Hi,
Congratulations for an extremely well made game. For me, and for some people who have voiced similar comments, the game is way too easy from the get go to be lasting fun however. This doesn't detract from the fact that it's a clever and extremely well constructed game. As it stands I have house ruled it to make it more challenging, but am hesitating to buy further packs because I feel the game right now just caters for the casual gamer too much.However, I'd like to give a few suggestions and ideas for future expansions to the game creators which anyone are free to offer views on of course, or add more ideas to this:
1) Will you consider doing a nightmare version of the adventure path, and starting adventures, similar to what FFG have done to Lord of the Rings LCG? With nightmare version I don't mean that every single scenario is a nightmare, rather that the scenarios on the whole are more difficult, making the path much more challenging at times. Suggestions for this would be added monsters, or changed stats for monsters, additional rules perhaps, and even some new clever items in some locations there must be a certain type of monsters. Some monsters/traps are removed beforehand. Traps with strange effects that transport characters to a different location which is hard to leave or... Endless possibilities. Also would like to see clever traps and monsters that can change the game in some way. Like a trap that brings in a few extra shuffled monsters to create surprise and the unpredictable. And I would love to see (optional) suggestions for rules for withdrawing from a scenario, even sometimes resulting in character death, and a couple of versions of those rules so players can choose what suits their style best. It's clear that one can house rule everything in a game, but in the end, it would be great to have a full experience for a more experienced gamer who feels the game is slightly too easy. This suggestion is also based on the fact that weaker gamers that has played the game a lot will learn and be stronger players in the end, and to revive the game would a require a richer, more challenging experience as an option later on, just as a better player might hope for now. It would also be cool to have a more threatening type of art on that type of expansion. I am one of those players, and there are a lot of us, who feel I "can" house rule everything, but in the end it takes away from the experience to add 1 or 2 to he difficulty of every roll, or use more locations or... In a good world a game can challenge every type of player, with different motivations to play, and the beauty of a card game is that this is possible to remedy with expansions.
2) Will you incorporate any scenarios that have choices in them? I.e one example could be: there is no villain to start off, just an extra henchmen, and depending on which henchmen you interact with, and how you choose to interact with it (perhaps use charisma to convince or choose to fight) there will be consequences on what kind of villain will be shuffled in. There could also be different moral implications of that choice. I realise you follow an existing rpg adventure path, but there is nothing to say a bit of deviation can't make the game richer and will also enable players, who want to play the rpg after this or has played the rpg and tries the card game, to be surprised. That is just one idea, but I'm sure the better players get to know the game and their characters as the adventures progresses, the more cleverly the scenarios themselves can be designed - to create completely different flavours within the game. In a sense a few clever changes in the usual format could bring a lot of depth and variety, and make the game last even longer.
I had more suggestions but seem to have lost one or two as I started writing, so this has to be it for now
For example, in a nightmare version, if players withdraw there could be a consequence. The first two times the players have to bury one or two cards randomly from their deck just before starting the next scenario. Or even banishing just before. .But the third time they fail with the same scenario, they die, or... One dies. There could even be difficulty levels in the add on pack, where the difficulty levels are about how you handle failing a scenario instead of changing monsters even more. Observe, I feel a good player, an experienced player, will know when to withdraw, so rules around this just acknowledges a different mentality playing. Observe, these are just optional rules in my mind,and things that just came to me now as I wrote, but in a more challenging version of the same adventure path, I think it would be nice to have well thought out rules to these things by the designers. Again stated, for me a nightmare version doesn't ,mean impossible scenarios. Just more challenging, as the whole adventure path will be very challenging.
If you really feel the need to make these changes....go ahead and set up some house rules. I don't see the need for the game to be changed by these rules.
My big question is about the fact that you find it so easy. I consider myself to be a hardcore gamer with 30 years experience. My wife and I are quite intelligent and we both enjoy games, though she might be considered a casual gamer. Still, I wouldn't say these games were hard or intense but we did find them challenging. And the challenge changed as we played with different characters and different size groups.
I think the game's variety fits nicely with every level of play and I think that was the target they were shooting for. I don't think there would be a benefit of making a game that plays specific to one group. That is what house rules are good for.
Good suggestions though for house rule. Might try it with some of my more RPG experienced friends.
I'm unclear why any house rules would be needed at all - couldn't you just vary the number and mix of cards in the locations to make it easier or harder?
For example, if one additional monster were added to each Brigandoom! location, that would have a significant impact on the difficulty, and wouldn't involve any rules changes at all. Heck, I can see fan scenarios being created and rated for difficulty in some as yet unspecified manner.
Which has me thinking ... I wonder if there could be the equivalent of Tomb of Horrors for the Adventure Card Game. Hell, I bet Paizo could put out decks that could be the basis for games based on existing modules like Tomb of the Iron Medusa or the Dragon's Demand. That would be pretty damn cool.
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
gbonehead wrote: I'm unclear why any house rules would be needed at all - couldn't you just vary the number and mix of cards in the locations to make it easier or harder?
For example, if one additional monster were added to each Brigandoom! location, that would have a significant impact on the difficulty, and wouldn't involve any rules changes at all. Heck, I can see fan scenarios being created and rated for difficulty in some as yet unspecified manner.
Which has me thinking ... I wonder if there could be the equivalent of Tomb of Horrors for the Adventure Card Game. Hell, I bet Paizo could put out decks that could be the basis for games based on existing modules like Tomb of the Iron Medusa or the Dragon's Demand. That would be pretty damn cool.
I don't think I would stop there if I was them. I would not only try to release smaller "adventure" packs (one new adventure card, three scenarios, maybe a new location for each scenario, villians, etc.) but maybe an even smaller Pathfinder Society Scenario pack.
I know there have been card games before, and I know there have been adventure/campaign games before (a favorite example of mine is Space Hulk), but I believe this is the first of it's kind. The format seems to lend itself to possibly expanding across the whole Pathfinder library (eventually).
What I really want to see is a travel case that will make it easy to set aside a partially played game and pick it up later.
We'll be playing a lot at lunchtime here at work, and I'm probably going to rework one of my old CCG boxes with partitions so I can quickly put aside and lay back out an in-progress game.
In any event, I really do hope they're planning on having module decks. That would be awesome.
Have tried houserule where all banes get plus one difficulty to beat with the exception of henchmen and villains. Henchmen and villains get 1 extra for beginning scenarios, 2 for middle scenarios and 3 extra for the final scenario of an adventure pack. In the introductory scenarios this means Blackfang and his henchmen get plus 3 and the first scenario Brigadoom all banes add one, for example. In adventures where there are 5 scenarios it means scenario 1-2 all adds 1, 3-4 villains and henchmen add 2 and the rest adds one, and scenario 5 the villain and henchmen adds 3 and the rest adds 1 to the difficulty.
This has worked well so far. The second scenario with the poisoner was cleared on the last card ofbthe blessing deck mainly because we had to use many blessings to add dice rather than explore as it turned out. Blackfang was utterly demolished, but we were very lucky in encountering him early on in the first locations making the quest a breeze.
For advanced gamers, I would recommend trying this if you want to spice things up. An advantage compared to using extra locations like some do, is that you find more loot when you use extra locations, hence making the characters stronger by them having a better chance of finding the best equipment etc. so the more scenarios they survive, the better equipped they are, skewering the difficulty in the wrong direction.
I still hope they come out with add on packs and have suggestions to make it more difficult, for example removing certain monsters etc.
For me, it devolves into how to structure a game that sustains the subscription model that is Paizo's revenue bread-and-butter.
There are two kinds of audiences, at the risk of oversimplification:
1) "Hard core gamers" - a group that will drop whatever else there is in their life to play.
These are the ones who are going to want it harder. They will get the adventure deck (5 scenarios) and plow through them in a week, playing every night.
2) Everyone else - They are lucky to be able to get together once a week to play -- and probably not even that much. They will be lucky to finish the 5 scenarios before the next adventure pack arrives.
I don't think the experience of the gamers matters. This is a unique game, and experience with other games doesn't make you any better at this game (in fact, I think it results in some bias as to how things should work when the designers intended it to work in a more literal way, but let's not get distracted).
So, Paizo has to design the game to cater to the #2 audience because I believe they comprise most of their subscription base (it's just life. Those with the resources to be subscribers to multiple product lines probably can't afford time-wise to be hard core gamers). So, if you do the math and assume the adventure decks arrive every 9 weeks, then to keep up (discounting the 3 scenarios in the box set not part of the adventure path), one needs to win 5 out of 9 weeks, probably more like 5 out of 8 weeks, as people are going to miss at least one week every two months.
Really, it's even more because Paizo wants to encourage subscribers to multiple product lines, so the product release schedule must give the #2 group (who I would not characterize as casual gamers, they are dedicated but have lives that don't permit hard coring) time to dedicate to the other product lines.
I think they've struck a pretty good balance in game difficulty. Thier timing of releases makes it sustainable. If I were a subscriber (I am) that believed I couldn't keep up with the releases (I'm not of that belief right now), then, at some point I'd look at my unopened boxes and wonder why I'm still a subscriber.
Now, the point is that maybe something can be done officially to accommodate #1 gamers, and I think the idea has merit. Sure, fan releases can always accommodate, but maybe there's room to promulgate official rules to make the scenarios more ball-busing. Personally, I think the better answer (because, after all, many of us in group #2 desperately want to get back into group #1) is to encourage the fan modules, keep the difficulty where it is, and just release the best of the fan modules so you can play new material rather than keep trying to beat the same scenario multiple times.
The last point is that this is a cooperative game. That fundamentally shifts the concept of losing, in my opinion. When you play this game without winning, EVERYONE loses. At least in conventional games, someone always wins (okay, there's hybrids where everyone can also lose competitive games, but they are in the vast minority). I think they've struck a good balance in difficulty because out of five scenarios, I think you can usually count on replaying at least one of those due to a loss (now we are at 6 weeks playing out of 8 weeks). Maybe that is skewing the feeling that the game is too easy. After all, if you are used to playing a game with three other people of roughly equal skills, you expect to lose 75% of the time, on average. In a cooperative game, I don't think this makes sense. But, mainly, it is unsustainable from a revenue standpoint, as only the hard cores can keep up with any reasonable release schedule.
Oh, and one other thing: if you are allowing 'withdrawals,' then you are not playing the game properly. There is no provision for withdrawals, and if this lets a player not lose (and not win), it distorts the view that the game is too easy, as the reason for withdrawal (unless there's a family emergency) is to avoid death of character.
I also suspect that many who believe the game is 'too easy' have house rules making it that way or, unfortunately, as a result of the need for so many FAQ entries and card corrections, could be because they are playing the game the way they believe it should be played vice what the designers intended, and this is making the game easier (of course it could go the other way, too, but that doesn't support my view that they've done a good job with balance, so I'll ignore that case).
When you're saying the game is too easy right now, you do have to consider that so far we only have access to the first adventure pack (I know some also have the second too, but that's still only a third of the game.)
I'm sure the difficulty will ramp up with each pack. Having seen and read about some of the scenarios/encounters that are coming up in Skinsaw Murders I think a team going in too confident could meet a pretty sticky end if they are unlucky or poorly geared.
I think the point of this game, like any RPG, is to play intelligently and cooperatively, and enjoy the experience. If the game was 'too hard' and characters were dying often/easily then these message boards would be aflame!
Nearly all of our games have been close to the wire - often downing the villain on the very last turn! We've never left a game thinking it was a cakewalk - but remember it is also a random game. You could get really lucky. Or really unlucky. That's the joy of it :)
Bidmaron wrote: Oh, and one other thing: if you are allowing 'withdrawals,' then you are not playing the game properly. There is no provision for withdrawals... I'm not sure you really know what you're talking about. The instructions say nothing whatsoever about having to attempt to play all the way through a scenario until you win or die, so there's really no basis for you saying that other people "are not playing the game properly." In fact, exploring is an optional step in a player's turn - players are perfectly free to "run out the clock" without actually performing another encounter at all, if they so desire, so in effect there is a "provision for withdrawals." If there were a rule in the manual saying something to this effect, you'd have a case, but that statement just doesn't have any basis in fact.
Calthaer wrote: Bidmaron wrote: Oh, and one other thing: if you are allowing 'withdrawals,' then you are not playing the game properly. There is no provision for withdrawals... I'm not sure you really know what you're talking about. The instructions say nothing whatsoever about having to attempt to play all the way through a scenario until you win or die, so there's really no basis for you saying that other people "are not playing the game properly." In fact, exploring is an optional step in a player's turn - players are perfectly free to "run out the clock" without actually performing another encounter at all, if they so desire, so in effect there is a "provision for withdrawals." If there were a rule in the manual saying something to this effect, you'd have a case, but that statement just doesn't have any basis in fact. I'm not sure I really know what you're talking about. Can you explain to us what a "withdrawal" actually is, because I tend to get confused when people use non-game terms to describe the game.
Bidmaron's assertion that there is no provision for withdrawals is correct. There may be rules for (or no rules preventing) what you think constitutes a withdrawal but nothing defining a withdrawal itself.
I took "withdrawal" to mean a player decides to opt out mid-game, for which there no provision. You seem to have taken it as running out the clock or just ending the game early. I can also see others taking it as not continuing to play through all the scenarios of an adventure.
Point is: depending on your interpretation, it either is or is not allowed, but the OP doesn't really explain what is meant by the non-game term "withdrawal".
Yeah, my bad - I forgot we're all into the minutiae of everything around here...have to have everything very clearly defined before we can even begin a discussion on a topic. Let's wait for the OP to clarify.
The point is that "letting the clock wind down" is NOT withdrawal by any reasonable definition of the word. For example, if some just sat there and refused to explore -- okay, fine. But that person would still be subject to things like "all other characters summon and encounter an ancient skeleton henchman" if a player who hadn't "withdrawn" encounter a Skeleton Horde barrier. The rules do permit a person to never explore, but they do not permit someone to exempt themselves from other effects that could occur.
My original point was that if someone has augmented the rules to permit withdrawal (no matter how they define it), then they have probably made other rule augmentations (or misunderstandings if they think withdrawal is permitted), and it is these augmentations/misunderstandings that are making the game too easy.
Flat the Impaler wrote: Calthaer wrote: Bidmaron wrote: Oh, and one other thing: if you are allowing 'withdrawals,' then you are not playing the game properly. There is no provision for withdrawals... I'm not sure you really know what you're talking about. The instructions say nothing whatsoever about having to attempt to play all the way through a scenario until you win or die, so there's really no basis for you saying that other people "are not playing the game properly." In fact, exploring is an optional step in a player's turn - players are perfectly free to "run out the clock" without actually performing another encounter at all, if they so desire, so in effect there is a "provision for withdrawals." If there were a rule in the manual saying something to this effect, you'd have a case, but that statement just doesn't have any basis in fact. I'm not sure I really know what you're talking about. Can you explain to us what a "withdrawal" actually is, because I tend to get confused when people use non-game terms to describe the game.
Bidmaron's assertion that there is no provision for withdrawals is correct. There may be rules for (or no rules preventing) what you think constitutes a withdrawal but nothing defining a withdrawal itself.
I took "withdrawal" to mean a player decides to opt out mid-game, for which there no provision. You seem to have taken it as running out the clock or just ending the game early. I can also see others taking it as not continuing to play through all the scenarios of an adventure.
Point is: depending on your interpretation, it either is or is not allowed, but the OP doesn't really explain what is meant by the non-game term "withdrawal". I'm not really sure what either of you are driving at. The only way to win is to defeat the villain, right? That is typically difficult, but not impossible. Withdrawing from the game or letting the clock run down doesn't further you toward that goal.
IamNabil wrote: I'm not really sure what either of you are driving at. The only way to win is to defeat the villain, right? That is typically difficult, but not impossible. Withdrawing from the game or letting the clock run down doesn't further you toward that goal. Yes, the ultimate goal is to defeat the villain (in most cases: there are scenarios where there are none), and failure is usually punishment enough (though not as bad a death). However, the OP was suggesting imposing an additional punishment of a "withdrawal" without defining what this actually means in game terms.
The actual term is irrelevant though, as is which interpretation was the original intent; it could have been "fleeberdopping" for all I care. My point was that we don't know what it is supposed to mean without guessing, so there's no basis for a "you don't know what you're talking about" argument from anyone.
Recent threads in Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion
|
