richsabre said:

Why should that be a problem?

"Power creep" is a problem in competitive games because it means that whoever spends the most money usually wins against the other player. But this isn't a competitive game. You don't play against other players. If scenario 4 from cycle 4 tends out to have a relative DL of 12, then you can bet the player cards will be able to match it. And why not? Why is that a problem?

Stenun said:

i want to say because it will make previous cards useless as all decks will just use the buffed up versions of them i.e. a new dwarven axe with +4 attack etc.

however taking your original point in context i now see what you mean-players arent forced to use that new axe instead of the old one, and id probably do the same being a theme guy, so yeah.....your point is understood

It's been stated numerous times in my posts on this topic that I am concerned about the impact on competitive format (amongst other things). We know there's no such thing right now, but FFG promised to create organized play at some point. They even went so far as to change the scoring system in preparation of this, so you can look at it from the "casual / no competition" point of view if you want (and I do admit that in such a perspective, the "don't use it if you don't like it" is perfect), but some players also want to look at it from a more competitve perspective.

Once these tournament rules are known (especialy in a 2-player format), it'll be easier to evaluate the impact of Zigil Miner.

And this game has an "easy" mode. It includes playing with 30 cards decks and ignoring shadow effect. So the current version is already medium. And we also have a "hard" version (the Nightmare mode, which the rules support).

As for power creep, the issue is not so much with quest # 4 of cycle 4. It's with quest # 3 of cycle 1. If that quest, 4 years from now, becomes so easy that any deck beats it with closed eyes (using the whole card pool available then), then you make a huge part of your game useless (or at least less useful). I think it's better for all quests to remain playable and enjoyable over time, and I do hope that Hill Troll in Journey Along the Anduin will still be a challenge 5 years from now. This is what a major (as opposed to a slowly happening, which seems pretty much inevitable) power creep would do.

But it's also with quest # 4 from cycle 4. That quest should still be playable and enjoyable with a single core set, one major expansion and that specific adventure's card pool. Because they can't assume everyone will always have all the cards.

In all honesty, designers have themselves quite a challenge with this format (coop game, static opponent). They're bound to do mistakes (this game is a first of its kind, after all), but I'm sure we all which them to keep on producing the same level of quality in that game (ok, I know Glaurung will pipe in here ).

[i still think Zigil Miner was a mistake, but I won't ask for their head on a plate just for that. The game remains great fun!]

SiCK_Boy said:

well said.....its easy with all this arguing...er discussion ...to loose sight of that fact, and i couldnt agree more, its still the most fun you can have with a piece of card

SiCK_Boy said:

If the problem is a worry about how this will impact on something that doesn't even exist yet ... then, er ...

Is that really a problem??

Surely "wait and see" is the obvious answer? There's no competitive scene right now so let's just carry on with what we have. :-)

If we start worring about what might happen in the future then you're never going to leave your house in the morning for fear of a traffic accident ...

This forum should be seen as a customer feedback tool from the designer's perspective.

I don't see anything wrong with trying to help them NOT make mistakes in the future.

It's always easier to prevent such mistakes from happening in the first place rather than correcting it after the fact. Other such examples include the scoring system which had to be wrong from the start since they did change it after less than a year of play. Maybe if they'd asked around about their scoring system, someone would have pointed out that it encouraged "turtling" (as for whether that is good or bad, they made their mind on it, but they must have missed some obvious facts in the first place, probably by lack of playtesting).

Other such examples where a bigger / more experienced testing team would probably help them include the language (see the thread about dead heroes), the whole turn sequence and action windows, the wording on Frodo Baggins, the overpower of Zigil Miner, etc.