Ok, I love this game, I love that it's difficult because when you win you really feel that victory. I personally don't mind the challenge and yes I do play with all boards and all card expansions except curse of the dark pharaoh because I don't own it yet.

Firstly my impressions of the expansions are pretty good. Dunwich doesn't really make the game any harder or easier, it adds an element that the base game lacked. Innsmouth makes the game significantly harder in my opinion because when that deep track lights up it REALLY lights up, but the challenge isn't overly difficult. Kingsport...frankly bores me. We usually send the least equipped and frankly least valuable investigator to kinsport and that poor player is typically bored out of his mind. I tend to be a completionist, if I own it I want to use it..but I'm seriously considering taking out Kinsport encounters / mythos / and board. The only thing Kingsport board has that I even remotely like is the two other worlds but frankly I can do without.

OK that aside, right now I typically play with 3 - 4 guy usually we only play one investigator each but occasionally if there's just 3 of us we play 2 each. We've probably played about 20 games total and of that have had four victories. A seal victory against Tsathogua and Yig and battle "victories" against Hastur and Nyarlathotep.

We have a few house rules, we don't use Heralds unless we've already defeated that particular GOO with a seal victory, and we don't use epic battles unless we have already beaten the GOO in a normal battle in another game. We also only play with guardians if the first player at the start of the game rolls a 5 or a 6 on a die. He gets to roll an additional die if there's a herald and an additional if there's potential for an epic battle, so a total of three possible dice rolled to determin guardians.

We do play with personal stories (When we remember to get them out)

Here's my problem; the people I'm playing with are starting to get disheartened by the fact that the game wins 4 out of 5 times. I understand a lot of peeps on this forums have a MUCH higher victory rate but what can I say we're just not that good yet. I'm afraid we'll never get that good because people are starting to not want to play based on the fact they predict loss before we even start and want to move onto something else. All of us are long time, hardcore gamers so it's not like we're totally inept or anything...the game just rolls us quite consistantly.

What I'm looking for is some suggestions or insights or even a new perspective so that I don't end up with a great game that never gets played. Thanks in advance.

Scaresoul said:

Dunwich makes the game much harder for me. I'll probably win 80+% of base games (I won 6 out of 6 on vacation when I bought a new base game because we didn't take our game.) but only about 60% of Dunwich games. And about 55% of Innsmouth games. Like you I don't play Kingsport very much. But you're only winning 20% of games? A seal victory against Yig is impressive, but not against Azathoth?

Your house rules sound very reasonable and logical. However, you might want to step back despite your completionist views. Play the base game through a few times until you are winning over 2/3rds of the time (It really shouldn't take very long with just the base game) and then add, probably Dunwich or one or more of the small box expansions. The only real secret, IMO, is gates don't all appear at the same rates. If you want more detail on that, just ask.

Yeh, the game against Yig everything..and I mean EVERYTHING fell into place perfectly. Two of the four investigators started with elder signs, we had the character that removes a doom token, had the book that removed a doom token and had almost four monster rushes in a row halfway thru the game. It was ridiculously serendipitous.

I duno what the deal is with our games, could be that we're not all working together well or something..I duno.

I feel exactly as you do regarding Dunwich, Kingsport, Innsmouth, and overall difficulty. I think the difficulty was perfect around the Dunwich and KiY expansions, but started getting a little nuts around Kingsport then out of control with Black Goat and Innsmouth. I love the idea of epic battle cards and the new rule about seals affecting the final battle, but frankly all that stuff is only needed against the easier Ancient Ones. Chaugnar, Tsath, Yog, and Atlach don't need any help.

Keep in mind a few of the people reporting huge success rates meticulously go through each deck and memorize every encounter and gate location in additiion to deck culling and plotting out exact investigator combos + Mandy. My group are all pretty veteran gamers, but like you we play with all the cards included as well as totally random investigators plus we don't look at any of the new cards until they come up in a normal game. That said, our success is hovering around 15-20% after over a dozen games ever since the Innsmouth expansions, and those few victories have all been in final combat against the earlier ancient ones; not a single seal victory due to the increased clue drains in Innsmouth (who in their right mind would bother completing the reporter's personal story?) without increased clue generation to compensate (like they did to balance gate bursts in Dunwich). It's just getting frustrating.

I'm starting to think the makers are putting a bit too much stock in difficulty feedback from here. You have to figure the majority of people who go post stats on a game's official site are going to tend to be more hardcore than average. Gearing difficulty for what's probably the top 10% isn't the greatest idea for more moderate players. The double whammy is that moderate players are the least likely to come up with effective house rules on their own to try and fix things.

Yeah, i imagine that 4 invesitgators and all boards would be extremely difficult. Are you remembering that your team gets a bit of a bonus for using so many boards? For all intents and purposes except final battle, you are playing a "2-player" game of arkham.

I would highly reccomend ditching at least some boards. Get rid of kingsport at least. Sounds like you aren't enjoying the board much anyway, and not having it in will free up an investigator to go do other stuff. Possibly ditch a second board of your choice too. Dunwich *does* singnificantly amp the difficulty, perhaps not as much as Innsmouth, granted, but it makes it far more likely that you awaken the AO with too many open gates at one time.

How does the AO usually awaken? DOR track? Doom? Gates? If it's the same problem over and over, you can work on improving your game in that respect.

If reducing boards is simply not an option, I do have other suggestions for you. Firstly; be judicious on whose personal stories you try to pass. Jenny Barnes, Hank Samson, and Vincent Lee all have high prices to pay for mediocre rewards. Diana Stanley's is borderline, depending on how you play her. Basically, if you have to give up a seal in order to pass, it's probably not worth it. It's ok to fail some stories, and *don't* let them distract you from the real object of the game. I know I've had games where obsession with PS completion lead to neglect of the rest of the game, the AO woke up and it was all over.

Second: Spend clues wisely. Clues are a valuble resource for sealing gates. Spending them on die rolls quickly depletes your stash. Try not to spend clues unless it's absolutely critical. Sometimes it's better to die and take an injury than to spend clues to avoid hospitalization/insanity. The general store can be a decent source of clue tokens, there are lots of items there that give you one or more clues.

Third: create your team well. If you don't do fully random investigator selection, try to pick investigators who compliment each other in some way. Mary/Yorrick (story synergy), Joe/Mandy (Clue synergy), Jenny/Wilson (Story synergy, and equipment synergy -largely the motorcycle), etc. If your team already contains a good fighter like McGlen, you might want to lean towards a spellcaster. It's nice to have at least one investigator who starts with some cash. In my experience its practically *essential* to have an investigator who starts with clues. 3+ is ideal. Having a 'gate diver' on the team is also a good idea. Gloria is the obvious choice. Luke quite decent as well. Akachi is great for needing 1 less clue, Norman is a great team member because he starts with Find Gate (one of the best spells in the game, IMO).

Which brings me to: Trade. Trade often. Norman starts with find gate, it's amazing. But after he gets out, it's gonna be a while until he can amass the 5 clue tokens to get back in. Give the Find Gate to somebody else with halfway decent lore and sealing clues (or at least a few clues). Don't horde it to yourself, especially if it's not doing you any good! The same goes with other items too. Wilson's motorcycle often finds its way into the hands of another investigator. Weapons are great to trade around, and clue-giving items especially.

Play to your investigator's strengths: Like it or not, there are some characters who just *arent* fighters. Sure, Finn Edwards could start with an Enchanted Blade and a .45.... great. Give them away. Finn isn't a fighter. His stats suck for it, those weapons will do far more damage in the hands of Zoey or McGlen. Finn sneaks around. So does Mark Harrigan. Trust me. Yeah, monster slaying is fun, but leave the fighting to the fighters, let the sneaky characters gather clues and dive into gates, or handle Innsmouth.

Scaresoul said:

Do you guys all understand the principles of gate frequency (it's essential you do)? Do you conserve clues for sealing and cash for getting primarily sealing items? *Do* you work as a team? Your statement seems to indicate that you don't. You should delegate responsibilities and share items and duties for the good of the team. If everyone just goes off doing their own things, it's no wonder you have such high loss stats.

GrooveChamp said:

GrooveChamp said:

I lost a lot of games when I first got Innsmouth. I found it really difficult to win with three investigators, but four works okay. How many do you play with? You play with all of the cards. Do you play with all of the boards? Heralds? Of course these things increase difficulty, like Epic Battle. Don't feel like you have to play with these things. If you do, be aware that you are asking for it. If you're going to complain, just don't use EB against Yog-Sothoth. We won't mind.

The same things go for the Innsmouth board. If you're really fed up with it, don't play with it. If you want to beat it, then embrace the possibilities. Don't waste clues on skill checks, just seal. If monsters appear in Innsmouth, especially Devil's Reef, kill them! Seal those gates, so that they don't spawn more monsters than you can handle. If you do that, you only have to worry about the DOR track if you get a bunch of seal bounces - if that's the case, you're winning! Just make sure to plan ahead to clear the track, then get back to sealing.

Sure, exceptions to those guidelines exist - figure out how to recognize them. Innsmouth is difficult, yes, and you will lose some games. But it can be beaten, and I don't think it requires a hardcore devotion to the game, just an increase in tactics. (But then, I am obsessed, so I suppose I wouldn't know. Point to you.) For that, listen to awp's advice, and Mageith, and Tibs, and even Dam. I assure you that none of us *memorize* all of the encounters that can be had. We just play a lot.

As far as Rex's personal story, it grants awesome returns if you complete it early enough. Rex never has a problem getting clues. The ten clues will usually be more than made up over the course of the game and redistributed to other people who don't have Rex's affinity for them. It's not worth it if you can't do it quickly. It's also another way to get the all-important blessing. It may not look good in theory, but it really does help. Give it a try, if you can gather the clues by the fourth or fifth turn. You might be pleased with the result.

To the OP: Back off on the boards. Playing with all of them every game to newer players is a sure way to make them think it is way too much trouble. Four investigators cannot cover that much ground easily, either.

someone said something about a new rule regarding sealed locations? What rule is that exactly?

Scaresoul said:

Praise the Lord, he has seen the light !

Well, here's a quick update. I just finished up a solo game here, and by solo I mean only me as a player but I did run 6 investigators. I used all boards even kingsport...wasn't guna spend the time to seperate everything this evening, but Kingsport is still getting taken out I think tomorrow when I have more time. Fight was only against Chaugner - faun but it amounted to a sealed victory, I pulled my characters the same way I always do, for each "player" I draw 3 investigators, choose one, put the other two back and repeat. I got the following:'

Daisy, Agnes, Patricia, Silus, william & Zoey.

Not a bad crew, I love the librarian and the violinist to death, one of my seals came from Sylus passing his personal story..poor guy took it for the team and ended up being replaced by Wendy...who upon entering play, immediately passed her personal story. Also, at that time I had 5 seals and she gets an Elder Sign so a few turns down the road victory was mine!

So, I'm not disheartened, but then I guess I wasn't in the first place just my friends. All the same I hope the removal of Kingsport and the tale of my win tonight will get some of them inspired.

Also...seriously..what's this rule about elder signs and combat at the end?

I've owned the base game for about 6 months. My group has won 20-1-1 (1 loss and 1 incomplete due to time out of 22 games). This includes one winning game with the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh expansion. The only constant in these games has been me and the number of players has varied from 2 to 9. randomly select both investigators and the adversary. Only one game has gone to the final combat and we won it. (The loss was Azathoth.)

I guess I'd recommend stripping out some of those expansions and playing just the base game until people build up their skills.

Scaresoul said:

Kevin Wilson suggested a variant where an investigator can spend only X Clues per round in the final combat, X = number of seals on the board when the GOO wakes up.

Yeah I have all the expansions and put in all the encunters mythos ect and am going back to seperateing them now. When I want Dunwich ill just add em in and so forth. Sometimes you gotta go back to move forward

We always play two players, and my partner dislikes multiple investigators, so it is always just us two -- each with one investigator.

We do play some house rules that -- we think -- make the game more fun.

House rules are anathema to some forum guys here, who equate them to cheating. However, in a two-player game, they do make the game move faster.

For a round trip to an Outer World, we eliminate one turn -- when you complete your second turn in the OW, you IMMEDIATELY return to Arkham to complete the circuit.

When we are moving across the board and encounter a monster en route, we can fight/kill the monster and complete our move points.

There are other examples.

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As for using all the expansions at once, you can do that of course. However, the weight of cards tends to dilute the new expansion to the point that you will rarely get an expansion-specific card.

We recently got Innsmouth Expansion. We took down all the other expansions, and thinned down the Gate and Mythos packs, including all the new cards, but removing tons of cards. We kept many of the basic cards.

That way we really get a heavy taste of Innsmouth.

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As for some of the GOO's that come with Innsmouth -- one guy on the forum here stated, "it's almost like getting Azathoth." In other words, a few of them are so hard in the end-game, you might as well forget it.

Just our opinions, what do we know?

Take note, it's more or less fine to play with the encounters from all of the expansions. Same goes for items. Mythos is the largest predictor of difficulty. Of course, you won't be playing with Dunwich board encounters, if you don't have the board, but shuffling all of the encounters into the deck adds more variety. The only caution is that some other worlds can get really dangerous.

flamethrower49 said:

I hope you're not saying they shouldn't .