Hey folks,

So after nearly half a year of playing, we finally finished our fist RtL campaign last night - by the way, if anyone has the link to the old forums where people submitted their campaign stats (wins, losses, etc.) I'd be happy to contribute.

The heroes won out over the Overlord (me) in the final battle. Overall we all seemed to have a fun time with the game, but we all agreed that the severe balancing issues in the early and late game were a major problem. We house-ruled to nerf Crushing Blow (only acts on equipped weapons, cannot be used by Lieutenants), and for future games will take gold costs away from buying skills and upgrades, as otherwise they will NOT be getting purchased.

But the one big issue I wanted to discuss was the final room in the Sorceror King's keep - SPOILERS.

Upon first reading the description, I got excited - here was a great concept that seemed to have been executed in a challenging, interesting way. However, as soon as the door was opened both the heroes and I discovered a big problem - there is no reason for the heroes to enter the room. They can just shoot at my mirrors from the corridor, then back out and get out of my LOS/range. And since I don't have a hand, there is no time element whatsoever, so they are guaranteed to wipe out all of my mirrors. Granted, I did get my first round of a battle action in - when they opened the door - but this nevertheless left me feeling disapointed.

Granted, I am well aware that Descent is a VERY unbalaned game, but this one mirror "bug" seems really obvious. I really don't see how something like this could slip through - even a single play-test of the dugeon would reveal such a glaring bug.

And on the other hand, if the heroes HAD been locked in the room with me, I'm still getting a battle attack each turn from one of EIGHT sources. That means that by the time they've destroyed all the mirrors, including my first round of attacks, I will have gotten at least six attacks on them, if not eight, and that is most likely at least two dead heroes guaranteed, and suddenly it's not balanced yet again.

While I doubt we'll ever do it again, if we did, I would suggest we reduce it to four mirrosr, but make it so that all the heroes are teleported into the room and cannot leave, so that I can attack them.

For the other Sorceror Kings out there, how did this go for you? Any thoughts?

PS
Not to mention the fact that when my Avatar finally did appear, even though he had 216 wounds, he was SCHOOLED. All the heroes were getting battle actions on him and they ate through him in 2-3 turns - how did you guys do?

Indeed. I doubt the Sorcerer King's final battle was playtested even ONCE. Back in the old forums, the same flaw has already been reported. Basically, the mirrors are toast, period.

Also to watch out for is the Grapple skill, Bear Tattoo. If the Sorcerer King has purchased Arcane Energies, and thus gets Blast, then the Heroes will corner-grapple him, and he won't be able to attack the grappling Hero without attacking himself. Said Hero will dodge, and equip two shields. Enjoy.

We had the same problem. The game was loads of fun to play and I as overlord was doing very well - I had bought every upgrade possible for the Sorcerer King. Moreover, the heroes drew some difficult levels for the OL Keep, so I went into the final fight with 256 wounds and rolling the white, 2 green and 4 gold dice. I managed to kill one hero, but didn't stand a chance. Especially the fact that you don't have aim and dodge cards really hurts, as well as the fact that there are no other creatures around. Having some creatures like a lieutenant would really help a lot IMO.

I just find it so puzzling that, by all appearances, this thing wasn't even play-tested. Not even once. What is that? I mean, I'm pretty sure that there is a play-test credit in the book, not to mention the fact that you'd think a company like FFG would have mandatory play-testing as part of their design process.

If man-power is a problem, FFG, me and my group would be happy to play-test your stuff for free. Kevin Wilson, you out there? Care to offer some explanation? Honestly, I'll buy "we were rushed and had to get it out the door and couldn't test it", but what I just don't get is why you wouldn't want to solicit help from a very willing and active fan-base.

Cheers!

This is main problem of Descent. The idea is great and game generates lots of fun, but so many things are broken. Every new addon makes it even more unbalanced. Some levels almost impossible to pass, some other too simple. Some skills are key to everything, other skills doesn't help anyhow. After RTL I seek no more for new addon, I want to get new game, same as Descent but balanced one. Less contect is fine. I hope we get one in next 1 or 2 years.

I'm going to post a complete Devil's Advocate rant here to oppose the viewpoint that the game is completely unbalanced, so view it in that light. I'm sure I'll still get blasted for it anyways and potentially regret it later, but it needs to be said. Just remember I'm not trying to be an a**hole about it.

Do you have any concept of how much goes into designing a game? It can take years to get it to its final product and in the completely saturated Dungoen Crawler game genre you can't sit there forever and work out every tiny piece of the game. And with the amount of things in Descent, between Heroes, Treasures, Plots, Potions, Skills, Monsters etc etc they could have playtested this thing for a DECADE and they still wouldn't have worked out all the bugs. Did you really think it was going to be feasible for them to playtest extensively all the possible combinations of Quest (or Avatars/Plots for RtL) and Hero/Skills/Item combinations possible in this game to create this sublime utterly balanced game? Show me one board game that is completely and utterly balanced. Have they missed some obvious ones? Yes, they have but I'll gladly forgive them those in light of the rest of the game.

A game of this size will NEVER be balanced, accept it. Remember, a lot of times the people who playtest the game are gamers just like the rest of us.

If you have such a problem with the balance of the game, then don't play it. There are plenty of us who have no problems with it being unbalanced.

May Crushing Blow Live Forever.

Hmmm...

Just look who's leading playtesting at FFG and you'll stop wondering why the game is so flawed, unbalanced and full of annoyances like this...

ZzzZzz said:

I've never met/interacted with Mike Z, but I've seen mutterings that imply that he's not easy to get along with. I don't see yet how that should affect his work, but please, feel free to enlighten me.

While it does seem like the playtesters never even thought of hiding from the Avatar and abusing that idea I'd say just saying that the door closes for good at the start of the next Avatar's turn and your players will run in from being cut off and you'll still get the same fight they intended in the game.

Playtesting is tricky, because in a game that has this much replayability we can't expect the playtesters to try out all the possible combinations and tactics. In an industry with deadlines, playtesting is an easy place to cut time from and for the whole the game is still great. This is not as big of a flaw as, lets say, releasing a video game that crashes or X% of cars are lemons.

The game is still great, the problem may seem big but if your players want fun then houseruling can balance things out, and since you've finished that campaign I'd recommend the demon or beastman this time through and maybe you'll enjoy that much more.

Plus, the overlord has at least one and often two other ways to win the game. Even though I was toasted being the Sorcerer King, I didn't mind that much. When I play him again, I'll just make sure to work harder on my plot and on razing Tamalir

Big Remy said:

You don't really oppose the viewpoint that the game is completely unbalanced, you even concede it

And it's not because you cannot perfectly balance anything that you cannot improve the balance. And you have no right to tell me whether I can play the game or not

An other solution is to houserule the game, but some people here seem to have religious bias against doing it.

I'm glad I'm not playing the Sorcerer King!

My point of view.

Descent is unbalanced right from the start. You get a lucky mix of characters and skills and you rock. Combine that with lucky initial treasures and it could be all over just after it begins. Thats just the game (unfortunately)

Playtesting. Yes, this is lengthy. However, FFG is a big company and there should be no excuse for not playtesting something. However, it could be that this was missed at playtesting. It could be that this level was played once, or it might never have been playtested at all.

It is a little shocking though to hear session reports from people saying that most of the quests in WoD are virtually impossible. Things like this make me question the amount of playtesting done.

I'm still playing my first Descent campaign, and we have only played about 12 dungeon levels, but already some of them have been odd. Take the Monastery (27) for example. I'm pretty sure this also either wasnt playtested, or what is printed is wrong as I cant see any way that the leader ever appears. Last session we played the level with Flametongue the Dragon. The heros made it through the level without taking a single wound!

Either way, if something is broken, maybe it needs the collective power of us to fix it.

If anyone has any suggestions here about how the Sorcerer's Keep dungeon can be fixed, let us know.

Letting the OL place guard orders would be the easiest fix I can see.

Thundercles said:

I had my share of issues with this guy, that I wont bring up here since it isn't the matter of the subject, but let's face it... someone that doesn't go along well with people in charge of a team....

FFG should have a dedicated testing team on the payroll, including it's team leader.... You get the QA you pay for... in this case, QA is lead by a volunteer, and testing done by FFG employees on their spare time or gamers recruited in public forums... enough said.

Galdred said:

I certainly think there are places where the game needs balance, but I certainly don't think it is wildly unbalanced like some others. Its just that people seem to assume that things were never thought about when it might be that it never came up in playtesting or was something that was unavoidable.

If people want to house rule things that fine, but I've seen a number of house rules that completely hamper the OL. Pretty much any houserule I've seen concerning Crushing Blow for example.

As for telling people not to play it, that was more along the line of me not understanding if someone had such a horrible time and thought the game so unbalanced, why you would want to play it again? Just not worded correctly.

Well, this is something - I'm glad to see I've incited a discussion, but I certainly don't want to start an "us vs. them" battle.

Big Remy , I see your point. And no, I don't mean to insult FFG or Kevin Wilson - I don't have any game design experience myself and so I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt. That the game was designed and tested in good faith.

What I'm mainly getting at here is the idea of play-testing. While I agree 100% that it's crazy to assume EVERY scenario was tested FULLY, I do think at least one basic run-through should be mandatory. And for anyone who has looked at the Sorceror King's keep, it's very obvious what the heroes will do. And as I said originally, if they DIDN'T do this, but instead were locked in the room, there is no way that they would survive, what with me getting one battle attack from eight different sources. My original suggestion was just to force them in the room, but make it only four mirrors.

Anyway, back to my original point, as stated below:

Paul Grogan said:

The issue I'm trying to get to the root of here is: was this game tested? Were all of the maps/scenarios tested? Even once? That is where I've got a beef - I just don't get why this would be a problem, again, especially with such an active and friendly fan-base. When I said it I meant it - Kevin Wilson and co., my group would be happy to volunteer our time as play-testers. And I'm sure there are dozens of others that would as well - this would help you and it would be fun for us.

I'm just wondering why the game wasn't tested. Or, if in fact it was, can we get some sort of explanation as to the process? Perhaps there were so many OTHER issues to tackle that certain things slipped through? Although, again, how some of these very glaring things slipped through is puzzling.

I love the game and plan on playing it more - and yes, I agree that house-ruling is the best and easiest way to fix a problem, but some you can't anticipate until they're already done.

dementia13 said:

The sorcerer may only attack once, wether you have 1, 4 or 8 mirrors, so it doesn't change that much (except for the fact that the sorcerer king gets a longer time to attack before the heroes can get to him).

Concerning not houseruling CB, I don't know how that could make the game interesting, as it is way too good for the cost. If the OL plays it 100% of the time, which he should do if he has any interest in winning, I don't see how the heroes can come up on top, as they'll average 0 item/dungeon (sure, they get gold, but they'll have much less for training, and they'll be stuck with the crappiest items.

I don't see how letting it as is can be acceptable, as it is much more powerful than any other treachery card (what's the point of wasting 1 treachery on pierce, when you can get rid of the hero's armor for good for the same price?).

The OL might need some buffs, but having to rely on the same treachery cards everytime is the definition of a broken combo.

Concerning the complaints about the game balance, there would be a lot less if the game itself was poor, but it is not, and the balance issues themselves can make it frustrating because it is that much potential wasted (or it can be, it depends on your reliance on balance).

I think RTL is a large improvment over vanilla in the balance department, but there are some things that still need tweaking.

Galdred said:

I don't see this as anywhere close to an accurate argument.

The only time as OL I ever get to cycle through the deck is if I get the 3cards/turn Power out in the first level. And that usually results in a fled dungeon soon after. Basically, at 146CT in our campaign at the moment, precisely 3 have come from deck cycling (and that includes focused bought at the start).

My opponents heroes just play too fast. This means that if I buy both CBs with my treachery I will on average get to use 1 per dungeon. Its just not a high enough return. I managed to keep the Mage down for a bit by CBing the magic items as they weren't coming up much in the treasure draws but it still wasn;t enough.

Last night we played the ToI Secret Garden Level with the Singing Shade. It took a loooong time for the heroes as they have two melee only characters who couldn't hit the shade, the Ranger and Mage are the weakest, there are no lines of sight and lots of spawn opportunities (its a maze), there is about 15 squares from the starting glyph just to the edge of the maze, and entering a tree space ends the heroes turn and does 2 wounds. They were real lucky I only have Bronze Eldritch...

I used a Green Treachery Glyph here (Sundered, only 1 CT and no connection to town), so when the Ranger and Mage died (4 times between them) they had to go right back from the start and run a couple of turns or so to get back to the fight (its just a bonus that heroes don't get 2 of their CT from the glyph!) The boss Undy-ed once successfully as well.

Yet despite how long it took to get through this level, with 2 heroes useless against the boss and the other 2 vulnerable and out for several turns when they died, I still got through only about half the deck.

I got two turns on the next level (the summoning), so that is only another 1/10th of the deck. They will almost certainly get through the entire dungeon without me cycling the deck, and most of what I have seen is because I used my green treachery elsewhere ( you could not imagine a more perfect scenario for a sundered glyph). I have seen 26 cards so far - 17 in discard, 1 Power Card in Play (Brilliant Commander), 8 in hand and there are, what, 46(+ treachery) or so in the deck? I suspect I will get no more than 3-4 turns on the next level (one with 2 skeleton masters), so thats another 6-8 cards. So I will see about 3/4 of the cards max.

In other words, if I stacked my deck with both CBs, then, despite 1 of the dungeons taking an exceptionally long time, I could have gone through the entire dungeon while seeing only one, or even neither, of the CBs. EVen if I was lucky and saw both I'd still be behind. The heroes have meanwhile picked up 3 treasures from chests (3 chests on first two levels, 1 each chest), with a level to go and have bought 1/4 at the market. I couldn't keep up if I tried the CB route in dungeons, and I get much greater mileage out of Poltergeist and the Sundered glyph is effectively 2CT GUARANTEED (well, -2 to the heroes), plus putting the heoes through an awful lot of trouble through blocking town access.

Poltergeist is broken. You shouldn't be using that....

Just kidding, just kidding.

Schmiegel said:

True though!

I am an evil overlord after all...

Corbon said:

That seems a bit odd. As you say, maybe your heroes are playing quick. But surely if they play this quick, they are missing out on other things. My heroes are walking our campaign, breezing through levels, but I still manage to cycle through my deck once sometime when they are on level 3 of the dungeon.

Hi,

Galdred said:

Houseruling is sometimes not that easy, at least not for my playing group. In many playing groups, often the Overlord is the one owning the game and knowing the rules best, so I guess that makes houseruling easier - he is the authority on game rules, so the players will tend to accept his rulings.

In our playgroup however, two of the players own the game and I, the Overlord, do not. But we all know the rules equally well and read about the rule discussions on the net. More often than not, the need for a houserule comes up while playing - and then most players are biased, because that houserule will affect them now . It's difficult for some to leave the current situation, to abandon the mindset "I'm a hero/Overlord and have to win!", and discuss a houserule unbiased. At least that is what I have experienced. Players tend to vote for nerfing Crushing Blow, Overlords tend to vote for nerfing Telekinesis etc. Add to the fact that there are more players than Overlords in a given group , and you have to be careful not nerfing the Overlord too much...

I play the Sorcerer King. I haven't looked at the map of the keep yet (and won't, as I'd like to be surprised at least a little bit), but from reading the forum I know about the problem - and I bet I won't be able to houserule it when we reach that point, not when the heroes have smelled blood and like to win.

That's why I think official FAQs, clarifications and consistent errata that are actually thought through by the designers are so important, and that's why I feel let down by FFG.

-Kylearan

Hi,

warning: Rant ahead.

Neostrider said:

I agree - it's virtually impossible to playtest such a long and complex game enough until release date, so I don't mind it having some problems. BUT, that is what post-release support via FAQs, errata and clarifications are for, and here I feel really let down by FFG. We, the players, are the best playtesting group available, and I do expect from a company to listen to us and incorporate our findings into new expansions, FAQs etc. And what happens? Rulings and clarifications are sloppy and not throught through well, the FAQs are full of contradictions, and there are still a lot of unanswered questions left that I guess will never be addressed.

That such a problem like the Sorcerer King's keep hadn't been found during playtesting is a pity, but somewhat understandable. That it isn't addressed in an official errata is unexcusable though, at least to me. I know I'm weary of buying any complex FFG product in the future, because I know chances are high that I will have to live with a product with no real support afterwards.

It's like the new FFG forum: All looking shiny and great at first glance, but unfinished, lacking and frustrating when you actually use it and no sign of improvement on the horizon. At least to me, even though Descent/RtL is a fantastic game, FFG's image is seriously damaged.

-Kylearan

Ah, Xandria will add her input, wise and thorough as usual.

When you create a game, you will come up with a lot of ideas, and have to filter them and choose the best that add to the game. Then, with each idea, you have to ask a crucial question: "How will it act in a worst-case scenario at a breaking point?"

Meaning: Can a tense and critical moment in the game have a fully unsatisfactory outcome due to a flawed rule?

Also: when you add an ability, consider: "Is a scenario concievable where one of the sides would have no way of counteracting it, whatsoever? Would said situation, if achieved, mean that one side has to trudge through the rest of the game passively with no chance of changing it? Telekinesis is so, ruining several avatar battles as it stands. Rapid Fire with Gauntlets of Brokenness. Soaring Silver Master Demon at Tamalir in copper too (really easy to get, with but 2 treachery on turn 1 of a Lt. battle). Merrick, Danger + Dance of the Monkey God.

It was not given this one basic thought, which takes me, and I have not designed the game, about 2 minutes per card / level.

I spent about 210 Euro on those boxes, and for that sort of money, I'd like to have at least basic playtesting. Nothng can ever be 100% proof.

While I love Descent, I honestly do, it sees far less play than it should because of all the flaws.

As voiced above, pass a preliminary draft of new rules, skills, critters, heroes and items to US, THE FANS. We will find your bugs. Have us pass an IQ test before for all I care to weed out the "omg imba haxx!" crowd. I personally would love to be included in the design process, even for free. Want me to sign a disclaimer to hand over the "mental property" I create? I will.

Why?

Because making a good, enjoyable and thoughtful game is FUN.