First, I should probably preface this post with the fact that my group and I who play Descent V1 never minded how long the game took to play. We were all long time gamers that had played many other games that took longer. We would usually get together and play 2 day straight sessions with a few rest and eat breaks. Take a few days off, and then repeat.

I also know that one of FFG's goals with Descent V2 was to stream-line play, and shorten the overall time required to complete a quest.

What I really want to know from others, however, is the following:

Are we the only group kind of depressed with how SMALL the quest maps are? I have read all of the previews, and just watched the recently released video. All of the pictures I have seen of the quest maps tend to be smaller than most of the RTL dungeon layouts, let alone the monster sizes of some of the base level (non-RTL) quests. In fact, many of the Encounter maps in RTL are larger than the quest maps in V2. Add to this fact that the OL's deck is now only 15 cards (at least at base level), and it seems much of the flavor, customization, and general play goes out the window.

Don't get me wrong. We are going to get V2, and we are going to play it. I suspect, however, that it won't be all that long before we go back to playing V1.

Each of us has spent time creating custom quests to challenge the others with (playing both OL and Heros), and it just seems that the greater choices, flexibility, customization, etc. in V1 far exceeds that in V2.

I suppose, within time and future releases of expansions of V2 (perhaps more Archtypes, subclasses, etc.), FFG may be able to lay to rest some of our concerns, but …

Anyone else feel this way? Just curious …

I'm 100% certain that the Descent 2nd edition vanilla box is just a beginning of a long journey. I'm happy that instead of loading the basic box with superheavy and long content, they give the players a chance to experience the game in smaller chunks. Then with the expansions they can make the dungeons/maps bigger and longer.

Also I'm 100% certain that if the basic game mechanics are as solid as they seem there will be a ton of fan created content for D2ndE. There you might see bigger, longer, meaner and heavy maps and quests.

All and all, I'm happy that the game seems like something our group will be able to get on the table every now and then. 1st edition was great, but for us it always felt that there just wasn't enough happening in a 4-5h game. Therefore we rather played something else. If smaller maps mean 1-2h game then I'm all for it.

any2cards said:

Smaller that RTL dungeon layouts? I don't think so, Tim. I admit that the map for "First Blood" is pretty small, but perhaps you're forgetting how small RTL dungeon levels really are? I wouldn't say it's as small as all that, besides which, it is an introductory scenario, after all.

I've been following the previews myself, and I don't recollect seeing all that many quest maps. Maybe two or three different ones, and First Blood several times, repeated from several different angles. I'm not saying I expect any of them to be as massive as 1e quests were, but I think you might be getting a little bit ahead of yourself with worrying about them being tiny.

As for the OL's deck, it starts off small, but he buys more cards with XP over the course of the campaign. The customization is still there, it just evolves over time instead of being done all at once. As for flavor, the three OL classes help to ensure you can tailor your OL deck to whatever flavor of play you presonally prefer.

I'm guessing you're still in school, if you can afford to throw away two whole days playing a single board game. If that's the case then, yeah, I can see how the shorter play time of 2e would suck for you. Personally, I don't think I'd be interested in buying 2e if it couldn't be played in short bursts. I just don't have that kind of time on my hands anymore. Depending on how close you are to graduating and joining the workforce, you might find yourself coming to appreciate the compact style of 2e more quickly than you think.

I have to say that the shorter play time is the number one change that is most beneficial for me. I like to play games with my family, but they simply don't enjoy playing a game for more than a couple of hours. Also, I simply don't have the time for epic gaming sessions like I did before I had kids. A dungeon-crawl game that I can play on a work/school night with my kid is something I am really looking forward to.

Steve-O said:

Steve-O … first I absolutely must respond to your last statement first. Made me laugh … very hard. I am probably a very UNTYPICAL gamer on this site. I am actually 51 years old and a professional poker player living in Las Vegas. So, I, and my friends, tend to have all of the time we need to play games. Most of us grew up playing all kinds of board games, strategy games, etc.

Now, I just spent several hours looking at the layouts of many RTL dungeons, and in fact many of the outdoor Encounter layouts; I counted map pieces used and measured for a rough, overall size. Even if we discount First Blood, and only look at the 5 distinct maps detailed within the video (0:22, 0:29, 0:33, 0:41, and 0:49), only the map in 0:49 appears to be larger than most of the D1 RTL maps/enocunters; all of the others are smaller. Now, I am assuming that what appears in the video are actual maps for quests (Act I or Act II), and not just some stuff thrown together for visual presentations.

As for customization of the OL deck, if you are not playing in campaign mode (and quite frankly even if you are), 15 cards just is way too small. There are too many events/triggers/cards that allows the OL in D2 (at least what is shown in some of the previews) to discard cards from his deck, arrange them (at least the top 5) in whatever order he wants, etc. I just don't think there will be enough variety in the long term; in fact, I think it will make it far easier for the OL and Heros (assuming a resonable memory) to know what is left in the deck at any given time, and prepare better for what is coming.

Now, of course, this could have been a decision made by FFG to enforce more interest in expansions, drive additional sales, etc. Certainly a good business model. I also agree that as expansions come out, and additional cards. map pieces, quests, archtypes, subclasses, etc. are made available, the overall re-playability of things will improve dramatically.

My concerns is what actually will lead me to also purchasing the conversion kit; if for no other reason that to allow additional heros, monsters, etc.

Thanks for responding; I don't often post, and more usually just lurk, but a well reasoned opinion and discussion adds value. I have followed many of your posts in the D1 forum.

any2cards said:

LOL. I stand corrected. =P

any2cards said:

As a professional poker player (and I'm assuming your friends are at least experienced players, if not pros), I can see why these things might be a concern for you. For myself, I probably couldn't get even one card I wanted in the top 5 just by shuffling a stack of 15 cards. I mean, one in three odds, I guess, but I'm not exactly that good at shuffling cards.

You did get the part about how the OL can CHOOSE to pair down his deck in between encounters during a campaign, right? He can also choose to use the whole thing. Although even it grows to as much as 25-30 cards, that still may not be too big from your perspective.

You can always make a house rule to reintroduce threat, if you wanted. Put all the OL cards in the deck and the OL gains 1 threat per turn (NOT per hero.) Playing a card requires the OL to spend threat equal to its XP cost. You can decide after playing a few times whether or not he's allowed to discard cards for threat (XP cost) or not. Hard to tell if allowing discards would be fair or too powerful. You might also want to leave out the 3 XP cards until after the jump to Act II.

any2cards said:

I certainly think it's safe to say FFG is planning to make expansions for this game at some point. I'm not so sure that picking the number "15" for the base OL deck was a deliberate move in that direction, but I am also fairly sure that expansions (when they arrive) will add at least a few more base cards to his deck, each.

Personally, I just hope the expansions come out at a reasonable pace, giving the designers and playtesters sufficient time to hack it out and make sure it works. D1e expansions were coming out far too quickly, and it really began to show near the end.

You make some good points. As I said previously, I do not want to pre-judge too harshly before actually playing the game. Quite frankly, one of the reasons I don't post more within these game forums, is the same reason I don't post a whole lot on poker forums such as 2+2 … there tends to be very little thought out discussion, and way more flamming … in the end adding very little value.

There are exceptions of course, but I am sure you know what I mean. Just look at what has happened since the reviews and the rules have been released for D2. Both on FFG and BGG, there are endless "laywer-ese" battles and analysis … nit picking what a specific word means, etc.

The individuals with whom I play tend to be fairly easy going. While we are all certainly type A personalities and very competitive, we have learned with games from FFG to just create a home rule when disagreement arises and play on. Then we may post a question to these forums, or wait for the latest FAQ to come out.

So, I try to be careful myself when making comments without having first played the game. We shall play the game and see how it flows. I do agree with you, however, that while I do want to see FFG release expansions, if only to allow a greater variety in game play, I want them to do it in a very controlled, planned, and heavily play-tested manner.

As you stated, the more that was released for D1, the more headaches it created. They need to really make sure that as they introduce new concepts, triggers, events, etc., that they are appropriately tested with everything that came before; quite frankly, I think there are some participants within this forum that would make good play testers.

After they have tested everything, and are prepared to move forward, they need to make sure they have a very good writer on staff who can be very clear and concise in their diction, to avoid many of the problems that have occurred in the past.

I saw in da Rules that they had split the quests in encounters. This will save more space (small gameboard size) and create more objectives to the same quest. I'm happy for the Road to Legend campaing concept and for the replay-factor (custom classes, campaing's quests system, custom OL deck)

any2cards said:

You are so right here. Swoop caused so many headaches in our group it hurt. In fact, I'm STILL not sure I can explain how it works…. It was one of those 'nice in theory' ideas, but in practice it just didn't work at all.

I wonder if we'll see flying creatures at all in fact, for just this reason (be interesting in seeing the razor wings, demons etc that had flying/swoop in 1ed).

Sausageman said:

This made me laugh out loud for quite a while; so much so, that I couldn't type this reply for a few minutes. To say that the concept of "swoop" in outdoor encounters caused us headaches does a disservice to the term headache. I think for me it was more like one of the Cluster Migraines from which I suffer. I actually don't even think swoop was a good concept in theory; I think it was a disaster from start to finish. At least for me, it never made thematic sense, and just caused issues over and over again.

The fact, however, that many of those issues arose because the new feature of swoop was not properly play tested against just about anything that came before is a great example to your point.

We found, for the most part (not saying that there aren't exceptions) that Altar of Despair and Well of Darkness seemed to work well with the base game. Once you started to get into Tomb of Ice, Road to Legend, and the unmitigated disaster known as Sea of Blood, it went down hill fast, and never stopped. SOB was such a mess that our group has never actually played with it.

any2cards said:

I'm beginning to wonder if you're in our gaming group Seas of Blood made us want to weep. The Kraken and, well, practically everything else was a total mess, the ship encounters seemed broken, even the island levels of each dungeon were fubar'd. We had an aborted campaign of SoB and made me long for the relatively painless Road to Legend again (and that was not without pain)…

Don't get me wrong, I think they *almost* had it, and certainly did with the concept. I just hope D2 hasn't stripped too much of what I loved about the first game away - or at least we see some of it return. I liked the progression of the characters, the length of the campaign, the pseudo-rpg side of the campaign.

Sausageman said:

The campaign may be a little on the short side (it's certainly shorter than a game of RtL, but whether or not it's "too short" remains to be seen.) As for the other things, I think 2e will suit you well.

I've already got a few ideas for homebrew campaigns bouncing around in my head, though. Making a longer campaign seems like it would be a pretty straightforward endeavour, for those who want one and are inclined to use homebrew content.

Strangely what I've read makes me more interested in playing homebrew quests than 1st ed. I think maybe it's because the tools are built into the base game to allow for a larger variety of experiences.

Steve-O said:

How would you make a longer campaign without the possibility of the heroes becoming too powerful for the monsters (seeing as monsters only upgrade at the interlude)?

Bleached Lizard said:

Heroes have a certain power cap too. There are just about 8 skill cards each class can buy with xp, and 20/14 act I/II equipment cards to buy (divided by up to 4 heroes), plus whatever relics there are. Not sure how many they'll get to acquire in the course of the campaign that comes in the base game.

Bleached Lizard said:

Well, we are talking about homebrew campaigns here. If the heroes are liable to get too strong for Act II monsters before your homebrew campaign is finished, the obvious answer would be to make a second interlude and upgrade the monsters to "Act III" thereafter. Devising "Act III" stats for monsters (and Act III gear) would be something else to hash out in your homebrew rules.

Alternately, you could try to find ways of making a longer campaign without allowing the heroes to grow much stronger than they normally would. For example, by making a campaign with the same number of quests, but using bigger maps. The heroes earn the same amount of XP, they just spend longer playing through it. Or have some kind of unavoidable event where the heroes lose all their gear and need to start over or something. They'd still have all their skills (logically) though, so that idea might not pan out. It would depend on how much of their fighting ability comes from gear and how much from skills.

The beauty of homebrew is you can go wherever your imagination takes you. You're making up the rules already, so just make up more to address any complications you come across. 1e's core rules were too much a mess for me to be bothered doing this sort of thing, but 2e seems relatively clean cut.

any2cards said:

I'm wondering if your times for the video are off, as the map shown at 0:49 is the first quest, one of the smallest maps in the book and the same as the map at 0:41. The map at 0:22 and 0:29 (both the same map) is the second half of a quest.

Most of the maps in the first half of the campaign (the starter quest, which is a single map, and the first 5 quests, each of which are two different encounters) are about the same size. The interlude is a single encounter, and much larger than most other boards, about the same size as a D1 quest. Most of the act 2 quests are also quite a bit larger, though there's still a few small maps here and there.

15 cards may seem small for the Overlord deck, but keep in mind you're only drawing one card per turn instead of two, and you're not pitching most of the cards you draw for threat. There's no spawn cards in 2E, since monsters getting added to the board are all built into the quest itself (actually, there is one "spawn" card, but it's the level 3 Warlord card and spawns an entire group of monsters at once).

I'd also like to point out that there's rules that let players start with some experience, so both players can do a bit more customization even if you're not playing a campaign. There's also a good amount of replayability in the quests, since they have objectives that aren't just "kill heroes a lot" for the Overlord.

Anyway, I was at Realms of Terrinoth and picked up a copy of the game for myself, so if you've got any questions, feel free to ask.

LinkN said:

I must admit that it is possible that the times are off, based on what tool you are using to view the video. The more important factor is that you have actually seen the game, so if you are familiar with D1 maps, then I guess I have to take your word for the fact that some of the quests in D2 have maps as large as D1. If so, this is welcome news. If not, my point stands. Keep in mind that my group is one of those that did not care that quests could take days in D1. We thought that was a point in the games favor.

As for the OL's deck, you can put whatever spin you want on it, but it remains that the base deck is 15 cards. I can memorize that in less than 5 minutes. This means that as cards are drawn and played, I can easily determine what is coming up, and prepare for it. This was far harder to do in D1 with a 48 card deck.

In addition, there are opportunities for the OL or Heroes to look at the top 4-5 cards on the deck, and arrange them as desired, or discard some as desired. This only reduces the remaining cards and once again makes it very likely for both sides to prepare and play accordingly. No matter how you spin this, it definitely reduces variability and replay ability.

Map size: I took a look through the quest guide again, and I'll admit that most encounter maps are fairly small. Not as small as the maps in the video, but it's also worth remembering that only three of the game's quests are only a single encounter. One of those three is the first quest, which is intentionally small, but the other two single-encounter quests are fairly massive. Not as large as the biggest maps in 1E, mind, but I'd say around the average point.

Don't get me wrong, the quests in 2E are definitely shorter than most 1E quests. But to me, that makes the game flow better, especially when you look at it in the form of a single large campaign rather than individual games. (It's also worth noting that you miss quite a few quests, especially the act 2 ones, in a single campaign, so playing multiple campaigns is an option.)

As for the overlord deck, one thing I did forget to mention was that they talked about it a bit at Realms. Because the only customization and exp spending the overlord gets to do is adding new cards to the deck, they wanted to make sure that most of those cards he buys actually show up - it's no fun to finally buy a level 3 card (which likely won't be until after act 2 starts, unless the heroes have been losing a lot), only to go through the next two quests and not draw it. They said that in playtesting, they wanted to make sure that the overlord would usually have to shuffle the deck before the quest ended.

It's also worth noting that before each quest, the overlord gets to re-make his deck however he wants with the 15 basic cards and any cards he bought, as long as it stays at 15 cards or higher, and the heroes don't know what cards he's removed. So they'll know what cards he's bought, but not the exact contents of the deck

Also, unless I missed something, the heroes don't get to look at the overlord deck at all, and the only interaction they get with the overlord's cards is one skill that forces the overlord to discard. (The overlord does have one card that lets him look at the top 5 cards of his deck and replace them, but it's not one of his basic cards, so he might never get it.)

I appreciate the time you are taking to provide information both about the actual game, as well as what was discussed at Realms. I must admit that I can at least appreciate the point of view of wanting to actually see the cards you purchased come into play at some point. I can't tell you the number of times I speant treachery in D1 to swap out base level cards, only to get an unfortunate shuffle that put a majority of the cards at the end of the deck.

Having said that, you still will have to play a quest/encounter or perhaps two within a campaign where you don't yet get to buy any cards. For those quests/encounters, I will know exactly all 15 cards in the deck, and can play accordingly as cards come out.

I guess I just wished that the number of cards provided was say 30 or 45, and from that the OL draws/deals 15 cards for his base deck. At least that way, you wouldn't know what was within the deck.

One of the reasons why that I really hope as they move forward, expansions are released that include additional base deck cards as well as additional campaigns, quests, and encounters.

I guess this leads me to an additional question. Suppose I choose to never play in campaign mode (won't happen, but just suppose), but just decide to play individual quests/encounters (perhaps because I am always playing with different people - no continuity, no reason for a campaign). It is my understanding that in this situation all you ever will play with, as the OL, is the base deck. In that case, you run into the same problem I have been discussing. Can you confirm this?

I suppose I could always make some kind of homebrew rule, but … just curious.

any2cards said:

Not quite, the game rules allow you to choose a method of play. If you opt not to play the campaign, you get to choose a level to play at. Each player would then be able to build his hero/OL with the gold and XP branted them by that specific level and then play the campaign. This lets you vary the play experience and not have to worry about playing only with the same 15 cards each time.

Unclechawie said:

To expand a bit, you can play at basic, advanced, or epic level. Basic level is just starting equipment and skills for heroes, and starting deck for overlord. Advanced gives the heroes 3 exp and 150 gold per hero, plus access to the full act 1 item deck to buy whatever they want (act 1 items mostly range between 75 and 150 gold), and the overlord gets 4 exp. This lets the heroes get any skill they want, and even multiple skills if they don't pick the top-tier ones, and the overlord can either get any four cards or build up to get a level 2 card. Epic level gives the heroes 6 exp and 250 gold each, plus access to the act 2 item deck (most items range from 100 to 250), while the overlord gets 8 exp, which is enough to build up to a level 3 card (all of which are devastating - one is an instant kill on a hero if he fails an attribute test, or heavy damage if he passes). I believe the heroes are supposed to know what cards the overlord buys for the game, but not what's actually in his deck.

Back to the actual deck, I think the problem with having a "customizable" deck like that is it's not easy to balance that many cards against each other, so it would likely boil down to the same 15-card deck, with a few changes based on the quest, or if the base deck is dealt at random, a lot of issues of the game being impossible for one side just because the overlord got a good/bad deck dealt out. Still, a few more basic cards would probably be welcome. (I'll also point out that it doesn't feel like any of the basic cards are useless. Not all of them would be good in all quests, and the purchased cards are certainly better, but I think there won't be any cards that I'll leave in the box for the entire campaign.)

LinkN said:

Well, that's nice to hear. =)

Well worry no longer with the quest builder app the max map size is 32 wide by 37 high and I just put together a quest that uses every piece of the Core Set and the Shadow of Nerekhall expansion and used up the whole 32x37 square map in just one encounter. I think this is what the original post was about and I could agree with any2cards in saying it can be fun to have a massive single quest which plays like a campaign so I think with a few expansion sets you could make two massive encounters that would be epic compared to the individual campaign quest you play through in the campaigns provided. Of coarse you do have to get into the Quest builder App so you'll be writing your own storyline and balancing your own map design but how could an overlord not enjoy that? Better hero up though this dungeon is huge! I'm not done with the quest yet but the title is Salvation and I will make it public after I play through it and make a few adjustments. If you know of any good massive maps in the quest vault link them, I'd love to hear about some other epic map builds.

The most important thing is that if you play Descent often, you'll age 20 years in only 5. Beware!