Personally, I find the difficulty to be in a good sweet spot that strikes a great balance between newer players and seasoned vets. Of course it's going to be easier if you use a hero almost designed to fight a specific enemy, and play by yourself.

Try solo'ing Ultron with Spider-man. Or take Iron Man against all 3 villains in a row on expert and record so we can see the master in action. It's entirely possible that you are just really good at the game and are ahead of the average skill curve.

I found Rhino (I/II) to be pretty easy for Spidey/Capt Marvel. However... that's clearly the point. As others have said, it's the tutorial mission. I've also played a ton of LotR and AH, so I might as well have a ton of experience with this game already. Juggling threat and HP feels natural.

Just skimming through the cards, I can definitely see how Ultron (II/III) with the Expert scenario cards added will be far harder.

On 11/2/2019 at 5:25 PM, gokubb said:

Nick Fury is way too expensive.

I was initially poo-poo-ing paying for Nick Fury, but I've found depending on your hero/deck he's real valuable. For example I played Black Panther/Leadership yesterday and playing Nick Fury to dig for more cards just to get more Wakanda Forever!s and upgrades out was pretty key. You gotta keep Black Panther cycling and he needs all the card draw and economy he can get to keep that engine turning. Also keeping Hawkeye out throughout the game was a huge boon against Ultron. Without him pinging all the drone's I'd be in huge trouble.

As for the difficulty did you adjust the difficulty up? As an LCG veteran I found playing on the default setting was a bit easy. I think this is meant to be a more approachable LCG. AH:TCG is often criticized for being too hard for new players. So I think they shifted the difficulty so normal is easy and hard is normal here IMO. I'd say try playing with version 2 and 3 of the villain by default and maybe throw in that Expert modular set if it's still too easy.

Though I am surprised you won easily with Aggression/Iron Man against Ultron. Feels like that would be a real weak combo for Ultron who barrages you with drones very quickly or threats you out fast. I would make sure you didn't misplay something.

Yeah my Spidey senses are tingling at the OP. Ultron is a major pain. Those drones pile up quick. Can't see anyone saying he's easy.

1 hour ago, phillos said:

Though I am surprised you won easily with Aggression/Iron Man against Ultron. Feels like that would be a real weak combo for Ultron who barrages you with drones very quickly or threats you out fast. I would make sure you didn't misplay something.

Iron Man has War Machine, which will deal 1 damage to every enemy on the board, killing all of the drones unless they've been upgraded. This is game-changing, especially in multiplayer where deep into phase 2 everyone can have 2,3,4 drones on them. He also has the upgrade that let's him ready so he can deal with Ultron's HP or attachments and threat at the same time.

1 hour ago, darkjawa103 said:

Yeah my Spidey senses are tingling at the OP. Ultron is a major pain. Those drones pile up quick. Can't see anyone saying he's easy.

I consider our group to be pretty experienced, but we struggled with Ultron all 3 times we fought him. We lost the first two and managed a hard-fought win in the third after we swapped in Iron Man. I feel like he'll become a lot easier as the card pool expands over time.

I initially kind of thought OP was a little full of it and maybe he is but maybe he is just also really really good at this game...or really lucky

Normal difficulty is not very hard. Especially with optimized decks. Elite is more challenging but they still went somewhat conservative with the difficulty of the core.

There is a lot of variance with the encounter deck also. The difference between pulling Shadows of the Past as an encounter card and not is a big difference.

Klaw also, is extremely swingy based on what cards are pulled.

I agree that Shadow of The Past is a huge swing factor. I actually prefer when it comes out because dealing with those nemesis cards is a fun thematic challenge. I kinda wish Shadow resolved more consistently each game. That all said I feel there is less difficulty variance due to encounter draws here than in say LOTR LCG.

I'd be interested to see villains with a more varied difficulty. I always liked that Sentinels Of The Multiverse had a difficulty rating attached to each villain deck. So you had something setting your expectation going into the scenario.

I have tried when playing normal solo to go through all 3 stages of the villain if I finish early. Often stapling that third stage onto the villain is quite challenging considering you are probably already at an advanced stage in the main scheme and you'll probably be sitting at at least one acceleration token if not two at some point.

For those that asked, I’m playing solo and by the rules. Ultron’s drones didn’t do anything once Iron Man has the repulsor gauntlets out. They actually helped clear threat through that zero cost card that clears threat after defeating a minion.

It’s entirely true that I may have gotten lucky on the encounter deck draws. I didn’t get hit with a massive threat swing in any game. But, I have to wonder that if you lose that way is it the game really beating you? That happens sometimes in LotR and AH, you flip three or four threat cards in a row that skew the math. It’s going to happen with enough plays, but if you always play the odds, you’ll win more than not. This game felt no different in that regard. I could see losing out of nowhere possible, but I don’t find that to be a measure of game difficulty.

We played Ultron for the fist time last night, Iron Man Aggression and Spiderman Protection. We one pretty easily against Ultron, because Iron man is a thwarting machine so threat never piled up, and Tony hid in alter-ego form for so long that he was able to avoid taking too much damage. The big thing though was that War Machine is very good against ultron when playing with protection buddies helping to heal him. Without War Machine and a med team I doubt we win as easily.

Our other games have been:

Spiderman Justice and Captain Marvel Aggression vs. Rhino: Very easy, no problemo, but it's the learning game like Passage Through Mirkwood.

She-Hulk Aggression and Black Panther Protection vs. Klaw: This was a loss, Balck panther died very quickly into the game. She-Hulk nearly won though by herself despite placing threat as if there were two players all game, which was impressive.

Captain Marvel Leadership and Black Panther Protection vs Klaw: Leadership is really strong out of the gates in the core. Whereas the other factions have some iffy cards (looking at you Surveillance Team) that are diluting their decks, Leadership already has a very strong cardpool. Easy win.

I was pretty disappointed with Black Panther Protection. Thought it would be good but I think the biggest thing was that he actually has more resources than he can spend, since Protection on average is really cheap. But I think he is fine with just about anything else.

At the third time I beat Ultron in Expert mode, Solo with She-Hulk, Aggressive aspect. She-Hulk has a a few very good cards to keep Ultron at bay while you build your combo. In the last turn I dealt 22 damage to Ultron III, 11 damage just from Gamma Slam.

Fabrizio.

I agree. I felt Black Panther/ Leadership was the best deck I made for him since he has alot to spend he resources on and he can speed through his deck relatively quickly to make good use of the Leadership recursion. my Black Panther/Protection deck struggled.

I've actually had a hard time making Protection work so far, but I've been playing 2 players max. Maybe at higher player counts Protection feels better. My best go of it was Spiderman/Protection since defending for him is pretty safe and he gets the draw off of it. Then the healing lets him stay in hero mode longer thus mitigating damage and threat and then making progress through his events and allies. it felt very turtle-y. Though admittedly I only tried it against Rhino and Rhino is kinda a cake walk. I gotta see if it holds up against Klaw or Ultron. I suspect it will struggle with Ultron.

Spider-Man Protection is great, as you said, he can stay in hero mode a long time and, preventing scheming is just as good if not even more important vs Klaw and Ultron.

She-Hulk has some Protection synergies with Counterpunch and Get Behind me. It is a good pick especially if someone else is aggression and will play the +1 atk on you.

Captain Marvel Protection has potential but I think it has consistency issues.

And I honestly think Protection will be Captain America's best aspect. Can get Def 4, can ready, and gets retaliate 1. (But dont get me wrong, I think Justice and Leadership will be great too)

You can tweak the villain decks (page23) and make it a LOT harder. Also the encounter decks/cards feel like D&D, sometimes the bad guys keep rolling natural 20's and other times they cannot hit anything.

2 hours ago, Deadwolf said:

Spider-Man Protection is great, as you said, he can stay in hero mode a long time and, preventing scheming is just as good if not even more important vs Klaw and Ultron.

She-Hulk has some Protection synergies with Counterpunch and Get Behind me. It is a good pick especially if someone else is aggression and will play the +1 atk on you.

Captain Marvel Protection has potential but I think it has consistency issues.

And I honestly think Protection will be Captain America's best aspect. Can get Def 4, can ready, and gets retaliate 1. (But dont get me wrong, I think Justice and Leadership will be great too)

The problem with spiderman protection is that he just keeps blocking attacks without making any progress towards winning. His only big offensive card is swinging web kick, although Black Cat is nice too.

You really need a big aggro deck behind him to make that work, and or someone like justice iron man who can remove a lot of threat.

I've only played with the starter decks for Spiderman and Captain Marvel so far, and only against Standard Rhino with Bomb Scare, but I'm 12-0. Outside of a few moments here and there, most games have been puzzley but quite easy in the end. I think I'll continue with this for the other 3 heroes, just to get a 'pressure free' feel for them, but then I think playing on Expert will become default for me.

On 11/2/2019 at 9:25 PM, gokubb said:

Nick Fury is way too expensive.

Wow, really? At 3 cost he'd be totally busted, especially with Helicarrier existing. He's really good. His value is the burst potential and to offer whatever you need in that moment.

One thing about this game that makes it so good is that you can literally house rule it to make it as hard as you want it to be, start every villain with an extra 10 hit points when you do a boost always have a minimum of one icon so all boost get plus 1 damage or scheme or everybody gets one additional encounter card or all of the above or you have to beat level 1 2 and 3 of all villain phases,

Anyway way the basic idea is you as a player can arbitrarily add numbers to make it more difficult on yourself without changing the deck you play

The core set is definitely tuned as an introductory product. I look forward to more complex gameplay and increased deck building options, but I like the core gameplay loop.

Single player difficulty does seem pretty low (particularly Rhino), even with the expert rules being enforced. I still find it enjoyable, however. And I absolutely love the game with 2 or 3 friends

Can't wait for all the new hero/villain packs that have been announced!

Last night I played Ultron stage 2 and 3 with the Expert set and the Legions of Hydra set mixed in and it was not a victorious game I was playing solo Iron Man/Leadership. I feel if you wanna give yourself a challenge it's definitely possible in the core set. Though I agree that the normal difficulty and prebuilt villain decks do feel a bit more on the easier side compared to other LCG core sets.

34 minutes ago, phillos said:

Last night I played Ultron stage 2 and 3 with the Expert set and the Legions of Hydra set mixed in and it was not a victorious game I was playing solo Iron Man/Leadership. I feel if you wanna give yourself a challenge it's definitely possible in the core set. Though I agree that the normal difficulty and prebuilt villain decks do feel a bit more on the easier side compared to other LCG core sets.

I think one of the differences here is that the difficulty is much more granular. You have three villains and 5 sets, plus expert mode, which creates a pretty diverse scale of difficulty. For those of us from Arkham and LOTR who are used to the "Okay, that was trivial on to... WTF just happened here?!?" scaling it can feel pretty trivial just bumping up one or two steps.

I do wish they had done a better job laying out exactly what those difficulties are - we get numerics for the modular sets, but not much else. Something like Spirit Island does with a grid of combinations would have been welcome.

On 11/5/2019 at 2:21 PM, Buhallin said:

I think one of the differences here is that the difficulty is much more granular. You have three villains and 5 sets, plus expert mode, which creates a pretty diverse scale of difficulty. For those of us from Arkham and LOTR who are used to the "Okay, that was trivial on to... WTF just happened here?!?" scaling it can feel pretty trivial just bumping up one or two steps.

I do wish they had done a better job laying out exactly what those difficulties are - we get numerics for the modular sets, but not much else. Something like Spirit Island does with a grid of combinations would have been welcome.

A comparison of the modules does give some clues:

Shorter modules add fewer cards to the encounter deck, meaning it’s going to cycle faster, so a small module is naturally more threatening than a large one.

The tougher modules also have multiple copies of the module scheme, and in addition to having a hazard icon, they bring out the minion (effectively deploying 2 cards at once), and also making those very tough minions more likely to get placed again shortly after being removed.

I’ve played the game now several more times and with multiple players. It’s just flat out missing something that the other LCGs have. There don’t appear to be nearly as many decision points. And, while I can house-rule difficulty or mess with the modular sets, I don’t want to deckbuild for an AI.

LotR has an ongoing narrative in scenarios and gradual difficulty increase between them. If I run across an easy scenario, instead of changing decks and playing it again, I advance to the next.

Arkham takes that even farther. There’s the reward structure for how well you did. And, on the other side, a continuation of the story for if you did poorly. It allows for you to lose and still enjoy yourself, thus it is unapologetic in how hard the scenarios can be.

This is just a like a one-shot comic annual issue. It can be entertaining, but I’m more upset that the publisher made me buy a one-shot that doesn’t really fit into a bigger story, but I have to buy it because I like the title hero and I’ve got all the main series. It’s lack of connectivity to a full narrative makes the ease of the games a real letdown. I’m putting it down until the first campaign box. I’ll give it another try then, but for now I think I’ll dust LotR back off and play through it again.

Not all games are for all people. It's too bad it isn't sticking for you.

I feel like I have way more decision points here each turn than I did in the LOTR core set. LOTR LCG very much felt to me like the right moves on a given turn were obvious until we got into the 3rd or 4th cycle of player cards. In LOTR early on the decisions were all front loaded in the deck construction.

Also I have way more ability to customize my difficulty level here where in LOTR the scenario was what it was and you just dealt with it until Nightmare decks came around. You don't need to house rule anything for difficulty. I think they got that pretty well covered, and just swapping modular sets is pretty trivial on the deck building scale of complexity. To me this definitely feels like a refinement to all their previous mechanics.

I understand wanting the game to have a more connected narrative. I kinda like that the game is a bunch of one shots since it makes the game easier to just pick up and play for short sessions (where AH:TCG is a real time commitment for better and worse). That said it would be nice if there was a bit more story to this core set. The connected story is pretty thin to the point that it was literally just Rhino stole stuff for Klaw who was working for Ultron. I kinda want future villain decks to feel a bit more narrative and I'm also very curious what that big box will feel like in this respect. I don't want to hinge too much on it, but I do think that's a dimension that is missing from this experience in the core set.

I honestly feel like this is much more of a "test out combinations and hero stuff" game rather than a difficult narrative driven game. It feels like the "sandbox" LCG I've wanted for so long, similar to draft mode W:I.

You can actually play "fun" decks against the scenarios, and tool around messing with a ton of different builds. In arkham, you're trapped with the same old deck for hours and hours on end, and in Lotr, you have certain restrictions one what decks are actually capable of winning (you need a tonnnnn of willpower).