does anyone else find this game alot easier to win then arkham horror every game ive played ive won and most of the time with very few doom markers out

Yeah, the consensus seems to be that the game is too easy. There is some difficulty adjustment depending which GOO you're playing against and how many players there are, etc. But I've won about 9-10 out of 11-12 games, most of them without too much question that I would win.

A few simple suggestions for adding difficulty...

Evenly distribute monsters. When placing new monsters, if there are no monster tasks available, you must place the monster on an adventure card that doesn't already have one, if possible, and then as evenly as possible from there.

Do not allow purchasing of Elder Signs. That's one I just thought of after my last game, and I think I'm going to keep that from now on, or at least for the win. It's very anticlimactic to win the game by purchasing an Elder Sign. And the scaling of that is not good, either... 5+ players will not likely have that many trophies to spend in the game, but 2-3 players will.

Move the clock by 4 hours each turn. Instead of 3.

To me, the game's difficulty is well balanced : if you take too many bad decisions, you'll lose. And if you do the right moves, you'll win most of the time.

IMO, It is the coop games in which you lose consistently eventhough you took the right decisions that are badly designed.

Perhaps, in Elder Sign the "right moves" are just too obvious ?

Make the following attempt : everytime you send your investigator to an adventure, send it to one at random. If you still win the game, I concede it is a "too easy" one.

wewingtonheetanicus said:

Hard to say. I've got a 100% win record with AH (30+ games) and I've got a 100% win record with Elder Signs (6 games, but we were inadvertently cheating on the first 2).

Adding a random part to the adventures actually kinda sounds like an interesting idea. Maybe do it that when you deal out the adventure cards they are dealt face down. When an investigator attempts one, then you turn that one over and it remains turned over. When an adventure is completed and a new one is drawn from trhe deck it is placed face down.

I kinda like this idea, and might try it next time I play.

Here's my list for increasing the difficulty:

10 EASY WAYS TO BUMP UP DIFFICULTY LEVEL IN ELDER SIGN:

1) Play Shub Niggurath.

2) Don't allow players to purchase Elder Signs at the Entrance.

3) Don't allow players to buy full life and stamina restorations at the Entrance.

4) Play Shub Niggurath.

5) Add a Doom Token *every* time the Clock Strikes Midnight in addition to the normal Mythos effects.

6) Allow fewer exhibits to be visited (put out 4 instead of 6 maybe?)

7) Play Shub Niggurath.

8) Draw 'The Curator' at any point in the game.

9) Remove some of the 'easy' Mythos cards and Exhibits from the game.

10) Play Shub Niggurath.

Did I mention Shub Niggurath mutilated us all the times we played? Them Black Goat be hard!

I also imagine the difficulty will be easily increased in future expansions. THe biggest thing that makes Elder Sign easy or hard really depends on your draw of the Exhibits and your draw of the mythos. Elder Sign has a lot of 'easy' Mythos cards (for example, some only give you a doom token if no Investigator has a common item... I mean, EASY), but removing the easier ones for a smaller mythos deck could also help. And if you get some of the easier exhibits, you can ignore the really hard ones and focus on the easy ones, which will bring you a victory.

As I said in my review, Elder Sign, when playing by the rules it gives you a 75% win rate. That's actually fine by me. But making it much harder shouldn't really be too difficult = actually, number 9 alone could increase the difficulty 10fold.

Same remark, the game feels to easy to win (which isn't saying it's no fun to play). In my experience, the game is best balanced out when playing with 4 investigators, as each investigator usually gets the chance to try one task before the clock strikes midnight.

Ideas for future expansions to make things harder:

- Harder, more punishing Mythos cards

- More cards or tasks that move the clock forward

- Some kind of Herald system like in AH

- 'Shifting' tasks, for example when you fail a task you automatically get sucked into a gate leading to a dangerous dimension with a task that offers little reward and great penalties, and you are obliged to succeed the task to return to the museum

*LOL* "play Shubbie"

Yup, that extra sanity task on all critters can be nasty, combined with the "monster fest" from doom advancing.

Especially if you draw a Gala and Warlock monster early locking up dice, with other adventures with tasks fo -1 Sanity to complete and 2 Sanity damage if failing (so complete the sanity payment tasks and then fail, painful). I saw my graveyard of dead investigators grow steadily until Shubbie finally stopped playing with me and overran world.

valvorik said:

The funny part is that when I played against Great Cthulhu, we destroyed him utterly. The Sanity/Stamina decrease doesn't have nearly as big effect on Elder Sign as it does in Arkham Horror, where he's the scariest of the base set old ones. But Shubbie? I'd fight her Arkham Incarnation anyday, but Elder Sign's gets me whimpering in fear!

Shub-Niggurath had nothing on us! It was much easier than Hastur. Though I've played only twice I doubt his would change much as when playing against Shubby we had non-combat characters.

I would not deny buying Elder Signs I'd just rule that you cannot win the game by buying one.

Much more so than those in Arkham Horror, Elder Sign's Ancient Ones seem to vary in difficulty by game, probably because their abilities tend to be somewhat circumstantial. Even Shub isn't that hard if you get lucky enough to not draw too many adventures with monster tasks (or monsters that lock dice). I've played only six games (cue scornful laughter), one against everyone but Cthulhu and Yig, and I've won against everyone but Azathoth, who is generally considered one of the easiest AOs in Arkham.

3 games so far. 1 solo loss vs. Yig, 1 solo victory vs. Yig via beating him in final combat, and one four-player victory vs. Azathoth by just barely getting enough Elder Signs before the doom track filled (lucky Other World Adventure draws and some very lucky dice rolls).

I feel the game's at an acceptable level of difficulty so far, but I also never complained about Arkham Horror being too easy. I'm pretty bad at predicting probabilities, so I tend to have some more trouble in games like this than some others might.

I would probably give the same advice as has been given for Arkham Horror, though. If you're finding the game spectacularly easy, probably take a look and make sure that you're doing everything right. (In particular, in every game I've had, doom tokens have popped up pretty frequently, and with Azathoth we only had two doom tokens left before we would have lost, but maybe that's just poor luck on the draw.)

Don't forget to add a doom token when an investigator is devoured, for one thing!

About 10 games, give or take.... No loss yet... (yes, even against shub-niggurath, with even distribution of monsters, no buying of elder signs, etc...)...:

And no Sdrolion, the game is quite close to being spectacularly easy. You certainly got lucky having the doom track filling up so fast .... I wish my games were challenging like that. I'm sure you'll find otherwise if you play some more games.

Somehow, I think that it is utterly wrong for a Cthulhu game to be so blindingly easy... the game should hate me! It's probably getting shelved sooner than antecipated because of it...

tiborvadovan said:

Either your getting spectacularly lucky die rolls, or you might be doing something wrong. Check your assist/ focus mechanics to make sure you're doing it right.

Difficulty varies spectacularly with luck in games like this. If the dice don't like you, you're doomed. If they love you, you can do no wrong. Adjustments for difficulty aren't terribly difficult. Just add a doom token (or two, or five) at the start of the game.

Master Fwiffo said:

Nope, playing it quite according to rules (assist is borderline useless anyway) ... Only thing I was doing wrong on first games was rerolling just a single die when spending a clue (but ended winning anyway...).

Yes, Elder Sign was too easy for me to ... Couldn't loose actually ... The thing I really love about Arkham Horror is the constant sense of dread, racing against time to seal away the Ancient One ...

I really like some of the suggestions on how to make it harder, but most of them change the game too much (removing cards for example) ...

For me, adding a doom token every midnight, moving the clock by 4 instead of 3 hours, no buying of Elder Signs at the entrance and having to put monsters on cards that don't already have other monsters was just enough ...

BTW, anyone who says they played 30 games of Arkham Horror and NEVER lost is either:

a) Unbelievably lucky

b) Not playing by the rules

c) Lying through his teeth

We played a couple more game at my bi-weekly gaming group today. One way to make it harder that one of the other guys came up with was to resolve a Mythos card at both 12 and 6. Made it quite a bit harder - Ithaqua woke up quickly, but we still managed to beat him back into submission.

Yeah, that's basically like turning the clock 6 instead of 3 hours ... As we added the Doom Token at every midnight, that would be too much ...

Another way to up the difficulty would be to take all invesitgator/ally abilities that say 'once per turn' and make them 'once per day'.....

Otherwise, abilities like Mandy Thompson's '....once per turn...may re-roll 2 dice before determining if....active player was able to complete a task..' seem too powerful to me...this is almost like a free clue token 4 times a day.......

Unless I am misreading the cards...or the rules.....

I have played 4 solo games so far and have only lost 1 through some incredibly bad rolling...on the others the Doom track did get past about 4......

spooky86668 said:

Once you get some experience, the base game of AH (no expansion boards) isn't that hard to beat. My wife and I can consistently beat it by permanently sealing 6 locations. We know which locations are the worst/most frequent, and seal those as quickly as possible. Barring some bad luck, we can win at least 9/10, so I can see someone winning 30 times without losing, especially with larger groups that are experienced.

dvang said:

Someone needs to go buy Black Goat of the Woods or King in Yellow!

wewingtonheetanicus said:

I've just played my first two games... The first game I beat the hell out of Yig. His track was half full when I won. The second game I crushed Shub with only three doom tokens on his track (and also not allowing myself to buy elder signs). I think this game is going to require tweaking to be any sort of challenge...

dvang said:

Agreed... The base game once understood is a bad joke. Even with only two investigators. With expansions, an experienced player (or team) of 6 or more can win fairly consistently.