i would like a subforum for this topic, since this should be an important issue. somehow this topic was never too much of interest, even though this game has a very very very fragile balance. most (but far not all) of my comments are in respect to "road to legend", since for me, that is what descent should have been from the very start. i know there's some player made efford, like "enduring evil", but nothing official.

we all know, that the original game had many many many balancing issues and that's the reason i'm not playing normal games any more. only rtl, since it seemed to have a more even play field. i'm not so certain about that any more, but i'll come to this in a second. the original dungeons where (imho) plagued by this notion, that the heroes probably had a hard time at the start and after they got their hands on some (good) silver treasures, the game would ultimately shift towards the heros and they'd just walk through. so our gaming expierience was either that the heroes just lost during the first part of the game or we stopped playing because no one saw any chance for the overlord to win, so it was just a waste of time.

now rtl did something i loved. it gave a sense of persistence and progress. at least so i thought. we've played like 10 rtl games now and only once hit silver level (our last game), because we really tried hard not to stop before that. now why did this happen:

1. most of the time the heroes gave up because they felt too weak. it took them to long to finish a dungeon and they generally got less points the the ol even with very good hero combinations. especially if the ol got silver monsters early on the heroes all of a sudden died all the time, even though they made a lot more damage due to accumulating copper treasures. i've read through the forums and found, that even though the heroes might be WAY behind the ol point wise, they could still best the ol in the final dungeon no matter what. this seems just utterly stupid, wrong and totally beside the point of the whole game. the encouter with the ol's avatar is only a single event, which might be only 1/100th of the whole game time. so the heroes get destroyed for 50 hours and then they still kill the avatar in a matter of minutes. generally the heroes are frustrated for 50 hours only to win in the end... it's not worth it really and it makes no sense, game wise.

2. the ol gave up because he couldn't do anything against the heroes. they just ran through every dungeon or avoided it, so they were already far ahead in copper level. judging from the forum, this is bad for the ol, since he (obviously) SHOULD be ahead. it's also frustrating for the ol. this doesn't happen as much, but it happend 3 out of our 10 games.

there was NEVER in ANY of the 10 games a time when both sides had the feeling, that it's a close (and even) match, so that both sides had fun and that's beside the idea of any game, competitive or not.

regarding balancing in gerneral, there's certain points i want to point out:

a. i don't think it's good balancing to take out cards of the game. that's just lazy. all those cards make the game to what we love it for: full of possibilities, tactics and variety.

b. some heroes are never played. not ever. it's no use to argue, they are there so that there's a certain balance in the game, because i could just use empty sheets of paper of forfeit the game as a whole. ESPECIALLY if you don't play with less than 4 heroes.

c. it's nice to be able to play this game with 2-5 players, but it's pretty pointless in reallity. just balance it around 4 heroes, everything else ist just a waste of time, or should be covered in extra rules.

i'm not very experienced in balancing games really, but since i play a lot of pc games and mmos, i know a bit or two about balance in general. the easy way out is to kill overly powerful combinations and make everything similar, so there's not much difference. as i said: easy, stupid, lazy way out. like taking out cards. in the end it's always a rock paper scissors issue. we all know tons of examples, where this kinda works in the game. more often than not, it does not work. like having a horde of skeletons PIERCE through any armor the heroes could ever have. the further you get in the game, the faster everyone/everything is dead. this of course (as mentioned earlier) is very rtl specific, because in a normal dungeon, that would just win the game for the ol and that's that. what i want to achieve is a game, that feels balanced most of the time for both sides, without watering the rules down too much. i don't know if it would be the right way to just raise everyone's health or if there's a way smaller changes could help to achieve the same with less impact.

i'd like to discuss the implications of "aim" and the miss chance. my players argue, that certain aspects of the game are overly imbalanced in the favour of the overlord. for example missing. they think that a single miss of a hero is far more important than a miss of a monster. there's some variable truth to that statement, since a single mage with a silver blast rune, can clear out half the gold level monsters in a single dungeon if played right, while most monsters do quite some damage, they more like "poke" the hereos to death, rather than take them down all at once. while one or two missen can possibly mean one less dead hero, the miss of the hero is of greater impact. one could argue, that "aim" makes it almost impossible to miss, which of course isn't true. the question is, if it would be overpowered to rule, that an aimed attack can never miss, but instead costs 1 or 2 additional fatigue?

eNTi said:

Not every card that could work in vanilla is going to be workable in a campaign. You can either refuse to ever create any card that can't be simultaneously balanced in both, or you can say that some cards should only be used in one mode. And option #1 probably isn't a real option if you release the base game and two expansions before you even begin designing the campaign mode.

Antistone said:

+1.

Some of the cards that existed before RtL was made would break the game if used in a longer campaign. They can either veto those cards or they can make a list of "special exceptions" to fix them all. The list idea would be a pain to remember and cross-check every time a card is used, or even to remember which cards are on the list if it got long enough. Taking the trouble cards out of the game altogether is just much easier and helps things run more smoothly. It might seem lazy from a certain point of view, but from another point of view, it's just KISS. Sometimes the easy way is the better way.

eNTi said:

I agree that a hero's miss is generally more significant than a monster's miss, however, it for precisely that reason that I would vote against this proposed house rule, personally. The heroes are tougher than the monsters, given equal footing. The monsters NEED more attacks to take them down. a single miss from a monster might not have as much impact, but every hit from a monster contributes to the overall goal of killing the heroes. Anything you do to make it easier for the heroes to kill monsters will reduce the number of monsters available to attack the heroes, and thus make things harder for the OL. If you find that your OL frequently and without difficulty can take down the hero party as a whole, then perhaps this house rule would help you. If the heroes typically manage to get through a dungeon without losing too many CTs along the way, then this house rule will only assure their dominance.

So, does the OL in your games usually thrash the Hero party without breaking a sweat? Keep in mind that I'm talking about heroes and monsters on equal footing here. So heroes in full copper gear versus copper level monsters, not heroes in partial copper versus silver level monsters.

I'm not surprised that the hero players would notice a "weakness" like this. People have a tendency to try and optimize their own position, but keep in mind that just because they've found something they could improve doesn't mean it really needs improving. A hero's miss result has greater impact than a monster's miss result, true. But a hero's HIT also has greater impact than a monster's HIT result. For this reason, your observation about misses is not an imbalance. I refer you to your own example. A mage with a blast weapon can clear half the monsters in a room if he hits. A single monster hit MIGHT kill a hero, but usually not without the hero having taken wounds from some other source - trap, other monster, what-have-you.

If you want to try and re-balance Descent, try to keep in mind that the two sides of the equation are not made up of the same components. The heroes have a small number of (on average) very powerful figures, while the OL has a large number of less powerful figures.

I wouldn't give the heroes an auto-hit unless the monsters also got a similar bonus with their Aim cards (make it cost extra threat instead of fatigue.) Even then, I'm dubious of any "balance" that might come of the idea.

I am still kind of new to the the game for the most part and I have played just about all the quests and just started RtL so I don't know all the little gimmicks and tricks for the game. But, after reading a lot on these forums in FFG the view I get is many people don't try and make the game a challenge, I keep seeing people talk about using this combination of skills, items and heroes. One of the thing I see a lot of is allowing the players and OL pick the heroes and Avatar. How about just picking them randomly and making the best of what you have been given. Try something different and take Arvel Windwalker instead of Steelhorns or Battlemage Jaes. Try using using Laughing Buldar and not give him the standard of Battle Ax / Morning Star. The game is only as balanced or unbalanced as people want to play it.

As for the comment made about mmo's, rpg's and other types of computer games the reason they are changed has nothing to do with balancing issues, it's because people take advantage of the system and break the game causing other people that enjoy playing it the right way to complain to the point the dev's have to jump in and try to adjust the game so it can be "fair" to the masses and ruining the game for everyone. Well it's the same for board games. Stop taking out the randomness and force the players to stick with what the draw and tell the ones that cry baby about I don't like this hero to shut it and play.

But one thing I have seen so far, and I don't know how this works with this thread, but I have noticed that the game become harder with more players. I don't mean adding heroes. what I am getting at is that when my brother and I would game the heroes always worked out well together because of them all being controlled by one person, but when we added more people it became more difficult for the heroes because of the constant arguing over how is going to open the door, grab the chest, or get the kill. I wll admit it is really enjoyable to watch this as the OL. Its just an observation and I don't know if it truly has any actual impact on the game.

These are just my opinions and hope that maybe someone will understand what I am trying to say. It could also just be me rambling one at 8:00 am and should have been asleep a long time ago. but there you have it.

honKYkat73 said:

That's a good point. The hero players' ability to cooperate will have a big impact on the game. Our hero groups always discuss their strategy and then act in unison, the result being a formidable force for the OL to put down (which he still manages to do anyway, a fair amount of the time.) If the hero players are bickering or competing for things like master kills, it's going to make things easier for the Overlord. This is not something that any house rules will fix, so you want to make sure your hero group is capable of working together before you blame the game for not working right.

Steve-O said:

You can't expect every group to work perfectly well together? Mistakes will be made... on both sides. I can see certain patterns emerging in my current group, as to why they seem powerless in their efforts sometimes... But there's also the power of surprise the OL has over the heroes. They can mostly react, since they can't know, what cards I got. I can spawn in places they didn't think of or play traps. (My) players get depressed, when they are left with no other option but to run in and hope to take out most of the monsters, before they die again. This of course is especially gruesome with avatar's like the Spider Queen, because you can't do much, if anything against traps. There's no FUN in that and I can honestly relate. If both sides play to win and do their best it's still mostly based on luck, depending on what cards the OL will draw. You can destroy the best of efforts from the players with a single trap. Maybe it works for some groups because their OL sucks and still has fun, but that's not the case in our group and it's almost impossible to not have one side dominate the game. It really doesn't matter, that you will win the final fight nonetheless, even though you got destroyed the whole game. It only shows balancing going rampart once again.

eNTi said:

What you are describing is a group of players who simply aren't very good yet (unless you are describing occasional human errors).
Mistakes will be made, we are all human.

However, occasional human errors aside, there should never be places you can spawn that they didn't think of . And, treachery aside, there is a limited, roughly known, number of traps available to the OL. Heroes should be closely aware of what cards the OL has played, what is left in his deck and what proportion of his deck he has already drawn (had access to). they should also know the expected result for each trap, and plan accordingly.

There are things you can do about traps. Here are just a few...
- avoid doing fancy moves down to your last MP and fatigue - that is when a pit or block trap will mess up your whole turn
- never cluster the heroes so that several can be caught be a blast or breath Dark Charm - especially when guarding!
- always use cheap, high wound heroes (runner types) to open chests and doors, and never do it with another hero adjacent (BOOM!)
- heal before you get down to 2-3 wounds if possible, to avoid losing those last couple of wounds to a pit/block
- give the skull shield and ghost armour to the heroes most likely to suffer trap attacks
- use feats with care, when they are important, not just as soon as an opportunity arises

when we play, the hero player is frequently able to predict exactly what card the OL will play at any time.
"A Block will fall there (if possible), because that is where it will mess things up, but if I have this much MP/fatigue left, he may not bother at all because I can continue with my move..."
"Only that space there and that space over there are available for spawning and that means only Sorcerors, Shades, Medusa and Priests will be effective (Beetles are rubbish at copper), melee attackers being out of range and large monsters unable to fit. Since Medusa is copper and Priest was played in the last level, I can expect Sorcerers, Shades or 2/3 skeletons as worst case spawn next turn. Better assume Shades, because they can be hard to get through... ...Oh look, you are playing a Shade spawn!"

given, that kind of experience is unrealistic... you need to play this game for quite some time to get to that point and for that you need to cope with NOT being able to know all that. most players will already have given up on the game by then, i certainly can see that coming in our round. it's a pity, because it's the single best dungeon crawler out there and it alienates new players to such an extend, that if i had know how much we would fight over the rules before hand, i'd have never bought into it.

but i can see where this is going. obviously descent aims for the hardcore we've-been-through-so-much-**** crowd that had one evil sadistic dm since they where 5 or so. breaking out of this circle of pain seems to be a pretty much unwanted change of pace. i know, that i can always do it myself by creating my own house rules... but then again, i can also create my own game, right? sorry, if that sounds bitter, but i am. i didn't think asking for some balance in an otherwise very good game is too much.

well i tried. thank you for your patience. i think i'll just give up on the topic and see about the pain threshold of my group.

eNTi said:

+1 Corbon

I've been playing the game for less than a year and the strategic trends of which Corbon speaks emerged in our games after about two months of playing vanilla Descent. By the time we started playing RTL most of those thought processes are second nature and subsumed into the actual enjoyment of the game.

Advanced Campaign.

Spawning was sorted by our second game of DJitD. The card knowledge was sorted before getting through the DJitD quests. Each expansion after that only added a few cards...

eNTi said:

It takes two sides to argue. If rules arguments are destroying the fun, then simply don't argue. Granted, if they try to claim that a chest gives 46 treasures to each hero, you have to argue or concede defeat. But if it's not a game breaker, you can always just move on with the fun. Lay out the possible interpretations of the rule in question, the implications of each, and then take a vote.

eNTi said:

It's not, but for the most part Road to Legend is a well balanced game. It started off better balanced than Sea of Blood and has had many years of players finding the flaws in it (and them being fixed in the FAQ or GLoAQ). The problems you're describing seem to stem from inexperience and a desire to play the advanced campaign as if it were a vanilla session. For instance "(My) players get depressed, when they are left with no other option but to run in and hope to take out most of the monsters, before they die again." The heroes always have the option of fleeing a dungeon when things get to rough, and the balance of the campaign expects that they will do this. If they are refusing to flee and getting trounced for it the fault is not with the system, its with their tactics.

Question 1: Before playing RtL, did everyone at the table have a turn as Overlord? You get a much greater understaning of the OL's options if you've been in his shoes.

Question 2: You mentioned DM, were you and/or some of the players expecting Descent to provide some sort of roleplaying game lite? It's a competitive board game, and if so you wouldn't be the first to come to these boards upset because it didn't give them a rules lite version of a D&D campaign.

eNTi said:

Yes, I can.

It's a question of being mature enough to discuss your strategies and agree to something before anyone starts moving. The people I've played Descent with have all done this naturally, being all of us early 20s at the time and perfectly capable of discussing different options without turning it into a screaming match. If the heroes miss something and I score an easy kill because of it, they don't ***** about "how unfair" that is. They figure out what went wrong and they learn to better next time. By the time we had played 3 quests in vanilla Descent, the hero players knew their options well enough that they rarely had to spend more than 5 minutes thinking about it before they had all seen the optimal course that they, as a group, should take. As the one who most frequently gets stuck as the OL (since it's my game) I can vouch for how effective their tactics are.

eNTi said:

Yes, they will. **** happens. The only tragedy here is if you don't learn from the mistakes you make.

eNTi said:

Meaning no offense, Enti, but it sounds like you and your group are bit younger (somewhere in the 14-16 age range, maybe?) I remember being that age and I can understand how this game could be frustrating to a group of kids that age. Descent didn't exist for me back then, but there were definitely other games that caused as much hassle for us. Your players piss and moan about everything that doesn't go their way and you, as OL and owner of the game, get stuck trying to figure out how to make the game fun for everyone without necessarily giving up any chance of winning yourself.

I get that, really I do. The problem is that your hero players will not be satisfied with anything less than constant victory (based on what you've said about their play style and their reactions thus far.) They think the game is unbalanced because it isn't exactly what they wanted it to be, and you get stuck holding the "fix it" stick. That's not the case. The game is perfectly well balanced, it's just that your hero players appear to be having difficulty accepting the idea that the OL gets to win sometimes, too.

Are there tactics they could use to resolve the issues they're having now? Yes, there are. Will learning to use such tactics ensure that the heroes always come out on top? No, they won't. The OL is allowed to win . This is by design, it is not a result of anyone making a mistake with the rules. Sometimes he will kill all the heroes and run off cackling into the night. Your hero players, by the sounds of things, will just whine and say that's not fair every time it happens. I'm sure they also conveniently forget to mention all the times they came out of top, too, emphasizing how "the OL always wins!" when really he's only winning about half the time.

If you want to make house rules to please your group, by all means go ahead. My previous responses in this thread have not been intended to discourage you from making house rules, only to point out how such rules will change the game. If you're okay with those changes, go nuts.

Personally, I've always avoided house rules in Descent, since it would require too many of them to retain some semblance of balance while making the changes I want. Instead, I accept the game for what it is and play as written. We still have fun. HOWEVER, this is my personal choice. It is the position I would support, but that doesn't mean you have to follow suit if you can't accept that.

More recently, having decided that I do indeed want a more RPG-esque flavour in my Descent, I have decided to simply play an RPG using all the Descent bits. I know the rules engine will give me the flavour I want, and using Terrinoth as the setting will let me use my Descent bits in that context. You could do the same. Stop trying to pretend Descent is an RPG and just play an actual RPG using these figures and board pieces.

Assuming you've played RPGs such as D&D with this group of friends before, you should have a good idea of how well they would react to the idea, and I'd be willing to share all the stuff I've done so far in terms of compiling fluff text and translating monsters if you want it (I'm converting to D&D 4e, btw, but I also have most of the monsters done up in 3.5 from a while ago.) Currently I'm dividing the Terrinoth (RtL/RB) map up into zones and writing random encounter tables for each. After that it's just polishing off the plot I intend to run and it should be good to go.

i'm actually 30. my friends are a bit younger, but not by far. maybe we just didn't grow up or maybe you're right about the whole expectation reasoning. obviously since this game is branded as cooparative experience, they might refuse to see the competition between the ol and the heroes and start bitching every time the ol actually tries to enforce the rules.

maybe we just got the fundamentals wrong. like when an action can't be taken back any more, because maybe the dice have been rolled, or a player had enough time to react using that guard. it's always a (small) fight, when someone just didn't pay enough attention and want to do something differently even though the other side had already reacted in a certain way. like a hero taking back his movement because the ol just played a trap. the game is so unforgivingly detailed in some areas and totally open in others, that it's sometimes hard to adapt from one situation to another. if you enforce such small mistakes as ol you're often coming out ahead. one more round of not being able to kill that one monster can make all the difference in this game. that's actually one of my problems with the balancing. you make one tiny mistake and that mistake is enough to tip the balance over to the other side. in my opinion something like that shouldn't be possible. this game might be balanced in perfection, but it's by far not perfectly balanced.

eNTI -

I've spent a lot of time thinking about Descent balance. I posted some of my thoughts on following thread, in case you're interested. Much of what you say I agree with. I would urge you though, as I would all gamers, to divorce the idea of "winning" from the idea of "fun". Many FF games are more fun to lose than to win.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=4&efcid=1&efidt=346714

-pw