1 hour ago, Slothgodfather said:

To me, the replay ability in LotR is worse for the very reason that there is only 2 possible outcomes. You win, or you lose. Once through the Quest cards the first time, there is nothing that will surprise you - though it still may catch you unprepared. That's different. In Arkham, I've played the expansion a few times now, starting with each quest as the "first" quest and each time I've had different scenario/combinations of the Act/Agenda happening to where each play-through, there were still fairly decent differences in the game. But for me, I'd say your letting the games desire for you to continue the story interfere with how you want to play the game. In LotR, you play until you win. The quests - excluding Saga - are completely stand alone, and so you have no issue just repeating a question until RNG gives you the cards in the right order that you can win. Just play Arkham that same way. Don't feel rushed into moving on to the next quest if you got a resolution you didn't like. But, that's just my suggestion to try to get the most out of it for you.

Thanks for reply - that´s right that repeating the quest / scenario is the way I play LotR and I play the same way in AH. I play a few times and then I say to myself (before the game): "this one is THE ONE game and after this point I will continue with every outcome I´´ ll get and with the chosen resolution. It works fine for me and you hit it in your last sentence. I really won´t come through all scenarios of one cycle during one week...

2 minutes ago, tyrion003 said:

Yeah, just my feeling. Maybe that´s because encounter deck has more card types - it spawns enemies, treacheries AND locations so you can get more combinations in different games but still leaded the right way by quests and unique cards at the right time, so you play the game and you are inside the story at the same time. In AH you go to location where you exactly know what will happen there. I think that locations are really missed opportunity how to make this game fantastic and maybe better than anything else. Now I feel AH too schematic for me - you go through the planned route and deal with treacheries or enemies, nothing more... and enemies seems too generic for me, they have stats but a lot of them have no special text, they feel too similar for me, where in LotR you have much more text and abilities which is maybe another thing that drives me closer to Rings.

But I have to admit that many players around me find AH as improvement in comparison to LotR so that could be my issue, not the game´´´ s.

I think the location mechanic is much improved over LOTR. There, you just have these generic locations taking up staging area space, providing threat, that can lock you out of progress. In Arkham, you physically move your card to different locations, and since you're playing as an individual, you can really feel the story that you are in that location, and your buddy's across town, and enemies are in the building next door. As opposed to this amorphous feeling of location in LOTR.

I really do think it is just a matter of perceptions. Did you only play the first scenario? The enemies in that are a bit lackluster except for the boss, but overall, Arkham enemies have a ton of gametext...

https://arkhamdb.com/find?q=t%3Aenemy&sort=set&view=scan&decks=all

4 minutes ago, Network57 said:

I really do think it is just a matter of perceptions. Did you only play the first scenario? The enemies in that are a bit lackluster except for the boss, but overall, Arkham enemies have a ton of gametext...

https://arkhamdb.com/find?q=t%3Aenemy&sort=set&view=scan&decks=all

Not only first scenario, but I didn´t play expansions, I played only core set. The unigue enemies from Midnight Mask are great (that´s best scenario out of the core set for me), but all the ghouls and small cultists... Really don´t know.

One important thing for me - this is just a core set and I compare LotR which has great history and really deep cardpool with many quests and ideas with just now starting game. Comparing both core sets will be much more fair for AH. Of course I´ ll try whole first cycle and I supposse I will see the direction and possible improvements (from my point of view, of course) in game design. I strongly believe that I will "catch" later cause I like the theme (much more than LotR).

Network57 Ad Locations - you still have usually 2-4 unique locations which comes in the right order and in the right time to drive the story.

But you´re right about the move through Arkham - once I evaded hunter enemy I wasn´t able to deal with ad I moved through the city from one location to another while the enemy pursued me and I tried to take a clue here or there during the run - that was great moment. Different approach and works for me sometimes as well as for you.

Personally, I've never liked locations in LOTR. It goes to our previous discussions on theme - they're a solid enough mechanic, but theme-wise they never made sense to me. Why is that abandoned cave threatening to me? Handling different locations makes the whole thing feel thematically muddled - I'm zig-zagging all over this area, going back and forth to places I've already been, because... why? And there's rarely any association with the actual enemies that you're dealing with. Locations are there to balance questing vs. combat, giving encounter cards which will interfere with questing just as enemies do with combat.

Some scenarios do manage it differently/better but it's always special rules for those, which points pretty strongly to them being a weakness in the base design.

I can definitely agree that they do increase variety in what you can expect from the encounter deck, but at least for me I don't really consider that the same as replayability. Past a few runs you know what's there, you know what to expect/worry about, you plan for it, and the cards either turn or they don't. Arkham is the same, even in cases where there is extra randomness. The multiple options for locations in Midnight Masks or multiple Woods in Devourer Below do make you approach it a bit differently, but rarely does it change the game up enough for me to say "That was a completely different experience, I can play it again and be surprised!" Just like with the encounter deck, you know what the possibilities are, and you plan accordingly.

11 hours ago, Buhallin said:

The multiple options for locations in Midnight Masks or multiple Woods in Devourer Below do make you approach it a bit differently, but rarely does it change the game up enough for me to say "That was a completely different experience, I can play it again and be surprised!" Just like with the encounter deck, you know what the possibilities are, and you plan accordingly.

I agree on most things and understand your oppinion. I have a bit different , but that´s OK, I think. But if you speak about Midnight Mask´ s locations and Woods , imagine if every Arkham location had two versions! Much more fun, much more possibilities and then it would be different experiences. But I understand the point of other posters. Thanks for the discussion and oppinions to all!

7 hours ago, tyrion003 said:

But if you speak about Midnight Mask´ s locations and Woods , imagine if every Arkham location had two versions! Much more fun, much more possibilities and then it would be different experiences.

Well, no, that's kind of my point. At least for me, the differences in the locations we have don't really have a meaningful impact on the game. At least not enough to seriously impact replayability. At least that's how I approach it. It's not "On this playthrough I have to investigate with Fight, that's different!" For me, it's "We don't know which skill we'll need to investigate here, so let's send Jenny exploring first because she can handle anything." The resulting location doesn't give a different experience, because we have to plan for it regardless.

And that's honestly a good thing - the variations add a little flavor, but anything with differences large enough to seriously impact replayability would make the whole thing far more random.