There is something that confuses me, and has done pretty much since this game came out, and i wanted to discuss it here.

basically, how is there such as big difference in player opinions when it comes to difficulty? i mean, i see every week new threads stating how easy quests such are flight from moria, or into the pit are. i find these really difficult. i know alot of players do. but there seems to be more players who go towards the easy side of the spectrum

why is this? are they more dedicated to winning? i play a hell of alot, but i admit i dont put much sway on whether i win alot or not. i obviously WANT to win, or else i wouldnt be playing at all, but i dont care for a high win ratio.

if it isnt dedication to the game, then is it competence/experience? and what is experience? i consider myself experience in this game as ive played since april, however i am certainly not experience in the general lcg, ccg area, as this was my first one. so are these players who cry 'to easy!' more experienced than players who find it much harder. that would make sense, but i seriously cant see how it could make such a big difference that you get threads that are knocking about at the moment that say 'i cant lose khazad quests' or osgilliath- 'piece of cake'

ok, firstly there are decks that supposedly break the game- i dont want to talk about them here, but are these the reason for the big difference in player competence? are these players making hugely powerful decks for the sake of winning? is it that these more experienced players who have played Magic for years automatically gain an insight to what decks will work? is deckbuilding pretty much the same then in all lcgs?

now, seeing all these too easy threads was at first disheartening, especially given how much i play. but now it doesnt bother me, it just sort of confuses me, i seriously cant get my head round this. maybe more experienced players can speak up and will have a blindingly obvious answer that will make me red-faced, but i just gotta know

also its worth pointing out i actually prefer sort of sucking at this game (well not sucking- ive won all quests apart from guldur/into pit and flight from moria) as i enjoy trying to win, and i think i probably get more play time out of it

peace

I would bet that most people are playing incorrectly. Though just like any game some peopel are just going ot be better at it than others.

Good question Richsabre, a simple answer seems hard to pin down! That probably means that the situation is more complex than I thought.

I've only been playing for about 6 weeks, I bought a core set, liked it then bought the Mirkwood expansions, they arrived 2 weeks ago and Khadad Dum arrived last week. I used to play (a lot of) Magic, so I'm used to deck construction games. I've noticed a few things over the last few weeks.

1. I played the core set quests (2-player) and really struggled, we got whooped several times. It wasn't until our 4th trip down the Anduin that we got our first victory on that quest, and boy were we chuffed.
2. After 2 weeks playing I knew the cards pretty well and could build 35 card decks that won more often than they lost. My deck building skills had increased from 1 (out of 10) to 4.
3. The expansions brought new quests and more importantly, more player cards. The songs made 3 sphere decks a real possibility, play testing showed them to be more flexible than my previous decks. I could now build 50 card decks and my deck building skills increased again, maybe to 6 out of 10. I was beating the new quests on the first or second attempt, without knowing what the quest was, using a "generic" deck. The only exception was Rhosgobel, my playing partner knew this quest and played a deck with lots of healing and picked when to move onto the last stage of the quest.
4. This was the first time I noticed that my play style was improving, I was better able to judge the pace of the game, and "knew" when to push to complete a quest stage, and when to hold back and build up my board position. My play skill had gone from 1 (out of 10) to 5 without me really noticing. Sadly, my playing partner and I were developing different strategies that didn't always work well together.
5. Then came Khazad Dum. The quests seemed tricky to start with. I was playing 2-player again and we did defeat all the quests pretty much on the first attempt but they were really hard and took good play to deal with the new situations that came up. There was a sense of doom as the enemies kept coming, groans at the new treacheries. Again I was using a "generic" deck and hadn't read the quests in advance, so didn't know what was coming up. Now I have played the quests several times (both 2-player and solo) I'm in the "too easy" camp but interestingly, not because they are really too easy! I enjoy the games, but knowing what is around the corner takes away that "seat of your pants" feeling, winning doesn't seem as rewarding and I come away wishing for more challenge so I can relive those early experiences.
6. Finally I started trying out the weekly tournaments run by Juicebox. These got me trying out new ideas, using new heroes and new play styles. My play style was pretty risk averse, but the new scoring system promotes another approach. I guess my play skill has increased to 6 out of 10 by doing this.

The game seems pretty well balanced when using 1 core set and the expansions available up to the point the quest was released. They offer a good challenge at the start and get easier with play. I wouldn't want it any other way to be honest.

So there seem to be 3 things changing over time.

1. The card pool is increasing, this make the earlier quests easier. To compensate, FFG are doing a good job of producing slightly more difficult quests.
2. As you play you'll tend to get better at playing, only a few people will get to 10 out of 10, others will cap out earlier.
3. When you're pushed to try out new things, you'll get better at building decks. New things could include getting new cards, or trying weekly challenges with restrictions on the card pool available. It can also include seeing other deck ideas posted, trying them out and then making them fit your own play style by making adjustments to the deck construction.

Is the game too easy now? No. I win more often than I used to but that is not because it is too easy, it is because I have improved. I can now play different sorts of decks, using heroes that have been gathering dust if I want a new challenge in a familiar setting.

Do I want more challenge? Yes. I eagerly await the next expansion and the chance to explore into the unknown. I keep a close eye out for new home made quests and have even tried making some of my own.

I would also concede the point that I and my little hobbits who sometimes join me have increased our ability. So the quests are not necessarily easier, but I understand the game and certain key card combos much better. I will say a lot of this has come from help in the forum here as well as competing in the tournaments which really have pushed me to try differing decks in order not just to win, but to compete. There can be some loss of enjoyment if you end up competing only to continually better a score, yet at the same time, doing so has sharpened my skills so I can do better in the game and teach my hobbits too. I will concede this as well, I still have never beaten dol Guldur solo!

Memetix said:

Very good points you describe it im my opinion perfectly. I only suggest to FFG make a future quests with possability to increase difficutl level by adding some additional rules. But i wont official rules not home made. They should be balanced by the designers.

Cose most of the game what we play in co-op we win 90%. Only one we lost sometimes is Osgiliath. All other quests for now include Into the pit(KD) we win all the time. But KD is much more harder anaway so we love that. Now we come to the point to play with some encounter cards doubled (like put 2 U spown or 3 Caught in the web instead 2) this make game alos more difficult. Anyway i wont the designers do this job. But they nightmare version is sucks...........

Memetix said:

thanks for your points, i think you perfectly suit my thread here.....you have played for 6 weeks, i have played for 10 months.....you are obviously have far more success than myself. your points-

1.card pool....i have all the cards to date, this cannot be a factor in this then

2.i play like every other night, i play solo so i can do this, i dont have to get together etc. so play amount isnt in this

3.it must then be this, i am not motivated ever in my life to compete, i have no interest, i play 100% for theme, so i guess you could say my obsession over tolkien is masking my chances of becoming a pro deck builder etc.

that probably seems like im bothered about my lack of challenge but on the contrary. i have all the challenge i need, thats why i love this game, i win enough so it isnt frustrating for me and pointless, but i lose enough to keep me challenged without having to aquire a non existant competative streak

on a side note- im not really as bad as i make out though, i find dead marshes and eymn far too easy, and i can win rhosgobel consistently, so you know, im more lucky than i thought, i win enough but still suck enough so old quests are a challenge, this is better for me than things being too easy!!!

thanks, you have helped me understand something now....

I also wonder how opinions on difficulty correlate with number of Core Sets owned. Having three copies of Unexpected Courage and Dwarven Tomb (or potentially six between two players) is much different that having one. Four or six Stewards of Gondor means that, when playing with two players, the likelihood of drawing at least one is quite high. Not necessarily the case when you only have two. Those "abusive" Zigil Miner decks that rely on 5-cost cards? Quite a bit more difficult to put together without...all those 5-cost cards (although We Do Not Sleep can serve in a pinch).

So, my supposition is that people with fewer Core Sets have fewer difficulty complaints. Pretty predictable, I suppose. I guess it's kind of like "premium" status in online games; if you pay 3x what I do in order to play the same game, you should get a few perks.

starhawk77 said:

Couldn't agree more with this.

Another reason for those differences might be that there are players who play every game until the bitter end, and there are others who give up during the setup when they get a bad encounter (and of course there are those who just replace that encounter and keep playing). Thing is, if you play 10 games and win 7 games quite easily, but dropped your cards in the other three games after round 1, what sticks in mind are the wins, and not the losses.

I too only play for theme, something that is definitely my play "style" as it runs through all the other games I play as well. And I have a roughly middling success rate with the quests. I don't look upon it as winning and losing, though - I either complete a quest, or I don't. It's only a subtle difference, but it changes my attitude towards this whole game immensely. For example, when I open up a new adventure pack, I don't study the encounter decks and construct a deck around it, I'll just put together a deck that matches my mood, or that I think looks like it has some nice cards in it (yes, I have constructed decks before now because the artwork entices me, and not because of the abilities of the cards in question!), and away I go. For the Khazad-dum quests I've tried so far, I insist on at least one dwarf hero, of course, as anything else just doesn't seem right.

But because I don't look at this game from the standpoint of "I want to thrash the hell out of the encounter deck", I often don't make it through the quest. I do often complete them, as well, so it all balances out over time.

As far as Khazad-dum goes, I've played Into the Pit three times, and The Seventh Level once, and have never completed any of them, mostly because my threat level reaches 50. But this doesn't mean I dislike the expansion - quite the opposite! There are people around who seem to like the challenge and almost enjoy "losing" as much as "winning", but I have also noticed people who just play and play and play to exhaustion until they beat the quest, but whether it's just me or not, I don't know, but I don't get the feeling that this is what this game is all about. That article that Nate French wrote back in the early days, about what kind of player you are, has me at about 95% Bilbo (with a dash of Pippin, because I do sometimes get distracted by the shiny new cards that come along), so maybe this is what's colouring a lot of my rambling thoughts here...

spalanzani said:

i think we share the same ethics my friend, especially shiny artwork, i remind myself of my cat when it comes to that - oooh look, sweet card (and then loses hahaha)

As a newer player (started back in November) it is really easy to skip rules or card effects when you are still learning how to play the game. My group beat most of the quests on the first try with little to no effort.

However after beating the Balrog quest in like 4 turn I decided to take a hard look at how our group was playing and re-read the rule book about 4 times. That is when things got real. Keywords were being ignored (like Guarded) and the responses and actions were not played at the right time. My group was playing the game so quickly that Location effects were being ignored and Quest forced abilities didn't always take place.

The games to follow we had to slow way down. Each player was assigned different elements of the game to enforce like Threat, Quest card effects, Staging, Responses, Keywords, Location cards, and enemy effects. Ever since the game has gotten way more difficult for the group. We even tried the Witchking quest using 2 copies of the encounter deck and we played with 6 players. It was crazy. I don't recommend it. Spirit player started with 6 scout orcs on them. It was bad.

Factors influencing a player's assessment of the game's difficulty include:

- Player's perspective
- Experience in card games
- Knowledge of the quests
- Card pool
- Knowledge of the rules

Player's perspective: what one person finds too easy may not look or feel that easy to another. People simply complaining that the quests are too easy and that they never lose often only do that (complain) without substantiating it with what they find makes it easy. For example, is it just the win ratio (I have a 90 % + win ratio hence I find the game too easy)? The speed at which a game ends (Passage through Mirkwood, Journey to Rhosgopel and The Dead Marshes can all be over in 2 rounds, hence they are too easy)? The lack of challenge provided by the encounter deck (a deck containing only 1-power enemies wouldn't be deemed much of a challenge)? On the other hand, it'd be interesting to hear these people state what they'd find challenging. Personnally, I find challenge and meaning in the game when the decisions the player make have an impact on the outcome. This game is (or should be - I won't restart about Zigil... hopefully) about managing your resources and making the right decisions at the right time (there's also the Tolkien lore aspect which pleases a lot of people, meself included, but that doesn't factor into the assessment of difficulty). If you win a scenario independantly of your deck, your hand or any decision you make, that scenario is probably too easy.

Experience in card games: this is a very important factor. There were reference to players having played Magic before or other LCG being potentialy better LoTR players or finding this game easier than newcomers. This is a true fact of any card game. LoTR doesn't require past experience with LCG (because it's Coop, it's totally different from other LCG; when Star Wars gets out, LoTR players will probably have an edge), but it does require certain skills and understanding of basic concepts. The Boromir's Guide articles were great in that respect: I didn't learn much that I didn't knew about, but they covered the basics: resource management (not in the LoTR sense, but in the broader sense), maximizing synergy, focusing on card draw and resource acceleration, etc. These concepts soon become ingrained in your mind once you know them. But you need to get a good grasp at them (and going over each and every one of them would be a whole other discussion).

Knowledge of the quests: this is a normal factor in any game. Knowing the specifics of the game makes radical differences in how you play. For example, knowing the kind of "when revealed" effects you may face could change a lot of decisions. If you fear a card such as The Necromancer's Reach (1 point of damage to each exhausted character), you probably won't quest with a character having a single hit point left. In the same vein, you'll wait until the Combat phase before drawing with Gleowine, even if you would have had the resources to play the card had you drawn during your pre-quest phase. Another example is for the 1st player to not quest with a single hero when facing the new KD treachery that makes you sacrifice a questing character. Knowing how Hunt for Gollum or Journey to Rhosgopel are setup, you won't advance too soon until you have clues or healing for the eagle. This is one of the reason why everyone thinks quests are initialy harder, but they then become easier as you know what to expect and learn to play around the encounter deck's tricks. The same logic would apply to a PvP game if your opponent was always using the same deck or strategy.

Card Pool: That was pointed out earlier as a factor. Owning 3 Core Sets, I tend to forget it, but it's true that it makes a huge difference whether or not you have access to 1 or 3 Unexpected Courage (totally changes your relationship to Beravor, for example). I found myself surprised at a decklist once where they only had 2 The Galadhrim's Greetings, so used am I to systematicaly playing with 3. The game is probably designed more for players owning a single core set, so players with access to more cards will generally find it easier. Also, with each expansion, they are bringing new cards that can generate unsuspected advantages for the players against earlier quests. This is a normal evolution of this game where the opponent is static (that is, until they decide, as was suggested by some, to produce "upgrades" to existing quests). In a PvP, it's less of a problem because your opponents also get new cards, but here, Journey Down the Anduin doesn't get new critters from Kazad Dum, for example, but who's to say we won't be getting more and more cards allowing us to deal with enemies in the staging area (or, who knows, maybe a The Sun Rises card that will turn Trolls to stone!), making the quest increasingly easier as time passes.

Knowledge of the rules: this one is less of a factor, but it does play a role. How many players did we see bragging about their first wins and then someone pointed out they played 2 copies of Steward of Gondor? Obviously, one would find the game easier if they were not respecting the Unique rule, for example.

I hope this addresses some of the OP's questions.

I started playing LotR LCG just before christmas and completing the quest is not the big thing for me. I played Magic back in the days of 4th edition for years and I enjoyed the deck building just as much as the winning. With this, it is the same. I know I could build a Zigi deck and win if I wanted to, but its looking through the cards and picking obscure cards and trying to make them work that is the fun for me. I also play more solo than multi because my wife has a threshold of how long she can play fantasy games with me.

So I'm not really bothered about how easy or difficult the quest is, its whether I can win with strange combinations that I like.

I am definitely finding the game easier as I go along. I've only had it for about a month but have played a lot in that time, all solo I should mention. Starting out I had good success with the through mirkwood quest but kept getting destroyed by journey down the anduin. At first I was starting with big heroes hoping to beat up the troll quickly but after I realised that starting with a much lower threat and building up slowly (also using 3 sphere decks) meant a much higher success rate. Since then I have played emyn muil and hunt for gollum (the only past APs my LGS had at the time) and KD which I picked up last week. I've had a very good win ratio which I think comes down to knowing what to expect in the quest and building for it.

There have been a few times that I have accidentally made things a bit easier on myself (ignoring quest card effects and location effects) but I usually try to compensate if I catch it quick enough or call it a loss and restart if I've done it several times.

On the whole, I have not found the new KD quests terribly hard compared to things like anduin and dol guldur (except the last one which I think is probably luck dependent) despite my limited card pool. One possible reason for this is that it looks like KD scales much better for the single player (those x values look a lot meaner when they are not 1).

I think it is great that there are a range of quests with a range of difficulties. While it is always nice to win it is good to have one of those nightmare quests that you have to attempt time and again to figure out how best to beat it and it is even quite amusing to loose what you thought would be a walk in the park game by an encounter combo that just turns things on you (early second trolls in anduin and a rockslide-surge-rockslide in emyn muil while at the falls come to mind). If people are finding it too easy, they always have the option to build deacks with sub-par cards which should bring back some of the entertainment value.

I think it's a mixture of player competence, deck building ability and blind luck. Also, some people like a solid challenge and some don't. My friend and I don't mind a challenge but when the quests are so tough we do find ourselves getting fed up and our love of the game begins to dry up. We both bought this game for solo play but do meet up once a week to play 2-4 player games. We both dislike the difficulty level of the game that I tweaked the solo rules and my friend insists that you need 4 heroes and a threat cap of 75, and that's how he plays. A few hardcore CCG players we taught the game to last week agreed with him after three games that four heroes is a must due to the difficulty of the game.

To some players a really tough challenging game makes them dig the game out over and over, but to some of us (more casual types) we want a fair game with a small amount of difficulty. Not so we win every game but where we feel we have a reasonable chance and it does seem that FFG have made this game to be overly difficult.

The_Big_Show said:

oh yeah i completely forgot about the luck thing. on that note i am actually the unluckiest person ever, seriously, its not even funny, im like a walking curse

richsabre said:

DO

NOT

TOUCH

ANYTHING IN THIS THREAD

Obviously a great deal of it comes down to player competence, but I think a lot of the "quest X is a piece of cake" debate comes down to two things:

1. Card pool

2. Number of players

For the first one, I think that mainly splits into two groups - those that play with only 1 core set (and hence have less than the possible 3 in the hand of each card) and those that play with multiple core sets. The other sub set is those that only play with cards released at the time the adventure was released (which is what I try to do at least initially) and those that use any of their card pool against any specific quest - the second group probably have an easier time of it than the first.

As for my second point, that's all been said before - the game doesn't scale perfectly with increasing number of players and generally having more players does make the game easier.

Perhaps we should come up with a standard terminology for describing how the particular session is played (number of players, available card pool etc) so that we can realistically begin to compare why someone else thinks something is p*ss easy when I or richsabre struggle to get past round 2!

There is no post in this thread at the moment that I could disagree.

The points were all already exploited as to why someone would think the game is easy and others do not.

But there is one obscure point no one touched (and it baffles me): Why someone would SAY the game is too easy.

C'mon. I believe I saw three threads with people asking for assistance and/or ideas and there was always someone saying something along these lines: "Oh, this quest is easy, all you need to do is X." I mean... Seriously? Couldn't it be phrased a little less self-assertive?

I played Magic when I was around thirteen and hated it. The game is simply bad when it comes to strategy, so I really not sure if this is a factor to weight when it comes to 'player experience'.

The way I see, this game (lotr) is more complex, and thus, more compelling to the most mature audience.

Wits and experience are the major factors of this game. Knowing when to push to the next quest and when to wait a little longer is crucial, as is knowing if you should risk questing like-there-is-no-tomorrow while holding a Grim Resolve even when playing Rhosgobel, etc. The experience mixed with the wits tells you that, not one, not the other, but BOTH.

While the wits is a very discernible trait, the experience is a little foggy; is it enough knowing how your deck works? How about the encounter decks? Is your experience in another LCG similar, and if so, would it help you? The experience is gained through play, and as another guy said before: sometimes you don't even notice it, you start to see things more clearly as you play more and more.

TL;DR: This game is a lot of things, but it is not easy (and it shouldn't, you're supposedly fighting against all odds, not just hunting a stray bunny).

I will never believe that someone played the game for the first time and just beat every scenario that was put in front of him, unless he is a genius or something like that.

richsabre said:

My wife would now cry out loud and claim she is the unluckiest person on this planet! Honestly, i have seen it with my own eyes so often: When she shuffles her deck, she would than draw only spirit cards until the game ends, playing with 2 Leardership heroes (of course drawing now songs either ). I always have to shuffle all the decks because otherwise we would loose every game

It could be her shuffling method that causes this.

People sometimes don't realize it, but clumps of cards could be created by poor shuffling. If she has a tendancy to regroup cards by sphere in her hand, when she picks everything up at the end of the game, a lot of cards will still be "sorted".

Have her try pile shuffling as a potential solution.

For new players I recommend "pick up method" for shuffling ONTOP of pile shuffling...

Pick up is you deal all the cards face down, not in piles, just randomly about the table and then pick them up 1 at a time from different location about the table. Then cut the deck into to piles and shuffle those piles individually. Now, just crush those piles together., cut , crush.. and you should have a nicely done shuffling.. as you get better the need for the pick up method will go away, but it is good for that initial randomization when you are compulsive about ordering your decks. (Like say all in spheres then allies,then support,events.)

This is how many do it , but it dose cause clumping.. make sure you cut the deck regularly. Again this doesn't work will if you DO NOT use sleeves...