So all the extra encounters are given a difficulty level in the core box, (it’s mentioned in a couple of places In the rules as well) but these were not included in the Green Goblin expansion. Does anyone know 1) why not? 2) What the difficulty ratings would be for them? (I’m the Green Goblin’s booklet it does mention simply adding more or taking them out to increase/decrease the difficulty so maybe they are just all easy/mid difficulty and the extreme difficulties come in adding multiple ones to an encounter deck?)
Expansion extra encounters difficulty
The modular encounter sets don’t have a standard or expert identification on them. Theres 5 in the core set and Goblin Gimmicks in the Green Goblin scenario pack. A singular modular encounter by itself would be considered a standard level because each villains stage 1 main scheme requires one modular set. Adding an extra modular encounter set is considered expert level, regardless of how many you add, because your just throw more things at yourself to face.
Edit- Forgot the Green Goblin had 3 other modular sets besides Goblin Gimmicks.
Edited by HyperjaymanTough question as it’s not exactly clear how they’re rated to begin? Lots of the modular sets are easier/harder based on player count, as well as how well they stack with the villain’s deck. The easiest example is Klaw, where star Icons in the boost are twice as likely to occur against you.
Actually, the reason I asked about the difficulty is because the core box has encounter difficulties clearly defined on page 23 of the Learn To Play booklet. (Under Attack is Difficulty 3 for example while Doomsday Chair is Difficulty 5.) There is no such mention in the Green Goblin Scenario pack. That is what I asked, and why I asked it. Still hopeful for a response. Sorry if my question wasn’t clear. Thank you for the responses so far. Hopefully now it’s more clear what I meant!
On BoardGameGeek.com there is some compiled statistics from player supplied data. There has been over 1000 playthroughs recorded.
These are the win rates against the different modular sets:
Bomb Scare: 76% (1)
Masters of Evil: 65.6% (2)
Under Attack: 65.4% (3)
Legions of Hydra: 66% (4)
Doomsday Chair: 61% (5)
Goblin Gimmicks: 79% (1?)
Mess of Things: 61% (5?)
Power Drain: 73% (1?)
Running Interference: 64% (3?)
So these stats show that it is a complicated situation and there are tons of variables to take into account.
Above in parentheses I included the difficulty ratings as stated in the core and the ones included in Green Goblin with (?) using the win rates as an educated guess at supposed difficulty.
But there is statistical evidence that even the supplied difficulty ratings may be suspect, so take all this with a grain of salt.
Edited by HirumaShigureGotcha. I wondered if it was something like that. Thanks! Be interesting if there was anything official out there on it or if the FFG rating return for the Wrecking Crew.
Thanks everyone!
I think I heard one of the designers/developers on a podcast mention something about this, but don't remember where that was. Basically came down to: we did this in the core set, we're not doing it outside of that.
And that makes sense to me. It's an indication and within the limited confines of the core set, it's reasonably doable to make such an indication. With more and more villain decks being released it just doesn't make sense anymore to give an encounter set a fixed difficulty, because the difficulty will vary a lot depending on the deck it's played in. Also, power creep will almost certainly be a thing in the long run, meaning that if you print a module at 3 today, it might actually be a 2 a year or maybe two from now. So, better not to print it at all and just let people play and discover what sets they like and find challenging.
2 hours ago, Bhermann said:Gotcha. I wondered if it was something like that. Thanks! Be interesting if there was anything official out there on it or if the FFG rating return for the Wrecking Crew.
Thanks everyone!
They deliberately didn’t rate them. They explained in a video that the difficulty is subjective, and I think that’s quite true of the newer ones - Goblin Gimmicks contains some easy effects and contains the most cards (so dilutes the Scenario cards the most, which will make the easier scenarios a bit harder and the harder scenarios a bit easier) but has lots of 3 boosts, so you can’t really say it’s as easy as Bomb Scare... Running Interference has extremely nasty effects, but low boost icons compared to some, so probably doesn’t feel as Strong with Klaw... whereas Power Drain contains several effects that mill the Encounter Deck, so would make a Klaw (who already goes through it fast) harder, etc...
So they won’t be rating them going forwards. Also, Wrecking Crew does not contain any modular encounter sets, just one big scenario with 4 smaller decks.
15 hours ago, Hyperjayman said:The modular encounter sets don’t have a standard or expert identification on them. Theres 5 in the core set and Goblin Gimmicks in the Green Goblin scenario pack. A singular modular encounter by itself would be considered a standard level because each villains stage 1 main scheme requires one modular set. Adding an extra modular encounter set is considered expert level, regardless of how many you add, because your just throw more things at yourself to face.
Edit- Forgot the Green Goblin had 3 other modular sets besides Goblin Gimmicks.
That’s not really objectively true, as each encounter set you add increases the size of the deck, and so dilutes the scenario cards further. While adding Doomsday Chair on top of Legions of Hydra to Rhino would make the game harder, I would argue that adding Bomb Scare to Ultron on top of Under Attack would make it a fair bit easier.
11 hours ago, HirumaShigure said:On BoardGameGeek.com there is some compiled statistics from player supplied data. There has been over 1000 playthroughs recorded.
Are these based on solo play or multi-play?
Standard or Expert?
Which Villain?
All of the above: as stated before, a complicated affair and should be taken with a grain of salt. Here is a link to the page with the data:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2335981/gameplay-statistics-record-your-plays
4 hours ago, IceHot42 said:Are these based on solo play or multi-play?
Standard or Expert?
Which Villain?
Roughly 75% of the data is from solo play.
62% of the data is from Standard play.
The frequency of which encounter sets are used with which Villain varies too greatly.
They tried to do this for both LOTR LCG and for Sentinel of The Multiverse. In both situations the user created difficulty rankings were more useful than the developers difficulty ranking. So I can see why they didn't bother continuing it. I suspect just like SotM the difficulty will greatly depend on the type of decks you bring to the fight.
If I was rating the Green Goblin encounters would be.
Bomb Scare: (1)
Masters of Evil: (2)
Under Attack: (3)
Legions of Hydra: (4)
Doomsday Chair: (5)
Goblin Gimmicks: (1)
Mess of Things: (4)
Power Drain: (4)
Running Interference: (3)
To give an example of how wildly things can turn, and consequently how hard it is to objectively quantify difficulty levels... Yesterday I played Spider-Man Protection against a custom scenario that included Rhino, Bombscare, Running Interference and Spidey's nemesis set _already_ shuffled in the deck. I like using nemesis sets as modulars for the added theme or difficulty.
So anyway, I drew a lot of resources on my first couple of turns, along with Counterpunches and Swinging Web Kicks all at the right times. I also had Nova and one Enhanced Reflexes all dedicated to him. It went so well that I defeated Rhino Stage 2 without my hero having taken any damage. That was rather fun. Running Interference was a non-factor, although I did get one or two of its annoying attachments, which I promptly discarded because I was so awash with resources.
Then I realized that my game-winning Web Kick had been invalid, because a Vulture card had just stunned my hero, who was also already exhausted. Dang it. I would have won on the next turn, but I had already cleared away most of the cards and all that. I decided this game didn't count and I would play the same scenario again the next day.
So for this morning's rematch, it went so much in the complete opposite direction, it was actually funny. My hero got the Media Coverage attachment from Running Interference, which makes you resolve the When Revealed effects one additional time. I did not have the resources to discard it on my turn. Then came the next villain phase, with Rhino Stage 2 still at full health. Then this happened:
- I had only lost 1 health since the beginning of the game, but as a precaution I still decided to defend against Rhino's attack, without having Indomitable in play. I therefore exhausted the hero.
- The first encounter card I drew was Hard To Keep Down. Rhino was full health, so he could not heal, so this got Surge. Because of Media Coverage, it surged twice.
- First surge, I draw Stampede. I'm already exhausted, Backflips are in my discard pile. Rhino attacks me twice.
- Second surge, I draw Assault. Rhino attacks me twice again.
Game over.
The moral of the story is that Running Interference was once a non-factor, once an utter catalyst of doom. 😂 How do we quantify that? I don't think we can. It's possible that modulars like A Mess of Things, which is arguably more consistent (i.e. you get stunned, either through boost effects or straight encounters) are easier to rate, but I don't believe it's equally feasible with most other sets. Which still implies that it's hard to figure out what is a common baseline for everything.
Is the best we can do a sort of "average win rate" out of a thousand plays, to even everything out? Maybe. But this would have to be a such complex matrix of averages (between heroes, between combinations of modulars, etc.) that this strikes me as worthless.
Edited by Ascarel1 hour ago, Ascarel said:The moral of the story is that Running Interference was once a non-factor, once an utter catalyst of doom. 😂 How do we quantify that? I don't think we can.
Ideally it would be painfulness of card * probability of it being painful.
And I still think Masters of Evil is just about the most ruthless encounter set released to date.
2 minutes ago, HirumaShigure said:And I still think Masters of Evil is just about the most ruthless encounter set released to date.
Is that so? Without the minion synergy with Klaw, I've never felt this modular set to be that much threatening. Whirlwind has nothing special to do in solo play. Neither does Melter whenever you have no allies, or whenever you feel they are disposable (as they frequently are). Which makes Masters of Mayhem easy to play around when you have no one in front of you, because you just fetch that unfortunate patsy called Melter and beat him around another time. The toughest in my mind is Tiger Shark, but that's just one guy. In all cases I've always found MODOK harder to play around, because of his Retaliate 2.
In terms of sheer "ruthlessness", my experience tells me A Mess of Things is worse, as the pain it inflicts is much more consistent. I've also not played against Legions of Hydra very often, but my gut feeling is that this one scares me more. But there's nothing to justify here, it's just a feeling, and may be skewed or wrong.
Maybe I exaggerate, but I put them in Expert Ultron recently and it left a really bad taste in my mouth. Facing down Ultron, a couple drones, and 1 or 2 beefier minions all at the same time in solo play just felt masochistic.
1 hour ago, HirumaShigure said:Maybe I exaggerate, but I put them in Expert Ultron recently and it left a really bad taste in my mouth. Facing down Ultron, a couple drones, and 1 or 2 beefier minions all at the same time in solo play just felt masochistic.
That'll teach you to put Tiger Shark in your mouth.
On 2/1/2020 at 7:33 PM, HirumaShigure said:Maybe I exaggerate, but I put them in Expert Ultron recently and it left a really bad taste in my mouth. Facing down Ultron, a couple drones, and 1 or 2 beefier minions all at the same time in solo play just felt masochistic.
Yeah, I've found that set to be at the very least harder than Under Attack, if not harder than the Hydra one. At the bare minimum, they soak up a lot of hits. And then sometimes they deal serious pain.
3 hours ago, Supertoe said:Yeah, I've found that set to be at the very least harder than Under Attack, if not harder than the Hydra one. At the bare minimum, they soak up a lot of hits. And then sometimes they deal serious pain.
I don’t generally find it that bad - it’s just 4 elite villains and a couple of minor effects besides. All the heroes have means if dealing with those Villains, so it’s only painful if they start piling up on you.
Under Attack has some nasty effects that aren’t immediately apparent - Concusive Blast is notable because it stops the common tactic of chump blocking with an ally on 1 hp, leaving the attack undefended which can catch you out. The upgrades are also really nasty, and require you to exhaust to get rid of them.
On 2/1/2020 at 2:48 PM, HirumaShigure said:And I still think Masters of Evil is just about the most ruthless encounter set released to date.
You know what, I might need to change my own opinion on that. I've been punching a lot of faces with She-Hulk Aggression, something I decided to try for fun short-term (as I usually only play her Justice). She wrecked the Wrecking Crew so easily it was almost sad. But the
Bastards
Masters of Evil have gotten the better of her twice in a row now with Standard Klaw. It was indeed pretty nasty. Both times I was one turn away from winning, but I was at a point where I had already lost too much steam. Aggression does favour a quicker game, but you will have that rarely with this encounter deck. With the Guards, the Tough statuses, and annoying side schemes I had to take care of, I was finally done in when I drew Masters of Mayhem while being engaged with Melter and Radioactive Man at 1 HP and an exhausted Hulk. I can't wait to have and play Thor against them to avenge her.
😂
Yeah, I hate those guys.
I think that if you take 1 modular set and inspect how frequend you see 2 or 3 boost icons, you could rate the difficulty compared to a modular with more cards containing only 1 boost icon. The boost icons are the factor that makes any encounter harder by far, and the card text from the encounter card phase is in second place to increase difficulty.
Also, adding more than 1 modular set never increases the difficulty of the whole experience. You make it easier.
1. It takes longer time for the encounter deck to get reshuffeled, wich in turn makes the +1 acceleration token to get delayed.
2. If you put in a modular set, the experience and hardships that it offers, gets watered out, compared to the nasty synergies that could occur if you only have that 1 modular set.
I will try to make this inspecition myself later, and post the reslults.