I'd like to know if the community is interested in fixing aspects in the game to "balance out" quests, monsters, OL cards, heroes, and such as a group effort. I'm not that excited to receive an annual update from FFG when we know it won't be significant. We could require a certain amount of approval towards a proposed change to help maintain everyone's content with this "update". What I recommend is two or three threads.

The first would be recommendations to the game. This would house all of our opinions and ideas. If enough attention is given to an idea, we'd move it towards number two.

The second is where we focus on the impact of the current idea / change. We could discuss for the first half of the week, the second half would contain the voting.

Third is the collection of the approved changes. We can have each file separate on a cloud service, or grouped together.

Let me know what you guys think. I don't think any one person should lead this kind of thing, but rather we all do it as equals.

I am not opposed to this idea in general, but ...

Let me first state that I have invested more than 1,000 hours in playing this game (campaigns, co-ops, app driven, etc.). About 95% of the play is with FFG official products, and the other 5% is playing custom quests/campaigns from the Quest Vault.

In either case, it always involves heroes, classes, etc. officially provided by FFG. I have actually played every single hero and every single class (and most in all combinations) multiple times.

I know this may come as heresy to some of you, but I find very little in this game that is too weak, non-functional, too-strong, broken, op, etc.

Yes, there absolutely are some heroes that are better than others. Yes, there are some classes better than others. There are some monsters better than others. Etc. But that is the nature of the game. And that is the challenge I enjoy ... finding ways to win with so-called sub-par combinations.

I also play X-Wing. One of the on-going battles with many of the younger players within that forum, seems to be very similar to battles in this forum ... the mistaken belief that every single hero, familiar, monster, class, shop item, etc. must be equally playable, must be equally functionable, must be equally capable.

Perhaps this comes with the current era of everyone getting a trophy just for participating ...

I think the game would be very boring indeed if each and every object within the game were all equal.

Having said all of the above, I am open minded, and I am willing to listen to ideas that others on this forum have that may potentially make the game better. To that end, I will participate. But understand, that I am going to come from the perspective (my opinion) that you are really going to have to PROVE to me that something is so bad, that it needs to be changed in the first place.

Unique opinions are the best ones. If we could get 8 more people on board, we could get the ball rolling. I personally think of monsters as a tool and when I reach in to my toolbox, that each tool I spent money on should have a purpose. So perhaps the best route is to start with what gets used the least, and later what is used too much.

I'm going to back any2cards. It is balanced enough for what it is, in my opinion. The effort from here increases exponentially as perfect 'Balance*' is reached. I'd rather pay or make more content.

* Just defining criteria for balance is hard enough. The number is variables is staggering, even if you limit yourself to one quest, and basically impossible over all published quests.

Please don't take this as an attempt to rewrite the game. Simply, it should be to get better use of all content, and make the strictly worse become on par. I can't recall ever using the 1xp magus card "word of pain"(?). Rather than adjusting it, id like to review with a group to see if I'm missing something.

I am of the same opinion as any2cards and BruceLGL.

In addition to what they said already, I will state that I am really happy that there are "bad cards" in this game (as in heroes, classes, monsters etc.). It means I can tailor my level of competitivity to my opposition. It also means that I am forced to do the best I can with the resources given, which can be challenging. I like that. I understand if others don't, but I think it's some kind of a key feature of the game after all.

To be honest I don't think I would apply any changes whatsover unless it was made official by FFG. Even if the community jointly issued a recommendation. I would still be wanting to play by the intent of the designers. I really do salute initiatives from people willing to alter the game if they think it would make it better for them. We´re here for the fun after all. But I am personally very happy with the game as it is. There are a few cards where I wish they´d be useable at all, but there is also so much content in that game so such thing is not a real problem. It's not like I have to choose between 5 cards and 4 of them are bad. It would have been a problem.

I think you are going to have a very hard time justifying the changes, whatever they may be. Just look at any discussion on these forums, involving players with deep experience of the game and still diverging on some opinions. People have different playstyles, oppositions, backgrounds etc. This is not to discourage you for running such initiative, but by basing it on the contested premice that something with the game needs fixing, the race will be uphill for you in my reckoning. Like I said to Rugal in his thread, nothing prevents anybody from running his/her own little project and showcase the results on these forums. But as soon as you want to seek community-approval I think the conditions are a lot harder to meet. Just be prepared to be called out.

Blood Bowl Team Manager (R.I.P.) had team factions that were really inferior to other races. Everybody screamed for a fix to Vampires and a nerf to Humans. I think it's cool there are top-tier factions and low-tier ones. We'll give Humans to the dude who has never played the game, and I'll play the Vampires and try not to get my arse kicked. Same wth Descent. I will gladly play Word of Pain and field Fire Imps as my open groups whenever I´m looking for a challenge, or even more likely when playing with my 8 y.o.

My philosophy is to only change what is broken. There are obnoxious combinations in this game, but nothing I would call OP. There are lackluster cards in the game, but I think the vast majority is still playable in the right context. Most abilities in the game, especially from the Overlord, are situational. Their variance in effectivity can be everything between very bad and extremely good. I don't think the situational part can be removed without impacting the flavor in the game. There needs to be traps, doors opening etc. Attributes tests also incarnate the risk factor of many abilities, and contribute to the tension in this game.

One thing that might be useful is a means to add in other pieces, I'm sure I'm not the only person with thoughts on adding heroes/monsters/lieutenants from other pieces - especially as the Runewars Miniatures could have potential (the carrion worms might fit really nicely for example, especially if paired with a few other pieces from vanilla D2e that could be different stages in their lifecycle!). I've also got different variations of some D2e pieces in mind where a different paintjob and prep can make a piece something different, for example I'm planning on using two sets of Chaos Beasts as two entities, Chaos Beasts and (currently named) Sewer Things.

I have quite a big minis collection and am eager to get some of them into D2e so maybe some sort of logic for this including how to handle pieces that look like they'd be really powerful, more so than vanilla D2e, in a way that gives the other side a chance to fight back. Would making them more powerful work or would you just have to pretend they are not as strong as they look for example? Shouldn't be too hard to figure (mini pun intended) something out based on the range of values of vanilla items. I'm not talking about specifics for such add-ins just some sort of generic logic for using such add-ins.

There could also be a similar dynamic for adding functional scenery/prop objects/ other locations (especially for secret rooms) as extras.

In terms of balance one point I'd also make is sometimes you need weaker/lesser options in games as a part of game play is often making the best of what you've got or filtering out and replacing/improving/avoiding weaker options is part of the strategy. A good example of how this can be important is to think of some deck builder games- often what you begin with is fairly poor/basic, to do well you need to strategize to improve your deck/ potential hand. As with Indalecio's point about Blood Bowl it is also useful to have weak and strong options as it means players can to an extent customise the difficulty/ level of challenge and also future expansions may tie in to these and change their usefulness. Plus in a campaign maybe it's good if the heroes have a good chance of getting to the finale, just my thoughts.

^--- A very well thought out, cogent reply. I especially like the point of being able to tailor your game to your competition level based on the existence of so-called sub-par and/or weaker cards.

I like that we have communication happening. I have to say that i'm a bit shocked by the results so far, but that's okay. I'd like to know if there are any quests that could be changed. Maybe the armor from lotw in act 1? the 1xp you gain for it's finale? Let me know.

There is also the Community Rules Reference Guide to consider (if it is an agreeable rule set, have not checked this out much) and a lot of similar related discussion (would take some patience but might be worth reading through some of it to avoid reinventing the wheel, but remembering one person's 'unbalanced' situation might just be one person's opinion or rare case where they got stuck with a set of options that wasn't too useful at the time).

Rules clarifications and using the correct versions of cards where errors have been published may fix some issues, our group had a fun game once (not Descent!) where it seemed 'hang on the heroes have no chance of beating the Zombies, we can't even move' but it was just an easy mistake on the rules interpretation- we'd skewed the game massively by a misread of the rule book with how it was written so we'd given the zombies two decks of cards and twice the advantage versus what they should have had, thus busting the game.

It wouldn't be a bad thing to give people alternatives where people do think (rightly or wrongly) the game is flawed/unbalanced in a way people can use the changes if they want to, that could be a way to proceed with this. If it could be done in an arguments-friendly way like that there may not be any problem, plus if people think about game mechanics creatively maybe they'll be designing us an amazing game someday. However, as has been pointed out above, the more you add tor change the more risk of breaking something else, such as the previously mentioned situational options that are useless in certain contexts but very effective in others. People saying this or that card is broken often also forget the objectives for quests can be many and varied and this too has a bearing on what is/ is not useful/powerful. Or they'll say 'that costs too much so it's worthless' but maybe it needs to cost so such things aren't used excessively or because if you're stuck for options it's worth paying for and so on.

Thus another possible route to take this is the 'use what's there' rather than 'change it all' one, some sort of pooling of pick-and-choose options for what makes the campaigns easier or harder, "if you perceive this factor to be a problem then this optional suggestion may be a solution', 'it may help inexperienced players if...', 'it may be that expert players....' that kind of thing. I've not played enough yet to reflect on balance issues but suspect there's more than enough potential avenues to explore in the forums in terms of only fixing what's broken and not already fixed, such as if a card really is almost unusable, if it really does need solving then it can be addressed. In some cases it may just be about tips to play a smarter game. Plus pooling any solutions already suggested elsewhere.

Another thought is creating quests that create new challenges for using weaknesses/strengths/variable factors, then it becomes a bit less clear cut and you can even design trade-offs into the quest to make players think situationally (perhaps another reason for some of the elements that seem questionable at first, sometimes you have to see things also as tools to work with, this could give the heroes/overlord that challenge...)

If you want some idea of how to weigh up balance debates and to see how much of a headache judging balance can be try weighing up the different opinions in this thread and not getting a headache, it's also useful to read through to see how every 'problem' has different angles of conclusion, how the game might be much less broken than is sometimes stated and how such discussion could easily lead to 'roll to see who wins the balance argument':

Such threads sometimes have useful tips and suggestions so it might certainly be worth collating these in some way for those 'our heroes always lose/never lose / our overlord is unbeatable/ a walkover type of situations 'Well have you considered...'

Thanks for the reply. I'm quite sure i'm up to date on erratas, as we don't get much of those. This thread originally stemmed from users saying annual updates aren't fair when others are getting monthly(?) updates. IMO, This is because those games are played competitively in events and descent is not. I only want unusable content to see play, since the game is meant to be competitive. I could hold back playing against my son by choosing not to play cards efficiently, instead of playing printed junk among my collection.

Edit: I'm surprised that the CCRG discussed rule changes, as I was under the impression it was to define rules, not adjust. Can you provide any links for those discussions?

I'd imagine the CCRG is just a clarifications project (and integrating any omissions/errata and the like), so yes it probably doesn't have rule changes which is what your project here is a bit more geared towards.

If you're playing a younger player that could be a good benchmark for creating some rules suggestions / game alternatives for learners/ newer players/ less strategy-minded players or conversely very strong players or those preferring more/less challenge. Doesn't always have to be alternatives, could sometimes be the best heroes/ decks etc to use/not use in such circumstances.

Like I say if it's an optional thing such as a different version of the card I don't see why it should be a problem- players could tailor the game a bit more to suit their plays of it. If they don't like a suggestion or prefer it as-is then they can use the original option for that element. If they too have an issue with it and prefer the alternative they can use that.

The only possible contention is you're then making a different game and people playing it aren't learning how to play Descent, so again I'd say only make changes if there is a real need/demand for them.

Just to confirm: the Community Rules Reference Guide represents the official rule set. It is based on the official rule books, official FAQ (v.1.6) and answers provided by FFG staff on specific rules questions submitted by players in the past (uFAQ). It does not include any fan-made rule modifications.

There is one exception: Under entry Types of Movements - Move Action (p. 25 in CRRG v1.1.1.), I propose a way to handle the interruption and the end of move actions. This model is in line of the current rules and uFAQs but has not been officially confirmed, yet. Until I get a confirmation from FFG on this, this paragraph is marked as "not officially confirmed yet" in the CRRG.

6 hours ago, Sadgit said:

Just to confirm: the Community Rules Reference Guide represents the official rule set. It is based on the official rule books, official FAQ (v.1.6) and answers provided by FFG staff on specific rules questions submitted by players in the past (uFAQ). It does not include any fan-made rule modifications.

There is one exception: Under entry Types of Movements - Move Action (p. 25 in CRRG v1.1.1.), I propose a way to handle the interruption and the end of move actions. This model is in line of the current rules and uFAQs but has not been officially confirmed, yet. Until I get a confirmation from FFG on this, this paragraph is marked as "not officially confirmed yet" in the CRRG.

Thanks for the clarification Sadgit! Did you have an opinion on the topic as well?