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Rapulum_Dei posted:I’ve just started playing - I’m trying to rope in a friend before I do the 3rd scenario of night of the zealot rather than solo. I don’t know exactly how fleshed out the new core set is compared to the original (assuming you have the newer one,) so you might be fine with just that. Another option that’s a little cheaper is to buy an investigator starter pack. Those are like $12 or so and have a viable deck right out of the box. Also, friendly warning since your pal is playing for the first time: the third scenario of the core box is not very good. It stands out as being pretty poorly designed among the whole game.
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Mar 14, 2024 22:25
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Good info, thanks. I was planning on starting again- letting them have the choice of investigators & I’ll play Roland if they don’t. I thought scenario 2 seemed very quick so I was expecting a dramatic ending, bummer that it’s not but I guess that means I’m on the hook for an expansion and from what I can tell Carcosa is a better option than Dunwich.
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Mar 14, 2024 23:10
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jeeves posted:Time to admit something, after coming back to this thread after two years of not playing: I kind of hate deckbuilding on my own, and I would always rather netdeck. It's one of the main reasons for keeping me away for a while. Taking a look at my account on ArkhamDB, I've built most of my decks myself but I definitely like to shop around and get ideas or copy deck concepts if they look like fun. I'd say that even if I end up creating a deck myself, looking at other peoples decks is great to get card suggestions or even if it's just so you can figure out why I don't like some deck concepts. Another thing to consider is that some of the most popular decks on ArkhamDB are quite old, so won't have some of the newer tech that's available. Generally I prefer looking at newer decks. Rapulum_Dei posted:Good info, thanks. Scenario 3 is generally considered not great because of how much of a jump in difficulty it is. It's almost a rite of passage to play Night of the Zealot and think you're doing pretty good and then run into the brick wall that is the finale. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Mar 14, 2024 |
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Mar 14, 2024 23:24
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Also because the best strategy is to not engage with the scenario at all, sit in the starting location and build your tableau for the arrival of the boss.
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Mar 14, 2024 23:29
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drat I want to squeeze all the +1 damage skills into a deck with Practice Makes Perfect and I think Zoey is the right woman for the job. Vincent Lee is close but 3 combat base is rough.
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Mar 15, 2024 00:05
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Vincent really should have had 3 book and 4 fist. It's such an uphill battle making him into a fighter otherwise and would have made him much more unique and interesting as a combat-focused Seeker. While I'm at it, Amina should have been based around remote testing. What about "phone operator" says "buy stuff cheaply and put doom on things"? Such a whiff of a design.
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Mar 15, 2024 01:06
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3333 is such a rough stat line.
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Mar 15, 2024 05:06
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https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/47677/patrice-hathaway-in-fhv-1.0 This is the final version of the Patrice deck I took to the finish line in FHV, alongside Mark. I really like Premonition for her because you always get value from it every time you draw it unlike a lot of her other cards which get discarded for nothing (or +2 to Cornered, which isn't nothing, but which also isn't lighting the house on fire). It's good against her weakness too. The other thing about Patrice which I couldn't quite nail down was how odd card draw felt for her. I noticed it most with the cantrip skills like Perception and Guts, where the card draw from them was kind of useless a lot of the time, or actively detrimental when you drew an asset you couldn't afford to play (either with resources or actions). And cards that straight-up draw for her didn't feel great either, since you now have one fewer action with which to accomplish something this turn and you haven't necessarily gained anything by drawing those extra cards because you can't hold onto them. That's one of the reasons I switched from those skills to Unexpected Courage, the other being that she tests all of her skills pretty often (except Combat). If Cryptic Research was a red card it would be absolutely nuts for Patrice. Fast makes all the difference for her. Of course drawing cards isn't exactly bad for her, but it sure feels like the value proposition is very different compared to every other investigator. And you also do need enough cards to be able to get stuff done on your turn. It's kind of a strange thing, where I sometimes felt like 1-2 more cards would've let me make full use of her actions, and other times when I didn't use up all the cards I had so I felt like I'd wasted them. I kinda feel like going back to Wilson now, but pairing him with a powerhouse like Daisy, who I haven't played since the original core set was released. But then Wilson decks kind of all look the same so I dunno. There's not much you can really do in terms of thinking outside the box with him, or at least I haven't seen anything that grabs my attention yet. Maybe some kind of ally-heavy build to make up for his stats? But it would probably be better in literally anyone else. Maybe his burst damage potential would still distinguish him. I'm also interested in doing something with Hank just because his unique mechanics look cool and I have a taste for Survivor now, which is probably my least-played class. I've been wanting to do something with Daniela for a while too but I didn't like that every deck with her lead down the same road to Aquinnah. I saw a fun cluever build with Breach the Door and the new Survival Technique which looks interesting, so I might try something like that too. I'm sure I'll love building an Alessandra deck when I get around to it, but I'm still trying to hold off on Rogue, at least for now.
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Mar 15, 2024 11:08
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Anonymous Robot posted:Also because the best strategy is to not engage with the scenario at all, sit in the starting location and build your tableau for the arrival of the boss. I mean people say that but every time I've won the scenario I've won it before the boss spawns. Actually I've literally never had the boss spawn now that I think on it.
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Mar 15, 2024 12:56
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jeeves posted:Time to admit something, after coming back to this thread after two years of not playing: I kind of hate deckbuilding on my own, and I would always rather netdeck. It's one of the main reasons for keeping me away for a while. Yeah I usually sort by reputation of the author and click around a bit until I see something I like.
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Mar 15, 2024 13:03
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Yeah, you shouldn’t be drawing additional cards as Patrice because you probably can’t use them. Katja and hunting jacket have made worlds of difference for her. If you’re going back into the Vale, the scientist has a stat line and signatures that play well with a lot of scenarios. And you can always aim to try and complete the goals you didn’t last time… They’re pretty clearly signed posted.
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Mar 15, 2024 16:35
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Finished the veil! I like there’s a special achievement just for winning as Patrice, because so many cards punish you for being empty-handed at any point. Yorrick was really great advice. Amanda really excelled at the final scenario. With the fingerprint kit level four, and deduction(2), I was absolutely wolfling through clues. Gonna take a break and play some marvel champions for a bit, then go back in and definitely bring Alessandra. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Mar 16, 2024 |
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Mar 16, 2024 03:45
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Just want to chime in and throw a big a+ review at hemlock vale if you're on the fence about it, really great mechanics, the day/night cycle is great and it's pretty generous with XP in my opinion, I'm already thinking about all the stupid gimmick garbage I can build for another playthrough asap Kate is very very fun
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Mar 17, 2024 06:13
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It's apparently supposedly actually coming out on the 22nd in the UK so I might be able to play it soon. Does it feel like a classic fighter and clue getter combo type one or would two flexes work well too? Doesn't punish any particular stat or playstyle too heavily? I've read it has a lot of weirder enemies, aloof, elusive, quite high health? I'm thinking Alessandra and then either Roland, Joe, Kohaku or Zoey. thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Mar 17, 2024 |
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Mar 17, 2024 12:34
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It's pretty varied but yeah, a strong fighter will have plenty to sink their teeth into (you can resolve one scenario by doing a metric shitton of damage if you so choose). You'll want to have a way to deal with Aloof and Elusive, especially if you follow the "suggested" path on your blind run. In my current game I'm going off the beaten path with Wilson and Daisy and it's a pretty different experience to my previous runs. Wilson can actually get something done with Encyclopedia boosts (especially double ones from Abigail Foreman) but I'm learning all over again how vulnerable Seekers can be. Patrice could handle herself against pretty much anything but Daisy needs some babysitting since I'm running a pretty pure cluever build.
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Mar 17, 2024 14:03
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Do not bring Patrice, and this is coming from someone who loves Patrice. Alessandra is a very solid pick. Bless Zoey can get a lot done; Roland is almost always a good back up character. Versatility and healing can play into a lot of scenarios, along with as marksmanship, dynamite, that sort of thing. Ofuda is clutch if you don’t bring Alessandra, but I think Beguile can do much of the same thing.
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Mar 17, 2024 16:38
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Oh yeah, AoE is very handy. Dynamite Blast stocks have never been higher.
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Mar 18, 2024 02:08
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Feels like I've never had the money on guardians to play that card when I would want/need to in the times I've included it in my deck. I'll put stir the pot in Alessandra for sure though, maybe not the upgraded version unless it's a truly generous campaign in terms of XP.
thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 12:40
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I have 49XP heading into the finale in my current run with Wilson/Daisy, including 2XP from Delve Too Deep, 3XP from In the Thick of It, and 5XP from reading the backs of the prelude acts. On my blind run I got barely half that much, since a lot of it comes from knowing your way around the preludes.
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Mar 18, 2024 13:45
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There is not enough XP in the world for that five XP upgrade to be good. there’s some running jokes about the fantasy flight janitor getting in and messing up the XP costs for flute of the Outer gods and that 4xp card that gives you benefits for up to three evaded enemies at your location.
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Mar 18, 2024 16:03
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The way the value proposition becomes variable in exchange for the XP ask is pretty rude.
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Mar 18, 2024 16:56
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Hello it's me the noob who has been enjoying this game for the last couple of months (revised core + dunwitch scenario/invetigators) Now that i have got a around this game (having run a couple of campaigns), there is something which is sort of bothering me as i have not really find a solution: I am feeling like I am stuck around the Guardian+Seeker thing. To me it feels like getting a fully dedicated clue gatherer is the only way to not fail 90% of the scenarios. Same applies to Guardian as there are countless hordes of enemies which need dealing, and evasion works for only a subset of it. Sure, i could in theory dedicate a Mystic or a Rogue to replace the clue gathering part but it would accomplish way less clues just for having some side benefits (the evasion mostly). Same applies for the Guardian. Let's not even go into the Survivor class as it's essentially useless to try have good outcomes for the scenarios - I might as well go for the first escape route, but at that point is the game even fun? Essentially - what am I missing? Am I just bad at the game (I am running standard difficulty) or am I just missing some cards from future cicles? Or something else? Fair warning: I am enjoying very much this game, just feeling that the only way to try to "win" is using a couple of classes.
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Mar 18, 2024 19:31
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:I'd like to borrow $200M
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Well revised core has lockpicks which lets rogues get clues at a reasonable rate in 2 player, survivors have look what I found and probably a few others I'm forgetting, the mystic spells function just fine as replacements for weapons/clues generally (though when you only have 2 copies of 1 of them, admittedly that probably won't be consistent enough so you'd probably be better off making a mystic a generalist and have both the combat and clue spells IMO). All the classes have access to stuff like flashlight and perception/overpower as well which will do well enough to make the tougher tests manageable. Or at least has done in my experience. You might be overestimating just how many clues per turn you really need to win as well. The later boxes have broadened out some classes, I know rogue was considered pretty weak early on and it wasn't until a bit later that they got some more support for various playstyles for weapons and clue tech. The starter investigator packs have a lot of good stuff in them for a relatively low price, lotta bang for your buck in them. It isn't all "just buy better boxes" though cause like, Wendy is considered a top tier character, she was in the starter and she's a survivor/rogue, Agnes is also pretty good. Generally you could also include "good" stuff from other classes if your character has access, so for example if you have a survivor who had seeker access, they'd probably take deduction to get better at clutch clue tests and get an extra one. If you've properly given them a go and failed then it might be making some mistakes in the deckbuilding or playing stages or the playstyle might just not be for you? Might be worth looking up example decks for those classes/roles and seeing what they recommend. I would say the Rogue, mystic and survivor starter packs would be a very good purchase though, they have good characters with distinct playstyles and a lot of good cards that probably will help, weapons and clue gathering stuff for survivor along with succeed by failing stuff, weapons and some level 0 lockpicks in the rogue one, more mystic spells for getting clues and fighting in the mystic one.
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Mar 18, 2024 20:05
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Later expansions card pools and characters mean that there are plenty of options besides “Guardian fights, seeker clues.” Winifred out of the box is the queen of flexibility, especially if she’s paired with someone who can protect her from the encounter deck. Diana is pure cancellation, but has the stat line to flex. Preston, Yorick, Wendy and Rita do interesting things outside of the yellow-blue dyad. And the latest box has one of the best mystics yet.
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Mar 18, 2024 21:00
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My 3p group went through Dunwhich with only Ashcan gathering clues (and once in a blue moon Jaqcueline Fine helped with clue-gathering-spells) and it worked fine. We had just the core, Dunwhich & starter packs. It might be hard to see at first how you can get through scenarios without garhering clues en masse constantly, but it can be done. And seconding that you want the mystic/survivor/rogue starter decks, they are great. Edit. You already have them, great! E2. Can't read at all, apparently, you meant the Dunwhich investigators. High Tension Wire fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 21:14
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Nope I haven't got the starter decks yet, but thinking of getting them at this point - are they exclusive cards or are they just a repackaging of some cards found in some of the campaigns? Ok so from what I am gathering here it's just a matter of cards, and hopefully by getting some more expansions, things will balance out. Because so far, Guardian and Seakers have felt just a level higher in respect to the others. One additional one: is it just the Night of the Zealot and Dunwitch or is evade based party not that viable? As there are scenarios where you end up with multiple hunters enemy and you end up spending way more actions evading than outright killing the monster if you had the streaght
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Mar 18, 2024 22:03
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RattiRatto posted:Hello it's me the noob who has been enjoying this game for the last couple of months (revised core + dunwitch scenario/invetigators) When the game first launched, Guardian and Seeker were easily the most well-defined and well-supported classes and essentially the default pair. Even in modern-day campaigns, you can't go wrong with a Guardian rocking a Machete, Beat Cop and Vicious Blows while a Seeker gets clues with Dr Milan, Magnifying Glasses and Deductions. They just got their good cards right when the game launched and had the easiest roles to fill. I also took a long time to fully break out of the Guardian+Seeker dynamic. Rogues, Mystics and Survivors were very much lagging behind them since they didn't have as strong a specialist role in the game. As you've noted, Evasion isn't a viable strategy to win scenarios so Rogues really suffered in early campaigns since they didn't have ways to efficiently progress the game. Jenny and Skids are also probably the two worst Rogues in the game which doesn't help. Eventually Rogues get ways to turn money into success or use the Agility to do things so it's just a case of the game not giving them what they need yet. Mystics rely on Spell assets to be able to fight or get clues with their good stat and currently you only have Rite of Seeking to get clues and Shrivelling to do damage. Eventually, Mystics start getting spells that let them do either in every campaign expansion, which means they can draw these vital cards much more easily and consistently contribute on the same level as a Seeker or Guardian. Unfortunately it does take a while. Survivors aren't that bad in early expansions, both Wendy and Pete are plenty viable. You just need to leverage their cross-class cards to help them succeed. Wendy with Lockpicks or Pete with a Magnifying Glass, Dr Milan and Dark Horse can easily handle gathering clues. In fact, Wendy was generally thought to be the strongest investigator for quite a while. So in general I would say that you aren't missing anything. But all you really need are a few more things to break open those other classes, if you can get the starter decks those really help but the more campaigns you get the more your options will expand. Right now, you are right that Guardian and Seeker are far and away the strongest classes. RattiRatto posted:One additional one: is it just the Night of the Zealot and Dunwitch or is evade based party not that viable? As there are scenarios where you end up with multiple hunters enemy and you end up spending way more actions evading than outright killing the monster if you had the streaght Evasion has always sucked and should only be your Plan B for getting out of danger. It's only very recently that Evasion has become viable in the game. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 22:27
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RattiRatto posted:One additional one: is it just the Night of the Zealot and Dunwitch or is evade based party not that viable? As there are scenarios where you end up with multiple hunters enemy and you end up spending way more actions evading than outright killing the monster if you had the streaght Just those, pretty much. Dunwhich loves it's Hunters, but Carcosa for example is perfectly evadable campaign*. Also Dunwhich punishes low Willpower a lot (+Beyond the Veil makes Wini a persona non grata). Also, don't feel like you have to buy player cards in some sort of order per release date. Different investigator expansions offer different things. The Dunwhich expansion and the starter investigators (survivor/mystic/rogue being the best) are great starting point. *as in evaded monsters usually don't immediately follow you. You still usually want to get rid of some of them permanently one way or the other. High Tension Wire fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 22:33
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RattiRatto posted:
TFA, TSK and the Arctic expedition reward dodging or alternate means of enemy management (like lockdown and discarding.)
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Mar 18, 2024 22:35
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If you want to get an idea what player cards each expansion has, I strongly suggest giving the articles (Inspector Expansions Reviews) at Ancient Evils a read! There are very thorough card-by-card analysis of everything as well as overall impressions, which helps you decide what to buy next.
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Mar 18, 2024 22:44
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I really do think the starter decks are a pretty great next step after the core box, though. They all offer strong investigators and cards, although Nathaniel Cho functions very differently from other Guardians and his deck is therefore a little wonky and doesn't offer as much to other Guardians. It should be noted that Stella is absolutely insane and can do basically whatever a group needs.
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Mar 18, 2024 23:14
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Very good info for me here, thanks all. I'll probably expand on the next campaign (thinking Carcossa) after Dulwich - feel free to recommend any specific one. This might be the time to expand with starter decks of classes which feel weak (rogue and mystic)
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Mar 19, 2024 08:09
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Hemlock is finally coming out in the UK! My box is arriving tomorrow.  RattiRatto posted:Very good info for me here, thanks all. I recommend getting the campaigns in release order. The campaigns get more complex, difficult and build off each other as they go so going through them as released is what I would consider the best experience. Carcosa is also generally considered one of the best campaigns.
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Mar 19, 2024 11:02
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Nephthys posted:I recommend getting the campaigns in release order. The campaigns get more complex, difficult and build off each other as they go so going through them as released is what I would consider the best experience. This is what I did and I think it worked out well (I started probably a couple years ago now); I wouldn't have appreciated a lot of what was going on as much as I did if I played Edge of the Earth before Carcosa or whatever. I also think I got a lot more value out of the player card expansions by only adding them to my collection when I started the campaign they were originally released with. RattiRatto posted:Essentially - what am I missing? Am I just bad at the game (I am running standard difficulty) or am I just missing some cards from future cicles? Or something else? In any duo (or any group of any size) you have to have the ability to fight stuff and the ability to get clues; everything else is optional. You can distribute those responsibilities in any way you want and end up with a viable party; Guardian/Seeker is all the way at one end of the continuum with those responsibilities almost fully divided, but our first run of Carcosa was with Jenny and Akachi (with no cards past Carcosa in the collection) and we had a good time. There's definitely some efficiency loss from both characters having to focus on both things, but that's balanced out by the efficiency you lose from your guardian being dead weight in a scenario (or scenario phase) that leans heavily on investigating, or your seeker for fighting. Rogues do kind of suck until you're four or five campaigns in, though. Wallet fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Mar 20, 2024 |
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Mar 20, 2024 16:49
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Surprise parallel Rex Murphy announced, he combines and/or swaps clue dropping/curse adding. Pretty cool, I might play him in a campaign coming up. https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2024/3/21/hunting-for-answers-1/
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Mar 21, 2024 21:09
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thebardyspoon posted:Surprise parallel Rex Murphy announced, he combines and/or swaps clue dropping/curse adding. Pretty cool, I might play him in a campaign coming up. I was excited until I saw that his weakness wasn't replaced. His new front ability and weakness sounds like many minutes tagged onto pulling tokens from the bag. No thanks.
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Mar 21, 2024 21:50
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It seems like… An OK ability. Once you have your Press badge down, you kind of get four actions to turn as long as you play an event or that one skill card? 3243 is not an inspiring line. But there’s probably a lot of mischief from his ability to draw up to five cards from the discard.
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Mar 21, 2024 21:54
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Ability seems mediocre at best, deckbuilding seems worse but maybe ok if you're doing a blurse party, advanced signature card seems cool as hell. Maybe he's now the best investigator for the "clue drop" archetype, but I'm not really convinced he's better at it than Daisy or whatever. You can use it to drop clues via Faustian Bargain and Deep Knowledge once you get your Research Noteses and/or Press Pass out, but. . . is that really worth the opportunity cost? Deckbuilding is sad. Gambit is pretty much garbage. There are some good rogue cards but they're pretty much all level 0 anyway; maybe there's some value in getting to play more than 5 of them. Cursed opens up some possibilities if you're doing a blursed campaign, but regular Rex can already get Blasphemous Covenant and I don't know what else would be a priority pickup for him. Call the Beyond would be cool if he could get the good secret stuff, but it's all in Seeker 4+.
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Mar 22, 2024 00:14
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The deck building does seem pretty sad, and it always will because it follows an investigator who gets all bless/curse.
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Mar 22, 2024 01:02
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So my playgroup finished our second playthrough of the Feast of Hemlock Vale, and I've got a huge gripe with the campaign design. Major spoilers for every aspect of the campaign, probably. During night 1 and night 2, you are given the option of either following Dr. Marquez on the missions The Twisted Hollow and The Longest Night, respectively, or going on an extra survey mission to one of the five survey locations. And as far as I can tell there is zero reason, either mechanically or story-wise, for you to not do the fixed Dr. Marquez missions.
For our second playthrough, my group decided to be dumb and suffer the obvious penalty we were presented with of extra tokens in the chaos bag, expecting that we would perhaps somehow be rewarded in exchange. nope. Furthermore, after doing the "Dr. Marquez has a plan" ending on our first go, we wanted to try to get the "reconcile the Hemlocks" ending which requires getting all the way through either River's or William's storylines. But we did not realize until the very end that there is a crucial step along their chains of writing poo poo in their notes sections that only happens in the resolution to The Longest Night. And, of course, the ending that seems like the canonical "good ending", the "Dr. Marquez has a plan" ending, is also forbidden. Not sure about Simeon's "Vale is full of fireworks" ending; that may or may not require doing The Longest Night but guess what Simeon fuckin died in our playthrough because we went to the mine in Night 1. Furthermore, we also thought that maybe we'd try doing the alternate version of the final prelude, where you say "we believe in you, Mother Rachel" and, idk, some other poo poo happens? All I know is that it has a different act/agenda card. Well, you're also not allowed to do that unless you do The Longest Night. Anyway, it just felt a little hosed up for the campaign to present us with a choice, and then punish us in six different ways, with zero trade-off. Are we missing something? I can't think of a single time in another campaign where a choice is presented like that and one of the choices is strictly worse than the other. Usually there's at least some upside even for choices that are obviously wrong. It rubs me the wrong way that it's presented as a tradeoff but then it just isn't. And there's zero reason to ever make that decision again on future playthroughs, and even if there's a player in the group who hasn't played FHV before, there's plenty of reason to not let them choose the wrong choice. Which is different from the way that I and my friends generally play, for example, The Circle Undone, where there is an important choice right at the beginning of the first scenario (whether to believe the fortune teller or call bullshit) which imo has a generally correct answer, but there is a tradeoff, and if playing with a new player we will let them choose.
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Mar 23, 2024 12:53
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