Hej,
I heard there was a rules update - where is it?
Rule book download has no obvious version number
Cant find an FAQ.
What's the go?
FAQ - Rules update
I think you heard wrong.
18 minutes ago, NukeMaster said:I think you heard wrong.
hmmm... ok what about the "online rules reference" mentioned in the rule book (page 24)? Said to contain rules specific to terrain and buildings.
I don't want to be pedantic but it seems that a lot of assumptions are being made (youtube) , probably based on other systems. A lot of people think that a least 50% needs to be hidden before an individual model is obscured (in cover). Yet the rules only reference 50% of a squad being obscured means the whole squad claims cover. So what equates to obscured?
Watching this video in the background whilst painting made me think there must have been a rules update:
just found this as well
Hope this comes out tomorrow. With the Tournament Rules and Dice App Dice.
3 hours ago, Deddog said:
That isn't a rules update, that is the actual rulebook. It hasn't been updated since the game released. What you must have been using is the Learn to Play book that has a smaller and slightly altered ruleset meant for jump starting people getting into the game.
46 minutes ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:That isn't a rules update, that is the actual rulebook. It hasn't been updated since the game released. What you must have been using is the Learn to Play book that has a smaller and slightly altered ruleset meant for jump starting people getting into the game.
Yep, feel a bit stupid but it wasn't actually intuitive to find. Pin to top of the RULES section might help us slower types ;-?
Where's a Bothan when you need one
13 minutes ago, Deddog said:Yep, feel a bit stupid but it wasn't actually intuitive to find. Pin to top of the RULES section might help us slower types ;-?
Where's a Bothan when you need one
Honestly the ltp book has caused so many rules issues. So much could have been done better.
14 minutes ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:Honestly the ltp book has caused so many rules issues. So much could have been done better.
The first page of the LTP says it is just for getting started and tells you where to find the full rules...
1 hour ago, KingCHUD said:The first page of the LTP says it is just for getting started and tells you where to find the full rules...
I know that, you know that, but not everyone does, and it causes a ton of issues. Especially when playing with someone who has only looked over the LTP book and think they know the whole game.
2 hours ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:I know that, you know that, but not everyone does, and it causes a ton of issues. Especially when playing with someone who has only looked over the LTP book and think they know the whole game.
If they said they looked over the LTP book to know the rules, but missed that.... there’s bigger problems there ?
29 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:If they said they looked over the LTP book to know the rules, but missed that.... there’s bigger problems there ?
You can say that and joke but rulebooks and teaching people your game is one of the easiest things to mess up in game development. Judging by all the posts here, the things I've seen in IRL games, and other various legion communities online, the ltp book messes up big time.
On 5/16/2018 at 4:56 AM, SwdPwnzDggr said:You can say that and joke but rulebooks and teaching people your game is one of the easiest things to mess up in game development. Judging by all the posts here, the things I've seen in IRL games, and other various legion communities online, the ltp book messes up big time.
Ehn! There's some of that...I strongly agree that there are huge variances in quality for board game rule books. That being said, I think a bigger part of the problem is how few people carefully (or actually) read rule books these days. How many of the posts for rules questions on these forums are being made by people who played the game with someone else, and are asking if that person taught them correctly? This means the person asking may well not own the game, but certainly didn't read through the freely available rules.
How many people playing the game repeatedly are going off the knowledge of another person without actually reading the rules? (my primary partner is one of them, and I keep asking him to read the rules also so he can catch it if I mess something up) How many of those are working off of YouTube how to play videos and might have never read any of the rules? I mean, in many cases it's obvious that they're going to FFG forums or Reddit or BGG and posting questions without even trying to properly interpret the relevant rules entry first.
I'm not going to contradict you because I don't know everything you have read or seen, but I would say most of the rules questions I've seen are either from people who haven't read any rules, or have read the RRG and not read it properly...relatively have been apparent to me that the person only skimmed the LtP.
10 hours ago, Turan said:Ehn! There's some of that...I strongly agree that there are huge variances in quality for board game rule books. That being said, I think a bigger part of the problem is how few people carefully (or actually) read rule books these days. How many of the posts for rules questions on these forums are being made by people who played the game with someone else, and are asking if that person taught them correctly? This means the person asking may well not own the game, but certainly didn't read through the freely available rules.
How many people playing the game repeatedly are going off the knowledge of another person without actually reading the rules? (my primary partner is one of them, and I keep asking him to read the rules also so he can catch it if I mess something up) How many of those are working off of YouTube how to play videos and might have never read any of the rules? I mean, in many cases it's obvious that they're going to FFG forums or Reddit or BGG and posting questions without even trying to properly interpret the relevant rules entry first.
I'm not going to contradict you because I don't know everything you have read or seen, but I would say most of the rules questions I've seen are either from people who haven't read any rules, or have read the RRG and not read it properly...relatively have been apparent to me that the person only skimmed the LtP.
Not knowing the rules is never the players fault in game design.
2 hours ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:Not knowing the rules is never the players fault in game design.
What? When it’s due to a lack of reading the instruction booklets, it definitely is their fault.
Ill agree the RR isn’t the best design for teaching the game due to rules being broken up amongst several points, so it’s easy to forget or miss something.
But if someone hasn’t even bothered to try and read it, that’s entirely on them.
Read it a few times, reference it when not sure of something and then only then should you post here. Ideally with quotes/references about why something is confusing or covering whaetever info you have found.
17 hours ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:Not knowing the rules is never the players fault in game design.
I...have no idea what that means. Like, literally, I have no clue what opinion you're trying to convey. Those words do not mean anything in that sequence. Are you saying that you think a game should (and, somehow, could?) allow a player to play and be successful without knowing the rules of play?
I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm just that stumped by your post. You made a statement that the Learn to Play booklet was poorly done because of the quantity and type of rules questions you've seen about the game. I made the statement that I have seen an increase in people playing games of all types and not bothering to read the rules, which means your correlation is less strong. I'm not saying the LtP book is awesome, which is why I started my post with "ehn," indicating partial agreement...but I don't know how you can apparently be justifying a board/war gaming culture that is cultivating rules ignorance.
The reason people ignore or misread rule books is entirely the fault of designers. You never blame a player as a game designer.
If people are ignoring the book or is because there is an underlying reason you need to solve. This is why ltp books and videos have become common, but they don't always work.
A large group of players are misreading rules, another large group aren't reading the rules to begin with. Both groups obviously want to play and therefore learn the game. They're not maliciously messing up. There are reasons why they have either ignored the rulebook or why they're misreading the rules. Those reasons can be solved through better design.
Most rule misinterpretations I've seen come from the ltp book changing rules or ignoring rules for the sake of not overloading the player.
Most of the people I've seen not read the rulebook or ltp are players that feel it gets in the way of jumping into the game.
Both issues can be solved by exploring different ways to approach a ltp book or video. It has many solutions. Blaming the players is not one of them.
I'm glad ffg themselves don't have the opinion that this is the players fault, because if they did we wouldn't see a ltp book in the first place. FFG are one of the better companies when it comes to attempting to innovate the new player experience of a game. I'm just saying it could have been done better here.
30 minutes ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:The reason people ignore or misread rule books is entirely the fault of designers. You never blame a player as a game designer.
If people are ignoring the book or is because there is an underlying reason you need to solve. This is why ltp books and videos have become common, but they don't always work.
A large group of players are misreading rules, another large group aren't reading the rules to begin with. Both groups obviously want to play and therefore learn the game. They're not maliciously messing up. There are reasons why they have either ignored the rulebook or why they're misreading the rules. Those reasons can be solved through better design.
Most rule misinterpretations I've seen come from the ltp book changing rules or ignoring rules for the sake of not overloading the player.
Most of the people I've seen not read the rulebook or ltp are players that feel it gets in the way of jumping into the game.
Both issues can be solved by exploring different ways to approach a ltp book or video. It has many solutions. Blaming the players is not one of them.
I'm glad ffg themselves don't have the opinion that this is the players fault, because if they did we wouldn't see a ltp book in the first place. FFG are one of the better companies when it comes to attempting to innovate the new player experience of a game. I'm just saying it could have been done better here.
As a Rules writer...
... what are you expecting?
IE: Why don’t you want to read the **** rules?
Edited by Drasnighta1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:As a Rules writer...
... what are you expecting?
IE: Why don’t you want to read the **** rules?
I've read the rules, never said I didn't so I'm not the person to give that feedback. You'll have to run tests and get feedback from those ignoring your rules. You know... Playtesting... I'm not talking about anything controversial to game development. I don't understand why everyone's reactions are so abrasive.
1 hour ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:I've read the rules, never said I didn't so I'm not the person to give that feedback. You'll have to run tests and get feedback from those ignoring your rules. You know... Playtesting... I'm not talking about anything controversial to game development. I don't understand why everyone's reactions are so abrasive.
What is needed is an intelligent communication of the rules so that players can pick them up and learn them with accuracy for the least effort.
While you want to minimise the effort for players I don't think this will ever be a zero sum equation.
1 hour ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:I've read the rules, never said I didn't so I'm not the person to give that feedback. You'll have to run tests and get feedback from those ignoring your rules. You know... Playtesting... I'm not talking about anything controversial to game development. I don't understand why everyone's reactions are so abrasive.
No no, you made the comment, so you answer the question.
Thats the price of being a devils advocate.
Playtesting does NOT effect here. Playtesting is generally seeing how the rules interact. You cannot play test WITHOUT reading the rules, and it doesn’t answer why people are not doing so, and how that is a problem with the rules itself.
I don’t see this as anything but pandering to a desire for instant gratification amongst people, when instead, I’m trying to foster understanding in the long term with my rules.
To me, if you WANT to play - TRULY want to play, then rules are a cost of entry.
It’s a basic respect for yourself, the game, and your opponent.
10 hours ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:The reason people ignore or misread rule books is entirely the fault of designers. You never blame a player as a game designer.
If people are ignoring the book or is because there is an underlying reason you need to solve. This is why ltp books and videos have become common, but they don't always work.
A large group of players are misreading rules, another large group aren't reading the rules to begin with. Both groups obviously want to play and therefore learn the game. They're not maliciously messing up. There are reasons why they have either ignored the rulebook or why they're misreading the rules. Those reasons can be solved through better design.
Most rule misinterpretations I've seen come from the ltp book changing rules or ignoring rules for the sake of not overloading the player.
Most of the people I've seen not read the rulebook or ltp are players that feel it gets in the way of jumping into the game.
Both issues can be solved by exploring different ways to approach a ltp book or video. It has many solutions. Blaming the players is not one of them.
I'm glad ffg themselves don't have the opinion that this is the players fault, because if they did we wouldn't see a ltp book in the first place. FFG are one of the better companies when it comes to attempting to innovate the new player experience of a game. I'm just saying it could have been done better here.
I have to simply disagree. I am not at all saying that having learning rules included with games is a bad thing, it's an excellent idea, and it's been done for years before FFG started doing it regularly.
But as the hobby becomes more popular to a greater number of people, and as things like tutorial videos and learning from convention volunteers become more common, we see a greater number of people who simply do not read rule books. It's not because there's an underlying flaw in the game, it's because they're choosing to not read the sodding rules. Exactly the same way we see so many questions on forums asking the same things, even years later (go look at the BGG rules forums for Eclipse) - people are choosing not to exercise basic effort in reading the book or doing a search, they just ask others to give them help. I do 100% blame people for making these choices - to use an older IT reference, RTFM!
There is no way you can design a game to just make everyone know the rules - and, frankly, your continued insistence that this falls on game designers and consumers are blameless is kind of insulting. You can include things like Learn to Play books which is incorporating a gradual teaching process, but at some point you need to simply hold people responsible for making intelligent choices - the words for the rules are there for you, it's your responsibility to read them. Games like Magic Maze and Space Alert, which include extremely gradual rules additions as you play through their rule books, still have people asking questions about material that's in the book. That's not a flaw in the game.
8 hours ago, Drasnighta said:No no, you made the comment, so you answer the question.
Thats the price of being a devils advocate.
Playtesting does NOT effect here. Playtesting is generally seeing how the rules interact. You cannot play test WITHOUT reading the rules, and it doesn’t answer why people are not doing so, and how that is a problem with the rules itself.
I don’t see this as anything but pandering to a desire for instant gratification amongst people, when instead, I’m trying to foster understanding in the long term with my rules.
To me, if you WANT to play - TRULY want to play, then rules are a cost of entry.
It’s a basic respect for yourself, the game, and your opponent.
If you think playtesting has no effect here then I have to assume you have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry. Also you don't get to act high and mighty when I did answer your question.
1 hour ago, Turan said:I have to simply disagree. I am not at all saying that having learning rules included with games is a bad thing, it's an excellent idea, and it's been done for years before FFG started doing it regularly.
But as the hobby becomes more popular to a greater number of people, and as things like tutorial videos and learning from convention volunteers become more common, we see a greater number of people who simply do not read rule books. It's not because there's an underlying flaw in the game, it's because they're choosing to not read the sodding rules. Exactly the same way we see so many questions on forums asking the same things, even years later (go look at the BGG rules forums for Eclipse) - people are choosing not to exercise basic effort in reading the book or doing a search, they just ask others to give them help. I do 100% blame people for making these choices - to use an older IT reference, RTFM!
There is no way you can design a game to just make everyone know the rules - and, frankly, your continued insistence that this falls on game designers and consumers are blameless is kind of insulting. You can include things like Learn to Play books which is incorporating a gradual teaching process, but at some point you need to simply hold people responsible for making intelligent choices - the words for the rules are there for you, it's your responsibility to read them. Games like Magic Maze and Space Alert, which include extremely gradual rules additions as you play through their rule books, still have people asking questions about material that's in the book. That's not a flaw in the game.
Never said ffg started the trend I was talking about it as an example of one thing they do. The innovate in many other areas.
As for everything else you've both said... Wow, I'm glad ffg isn't in your hands. If you're at all interested in the subject of game design you need to stop blaming the player for your faults as a designer.
3 hours ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:If you're at all interested in the subject of game design you need to stop blaming the player for your faults as a designer.
Certainly the Legion rule book isn't perfect, but what you've said so far isn't really constructive criticism. If you were put in charge of FFG tomorrow, how would you propose to fully teach someone the rules to Legion?
Edit: to be clear, I'm not being facetious. As the person in my gaming group who always reads the rules and has to explain them to everyone, this is a topic of interest to me.
Edited by Contrapulator1 hour ago, Contrapulator said:Certainly the Legion rule book isn't perfect, but what you've said so far isn't really constructive criticism. If you were put in charge of FFG tomorrow, how would you propose to fully teach someone the rules to Legion?
Edit: to be clear, I'm not being facetious. As the person in my gaming group who always reads the rules and has to explain them to everyone, this is a topic of interest to me.
To be fair im not really criticizing FFG at this point, im more trying to talk about how game design works when it comes to rulebooks with the others in this thread.
The first thing you need to do is identify a problem. This is done through playtesting. The idea presented above that playtesters need to know the rules to playtest is entirely incorrect. Once you get the point in your development where the rulebook becomes important it needs to be tested just as much as the rules in play need to be tested. You give your testers the rules, and the game, then you observe. If you're trying to figure out the first play experience you make yourself non-existant to the players and watch what they do.
Do they open the book and put it down shortly after? Why? Where? Did they get confused? Was the rulebook to cumbersome to read? Most players want to jump in and play and see the rulebook as an obstacle.
Do they follow it step by step? What do they mess up? What specific phrases in the rulebook are tripping them up?
Now the hardest. Do they ignore the book all together and look for outsiders first? Why? Is the book to big or intimidating? Would a quickplay pamphlet or reference sheet be better for these types of players? Would video work? etc.
The real difficult part is that no one solution works for everyone, you need to cover multiple bases.
The biggest issue I've been seeing with this game is mainly due to the way the LtP guide is written, and it falls under a few different issues.
- Players don't know there is a RRG (as shown in this very thread)
- Players think that the rules presented in the LtP guide are complete.
Another common issue is the change, or clarification, of cover rules. You currently have a fractured userbase when it comes to the RRG, those that have read it and gone no further, and those that read it and go to the forums to find out that there are updates no published yet. This is a big issue without an easy fix if FFG truly has to wait for approval before releasing the updated RRG. Having FFG manage their own FAQ post could help though, instead of the community having to compile emails from various sources.
Local gaming groups also have their own dynamics, you have groups like your own where others tend to rely on someone else to give them the rules and that is much more reliant on your groups dynamic than the game. You can't say that players are refusing to learn rules, just that that is the dynamic of your group. If a player is left alone, purchases a game on their own, refuses to read the rules on their own, and shows up to play matches on their own then you have a problem as a designer.
You can't give up and blame sections of the playerbase for not understanding your game, ultimately it is your job as a designer to make your game easy to learn, although some genres seem to strive for inaccessibility over others but that is an entirely different topic. Luckily like I said above FFG isn't doing that, it is other players in this thread. Players tend to be quicker to blame eachother for issues, but could you imagine a company never wanting to improve their rules or guides just because they think everything is the "players fault"?