mr.thomasschmidt said:

We can always use Google translate if we want to engage and can't read the language.

Runix said:

I've been interested in a lot of the comments on this thread. I've played a lot of CCGs and FFG's LCGs, and LotR stands alone as the only cooperative/solo game I've played. That makes it an entirely different monster. Some people clearly approach it like they're playing any other competitive CCG and applying the same mentality. Others clearly approach it more like a thematic experience, perhaps in the vein of a boardgame. Neither is inherently "right" or "wrong." And, of course, there's a whole spectrum.

So it's been interesting to see all the (on the whole) very thoughtful comments about the game's power curve (it's undoubtedly been creeping upward in scenario difficulty) and what in the game's foundations encourages that twist.

However, I think it's worth noting that the cards mentioned above are so powerful because of the unique places they hold (or held) in the game. When Steward of Gondor was the only reliable cash machine (Horn of Gondor is great in multiplayer, but weak in solo), it was an auto-include in pretty much every deck. The Zigil Miner may have been broken pre-errata, but it opened up a whole new deck type (a pretty cool and fun one, too… maybe it made the game too easy and limited design space, but it clearly ended the train of thought that dictated every deck have a Steward of Gondor). I've said it before in another thread, and I'll say it again: A Test of Will is the game's most powerful and most important card because it's the only card in the game that cancels "When Revealed" effects (flat-out cancel versus redraw/exchange). This is not, however, a problem in the foundations of the game. This is a problem with the fact that the card pool doesn't allow other ways around one of the encounter deck's fundamental challenges, the "When Revealed" effect. Likewise, Galadhrim's Greetings offers a good deal of power, but is not in and of itself broken or indicative of a fundamental problem. If you're spending your base resources for a turn on lowering your threat, you're not spending anything toward clearing the staging area. This could result in threat building in the staging area and making progress higher. Typically, you work around this and address both issues at once, but a Sneak Attack / Gandalf is a far more useful threat reduction, because it also adds toward clearing the staging area (4 willpower, 4 defense, or 4 attack).

In other words, there's a big difference between problems in the foundations of the game's mechanics and problems with the game as it exists (with the current card pool). I'd agree with the OP that there are some big problems with the current game and card pool that are being exacerbated by forcing us to rely even more upon the same critical cards (Test of Will), but I'd agree with everyone else who's pointed out that the game's designers have found more innovative ways to use the game's mechanics in interesting ways, pushing the different interactions between card types.

I'm particularly fond of Shadow and Flame for encounter design with the attachments that played on Durin's Bane. Counterspell is one of the nastiest encounter cards we've seen…. but it was a good thing I always played Test of Will when it was revealed ;-)

I partially agree with the OP. My problem isn't really with the player cards or encounter sets. Thematically, the encounter sets do a great job of really translating the difficulty of their story into a card game. But, I agree that the core of the game is really limited. You need to control threat, cancel encounter cards, heal, and control willpower somehow. Even though the encounters put you in different situations, it really comes down to the same thing and after playing four or five games in a row, the sameness just sinks in. I run decks that purposely don't use Steward of Gondor, Galadhrim's Greetings and Sneak Attack/Gandalf just to make it a challenge. But, as more cards get released, I'm finding even more ways to do the same as these cards. Currently, I'm running a Thorin, Ori, Nori deck that draws itself out every game and reduces threat just by playing more Dwarfs. We Are Not Idle/Lure of Moria combo is all the resource acceleration anything would ever need. The only way to lose is by a first or second turn stomping by the worst treachery cards ever created without a Test of Will (which is the one card they need to find alternates of).

I really enjoy playing the game, but its starting to all feel the same. Rush for enough allies to control the board and then drop threat. After the first two turns, you know if you've won the scenario or not. And, it gets worse with every new player card they make.

i ask this in all earnestness: what game *doesn't* start to feel the same? every game has the same core mechanics from expansion to expansion (or not, if it's a board game). magic is play creatures and tap (or mill). clue is travel around and ask questions. battleship is call out grid coordinates. star trek ccg was fly around space, beam down, and complete missions. AGoT is play characters, bash the other guy. tag is running around and touching your friends. soccer is kicking the ball around a field.

while i might be oversimplifying (there is variation to all of the above) but every game, at it's core, is the same every time you play it.

i ask this in all earnestness: what game *doesn't* start to feel the same? every game has the same core mechanics from expansion to expansion (or not, if it's a board game). magic is play creatures and tap (or mill). clue is travel around and ask questions. battleship is call out grid coordinates. star trek ccg was fly around space, beam down, and complete missions. AGoT is play characters, bash the other guy. tag is running around and touching your friends. soccer is kicking the ball around a field.

while i might be oversimplifying (there is variation to all of the above) but every game, at it's core, is the same every time you play it.

gokubb said:

i ask this in all earnestness: what game *doesn't* start to feel the same? every game has the same core mechanics from expansion to expansion (or not, if it's a board game). magic is play creatures and tap (or mill). clue is travel around and ask questions. battleship is call out grid coordinates. star trek ccg was fly around space, beam down, and complete missions. AGoT is play characters, bash the other guy. tag is running around and touching your friends. soccer is kicking the ball around a field.

while i might be oversimplifying (there is variation to all of the above) but every game, at it's core, is the same every time you play it.

gokubb said:

i ask this in all earnestness: what game *doesn't* start to feel the same? every game has the same core mechanics from expansion to expansion (or not, if it's a board game). magic is play creatures and tap (or mill). clue is travel around and ask questions. battleship is call out grid coordinates. star trek ccg was fly around space, beam down, and complete missions. AGoT is play characters, bash the other guy. tag is running around and touching your friends. soccer is kicking the ball around a field.

while i might be oversimplifying (there is variation to all of the above) but every game, at it's core, is the same every time you play it.

I also hate this feelings when you understand you win after couple of rounds. yes there is a long way still but you already now you will win the game….

We need have more quest which is going more harder with quest cards progress and encounter deck must start to react on players power(number of allies, attachments, cards in hand, resources) not only threat level and everything will be fine. And is possible to do!

I partially agree with the OP, sometimes LotR seems only to focus on quest, attack and defend. But FFG can change this with new game mechanics, e.g. I really liked FoS… there are some very good ideas in it. And I hope FFG will do that / continue to do that. Treasures and battlegrounds sound promising, at least.

Glaurung said:

You already told that a good while ago (perhaps a year or so) and it's still right. The encounter deck should build up its power slowly to simulate an opponent in a 2 player duelling game. I created a custom quest with that in mind, try it out if you want to: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/828088/new-custom-quest-orc-hunt. It has one starting encounter card that builds up its strength as the players do, has a starting location that is good for a solo player to make it (hopefully) equally difficult for solo and multiplayer mode, encounter cards that react on some player actions, and it includes a mechanic/theme that you will remember from the old MECCG that I am currently really missing in this game: corruption!

Greetings,

Pete

Just a follow up from the original complainer, or rather, the original poster.

Somebody asked about quests - I have not played the very latest, as I am still working my way through them. I did recognize in my second post, however, that they are making progress making the quests more interesting - but it is very slow progress.

I totally agree with Glaurung and HilariousPete, above - the Encounter deck needs to build more slowly. Too many quests are decided within the first two turns. There are two problems here: one is the very weak synergy in the Encounter deck (some Encounter decks have almost literally zero synergy between cards), and one is the very strong synergy in the player deck. The former is easier to fix, the latter is not.

As for solutions, there are some available solutions, but some things where there simply is not an easy solution. Basically, the quests can be improved, but there's very little that can be done about the player decks, other than the belated balance-by-errata, which is clunky and far from ideal.

Someone mentioned "cannot have attachment" monsters and "cannot be canceled" effects - those aren't solutions, those are belated recognitions that certain player cards are broken. Preventing the player from doing anything about an Encounter deck effect is bad design, only tolerable because it's obvious that certain effects available to the player are way too strong. Ideally, the player should always be able to do something about whatever pops out of the Encounter deck - but not easily. That's the problem, it's just too easy to negate certain Encounter deck effects, so the designers have to make them immune to player effects. Again, bad design. Far better would be to always give the player the option to do something, but make the player work or sacrifice for it.

As far as constructive suggestions, I second the suggestion above of Encounter deck effects that scale off the size of the player's board, or even the size of the player's hand. Also effective would be Encounter deck effects that are difficult, but which can be handled in more than one way - e.g., a card that the player can deal with either through a questing effect or a combat effect or just by having a certain combination of items in play, which would reward creativity on the part of the player. And as already mentioned, quests should start just a bit slower but rapidly accelerate, particularly as the player's actions accelerate.

I also like the multi-quest idea which they've toyed around with previously, but which has new life in The Hobbit expansion. Taking quests one at a time just doesn't "feel" right - ideally, quests would be chained together, and what happens in one would roll forward to what happens in the next one.

I'd also like to see a lot more mechanics built around keywords. Again, they've done a bit more of this recently, with Dark locations from Khazad-dum and so forth, but it's very inconsistent - and, unfortunately, encourages building quest-specific decks, which I personally do not prefer. It would be nice to see a lot more keyword interaction - both positive and negative - between the Encounter deck and the player deck (right now there is a lot of keyword interaction within the player deck, and some within the Encounter deck, but very little between the two).

Just a follow up from the original complainer, or rather, the original poster.

Somebody asked about quests - I have not played the very latest, as I am still working my way through them. I did recognize in my second post, however, that they are making progress making the quests more interesting - but it is very slow progress.

I totally agree with Glaurung and HilariousPete, above - the Encounter deck needs to build more slowly. Too many quests are decided within the first two turns. There are two problems here: one is the very weak synergy in the Encounter deck (some Encounter decks have almost literally zero synergy between cards), and one is the very strong synergy in the player deck. The former is easier to fix, the latter is not.

As for solutions, there are some available solutions, but some things where there simply is not an easy solution. Basically, the quests can be improved, but there's very little that can be done about the player decks, other than the belated balance-by-errata, which is clunky and far from ideal.

Someone mentioned "cannot have attachment" monsters and "cannot be canceled" effects - those aren't solutions, those are belated recognitions that certain player cards are broken. Preventing the player from doing anything about an Encounter deck effect is bad design, only tolerable because it's obvious that certain effects available to the player are way too strong. Ideally, the player should always be able to do something about whatever pops out of the Encounter deck - but not easily. That's the problem, it's just too easy to negate certain Encounter deck effects, so the designers have to make them immune to player effects. Again, bad design. Far better would be to always give the player the option to do something, but make the player work or sacrifice for it.

As far as constructive suggestions, I second the suggestion above of Encounter deck effects that scale off the size of the player's board, or even the size of the player's hand. Also effective would be Encounter deck effects that are difficult, but which can be handled in more than one way - e.g., a card that the player can deal with either through a questing effect or a combat effect or just by having a certain combination of items in play, which would reward creativity on the part of the player. And as already mentioned, quests should start just a bit slower but rapidly accelerate, particularly as the player's actions accelerate.

I also like the multi-quest idea which they've toyed around with previously, but which has new life in The Hobbit expansion. Taking quests one at a time just doesn't "feel" right - ideally, quests would be chained together, and what happens in one would roll forward to what happens in the next one.

I'd also like to see a lot more mechanics built around keywords. Again, they've done a bit more of this recently, with Dark locations from Khazad-dum and so forth, but it's very inconsistent - and, unfortunately, encourages building quest-specific decks, which I personally do not prefer. It would be nice to see a lot more keyword interaction - both positive and negative - between the Encounter deck and the player deck (right now there is a lot of keyword interaction within the player deck, and some within the Encounter deck, but very little between the two).

Again, all in all, I think you have some good ideas. But think of it this way: your thread is titled "More of the same…*sigh*" and you admit you haven't played the most recent quests and many of your points are addressed in those quests (to be sure, perhaps not to your satisfaction). If you are a game designer, and spent a lot of work/energy/time into making the quests, how would you react to a similar post? It starts off sort of demeaning towards the designers and comes off more as a negative, as opposed to constructive, post.

I guarantee if you had titled the thread "Constructive Suggestions for Improving Quests" and made the same points in a more positive manner, the thread would have taken on a whole different life and the conversation would have spun off in an entirely different direction.

This is all of it in a nutshell, Dain. Constructive criticism is the way to go. I learned how to do this when I was in 6th grade. I presume most/all on this board are older than that and familiar with the concept. Give it a shot folks, it doesn't mean you can't be critical, it just means that you aren't critical in a completely asinine way. Acknowledge the good and then make your suggestions. Everyone on the board will be happier, and those who don't share your opinion will take you more seriously.