Sounds like Innsmouth 
.
to other pure solo players/ FFG designers...PLEASE read this
Sounds like home.
richsabre said:
there is nothing on the box that states 1-2 players but you really should be being more social you know
I think it would be hilarious if this started appearing on game boxes. 
radiskull said:
richsabre said:
there is nothing on the box that states 1-2 players but you really should be being more social you know
I think it would be hilarious if this started appearing on game boxes.
petition! 
I agree Rich. Completely. This game should not be trying to juggle two clearly different playing styles in the same packs. Either pick one or the other, or distribute the cards better.
Try not to let it get under your skin rich. You sound like a decent bloke with a love of all things tolkien. Just think, a couple of years ago none of us knew about this game and never expected anything as wonderful as this to appear. I, like you, only want to play solo. Its what i want and i love it. There will obviously be packs over the next few years with cards that favour multi player games but hey, so what? There is a lot of rubbish happening in the world at the moment so put it in perspective, keep smiling and keep writing your excellent pieces. Its not worth getting upset about. Cheers mate.
true true ted...good advice 
I had to laugh though rich, it sounds spooky where you live!! Got home from work at 2 and have been messing about in the hills of emyn muil all afternoon. One of my favourite adventures! Is there anything in the pipelines about a full hobbit history? A lot of people would be interested to know that sam ended up with frodo after all.
haha i was being rather harsh-it is very beautiful- just dont feed the cows after dark 
emyn is fun, i dont hate it like some people, the artwork is worth it alone.
...yeah a hobbit history....i like that idea....ill start scribbling 
Yeh i agree the lake district is amazing, i stopped off in barrow on furness a few years back on my way to my aunties in dumfries. Wish i had more than a day there. Yep i like taking my time throughout the adventures, i suppose thats why i like emyn muil as there isnt much fighting so im not rushing to do battle every turn. I may be in the minority but i love travelling to places rather than scrapping with orcs!! Thats part of the beauty for me, travelling to a location then looking it up in all my books to find out as much info i can about that location. I wonder if any one else does that or do they just play the game and get on with it?
no i do that too...to the point i almost roleplay this game- i mean i stick to the rules and everything- put when i play there's always i narrative going on in my head. thouhgh its always hard trying to figure this one out--
"so our three dwarfs are currently hacking their way through orcs in moria, then suddenly bifur is made steward of gondor......oh and wait...is that gildor coming round that dark corner....oh hey dude, wht brings you here? oh im just wandering about you know, usual stuff."
Weird innit? I put myself in their place and actually try and live that adventure. Weirdo alert!!! I know im way behind you as ive only been "adventuring" for about 4 months. Ive only got the core set and the 6 adventure packs but im taking my time enjoying each quest, while experimenting with different heroes. Ive got to give respect though to the artwork as it is amazing!! I have had a personal vision in my head of each character and place since i read the trilogy 25 years ago and i have to admit that most of the artwork has now changed my mind as to how a lot of the characters and places in the books actually look. Thats testimony to the competency of the artists involved with this game.
ha...we shall be wierdos together then 
the artwork is one of the, if not the best part of the game......ive said this before, but i really want them to release an art book of it all when we have a few more packs out....or sell prints via the artists so i can fill my house with them all!
I'm, so far (which isn't very long actually since I bought this game less than a week ago) a solo only player and I agree with the sentiment of the OP of this thread. That is: FFG printed 1-2 players on the box and they should at least try to stick to that.
Going back to before the release I guess what a lot of us thought was that 1-2 players meant that "Of course there will be cards HEAVILY slanted towards co-op, I won't expect to find all cards helpful as a Solo-player! And equally of course there will be cards that are HEAVILY slanted towards solo and won't be nearly as good when co-op:ing".
Now, so far it seems this doesn't seem to have paned out that way. And it's a shame. I really think that FFG should be careful not to scare away the solo players. They chose THIS game over a gazillion others just BECAUSE it has 1-2 players printed on the box, and it would be fair to cater a bit to them too.
Of course I have no statistics of this, but it wouldn't surprise me if a solo player spends just about as much money on the game as 2 close friends (think siblings)do if they play together all the time. They could easily just buy one of each Expansion and split the cards between their favorite spheres, thus negating the need to buy 2 of each expansion. The quest and encounter cards they absolutely only need one set of.
Now, how should FFG cater more to the solo-crowd without angering the co-op crowd (and thus making all of us angry instead of just half of us ;-) ) ?
I've actually read through the whole thread and one of the best posts was already on the first page (I've bolded the constructive part):
Mattr0polis said:
And I also wouldn't be opposed to a few cards that were only for solo play, or worded in a way that it was mainly useful for solo play but also possible to use multiplayer, if even only barely. Like of the top of my head, some really powerful events with wording like "If there is 3 or less Heroes in play, do X". That would be good for solo and would be a big help for the people saying solo is a lot tougher and also enticing for some 2-player games to try the less Heroes builds they keep trying to push on us, and could even be possible if just a bunch of heroes/players died. Something like that. Mainly, we just have to give them some time to figure out what all is possible in this system, both multiplayer and solo.
This is absolutely a good idea and is close to what I myself felt when I first read about the Ranged and Sentinel abilities. I was then hoping to read about some ability that suited solo-play but it didn't show up. :-/ The above suggestion could make an awesome Ability, actually the name Sentinel would suit this better in a way since it means 'A soldier or guard whose job is to stand and keep watch.', in other words not someone who runs around all over the place defending OTHER players characters ;-)
Now, to quote another post in the thread
Bohemond said:
First of all, Song of Earendil isn't threat reduction; its threat transfer (just like Wandering Took). Threat transfer is a mechanic that can not be implemented for solo play, but adds a wonderful dynamic to the game.
That's correct. Transfer (threat, resource, damage, whatever) is useless for solo, but the cards that implement it could be written to actually be solo-heavy instead than totally useless for solo! For example a damage transfer card could look something like this:
"Remove 1 damage on one of the Heroes you control and deal 1 damage to one the Heroes another player control".
See? Not useless for co-op play if one player has a Hero close to death and another player has a Hero in great health. Even better for solo players since it actually reduces the damage over all!
I bet others can come up with more examples, and I BET the designers can and already have come up with some great examples. Now we are just waiting to see them in print so we solo players won't all have to migrate to this instead :-) :
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42142/doctor-who-solitaire-story-game
Ok, bolding in quotes can't be done, smilies don't convert to the graphics kind and posts can't be edited.
This combined with the strange strange way to handle paste (cut oddly enough uses the standard procedure) really makes me wish for some man hours being thrown at fixing the forum code!
(Now, stop cluttering down the thread with off topic)
I am a group player, (my wife and I), however, I do get the occasional solo game in when she is busy and I am not. These "group" cards like wandering took and Brand also tick me off when I am working on a new deck build.
However, I actually have been looking at some of the arguments that have been posted in the forums on tournament play and I think this appearance of many new "group play" cards could be in response to preparing for tourney play atmosphere.
Of course in tournaments there are "solo games" and "group games", I know that there are some people that are fine with just playing this game solo, but I would figure that more than half of the people that are super interested in being first to buy the next new expansion are also the same people that are interested in seeing a good tourney format for this game.
Therefore, I say, I will grumble with the rest of us when there is a new card that I do not use as much as the rest, but I will wait patiently and in anticipation of the day that it is.
For solo-exclusive players, how do you feel about home-ruling the cards that are not suitable for solo play? I've started doing that with some cards to make them more thematic. For example, while Eowyn and Bilbo have their uses, they just don't do much for me re the flavor of the game.
On cardboard of the games, in the custom card gallery there are fan designed cards for Eowyn and Bilbo (pre birthday party) that I feel are much more thematic, although Eowyn needs a penalty cost for when she eliminates a Nazgul (if Eowyn's attack reduces the Nazgul HP to 0, the Nazgul is removed from play, and Eowyn (and the hobbit, if any) cannot be readied until...(some difficult healing steps or something) --kill a Nazgul at the cost of 1 or 2 heros (my version allows one hobbit to attack with Eowyn using her special ability). Could this be a game breaker? Sure in a Nazgul scenario, but I think it helps as a story. And since that fan card has reduced the "will" strength of Eowyn significantly, she doesn't become super woman, and tradeoffs still have to be made.
If there is an otherwise appealing multi-player only card, house rule it to what you would feel is in keeping with the theme. On the other hand since player decks are usually limited to around 50 cards, we should expect that there will be a lot of chaff or cards that excell in certain scenarios, but are useless - cannon fodder at best - in others.
Of course it's a cost to buy cards that aren't useful, but I wrestling now with if I should buy some packs that only interest me for one or 2 player cards (like Dain) and some of the Songs. At least if I do, I know I will get the cards I want in the packs I buy.
tom
other solo players are free to do as they wish, but for me house ruling is a big no no- im only in for the official product- even if that means loosing out
- i dunno- it just plays havoc with my ocd nature to not play things correctly as they were deisgned- thats why it really annoys me when i find ive been playing certain card wrong
also house ruling is playing with fire in my opinion- it will just confuse things later on as new ruling are brought out- and it doesnt take much to confuse me in the first place
twm47099 said:
On cardboard of the games, in the custom card gallery there are fan designed cards for Eowyn and Bilbo (pre birthday party) that I feel are much more thematic, although Eowyn needs a penalty cost for when she eliminates a Nazgul (if Eowyn's attack reduces the Nazgul HP to 0, the Nazgul is removed from play, and Eowyn (and the hobbit, if any) cannot be readied until...(some difficult healing steps or something) --kill a Nazgul at the cost of 1 or 2 heros (my version allows one hobbit to attack with Eowyn using her special ability). Could this be a game breaker? Sure in a Nazgul scenario, but I think it helps as a story. And since that fan card has reduced the "will" strength of Eowyn significantly, she doesn't become super woman, and tradeoffs still have to be made.
The would be wary of using the fan designed Eowyn. From a quick glance, she looks hideously broken (and it had nothing to do with the Nazghul ability). She has two jaw-droppings powers; give her one but not both. On top of that, her powers should be lowered so they are at least in the ball park of other heroes. Her ability to to reduce cost of rohan cards is stupidly powerful. At the very least, you need to reduce it to once per turn. The counter attack power is good enough on its own, you don't need to add two attack.
This version of Eowyn may not have high will, but it makes her more of a super woman than the exsisting card.
Bohemond said:
twm47099 said:
On cardboard of the games, in the custom card gallery there are fan designed cards for Eowyn and Bilbo (pre birthday party) that I feel are much more thematic, although Eowyn needs a penalty cost for when she eliminates a Nazgul (if Eowyn's attack reduces the Nazgul HP to 0, the Nazgul is removed from play, and Eowyn (and the hobbit, if any) cannot be readied until...(some difficult healing steps or something) --kill a Nazgul at the cost of 1 or 2 heros (my version allows one hobbit to attack with Eowyn using her special ability). Could this be a game breaker? Sure in a Nazgul scenario, but I think it helps as a story. And since that fan card has reduced the "will" strength of Eowyn significantly, she doesn't become super woman, and tradeoffs still have to be made.
The would be wary of using the fan designed Eowyn. From a quick glance, she looks hideously broken (and it had nothing to do with the Nazghul ability). She has two jaw-droppings powers; give her one but not both. On top of that, her powers should be lowered so they are at least in the ball park of other heroes. Her ability to to reduce cost of rohan cards is stupidly powerful.
[/Quote]
I agree, and its not very thematic - I don't recall in the book her rallying the troops.
At the very least, you need to reduce it to once per turn. The counter attack power is good enough on its own, you don't need to add two attack.
I think that was added to help with the Nazgul power, but I agree - too high, too often.
I'm still trying to come up with the penalty part of her Nazgul power. The witch king moves back to the staging area before being attacked unless threat is raised. And it would take two or three attacks to defeat it. So that's a general penalty. But I'm trying it with adding 1 hit to Eowyn (and a hobbit if any) for each attack (she has 3 hit points), so 3 attacks would kill her without an intermediate healing. And then if she does succeed in eliminating the WK she (and the hobbit) cannot be readied until...maybe adding the Athelas card(s) to the Encounter deck and requiring that one hero apply it to Eowyn. The advantage is that this effectively takes 1 or 2 heros out of action until the 3rd (or second) exhausts to apply the Altheas (after it comes up in the deck). So quite a tradeoff for eliminating a Nazgul. Disadvantage - it's getting more and more complicated bringing in encounter cards from other packs and more changes to how cards work. Not sure if this will be worth the effort, but that is one nice thing about solo.
Tom
Bohemond said:
twm47099 said:
On cardboard of the games, in the custom card gallery there are fan designed cards for Eowyn and Bilbo (pre birthday party) that I feel are much more thematic, although Eowyn needs a penalty cost for when she eliminates a Nazgul (if Eowyn's attack reduces the Nazgul HP to 0, the Nazgul is removed from play, and Eowyn (and the hobbit, if any) cannot be readied until...(some difficult healing steps or something) --kill a Nazgul at the cost of 1 or 2 heros (my version allows one hobbit to attack with Eowyn using her special ability). Could this be a game breaker? Sure in a Nazgul scenario, but I think it helps as a story. And since that fan card has reduced the "will" strength of Eowyn significantly, she doesn't become super woman, and tradeoffs still have to be made.
The would be wary of using the fan designed Eowyn. From a quick glance, she looks hideously broken (and it had nothing to do with the Nazghul ability). She has two jaw-droppings powers; give her one but not both. On top of that, her powers should be lowered so they are at least in the ball park of other heroes. Her ability to to reduce cost of rohan cards is stupidly powerful. At the very least, you need to reduce it to once per turn. The counter attack power is good enough on its own, you don't need to add two attack.
This version of Eowyn may not have high will, but it makes her more of a super woman than the exsisting card.
Bohemond said:
twm47099 said:
On cardboard of the games, in the custom card gallery there are fan designed cards for Eowyn and Bilbo (pre birthday party) that I feel are much more thematic, although Eowyn needs a penalty cost for when she eliminates a Nazgul (if Eowyn's attack reduces the Nazgul HP to 0, the Nazgul is removed from play, and Eowyn (and the hobbit, if any) cannot be readied until...(some difficult healing steps or something) --kill a Nazgul at the cost of 1 or 2 heros (my version allows one hobbit to attack with Eowyn using her special ability). Could this be a game breaker? Sure in a Nazgul scenario, but I think it helps as a story. And since that fan card has reduced the "will" strength of Eowyn significantly, she doesn't become super woman, and tradeoffs still have to be made.
The would be wary of using the fan designed Eowyn. From a quick glance, she looks hideously broken (and it had nothing to do with the Nazghul ability). She has two jaw-droppings powers; give her one but not both. On top of that, her powers should be lowered so they are at least in the ball park of other heroes. Her ability to to reduce cost of rohan cards is stupidly powerful.
[/Quote]
I agree, and its not very thematic - I don't recall in the book her rallying the troops.
At the very least, you need to reduce it to once per turn. The counter attack power is good enough on its own, you don't need to add two attack.
I think that was added to help with the Nazgul power, but I agree - too high, too often.
I'm still trying to come up with the penalty part of her Nazgul power. The witch king moves back to the staging area before being attacked unless threat is raised. And it would take two or three attacks to defeat it. So that's a general penalty. But I'm trying it with adding 1 hit to Eowyn (and a hobbit if any) for each attack (she has 3 hit points), so 3 attacks would kill her without an intermediate healing. And then if she does succeed in eliminating the WK she (and the hobbit) cannot be readied until...maybe adding the Athelas card(s) to the Encounter deck and requiring that one hero apply it to Eowyn. The advantage is that this effectively takes 1 or 2 heros out of action until the 3rd (or second) exhausts to apply the Altheas (after it comes up in the deck). So quite a tradeoff for eliminating a Nazgul. Disadvantage - it's getting more and more complicated bringing in encounter cards from other packs and more changes to how cards work. Not sure if this will be worth the effort, but that is one nice thing about solo.
Tom
I'm a big fan of custom quest, and have about 20 or so printed out and ready to play.. many of them are as good and a few better than the official ones.. .but custom player cards are a big no no for me... they are always wicked broken.
there is an old saying "Never let a player design a card" this has come about from a lot of CCGs get players who win world championships or some special event to design a card.. they have always sucked and been banned or restricted.
All the player cards I have seen in custom decks have had the same problem. The best thing I have seen is objective cards, I thik thsi ia a good way to add special effects into your custom quest with out making a player card that upsets teh entire balance of teh game for other scenarios.
I just think ... custom quest == ok.. custom player cards !ok
