I get the feeling that Descent is nearing it's end...

By UmarSlobberknocker, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

I may be wrong but I get the feeling that perhaps Descent is winding down. I don't know how many more full expansions we'll actually be getting. I see that there is one Hero and Monster pack slated for Q3 of this year but no regular big box or small box expansions. That worries me. Yes, there are a ton of other games out there but my gaming group has really enjoyed playing Descent.

If Descent is close to finishing then I would just like to see one more massive big box. I really hope that Descent goes out with a bang. I hope that FFG pulls out all the stops and gives us one last massive campaign with everything they've ever wanted to do. I hope it incorporates monsters from any and all of the Monster and Hero packs and quests that really pay out. Think D&D Tomb of Horrors. One massive big Finale for the ages.

There's plenty of life left in descent yet, H&M collections, solo mini-campaigns and campaign books will keep it ticking over for a while. I think we'll get another big box but not for a while.

Battlelore is getting all the love this year, and probably next year, so at least one terrinoth game is getting lots of new content.

I've also got a sneaking suspicion that next year will see a runewars app.

Descent is getting a slowdown in content because it has a lot already and there are newer games that need the attention, but new content is still coming.

I agree- Heirs of Blood didn't come out long ago, and there are

currently 2 unreleased packs out there. It's too early to say that the expansions are done. Yes, the expansion announcement has slowed- but it has slowed from a roaring pace. Descent has been pumping out expansions at a fast rate- slowing is not the same as stopping.

More books like Heirs of Blood would be nice since it actually uses existing content rather than adding to the massive pile of components I already have lying about. :)

Edited by Gridash

I like to think there will be at least one more mini expansion to balance the other three, which gave us:

  • new Warrior and Mage class/hero (Lair of the Wyrm)
  • new Healer and Scout class/hero (Trollfens)
  • new Warrior and Scout class/hero (Manor of Ravens)

So it would contain one new Healer and Mage class/hero, evening out the available classes in each archetype to 6 each.

Personally, I will be surprised if they port all 1st Edition heroes through Hero and Monster Collections. Monsters are more likely. Here's what's left:
Warriors : Eliam, Hugo the Glorious, Karnon, Krutzbeck, Laughin Buldar, Nanok of the Blade, One Fist, Steelhorns, and Varikas the Dead (9)
Mages : Landrec the Wise, Mad Carthos, Truthseer Kel, and Zyla (4)
Healers : Aurim, Brother Glyr, Jonas the Kind, and Okaluk & Rakash (4)
Scouts : Arvel Worldwalker, Bogran the Shadow, Grey Ker, Kirga, Red Scorpion, Tatianna, and Tobin Farslayer (7)
Monsters : Blood Ape, Demon Lord, Ferrox, Ice Wyrm, Naga, Shade, and Skeleton Archer (7)
The obvious problem is that each H&M collection has ported 4 heroes and 3 monster groups. If they finish off the monsters, it seems more likely that they'll have an unusual 4-monster pack instead of leaving one out entirely, but it would be an even larger stretch to start porting heroes only. I don't own 1st Edition or the Conversion Kit and have really enjoyed the H&M collections, but I'm also two behind and am in no rush for them to release more. Some remaining heroes look great (like Steelhorns), but others seem redundant. An interesting side note is that 2nd Edition has been evenly balanced in terms of gender diversity, but that keeps changing with more H&M collections, since 1st Edition seems to have had a lot more male characters than female. Just an observation.
There's also still plenty they could do with the co-ops and the campaign books, like Gridash said.

More books like Heirs of Blood would be nice since it actually uses existing content rather than adding to the massive pile of components I already have lying about. :)

I agree but a new campaign book that utilizes some or all of the existing expansions would be nice. Perhaps even a new lieutenant for the campaign? Just a thought.

Edited by UmarSlobberknocker

Well, the fist edition doesn't really count for me, in a matter of gameplay - actually I played it just few times.

But 2nd edtion, although it's on the road for a while, just got my attention few months ago. I'm concentrating my efforts to complete this collection. So, I still have a lot to play, for sure, but anyway I'm still expecting some stuff - expansions, mainly. As Zaltyre said, at first I was quite impressed how 2nd edition released content fastly, compared to the old game.

FF makes regular promotions on the website for released stuff all the time. They wouldn't bother if it were dead. We haven't seen any boxes for awhile probably because they have been coming out with the H&Ms and they did release the Campaign Book "Heirs of Blood". If they are capable of writing one book, they are certainly looking to do more. I've seen some new Battlelore stuff come out and quite frankly I might look into getting that game too.

I think they need a small box expansion though, to even out the classes. With any box release though comes with what kind of lieutenant packs they want to release. That would be kind of nice, but right now it's best to just settle for what we can get.

I would love to see a Paladin class.

For me 2nd edition of Descent met its end as soon as I played 1st. edition. Seriously, if you will ever try 1st. edition, 2nd edition will look like a tic-tac-toe to you. In 1st edition heroes death is meaningful, theme is strong, there is plenty of tactical options, replayability is huge, game is focused on direct confrontation between Overlord and players, not on a lame race for an objectives, and game really looks like epic adventure in dungeons, not some casual, half baked, effort. I have every single box expansion for 2nd edition and almost all Heroes & Monster Collection, I was buying this all in hope that somehow those expansions will fix the game and made it more like a 1st edition; now I know it will never happen.

It is time to say goodbye to my collection of Descent 2ed. My only regret is that I sank so much money in this garbage. The worst thing in all of this is that Descent 2 ed. is such a wasted potential, there are so many things done right: classes, skills, streamlined rules, condition cards; yet suprisingly next to all of that there are so many awful things, that bury this game for good: meaningless death and lack of conquest points, lack of threat, weak Overlord, focus on objectives instead of confrontation for overlord, lack of exploration, lack of treasure, weak single adventure mode, and many more.

I own a lot of FFG games and expansions: Runewars, Banners of War, Twilight Imperium, Shattered Empire, Battlelore, Hernfar Guardians, Warband of Scorn, Eldritch Horror, Talisman, to name a few; and, from all of their products that I own, Descent 2nd edition is the only one I would call "truly dissapointing".

P.S. I am not some former 1st edition player driven by nostalgia; my first contact with Descent franchise was with 2nd edition, and played it a few times, before I had a chance to try 1st edition. As of now in my gaming group 2nd edition is collecting dust and 1st, edition is a huge hit.

Each to their own :-) I really like this objective based confrontation between Overlord and heroes. If I wanted to simply slug it out or play a typical dungeon crawler, there already enough options out there.

Meaningless death is a disappointing part of 2nd edition, it's one of the things 1e did much better.

D2e did many things better than 1e, especially when comparing core sets.

Imperial assault took the best bits from both systems.

If you don't mind the change is settings it's well worth a try.

Meaningless death is a disappointing part of 2nd edition, it's one of the things 1e did much better.

D2e did many things better than 1e, especially when comparing core sets.

Imperial assault took the best bits from both systems.

If you don't mind the change is settings it's well worth a try.

I do not agree that death is meaningless. Many quest have a harsh time cap so losing an action can really influence the outcome. Losing Items while only having a limited amount of gold/drops is really harsh and makes killing heroes too attractive for the overlord. The way it is now in the 2nd edition the overlord has to weight between killing a heroes and his objective.

Not entering in such details, but considering the 'todo'. 2nd edition is better for me. I will not get ride of my first edition, tough. Mainly due two facts: the number of monsters and the dungeon tiles, wich I use in my own board game. I agree that still there is room for improvement, the rules about line of sight and movement are my nightmare regarding second edition. But 2nd edition made me wish to play by the book, intead of changing almost everything like I did with 1st edition.

For me 2nd edition of Descent met its end as soon as I played 1st. edition. Seriously, if you will ever try 1st. edition, 2nd edition will look like a tic-tac-toe to you. In 1st edition heroes death is meaningful, theme is strong, there is plenty of tactical options, replayability is huge, game is focused on direct confrontation between Overlord and players, not on a lame race for an objectives, and game really looks like epic adventure in dungeons, not some casual, half baked, effort. I have every single box expansion for 2nd edition and almost all Heroes & Monster Collection, I was buying this all in hope that somehow those expansions will fix the game and made it more like a 1st edition; now I know it will never happen.

It is time to say goodbye to my collection of Descent 2ed. My only regret is that I sank so much money in this garbage. The worst thing in all of this is that Descent 2 ed. is such a wasted potential, there are so many things done right: classes, skills, streamlined rules, condition cards; yet suprisingly next to all of that there are so many awful things, that bury this game for good: meaningless death and lack of conquest points, lack of threat, weak Overlord, focus on objectives instead of confrontation for overlord, lack of exploration, lack of treasure, weak single adventure mode, and many more.

I own a lot of FFG games and expansions: Runewars, Banners of War, Twilight Imperium, Shattered Empire, Battlelore, Hernfar Guardians, Warband of Scorn, Eldritch Horror, Talisman, to name a few; and, from all of their products that I own, Descent 2nd edition is the only one I would call "truly dissapointing".

P.S. I am not some former 1st edition player driven by nostalgia; my first contact with Descent franchise was with 2nd edition, and played it a few times, before I had a chance to try 1st edition. As of now in my gaming group 2nd edition is collecting dust and 1st, edition is a huge hit.

I wish I could have tried playing Descent1e. Every copy that I find is selling for like $150 and that's for a well used copy. Don't even get me started on the expansions (RtL) or the lieutenants. There is no way I can afford it. I'm stuck with D2e so I just have to make the best of it. I hear the legacy players talk about D1e and it makes me sad that I missed it.

Meaningless death is a disappointing part of 2nd edition, it's one of the things 1e did much better.

D2e did many things better than 1e, especially when comparing core sets.

Imperial assault took the best bits from both systems.

If you don't mind the change is settings it's well worth a try.

I do not agree that death is meaningless. Many quest have a harsh time cap so losing an action can really influence the outcome. Losing Items while only having a limited amount of gold/drops is really harsh and makes killing heroes too attractive for the overlord. The way it is now in the 2nd edition the overlord has to weight between killing a heroes and his objective.

Yeah and it makes for a hell of a boring game. The very moment heores started to be immortal Descent lost most of its charm. Lets face it, this game is based on its theme - plastic minatures, colorful tiles, flavour text - all in attempt to evocate feeling of fantasy adventure, and suddenly all of this goes into hell when you realize this game is not an adventure where your heroes are risking lifes to go deep into dungeon to defeat some evil monster and powerful, all knowing overlord uses monsters to hunt them in dark corrdior of dungeon. You realize Descent 2ed. is just a lame racing game where your heroes are just a racing vehicles and overlord tries to blow their tire and force them to one round pit stop. It is so lame, it totally ruins theme.

I may sound bitter, but you must understand that Descent 2ed. on its very box promises dungeon delving adventure; meanwhile it is totally awful racing game with ruined theme.

I am a bit confused @Embir82 ... if you dislike D2e so much, why are you spending so much time reading and responding to threads in the D2e forum?

I would love to see a Paladin class.

Manor of Ravens' Marshall class seems like a paladin to me, Terrinoth style.

I would love to see a Paladin class.

Manor of Ravens' Marshall class seems like a paladin to me, Terrinoth style.

That thought never occurred to me but you're absolutely right!

I am a bit confused @Embir82 ... if you dislike D2e so much, why are you spending so much time reading and responding to threads in the D2e forum?

Maybe, just maybe, because it is forum devoted to discussing about Descent 2nd edition, regardless one likes it or not?

Thats might be true, but why spend time on something you do not enjoy?

I don't think you just buy whole expansions and H&Ms if you don't like the game. It kinda sounds like a ragequit.

If you like dungeon exploring and meaningful deaths, why not try a Co-Op?

Wait a minute while I grab some popcorn :rolleyes:

If you guys played me as the Overlord in D1E you would not like it. The campaigns had massive snowball effects for the OL if he started winning.

Neither D1E or D2E are perfect. But from a suck people in persepective D2E is a huge improvement. I've read a lot of people say D2E should not have even been called descent because it is so different. And I agree. 2 totally different games.

I loved D1E and played it since the first day it came out.

But I started to have trouble finding people to play.

  1. 1 quest took 8ish hours to play. I love these types of games, but a lot of people do not. D2E drew people in by making quests way shorter. And as I get older I find I have time for less and less 8 hour sessions.
  2. The OL could destroy the heroes so badley that it absolutely demoralized the players. At least for me anyway. Especially in the campaign. If my monsters were rolling silver dice before the heroes the campaign was over.
  3. And with both points combined that is a lot of time to spend with no hope of winning.
  4. No hidden information gives D2E way more replay ability. This is a huge problem I have with Imperial Assault.

D2E has way more options, and is way more balanced (despite a lot of threads to the contrary). If one quest isn't balanced you didn't lose your whole night to getting slaughtered. After an hour you can regroup and try to beat that despicable OL.

I would just end up with stacks and stacks of Threat tokens in D1E and the other players just refused to play it any more.

In D2E I have a way harder time as a OL demoralizing my friends. :P Which means they will play it again.

Do you know? The other day I was thinking about something. Not tested yet, but at least, sounds interesting:

What if a knocked out hero put three tokens on the map instead of one? That would mean they will take 3 turns to recover. If in the mean time all heroes are knocked out, the game ends. This would give

a new breath in the game, taking out the 'race' aspect of most quests. And since we don't have conquest tokens anymore, seems a good idea to me.