Hi all I`m Alan and I let people know I was puzzled by puzzles ( see thread ) last week. Beasts of war website had a play thu of MM2

http://www.beastsofwar.com/mansions-of-madness/play-mansions-madness/

At if you watch from 1H 40 for 8 filmed minutes, the team of 3 just gave up, but it seemed they spent alot of off screen time working on it. the video ended at 1H 50. Not because of winning the game or losing to the monsters, but really going insane over the puzzle. first time i seen a play thu ended in this way.. and they even posted it for all to watch. Thank god I jumped ahead to see how they handled the puzzle as I wanted clues myself. just pleased I did not sit down to watch for 2 hours myself. So its not just me having problems.........

I`m guessing after this video, FFG may give us some help or a work around if this is going to be a thorn in there side.....

Thanks for reading and understanding

Alan, uk

First of all, it looks like they ran into the hard version of the mastermind puzzle due to them taking too long. That can(and should) be avoided.

Then there's the actual puzzle itself, I've had people who've never tried Mastermind figure them out in no time by reading (everyone at the table should read) the Learn to Play guide, particularly the example for this exact puzzle.

I've also had people struggle with the puzzle but the difficulty is usually offset by the amount of clue tokens the interacting investigator has at the time and them reading/rereading the learn to play guide.

It is also very clear in the video around 1:42:40 that the other two didn't understand the basic mechanics of the puzzle and just gave up, instead of discussing it.

Personally speaking, I find that it is best to be 4-5 people when doing the hard version of that puzzle, as there's many combinations to keep track of - but people need to be involved. The last time we got it it took us 3 guesses, 2 clues (for two additional guesses) and if we hadn't stopped and discussed it for 2-3 minutes, we would almost certainly have failed.

Also, there are ways to solve the Mastermind puzzle in very few steps.

Here's the post by Draktha in your other threadl:

Step 1: First fill out all spaces with the same character. This requires 1 attempt
Step 2: Do this for each character or until you know precisely which characters are in the code. So for example if there are 5 characters and you after the first 3 have found out that there are 3 "1", 1 "2" and 1 "3" no reason to check the rest. Takes 1-3 steps with the puzzles i've seen.

Step 3: Now take one of the characters that are in the combination with the amount that there should be, together with a character that are not in the combination. Test untill you find out where that character should be located. Normally takes 1-5 steps for 1 type of character.

Step 4: After this put in the character you found from step 3 to the correct location, and then put the other correct characters in new spots until you find the correct combination. This has normally taken me between 1-5 attempts.

With these steps it should be possible to always do the puzzle in 4-14 attempts guaranteed, and i would say i more often do them in 4 than in 10.

They also played the puzzle incorrectly by the way,

Whenever an effect instructs an investigator to attempt a puzzle, that investigator performs a number of puzzle steps equal to his value in the skill indicated by that effect.

I didn't know people struggled with the puzzles. I found then all too easy.

Wow. That was... legitimately staggering just how many rules they got wrong / missed. Doubly staggering is that they have played 3 times but *still* seem to have no grasp of even very basic parts of the rules (how clues work, how stats are used for puzzles, how damage and horror are taken, how puzzles work, etc.)

Also: I am more than a little suspicious that they somehow started Cycle of Eternity with the shotgun and the .45. I have run the scenario about a dozen times, (and noodled with the app another half-dozen or so when experimenting with how the app works), and I have never once seen even a single firearm in the starting equipment, let alone two of the most powerful weapons in the game.

Also: I am more than a little suspicious that they somehow started Cycle of Eternity with the shotgun and the .45. I have run the scenario about a dozen times, (and noodled with the app another half-dozen or so when experimenting with how the app works), and I have never once seen even a single firearm in the starting equipment, let alone two of the most powerful weapons in the game.

I got both the 45 and shotgun the first time I played COE. Those weapons made winning the game quite easy. The second game was much harder since I didn't get any firearms. I just barely won as the Star Spawn was about to turn the corner and come face to face with my investigators.

Tom

Wow. That was... legitimately staggering just how many rules they got wrong / missed. Doubly staggering is that they have played 3 times but *still* seem to have no grasp of even very basic parts of the rules (how clues work, how stats are used for puzzles, how damage and horror are taken, how puzzles work, etc.)

Also: I am more than a little suspicious that they somehow started Cycle of Eternity with the shotgun and the .45. I have run the scenario about a dozen times, (and noodled with the app another half-dozen or so when experimenting with how the app works), and I have never once seen even a single firearm in the starting equipment, let alone two of the most powerful weapons in the game.

I enjoy their videos... but they're ALWAYS getting rules wrong. It drives me insane. I'm also a tabletop minis player, and they played quite a bit of Kings of War this past year or so (which is a very simple game, as those go) and the videos were basically unwatchable unless you wanted to be taught the bulk of the rules wrong.