How would you guys rank the modular sets in terms of difficulty now that we've had them for quite some time? Please, please do not link to the statistics page, there is way too much noise there to draw conclusions, it's very fun but not sound.

Here's my tier list:

Tier 4:

Doomsday Chair --- MODOK is virtually unkillable and he shows up non-stop. Plus all surge cards are better than nearly all non-surge cards essentially.

Tier 3:

Legions of Hydra ---- Madame Hydra is a tough enemy, but the Legions are essentially a delayed surge enemy, that hits reasonably hard, and has guard.

Power Drain ----- At first, this doesn't appear to hard. After all, Elektro is a pretty weak enemy. But there are a lot of boost icons here, Electromagnetic Pulse is a ridiculously powerful cards (discard 7 encounters then either surge or put Elektro in play), and in general this is the best set for accelerating the main scheme.

Tier 2:

Under Attack ---- The base game set here has some pretty nasty upgrades that can hurt you bad. Mostly just drains resources and actions.

Running Interference ---- This one is sort of hit or miss. Sometimes it can be completely devastating, other times it's not all so bad. But Tombstone is strong, and All Tied Up is rather annoying.

Masters of Evil ----- There's been so many minion smashing cards released of late that this set isn't as bad as it was in the core days, but you are still getting a set of reasonably tough enemies that soak a lot of damage at the very least.

A Mess of Things ----- Definitely on the lower end of this tier, there's nothing in this set that will really hurt you. It focuses mostly on stuns, which aren't too devastating. An extra copy of Gang Up and a fair number of boost icons bring it to Tier 2 though.

Tier 1:

Bomb Scare ---- Similar to Mess of Things (with a focus on confusion instead of stun), but far less boost icons and no threatening enemies.

Goblin Gimmicks ---- Super easy. The lack of difficulty combined with the coloring misprint leads us to never using this basically.

Supertoe,

Thanks for doing this. I agree with you on the list, the only modular set that is questionable is goblin gimmicks. Goblin Gimmicks can be tricky and a pain in the @$$. An example, couple days ago in Heroic 1 Rhino last phase, just got a bad setup with his charge and his pumpkin bombs and you can probably guess what happened (LOL). Just didn't have the resources to remove those attachments and had no options left but to that that spikey horn you know where LOL. Also if Rhino gets his Horn and the glider. That +2 Dmg on top of regular dmg...Should call him Super Rhino when he gets all those attachments.

Imo, I think Legions and Doomsday Chair are pretty close in difficulty. At least not enough to be in separate tiers.

Power Drain, imo, is only tier 3 with Klaw and in Heroic. Otherwise it's not that threatening.

Running Interference is tier 2 in expert but it jumps up a tier in heroic. As tempo loss hits a lot more and media coverage is super scary as the combo potential increases a lot.

Under Attack is also a weird one, as it hurts Leadership more than other aspects.

Some sets also tickle a hero's personal bane...A mess of things can be very tough on She-Hulk, who is particularly affected by Stunned.

Don't know about Goblin Gimmicks, it seems to work better with Mutagen formula than with Risky Business (as far as The Green Goblin pack is concerned).

Personally, Running Interference has always been absolutely devastating for me. I always get Media Coverage on me, and Tombstone always comes out to hit me hard! Same thing with A mess of things. Scorpion is one of the worst enemies in the game! He's powerful, I'd say those two modular encounters are definitely more difficult than Power drain.

Goblin Gimmiks is on the easier end of the scale, but I’d say it’s significantly harder than Bomb Scare as it contains more boost icons.

In general though, I’m not sure difficulty in a vacuum is as important as synergy with a particular scenario. Power Drain feels significantly more interesting in Klaw, since it accelerates the Encounter Deck discard even further and has lots of boost effects (which plays into the fact that Klaw sees Encounter cards as boosts a greater percentage of the time) while Running Interference feels weaker with him, as while the cards have nasty effects, they have low boost icons.

On 6/9/2020 at 2:01 PM, Supertoe said:

How would you guys rank the modular sets in terms of difficulty now that we've had them for quite some time? Please, please do not link to the statistics page, there is way too much noise there to draw conclusions, it's very fun but not sound.

Here's my tier list:

Tier 4:

Doomsday Chair --- MODOK is virtually unkillable and he shows up non-stop. Plus all surge cards are better than nearly all non-surge cards essentially.

Tier 3:

Legions of Hydra ---- Madame Hydra is a tough enemy, but the Legions are essentially a delayed surge enemy, that hits reasonably hard, and has guard.

Power Drain ----- At first, this doesn't appear to hard. After all, Elektro is a pretty weak enemy. But there are a lot of boost icons here, Electromagnetic Pulse is a ridiculously powerful cards (discard 7 encounters then either surge or put Elektro in play), and in general this is the best set for accelerating the main scheme.

Tier 2:

Under Attack ---- The base game set here has some pretty nasty upgrades that can hurt you bad. Mostly just drains resources and actions.

Running Interference ---- This one is sort of hit or miss. Sometimes it can be completely devastating, other times it's not all so bad. But Tombstone is strong, and All Tied Up is rather annoying.

Masters of Evil ----- There's been so many minion smashing cards released of late that this set isn't as bad as it was in the core days, but you are still getting a set of reasonably tough enemies that soak a lot of damage at the very least.

A Mess of Things ----- Definitely on the lower end of this tier, there's nothing in this set that will really hurt you. It focuses mostly on stuns, which aren't too devastating. An extra copy of Gang Up and a fair number of boost icons bring it to Tier 2 though.

Tier 1:

Bomb Scare ---- Similar to Mess of Things (with a focus on confusion instead of stun), but far less boost icons and no threatening enemies.

Goblin Gimmicks ---- Super easy. The lack of difficulty combined with the coloring misprint leads us to never using this basically.

Modok has never presented a problem for me, but he’s also just one minion, and most characters can drop him in a single turn fairly easily.

I’d put Legions of Hydra as the most difficult so far, if only because you can’t get rid of Madame Hydra until the scheme goes, and she makes it that much harder to remove every turn.

edit: Under Attack is just underwhelming, on par with Bomb Scare.

26 minutes ago, Derrault said:

edit: Under Attack is just underwhelming, on par with Bomb Scare.

Clearly you haven't played against Heroic 2 Rhino with Under Attack 😜

1 minute ago, SpiderMana said:

Clearly you haven't played against Heroic 2 Rhino with Under Attack 😜

I mean, I’d probably shift a lot of them around if it were for heroic difficulties 🙂

The most dangerous card from Under Attack imo, is Concussive Blast (1 damage to all characters). Devastating against Leadership and often really annoying against other aspects also. (I've had a concussive blast which took out my ally into extra attack which killed me before. I wasn't happy about that)

And I've found that attachment style cards are more dangerous in heroic in general because the tempo loss to remove them hurts a lot more.

12 minutes ago, Deadwolf said:

The most dangerous card from Under Attack imo, is Concussive Blast (1 damage to all characters). Devastating against Leadership.

And I've found that attachment style cards are more dangerous in heroic in general because the tempo loss to remove them hurts a lot more.

I mean, if you deal with it, everything is a tempo loss, it mostly depends on how well equipped your deck is to handle those things.

If you are doing one of those gimmicky decks where it’s basically nothing but energy, sure, you’re going to find it real difficult to get rid of the upgrades that require mental or physical resources. For any balanced deck though, you’re looking at a cost of one ATK/THW + 1-2 cards. Most side schemes require more than that.

On 6/11/2020 at 1:27 PM, Derrault said:

I mean, if you deal with it, everything is a tempo loss, it mostly depends on how well equipped your deck is to handle those things.

If you are doing one of those gimmicky decks where it’s basically nothing but energy, sure, you’re going to find it real difficult to get rid of the upgrades that require mental or physical resources. For any balanced deck though, you’re looking at a cost of one ATK/THW + 1-2 cards. Most side schemes require more than that.

I get the feeling you dont realize how rough Concussion Blast is with Ultron Expert:

A) It will always trigger either as a boost or as an encounter card.

B) As an encounter card It will kill you and your teammate in Alter Ego mode.

C) If you block with an ally with 1-health the ally is dead and the attack is now undefended...ie full damage on your hero.

On 6/12/2020 at 5:20 PM, IceHot42 said:

I get the feeling you dont realize how rough Concussion Blast is with Ultron Expert:

A) It will always trigger either as a boost or as an encounter card.

B) As an encounter card It will kill you and your teammate in Alter Ego mode.

C) If you block with an ally with 1-health the ally is dead and the attack is now undefended...ie full damage on your hero.

Those are all good reasons not to put yourself in a position where you only have 1 hp, nor to block with a 1 health minion when a failed defense is potentially lethal until you’ve seen both concussion blasts. (Also, you’d just be taking Ultron’s basic ATK, and that’s really not a lot, so it’s questionable why you were in hero mode with so few hp)

12 hours ago, Derrault said:

Those are all good reasons not to put yourself in a position where you only have 1 hp, nor to block with a 1 health minion when a failed defense is potentially lethal until you’ve seen both concussion blasts. (Also, you’d just be taking Ultron’s basic ATK, and that’s really not a lot, so it’s questionable why you were in hero mode with so few hp)

I don't know about you, but in most of my games, Ultron easily gets to 7 ATK consistently. Ultron two with assault on Norad is just devastating sometimes.

8 hours ago, Venompuppy said:

I don't know about you, but in most of my games, Ultron easily gets to 7 ATK consistently. Ultron two with assault on Norad is just devastating sometimes.

Yes, but concussive blast is effectively just a boost of 1, so if that’s the boost you’d be looking at only 5 total damage on Ultron II (base 2 + 1 for the drone that gets put into play on attack, 1 from concussive blast, 1 from the drone) if you then drew assault as your encounter card, he’d do 4 + 0-3 (2 base + 2 for the 2 drones, plus a boost card), that’s a combined 12 damage, and for the second one you pretty much know you have to block.

Also, I only count 4 cards with 3 boost icons, so it’s a very low probability outcome that you’d suffer the maximum, you’d be much more likely to take 9-10 damage total.

15 hours ago, Derrault said:

Yes, but concussive blast is effectively just a boost of 1, so if that’s the boost you’d be looking at only 5 total damage on Ultron II (base 2 + 1 for the drone that gets put into play on attack, 1 from concussive blast, 1 from the drone) if you then drew assault as your encounter card, he’d do 4 + 0-3 (2 base + 2 for the 2 drones, plus a boost card), that’s a combined 12 damage, and for the second one you pretty much know you have to block.

Also, I only count 4 cards with 3 boost icons, so it’s a very low probability outcome that you’d suffer the maximum, you’d be much more likely to take 9-10 damage total.

Only "9-10" is still significant, and my point is, he's consistent. Under attack with Ultron just combos well, same with with every scenario's recommended modular set.

13 hours ago, Venompuppy said:

Only "9-10" is still significant, and my point is, he's consistent. Under attack with Ultron just combos well, same with with every scenario's recommended modular set.

Yes, but it's much less than the 14 damage that would occur from 7 on each. Also, you can always block, and that's likely to reduce the total incoming to 7-8. Which is...significantly more manageable.

3 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Yes, but it's much less than the 14 damage that would occur from 7 on each. Also, you can always block, and that's likely to reduce the total incoming to 7-8. Which is...significantly more manageable.

Touche

On 6/9/2020 at 2:01 PM, Supertoe said:

How would you guys rank the modular sets in terms of difficulty now that we've had them for quite some time? Please, please do not link to the statistics page, there is way too much noise there to draw conclusions, it's very fun but not sound.

Here's my tier list:

Tier 4:

Doomsday Chair --- MODOK is virtually unkillable and he shows up non-stop. Plus all surge cards are better than nearly all non-surge cards essentially.

Tier 3:

Legions of Hydra ---- Madame Hydra is a tough enemy, but the Legions are essentially a delayed surge enemy, that hits reasonably hard, and has guard.

Power Drain ----- At first, this doesn't appear to hard. After all, Elektro is a pretty weak enemy. But there are a lot of boost icons here, Electromagnetic Pulse is a ridiculously powerful cards (discard 7 encounters then either surge or put Elektro in play), and in general this is the best set for accelerating the main scheme.

Tier 2:

Under Attack ---- The base game set here has some pretty nasty upgrades that can hurt you bad. Mostly just drains resources and actions.

Running Interference ---- This one is sort of hit or miss. Sometimes it can be completely devastating, other times it's not all so bad. But Tombstone is strong, and All Tied Up is rather annoying.

Masters of Evil ----- There's been so many minion smashing cards released of late that this set isn't as bad as it was in the core days, but you are still getting a set of reasonably tough enemies that soak a lot of damage at the very least.

A Mess of Things ----- Definitely on the lower end of this tier, there's nothing in this set that will really hurt you. It focuses mostly on stuns, which aren't too devastating. An extra copy of Gang Up and a fair number of boost icons bring it to Tier 2 though.

Tier 1:

Bomb Scare ---- Similar to Mess of Things (with a focus on confusion instead of stun), but far less boost icons and no threatening enemies.

Goblin Gimmicks ---- Super easy. The lack of difficulty combined with the coloring misprint leads us to never using this basically.

I am not sure why you want to have a discussion about difficulty of modular sets but want to completely ignore all quantitative stats about that exact topic and instead just discuss it based on which "feel" more difficult. How exactly are they "not sound?" There is obviously a selection bias as more experienced players are going to be more likely to log a game but that doesnt in any way invalidate comparing different modular sets. I am referring to the BGG stats for clarification. I wont post a link but you can search them pretty easily.

There's literally thousands of logged games, breaking each game down into all meaningful gameplay variables. For modular sets, each one has been played and logged between 107-792 times. Now my stats class is almost 10 years ago and I cant recall how to calculate the confidence level but a game designer could only dream of that kind of playtesting. Think of how different Wrecking Crew would be if the designers really knew how easy it was based on hundreds of game plays with all different heroes, aspects, and modular sets.

There are great discussions to be had about those stats. For example, how much easier is Bomb Scare than the stats show, given how players often play it as their first game, hence the high frequency of playing it? Why does Power Drain feel so difficult if the stats dont support that feeling?

TL;DR: not sure what the logic is behind ignoring all quantitative stats about this exact topic when they help answer the question but also raise new interesting discussions.

37 minutes ago, Jonathan4290 said:

I am not sure why you want to have a discussion about difficulty of modular sets but want to completely ignore all quantitative stats about that exact topic and instead just discuss it based on which "feel" more difficult. How exactly are they "not sound?" There is obviously a selection bias as more experienced players are going to be more likely to log a game but that doesnt in any way invalidate comparing different modular sets. I am referring to the BGG stats for clarification. I wont post a link but you can search them pretty easily.

There's literally thousands of logged games, breaking each game down into all meaningful gameplay variables. For modular sets, each one has been played and logged between 107-792 times. Now my stats class is almost 10 years ago and I cant recall how to calculate the confidence level but a game designer could only dream of that kind of playtesting. Think of how different Wrecking Crew would be if the designers really knew how easy it was based on hundreds of game plays with all different heroes, aspects, and modular sets.

There are great discussions to be had about those stats. For example, how much easier is Bomb Scare than the stats show, given how players often play it as their first game, hence the high frequency of playing it? Why does Power Drain feel so difficult if the stats dont support that feeling?

TL;DR: not sure what the logic is behind ignoring all quantitative stats about this exact topic when they help answer the question but also raise new interesting discussions.

Can you link the stats.

4 hours ago, Jonathan4290 said:

I am not sure why you want to have a discussion about difficulty of modular sets but want to completely ignore all quantitative stats about that exact topic and instead just discuss it based on which "feel" more difficult. How exactly are they "not sound?" There is obviously a selection bias as more experienced players are going to be more likely to log a game but that doesnt in any way invalidate comparing different modular sets. I am referring to the BGG stats for clarification. I wont post a link but you can search them pretty easily.

There's literally thousands of logged games, breaking each game down into all meaningful gameplay variables. For modular sets, each one has been played and logged between 107-792 times. Now my stats class is almost 10 years ago and I cant recall how to calculate the confidence level but a game designer could only dream of that kind of playtesting. Think of how different Wrecking Crew would be if the designers really knew how easy it was based on hundreds of game plays with all different heroes, aspects, and modular sets.

There are great discussions to be had about those stats. For example, how much easier is Bomb Scare than the stats show, given how players often play it as their first game, hence the high frequency of playing it? Why does Power Drain feel so difficult if the stats dont support that feeling?

TL;DR: not sure what the logic is behind ignoring all quantitative stats about this exact topic when they help answer the question but also raise new interesting discussions.

I was primarily trying to avoid people linking the stats and then just saying "here. no discussion" when of course those statistics have massive bias and noise in them.

I'm currently going through a stats degree in Uni, so I could do some confidence levels, but the amount of variables is horrifying there, I wouldn't even know where to begin. Each combination probably has single digit results.

Like take for example Under Attack. People are more likely to be playing that with Ultron, Ultron is a hard scenario, so Under Attack is likely easier than the stats show. Or take the core set days, Protection was definitely the weakest aspect, so you'd be more likely to lose whenever you used protection. That opens up a possibility for issues, since we aren't all randomly selecting aspects, heroes, modulars, and scenarios. If it was purely random combinations or even close to random it would be easier. But I guarantee there are players out there that "I only play as Black Panther" or "All the scenarios except Mutagen are too easy for me", so they play Mutagen a ton.

Then consider that each player has a different level. If I were really bad at the game, I might stick to the easier scenarios like Wrecking Crew or Risky Business. Playing those primarily would lower their winrate. If I were really amazing at the game (remember that Russian guy from the Lord of the Rings game?), then I might tend to only play Ultron or Mutagen, and raise the winrate for those arbitrarily.

And as for the modular encounters, they don't really have a super strong influence on the game, so I can't imagine that using Mess of Things over Bomb Scare makes you 15% more likely to lose. They are relatively small. And so on.

The stats are great fun, and can give you a rough idea of power but they are just a tool to help us understand, rather than the end all be all as so many claim. I think scenarios and aspects are probably the easiest to draw conclusions from.

Yeah I can see why you wouldn't want the discussion to end there. But they do show a lot that is worth discussing. Yes there are biases that skew some win rates one way or the other but there are currently over 3000 plays recorded, which helps even out some of those players that only play a certain aspect or hero or only have access to core set, and we are looking at one variable here with modular sets, which helps a little more. I too would like to see these broken down more so we can see these factors more clearly. It will be interesting to see how these stats change as new cards and heroes come out. You're 100% correct on Masters of Evil being a lot easier now with all the recent minion busting cards.

The biggest bias in both these stats is the fact that 2/3 of games logged are solo one handed games, which definitely makes some modular sets more difficult than others.

You'd think the modular sets dont have a big effect and yet theres a pretty big gap between some of the modular sets in difficulty, which is a little surprising given they're only like 6ish cards out of an encounter deck of 30ish. But some of the effects of these modular sets can be pretty significant. Doomsday Chair and Legions of Hydra are two that come to mind when it comes to game-altering side scenarios. I'm glad the modular sets have an impact though and aren't just flavour as they may been intended.

New modular sets might be the best way to breathe new life and challenge into older, easier scenarios by designing more difficult modular sets that synergize well with certain villains, similar to how LOTR LCG designed nightmare packs. Rhino with Running Interference is a lot of fun for example.

Overall, I think you're spot-on in your tiers. I too always underestimate Power Drain before it slaps me around. Mess of Things can also really mess with your expectations of how many attacks you will take with that extra Gang Up. Goblin Gimmicks is both super easy and a weird modular set because it's hard to thematically account for why Ultron is throwing goblin bombs or using a glider. I wish it had a Green Goblin minion for when not playing against Green Goblin villain.

Thanks for sending me the stats. I think there is some good relative data there worth discussing, but those wins rates are not accurate, there is no chance there is an above 50% win rate on multiplayer Ultron Expert (played correctly). This looks more like most people are just logging wins.

2 hours ago, IceHot42 said:

Thanks for sending me the stats. I think there is some good relative data there worth discussing, but those wins rates are not accurate, there is no chance there is an above 50% win rate on multiplayer Ultron Expert (played correctly). This looks more like most people are just logging wins.

I think you're drastically underestimating a good chunk of this community, especially the ones interested in logging their plays 😛 Ultron is tough, sure, but he's still easier in multiplayer than solo in a lot of ways. Plus there are soooo many cards that are practically designed specifically to fight Ultron.

4 hours ago, Jonathan4290 said:

Yeah I can see why you wouldn't want the discussion to end there. But they do show a lot that is worth discussing. Yes there are biases that skew some win rates one way or the other but there are currently over 3000 plays recorded, which helps even out some of those players that only play a certain aspect or hero or only have access to core set, and we are looking at one variable here with modular sets, which helps a little more. I too would like to see these broken down more so we can see these factors more clearly. It will be interesting to see how these stats change as new cards and heroes come out. You're 100% correct on Masters of Evil being a lot easier now with all the recent minion busting cards.

The biggest bias in both these stats is the fact that 2/3 of games logged are solo one handed games, which definitely makes some modular sets more difficult than others.

You'd think the modular sets dont have a big effect and yet theres a pretty big gap between some of the modular sets in difficulty, which is a little surprising given they're only like 6ish cards out of an encounter deck of 30ish. But some of the effects of these modular sets can be pretty significant. Doomsday Chair and Legions of Hydra are two that come to mind when it comes to game-altering side scenarios. I'm glad the modular sets have an impact though and aren't just flavour as they may been intended.

New modular sets might be the best way to breathe new life and challenge into older, easier scenarios by designing more difficult modular sets that synergize well with certain villains, similar to how LOTR LCG designed nightmare packs. Rhino with Running Interference is a lot of fun for example.

Overall, I think you're spot-on in your tiers. I too always underestimate Power Drain before it slaps me around. Mess of Things can also really mess with your expectations of how many attacks you will take with that extra Gang Up. Goblin Gimmicks is both super easy and a weird modular set because it's hard to thematically account for why Ultron is throwing goblin bombs or using a glider. I wish it had a Green Goblin minion for when not playing against Green Goblin villain.

The data entered isn’t controlled as well as you’d need to.

For one thing, you’d need thousands of plays using identical setups to begin to achieve meaningful accuracy and confidence levels. That means the same villain, hero, and hero deck, played by the same player. Even then, you’re going to need to replicate that same data set across many players in a consistent way, and none of that is present in online polling.

Anything up to 150 plays using an identical setup can be attributed to luck, and even when we go over that number, you’d have to consider the bias from experience. (The players naturally should become better at dealing with the same setup after more plays, and the win rate over time should improve until it reaches a peak; the question becomes, how do we know when it’s peaked for that setup, and is there a way to control for that?) Perhaps with sufficient graphing, and at some point after the peak is reached, you’d want to essentially ignore the early data, if the question is how hard is the module for an experienced player vs a rookie.