum limit on bugs she can hand out. So if you need more, just pick up any of the other hundred tokens in the box to use as replacements.
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Dec 15, 2013 21:18
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Bosushi! posted:It's also important to note that the overall quality of War is terrible compared to Devastation. The art in particular is pretty bad. I think the second edition is supposed to use the same artist at Devastation and Argent, so that's a welcome change. That is pretty much all I could hope for because man it is embarrassing to whip out a game that I've been talking up only to look at Hikaru's terrible artwork and having a Sentinels of the Multiverse style response to it.
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Dec 15, 2013 22:23
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Fix posted:I wish I had some of the character sleeves and enough room in the big box to merge the War characters in. Hell, I can't even fit all the stuff from DoI in there. The dungeons are... kind of okay? I'm impressed they managed to tack on a single player experience to what is a most assuredly multiplayer game, but it's definitely tacked-on. Dungeon runs are really fiddly and time consuming, and you're not getting the same competitive thrill as in the real game. If I ever get to the point where it takes less than a minute to resolve each beat, my opinion might change, but as it stands it's mostly an adequate one-and-done thing. Unrelated, am I missing something with rushdown characters? I can usually manage well enough in fightmans games, but the disruptors in this game are just not meshing for me.
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Dec 15, 2013 23:07
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Desty posted:Unrelated, am I missing something with rushdown characters? I can usually manage well enough in fightmans games, but the disruptors in this game are just not meshing for me. I'm not sure what you mean here... could you be more specific, hopefully with two characters in particular?
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Dec 15, 2013 23:52
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gnome7 posted:Don't bother contacting them, this is actually a very common misprint. It was mentioned in the latest update in the Kickstarter - it was so common they can't actually do anything about it. Thanks for the tip, I wasn't too worried about it, but there's the big print message in the rulebook that says to contact them if anything's missing. The only other oddness is that I got some extra strikers in my box, I'm not sure why, they're duplicates of ones in the main Strikers set.
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Dec 15, 2013 23:58
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Also mentioned in the kickstarter update... four of the characters had misspellings on them, so they tossed prints of the corrected cards in the box, loose from the ones in the shrinkwrap.
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Dec 16, 2013 00:23
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Mystic Mongol posted:I'm not sure what you mean here... could you be more specific, hopefully with two characters in particular? A rushdown character is one that relies on aggressive play to a noticeably greater degree than others. If you aren't in your opponent's face just constantly trying to ruin their day, you're probably going to lose. Examples of fighting game characters include Filia from Skullgirls, Makoto and Dudley from Street Fighter, Magneto from MvC, and numerous others. Devastation's "disruptor" characters are, as best I can tell, the equivalent of rushdown characters. Shekhtur is classified as a disruptor, and since she's all about aggressive play and betting on high priority, that sounds pretty much like a rushdown player to me. This is weird, because Devastation has been really good about playing like a fighting game, and I normally play these types of characters, but I cannot manage anything approaching effectiveness with Shekhtur and her sort for the life of me. I'm wondering what exactly I'm missing or misinterpreting. I hope that wasn't condescending, but I get there's a lot of lingo that's built up around fighting games, and I'm trying to be as clear as possible. No offense meant, just in case.
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Dec 16, 2013 01:05
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It wasn't the fighting game terminology, I just couldn't tell if you were having trouble playing as or against rushdown characters. Tell us about how you usually play Shekhtur, what scenarios are tripping you up, that kind of thing.
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Dec 16, 2013 02:03
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Mystic Mongol posted:Also mentioned in the kickstarter update... four of the characters had misspellings on them, so they tossed prints of the corrected cards in the box, loose from the ones in the shrinkwrap. Ah, okay, I hadn't checked the kickstarter updates, since I didn't kickstart it. Thanks!
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Dec 16, 2013 02:36
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Mikan posted:It wasn't the fighting game terminology, I just couldn't tell if you were having trouble playing as or against rushdown characters. That's entirely fair. I don't english much good a lot of the time. I've been playing her with a focus on priority, relying really heavily on stunning the other player into submission. Damage becomes more of a way to refill malice than to put the other guy in the ground, which I think is where I'm tripping myself up. I get that Eligor is kind of a hard counter to this kind of strategy, but it's not very successful against anyone else, either. What's ultimately happening is that I'm getting a stunlock pretty regularly, but they either end up dealing a whole lot of damage in the few hits they get or the timer runs out, which as best I can tell isn't really supposed to happen very often. Should I be punching harder over faster?
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Dec 16, 2013 03:18
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Desty posted:That's entirely fair. I don't english much good a lot of the time. With Shekhtur, yes. You should be hitting harder over faster. Your Malice tokens give you as much as +5 Priority, which is huge - faster is something you shouldn't normally have to worry about being. Throw out Strikes and Shots, hit as hard as you can and boost your priority whenever you are certain you can hit them to get it all back. Pull out her faster attacks when you miss to rebuild some Malice, then go back to power strikes.
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Dec 16, 2013 03:23
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gnome7 posted:With Shekhtur, yes. You should be hitting harder over faster. Your Malice tokens give you as much as +5 Priority, which is huge - faster is something you shouldn't normally have to worry about being. Throw out Strikes and Shots, hit as hard as you can and boost your priority whenever you are certain you can hit them to get it all back. Pull out her faster attacks when you miss to rebuild some Malice, then go back to power strikes. Gotcha. I'll give it a whirl next time I get to play. I've been doing pretty well with Karin and Jager, at least.  How does Pendros play? I'm thinking of picking him up next.
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Dec 16, 2013 03:46
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Does the "trial" for this game on Vassal do a good job accurately portraying how it flows? It was uploaded in 2011, so I assume it's of the older version of the game. Is there somewhere else I can try the modern rules? Also, how does this compare to Yomi in terms of tenseness? The thing I really love about Yomi is the simultaneous action resolution and how it lets you get that same feeling of reading your opponent that slower fighting games have, and I've heard the Indines games are more about simulating movement/spacing than the actual mindgames and stress of playing fighters competitively. How accurate is that?
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Dec 16, 2013 03:58
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If Yomi is Sirlin's Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD, Indines is more like King of Fighters '98; it's got a much wider set of characters and tons of interactions, but less balance as a result. Ultimately, most characters are only working with 6 "base" moves at any type, and when you use a move, it gets cycled into a discard for two turns, so you can understand what few base cards are sitting in your opponent's hand. The catch is that each character has around 5 style cards that modify all those basic moves, and generally have some special ability on top of that. So there's more general combinations possible than Yomi's rock-paper scissors. On the other hand, in Indines an experienced player will have a much better idea of what their opponent has in their hand compared to Yomi, since it's easier to puzzle out 11-16 cards compared to 54, but they interact in more complex ways. Ultimately, Indines is more about simulating the spacial control aspect of fighting games than Yomi is and is less "pure" in being a game of reading your opponent, but still has that in there, since it's such a basic aspect of how fighting games work. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 04:48
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Alright, got'cha. I see on their site there's a "Battlecon: Online" section that's under construction. Have they talked about that at all? Are there plans for an online client? I liked the little VASSAL demo, but (a) there's no super moves as far as I can tell which stinks a bit, and (b) only four characters doesn't lend itself to much matchup variety.
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Dec 16, 2013 08:16
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Countblanc posted:Alright, got'cha. I see on their site there's a "Battlecon: Online" section that's under construction. Have they talked about that at all? Are there plans for an online client? I liked the little VASSAL demo, but (a) there's no super moves as far as I can tell which stinks a bit, and (b) only four characters doesn't lend itself to much matchup variety. As I understand it, a full online client is being planned for sometime next year. You've also got printable demos, and you can buy and print out the first Flight. Note that the vassal demo is almost certainly of War, which has a whole different cast.
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Dec 16, 2013 10:32
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Desty posted:A rushdown character is one that relies on aggressive play to a noticeably greater degree than others. If you aren't in your opponent's face just constantly trying to ruin their day, you're probably going to lose. Examples of fighting game characters include Filia from Skullgirls, Makoto and Dudley from Street Fighter, Magneto from MvC, and numerous others. Ah, there's your problem. Shekhtur isn't a rushdown character at all. She's a tremendously strong opponent who relies on disrupting her opponent's plans, not necessarilly on going first--and if you always focus on going first, your opponent knows what you're trying to do. And suddenly they're the one disrupting all over your plans. quote:I get that Eligor is kind of a hard counter to this kind of strategy, but it's not very successful against anyone else, either. If anything, I'd say Shekhtur's disruptive style has a slight advantage over Eligor's slow, reactionary play.  If you always try to win the beat by going first, your opponent always knows what you're trying to do. And he can play a bunch of tokens, soak your attack, and get all his tokens back. And then cut you in half with Vengeful.Let's look at an example. Turn 1, you drive up to Eligor. Turn 2, you use grasp to throw him in the corner. It goes OK for you, you lose about as much life as he does. I don't really care what bases Eligor has, but his styles are Martial (ouch), Counter (Ouch), and Vengeful (Ouch!). Everyone's got four tokens. The board looks like this.    Eligor's using an iron star and Shekhtur's replaced her claws with summoned monsters, shut up. Now, you could use any of your range styles (Reaver, Unleashed) to hit him with anything... but most of it isn't very useful. That relentless mofo's probably going to drop some tokens and stun guard whatever you do, so it's better to disrupt his plays in some other way. His back is in the corner so you can't brush him back any further... so this is a good chance to give him some breathing room. Play an Unleashed Burst. It doesn't do much damage, but helps you out next turn. Also, it lets you retreat anywhere on the board. But your play doesn't end there--there's still the ante step. Possible plays from Eligor that will step on your play:
So ignoring clashes, of the 15 plays he can make, 8 end with him taking damage and Shekhtur escaping unscathed, 4 end in mutual misses, 1 ends with mutual damage, and 2 end with Eligor dealing 4 damage. Not bad. These numbers get MUCH WORSE if the bases in his discard pile include dash, burst, shot, or drive, because he can't use aegis, strike, or grasp in any meaningful fashion. So let's use our tokens NOT to go first, but to step all over his options. In ante, drop a single token so you act before his shot and don't get clashed out of it. Now, watch carefully the number of tokens he antes in response. If he antes one or no token, he's probably got something with natural stunguard (shot, strike) or he's trying to dash away from his situation. If he antes two or more tokens, he's probably going for either a drive (which would be bad) or he thinks you won't be doing a run away plan, and is going to do some super-heavy melee play like Martial Aegis or Counter Strike. So lay off on more tokens until it looks like a drive might be coming out, because the drive is the only think you have to worry about. Then play malice all the way to priority 4, and sit there. On the reveal, things are super bad for Eligor. If he did the counter shot, he's down 2 and you're down 4, but he had to spend a bunch of tokens, you're on the other side of the arena while he's shotless, yadda yadda yadda. You gain tokens up to maximum, too! If he played the Martial Drive, you act before him (with the tremendously slow burst, even. Malice Tokens are great for making slow attacks go quickly) and you charge back up to maximum tokens. If he played the dash, (odd) he's down to 2 tokens, you charge back to 3 tokens, and your movement happens before AND after his, so you can position advantageously. And if he did the Vengeful Drive, you clashed at priority 4. Now he's doing Vengeful (Not A Drive) while you're doing a +3 priority Unleashed whatever. Howabout an unleashed Brand? Even if he goes for Vengeful Shot in response, it's your win and then you're standing at range while he's again shotless. And all this is assuming he saw through your plan to back away from him. If he thought you were going to engage him in lightning-fast power melee and went for a Strike or Aegis or Grasp play, you do two damage, escape, and gain in tokens while he sits in the corner like a fatty fatty dumb dumb bleeding resources. If you hit him with the Burst (anything but a dash) then you have 5 malice tokens at the end of this turn. And if he dashes, you have 4 or 5 (depending on if he baited more tokens out of you... by spending his) while he's still short of maximum. Granted, this is a near ideal situation (being in the corner is really bad) but it highlights the best thing to do with Shekhtur... figure out what might ruin your play, and play enough malice tokens to counter THAT, don't just play handfuls of tokens and hope it works for you. So that's the best play for Shekhtur in that situation? Hell no. The best play is Jugular Brand, +2 tokens for priority 6. The advantage of THIS play is that it leaves Jugular Brand in your hand, so if Eligor dashes (to avoid Jugular Brand?) you can just nail him next turn for 6 damage + 2 heal + autostun whatever bullshit he's going to try.
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Dec 16, 2013 13:21
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Yalborap posted:As I understand it, a full online client is being planned for sometime next year. Cool, good to know. Also, a quick rules clarification (I'm having a damned hard time finding the rules online); If a Style says +1 or more Range, does that increase the max range or the minimum, or both? So would Shot become 2-5, or 1-5? And are the 1 range bases suddenly 2 range?
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Dec 16, 2013 19:32
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Countblanc posted:Cool, good to know. That is correct. There's no suddenly about it... a range 1 strike with a range +1 Vanishing becomes a range 2 Vanishing Strike. If you want to hit a foe adjacent to you with an attack and ALSO boost range, you want a +0~1 range style. There are generally three reasons for a style to add to range... either it's a ranged style, not designed to be used against adjacent targets (See Rukyuk's everything) or it includes a way to move back (Seth's Vanishing, for example, gives "Before Activating, retreat one") or it prevents an opponent from coming adjacent to you, like Sagas's Repelling, acting as a hard counter to drive and any style that lets you advance. e: Check out Kaitlyn's Divide By Zero finisher. Getting hit by it is apocalyptically bad. I think combined with Limit Breaker potions it's the key to winning that goofy four person dungeon in the back of the dungeon book where you fight teams of raid bosses. Mystic Mongol fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 20:58
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I wish they'd made it more obvious on the cards, because it's confusing as hell the first few games. A card with a range of 1 actually has a range of 1 ~ 1, and a card with Range +1 is actually Range +1 ~ +1. You get used to it but it's not intuitive and it tripped me up for a game or two.
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Dec 16, 2013 21:04
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I need to sit down and compare the new and old rules myself, but has anybody tried any of the old promos that don't have updates to their super mechanics (or War characters without the errata) against the new Devastation characters? Are the super mechanics compatible enough to work, or is a problem?
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Dec 16, 2013 21:11
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I just got Devastation in the mail and opened the box and there's all this stuff that it's incredibly daunting to sort through. Like, wow, this is hours worth of work.
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Dec 17, 2013 04:32
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GrandpaPants posted:I just got Devastation in the mail and opened the box and there's all this stuff that it's incredibly daunting to sort through. Like, wow, this is hours worth of work. Open flight 1 and call it a day.
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Dec 17, 2013 04:41
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No way, dive right in and sort sort sort. I love to sort cards.
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Dec 17, 2013 04:45
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Mikan posted:No way, dive right in and sort sort sort. I love to sort cards. Sort my cards Also, are these little folder things not supposed to fit in the insert or am I doing it wrong? Because these folder things are super useful.
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Dec 17, 2013 04:52
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GrandpaPants posted:Sort my cards Think of them as tiny cardboard boxes rather than envelopes. You can to bend the edges inward to form a more boxy shape. Even then it's still snug.
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Dec 17, 2013 04:56
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