A wider sampler than Dam's personal statistics can be found here . The overall trend is that the game is more difficult with Unseen Forces in (19.51% losses) rather than just core game (17.95%)

Additionally, Unseen Forces Ancient One Abhoth is the toughest guy in town (33% losses) unless you own Shubbie Arkham Night version

Even though the difference is rather minor, I just can't see how you'd lose more with UF than without it. Almost everything UF adds makes it easier. Instead of adding a doom token as reward for a few cards, you get to remove from the already meagre numbers. Blessed, far more common in appearance than Cursed, sticks around a lot longer (most of the time that investigator keeps it until the end) adds another semi-permanent die. Master Mythos, that sound like they should be nasty, many have A or B option, with one of them always being no doom token, yet again slowing down the lagging clock.

Abhoth seems nasty because of his Children, but you rarely should have to deal with them. It takes 4 Midnights to hit the lose condition, you can get enough Elder Signs before that with a good draw or you can just use one of the new cards to remove an Adventure with a Child and replace the Adventure, but remove the Child, or slap down Greater Banishment and ignore the Children completely. I'm 4-0 against Abhoth, I think in one of those games have I had to actually fight a Child.

I'm 21-3 with base, 22-0 with UF and all the games with it have been a lot easier (doom track being slower is the biggest reason, Blessed second biggest). It's gotten to the point where we were playing with my friend and felt bad for winning with doom tokens on the track, like it was an epic failure win, after getting a 0 doom token victory in the previous game. Which now seems like the goal, win is all but automatic, gimmie, at this stage with UF.

These are all fair points Dam. My score isn't that different from yours: 18-0 with the core game, 21-1 with Unseen Forces. And I agree on the deck analysis. The only game I lost with UF was due to a Master Mythos triggering an extra +3 doomers in the same phase when I was 1ES from winning again.

Still, on average, stats show that 1 game out of 5 is lost. There are two different threads intertwining here: what statistics say, and what our personal experience says. The fact that we win so often is due to the fact that we understand the game properly / we play at higher levels than average; this doesn't automatically imply that our experience is representative of the difficulties people could have when facing the game.

Really, when you add the Master Mythos cards, you should be pulling some out of the Mythos deck. If you over saturate it, you won't run into the mythos cards that are meant to add doom tokens. Castle Panic! had a list of monsters to pull to be replaced, but I think that is more because you can't win until everything is dead and that would just add far too many monsters to drag out the game. But even still, if you remove core Mythos cards to add in Master Mythos, you can make the game challenging. Especially if the ones you remove might be some of the more 'tame' mythos options. I have only played one game so far, and we won fighting Azathoth with five players, even then it was somewhat close, with him only needing three or four more doom tokens.

I don't have the decks infront of me, at my friend's house where we play the games so I just leave it there, but I would say remove two 'tame' mythos and one mean one for every three master mythos you insert or one and one for two if that is too many. If you just pull everything that is not nasty out, then the game goes into the 'not fun' level of challenging, but I would honestly just from a DM/ST perspective make sure that you are doing an even balance of challenge and not challenge. Also, I play with a larger gaming group, 5-6+ people. I have played Arkham and MoM, the former a lot, the latter not so much just because of the amount of time for set up. I said my opinion on the Arkham Nights GOO, and after we get some more Elder Signs under our belts as a gaming group I will likely swap out cards for the Master Mythos and post what I pulled here, unless FFG chooses to beat me to the punch.

Actually, some sort of deck building for the Mythos deck can help a lot in making the game harder. Go for it!

Having played about a dozen times now, we've lost a couple of the games, with a few wins being veryyyyyy close to raising “he-who-shall-not-be-named”.

As with all random games … the dice ( and card ) gods will decide! The odds are certainly in our favour, but we've found some games have been won because we forgot the Mythos card effects (i.e. monsters at midnight, no spells, etc), the adventure card terror effects, locked dice, etc … so keeping track of what's going on across the table can sometimes allow you to win.

I doubt if many people would buy the game if it was too hard, so it always a balancing act for game designers to find that … equilibrium … to keep it challenging for us plebs.

I personally luv this game because of the whole package … storyline, cool images, cards, textures, counters, etc … luv it! AND with the expansion … well, let's see if it adds more fear to the unbelievers! … Walts

Sorry Vala but this message board will post the quote but not my response I just wanted to share with you somehing funny that someone once said about "he who would rather not be named for some undetermined or explained reason."

"Hastur. Hastur. Hastur. Suck it my girlfriend is Science!"

-Will Wheaton-

If you are looking for a simple way to increase difficulty, try randomly adding one monster to each adventure location at the beginning of the game, then just play the game as normal. It's a simple way to increase difficulty without changing any major game rules or mechanics.

Having played about a dozen times now, we've lost a couple of the games, with a few wins being veryyyyyy close to raising “he-who-shall-not-be-named”.

As with all random games … the dice ( and card ) gods will decide! The odds are certainly in our favour, but we've found some games have been won because we forgot the Mythos card effects (i.e. monsters at midnight, no spells, etc), the adventure card terror effects, locked dice, etc … so keeping track of what's going on across the table can sometimes allow you to win.

I doubt if many people would buy the game if it was too hard, so it always a balancing act for game designers to find that … equilibrium … to keep it challenging for us plebs.

I personally luv this game because of the whole package … storyline, cool images, cards, textures, counters, etc … luv it! AND with the expansion … well, let's see if it adds more fear to the unbelievers! … Walts

That's a good idea, I think if I ever feel the need to increase the difficulty I'll do that or start adding a doomer at midnight every night regardless of the Mythos card.

Honestly though many of my games have been veeeeery close. I also admit that I enjoy having a game where my poor devastated investigators (Yes, you can blame Eldritch Horror for that.....) have a decent chance at revenge er... I mean justice!

Hi,

I am new here, but I have played ES Omen (all expansions) for a year or two now (40-60 times) and tabletop ES with expansion.

OMEN: I can honestly say that Omen is way more difficult and I win max 30% of the games (50-60 if I hand pick my crew) on all Gods.
Tabletop: My winning ratio is 80-90% with roughly 15-20 completed games (from solo up to 8 players).

Making Tabletop more difficult:
a: My home rule is similar to the one from the OMEN, which means that once Ancient God reach the max of his doom tokens we do not fight him, we simply lose at this very moment. I found the fight the Ancient One particularly boring (unless we were doing something wrong).
b: randomize the crew, no hand picking. Once investigator is used for one game (I set cards aside), then we have to random pick from the investigators which were not previously used. It gives us a chance to check playability of all investigators and not stick to the super powerful ones.

Kind regards,
Marcin

PS. I find the home rule to add doom each midnight or locking green dice very powerful and definitely making the game way harder.

A wider sampler than Dam's personal statistics can be found here . The overall trend is that the game is more difficult with Unseen Forces in (19.51% losses) rather than just core game (17.95%)

Additionally, Unseen Forces Ancient One Abhoth is the toughest guy in town (33% losses) unless you own Shubbie Arkham Night version

Shubbie Arkham Night? Is that another expansion?

Nope. Every year FFG organizes an event in Autumn called "Arkham Nights". Partecipants to the event receive a bag of goodies, which usually includes a bonus AO for Elder Sign. A new version of Shub-Niggurath was made available in this way

Nope. Every year FFG organizes an event in Autumn called "Arkham Nights". Partecipants to the event receive a bag of goodies, which usually includes a bonus AO for Elder Sign. A new version of Shub-Niggurath was made available in this way

Interesting.

I just started playing with my roommate so I was unaware of that. Thanks for the info.

Welcome If you want to see the guy, and all the other AOs released for Arkham Nights, just go here and select what picks your interest

Enjoy the game!

A wider sampler than Dam's personal statistics can be found here . The overall trend is that the game is more difficult with Unseen Forces in (19.51% losses) rather than just core game (17.95%)

Additionally, Unseen Forces Ancient One Abhoth is the toughest guy in town (33% losses) unless you own Shubbie Arkham Night version

Seriously 11 dudes ...

I was beaten to death in the last few games I played and this with over 25 games under my belt. So here is another nice overview:

1. People cheat all the time. I am not saying you cheat btw, but many do.

2. People forget rules all the time. Certainly in solo play it already happened to me I didn't notice a locked die until a turn after it showed up. You see it many times by streamers, they too make huge mistakes.

3. Being hardcore and belonging to the very very few of posting and answering on a website is not a good example to contribute to any meaningful statistics for the casual player or even fan.

In my own player experiences I think you have at least a 50-60% chance of being beaten in this game with the Unseen Forces expansion with all Mythos cards included. And I am no moron either as I have 600 board games under my belt from ASL to Eldritch Horror.

Yes I won great and easy victories in ES but I lost many as well.

So with a mere dozen people contributing to these "stats" and the few left clearly not wanting to look complete asxxxe by posting every defeat, I think you have a clear cut example of a typical bandwagon internet rumour.

Besides I think all these stats coming from hardcore players ... will put every game in some bad "easy" light which these games mostly don't deserve. From PC WoW to any good board or card game.

I find both ES and Eldritch superb games btw and I have come to realise I like these kind of games with great flavor far more than any dry Euro game of abstract thinking.

So enjoy without following some opinion leaders who are too hardcore anyway. I probably have far more years over all of you and I have seen these arguments for almost 6 decades already.

tldr: to get the real figures: divide by 2 and then substract by X% to see the results for Mr and Mrs Casual playing on a Holliday once or twice a year.

In my own player experiences I think you have at least a 50-60% chance of being beaten in this game with the Unseen Forces expansion with all Mythos cards included. And I am no moron either as I have 600 board games under my belt from ASL to Eldritch Horror.

Your player experience is a reflection of your playing skills, and this is true for everyone here. If you want to calculate the odds to lose at this game, you can analyze the following parameters:

- the lenght of the doom track

- the number of doom increases due to Mythos effects

- the number of doom increases due to Adventure cards effects

- the average length of the game, which is linked to the ratio between Elder Sign awarded by adventures and the number of adventure cards in the deck

I don't want to enter in specific details (the thread would become extremely long and boring) but for instance core set and UF OWs grant a reward of 16 Elder Signs over 10 cards, which means that each OW card on average rewards you with 1.6 ES + its trophy value. On the other hand, failing an OW never results in a doomer being added (unless you're suicidal and attempt to go in a place whose penalty will kill you, but that's a +1 doom due to bad tactics, not due to the card).

We could go on and on forever, but the point is (and it's mathematically provable, so, please it's not an opinion) that the ES reward vs doom penalty in the game is totally skewed in favour of the investigators.

Then: surf the BGG or other online communities and you'll notice how many complain about the non-existant difficulty of the game per se; possibly these guys do not post their results on Tibs' statistics, but they do represent an interesting part of the community.

Additionally: statistics are a reflection of reality. They could be skewed by each player experience, but they are certainly more reliable than a stranger passing by and saying "hey, I know the truth, divide the number by 2 and then subtract something for Mr and Mrs Casual". First of all, there is no proof your opinion is a fact (and that's again, it's a fact and not my opinion) and then people playing a game once or twice per year are as representative of how difficult a game is as a casual painter is representative of the art of the last two centuries.

If the actual difficulty of the game is ok for you, then, glad it is, it means that you'll be enjoying it on and on. But please don't come here insulting people saying they cheat or they lie about their scores.

My feeling is that, for the stats site, the people interested in publishing their stats worldwide are not those who cheat. Forgetting rules is another issue, but again I might suggest that on the other hand, since 11 submitters are responsible for 62% of the results, these submitters are probably well-versed in the rules.

Something else to consider is that these particularly frequent submitters, who we assume are vets, may skew the stats in the difficulty department—because they might have some idea how to win. I know that Dam (submitter #2) is extremely attentive to details and is not dishonest, so there's that.

All that said, I don't think this has a significant outcome on the overall win percentage. Elder Sign is not a very hard game, and it was not hard from the beginning through when I beta'd the expansion. Furthermore, the veteran bias likely extends equally across all games, so the ratio of difficulties between the base game and UF is likely accurate.

Unfortunately, These issues that I pointed out are biases that we have to take care to consider, and there's not much to be done about it. The biases will be beat down as a larger variety of players hear about the stats site and are willing to submit their games. I don't prefer to take a hands-on approach to promoting the stats site, so I'll leave that up to you all.

I shall also point out that contributors 3 and 4 are Julia and myself, and we definitely post honestly. I can vouch for The Professor and ObsessiveGamer as well. Since the five of us comprise 30% of the results, I'd say that intentional or accidental dishonesty is not an issue to that degree. Veteran skewing may be the bigger issue. But again, ES was never hard. It only ever gave me trouble when I play-tested a custom variant. On the Arkham stats site, I recall a user asking if he could upload his own collection of results, but it turned out he only recorded his victories. That was 90 "success" submissions, and I accepted them because that was a relatively minor fraction of the total results. Today it's up to like 12,000 or thereabout, so that bias is negligible.

Lastly, don't forget that you're weighing this collection of results against your own personal experience, the latter of which is more prone to systematic error. If you have an experience like I did with these kinds of games, your luck could change tomorrow. I won my first Eldritch Horror game (for example) rather easily... and then lost each of the next 5 or 6 games brutally, and have not won since. Had I gone by my first even three impressions, I would have thought the win rate was reasonable. If I go by my own experience now, I'd say it's brutally unfair. However, the stats site now has thousands of results that suggest the game's win ratio is about 50/50. I believe the stats. I'm probably missing some smart tactic somewhere.

To summarize: it's hardly a "bandwagon" effect.

In my own player experiences I think you have at least a 50-60% chance of being beaten in this game with the Unseen Forces expansion with all Mythos cards included. And I am no moron either as I have 600 board games under my belt from ASL to Eldritch Horror.

Your player experience is a reflection of your playing skills, and this is true for everyone here. If you want to calculate the odds to lose at this game, you can analyze the following parameters:

- the lenght of the doom track

- the number of doom increases due to Mythos effects

- the number of doom increases due to Adventure cards effects

- the average length of the game, which is linked to the ratio between Elder Sign awarded by adventures and the number of adventure cards in the deck

I don't want to enter in specific details (the thread would become extremely long and boring) but for instance core set and UF OWs grant a reward of 16 Elder Signs over 10 cards, which means that each OW card on average rewards you with 1.6 ES + its trophy value. On the other hand, failing an OW never results in a doomer being added (unless you're suicidal and attempt to go in a place whose penalty will kill you, but that's a +1 doom due to bad tactics, not due to the card).

We could go on and on forever, but the point is (and it's mathematically provable, so, please it's not an opinion) that the ES reward vs doom penalty in the game is totally skewed in favour of the investigators.

Then: surf the BGG or other online communities and you'll notice how many complain about the non-existant difficulty of the game per se; possibly these guys do not post their results on Tibs' statistics, but they do represent an interesting part of the community.

Additionally: statistics are a reflection of reality. They could be skewed by each player experience, but they are certainly more reliable than a stranger passing by and saying "hey, I know the truth, divide the number by 2 and then subtract something for Mr and Mrs Casual". First of all, there is no proof your opinion is a fact (and that's again, it's a fact and not my opinion) and then people playing a game once or twice per year are as representative of how difficult a game is as a casual painter is representative of the art of the last two centuries.

If the actual difficulty of the game is ok for you, then, glad it is, it means that you'll be enjoying it on and on. But please don't come here insulting people saying they cheat or they lie about their scores.

The number and quality of monster spawns in Unseen Forces is much harder, which makes sometimes for unsolvable locations. Like that mythos card that added 3 monsters in one turn (I didn't have a rare item) or the cursed state that makes a character almost unplayable for some time.

Add the Mythos card that closed the shop ... and you see where the alarm bells rang just in my last game.

Being confronted with Monsters all over the place, not really much could be done. Just like the iPad version adds this all the time.

------> It is quite clear that the non cheatable iPad version has a rather high killing ground for players just by adding monsters randomly...

So forget the arguments already, the problem lays in the added monsters, not so much in added Doom counters, altough all adds up of course once you are in that downward spiral.

-------- The famous stats ----

Stats like you gather here are MEANINGLESS when 11 people constitute for ... 62% of the stats. That's not valid because the sample is ridiculously low.

Stats of 11 players are only a reflexion by those 11 players. It is ridiculous to think they have ANY meaning outside of your circle of inner protection in these forums.

It would be enough that my brother and I would add 30 losses EACH in game and you would see a drop of 5-10%. That's just a too limited and elitist sample to have any credibility how this game is played by the ... masses of say 100k casual players.

Furthermore ... on the bandwagon effect:

Did you notice that of the last 50 sessions, you arrive at a 90% win rate in here ? LOL. Of course ... which idiot will still publish a row of losses in here .

That right there is your bandwagon effect, spreading all over. The fact you referred to boardgame forums simply confirms it. It "is true because I read it in a hardcore forum" ...Right ...And there they stated: I saw the stats: 80% win rate, but they didn't see the 11 dudes making up 62% of the stats ....

------> Now before coming back here and discuss about things I didn't say nor implied. You 11 players may be the upper core of the upper hardcore players: grz ! Really true ! grtz !

Now ... Give me your results of 10 Elder Sign Omen plays on a medium Elder: first it will show you that the random placement of monsters is crucial there. Once you start in a downward spiral of not being able to solve adventures, no one is going to roll loaded dice on the computer.

Simple as that.

Looking at my plays, I think I am quite spot on with my 50% LOSS rates for us - mere mortals. On the iPad version it is more close to 70-80% LOSSES without even counting the expansions. And I still bet that a LOT of casual players make serious errors in their board play sessions too.

So ES is not the first game that is melted down by some hardcore opinions, and it will not be the last, but I refuse to accept the opinion of 11 hardcore players (even bragging about their beta status) as they represent less than 0.0001% of the total player numbers of a game in which the vast majority have great fun.

The normal players will never ever solve the Rubic's Cube in 5.55 seconds either. Or even 10 times more.

But apparently on the internet most pretend they can. So while the game is not a cube to solve, it is even more fun.

The number and quality of monster spawns in Unseen Forces is much harder, which makes sometimes for unsolvable locations. Like that mythos card that added 3 monsters in one turn (I didn't have a rare item) or the cursed state that makes a character almost unplayable for some time.

Add the Mythos card that closed the shop ... and you see where the alarm bells rang just in my last game.

Did you notice that of the last 50 sessions, you arrive at a 90% win rate in here ? LOL. Of course ... which idiot will still publish a row of losses in here .

Few points. First off, Cursed? Blessed is not only a far more common card to get (given it's not only a possible reward, but can also be bought) and sticks around for several turns (starting with a Blessed due to a starting card and keeping it the entire game not unheard of) and Blessed in itself is a boost to the investigators, a free die. Not to mention, if a Cursed character looks like being a hindrance, I'll just off him by suiciding him in some manner or another and get a new character. Adding a doom token for a devoured investigator, especially with UF (see below), isn't going to break me so why the hell would I not do it? Assuming can't get rid of the Cursed status by completing an Adventure (which isn't all that hard if packing 8 dice + Clues).

As for Mythos closing shops, actually, that's pretty much always my pick with those Master Mythos. Why? Because IIRC the other option is to add a doom token (or two), which would run up the timer. By choosing the shop closing option, I just earned myself an extra 4 actions, but given the rarity of guaranteed doom token adding Mythos, potentially 12 or even 16 actions. Closing the shop is a no-brainer pick most of the time, extra afforded by not adding a doom token is a huge issue with all these conditional Mythos cards.

As for records, I've logged in all my AH and ES plays, wins and losses, not only here but also on BGG. I don't differentiate between win and losses, granted, of course I like to win, that's the goal always, but I log ALL my plays, wins and losses. But like I said in a recent post on BGG, if, after adding UF, all the AO had a doom track of 5 and game ended when it woke up (no final combat), 22 plays with UF, I'd still come out with a 18-4 record. Only four times has the doom track even reached 5, with the average doom token count with UF being a pathetic 2.8, mostly due to all those conditional instead of mandatory doom token adding Mythos, partly because of old doom token as reward Adventures getting replaced by doom token removing Adventures (again, turning back the game's timer in effect, 4-16 free actions for each doom token removed in effect).

Also, I'd like to add my win-loss ratio for the Omens version (not counting Cthulhu, Pharaoh or Ithaqua) is 92%. With Cthulhu is 75% (I lead 8-2), and I still have to play with Pharaoh and Ithaqua, which I expect to be harder. Losing 80% of the times implies you simply move investigators at random and roll dice for the fun of it, which can also be good if you have fun at it, but I won't state this is a parameter upon which to measure the difficulty of a game.

Additionally, as said, you can't judge the difficulty of the game without knowing how the game works, and this means numbers. Not "player experience". A game is not a piece of art, it's based on numbers. You can say "Earth is immobile in the solar system because I don't sense its motion", but science disproved this wildely. There are numbers supporting each and every word stated hereby by Tibs, myself and Dam (who actually gave some good suggestions on how to deal with Master Mythos), and there are no numbers supporting your theories, which, for me, are hence floating into a void of nothing.

Finally, I don't understand your hatred towards those whose win/loss ratio is different from yours. So? What's the point? They play better. Period. What's the purpose of attacking Tibs statistics? Ok, they can be skewed, and so? Do we have any more data? No. Hence, even if skewed by the level of the players, it's always a reference. If you want, enter your 200+ games played, they will have an impact on the final result, I'm sure. And in any case, Tibs spent hours of his time to create a tool to help the community, which provides tons of useful information (the difficulty of the game as win/loss ratio is possibly the least interesting variable analyzed on this sheet); we should all be grateful to him for the time spent, in stead of bragging they are useless. It's called "human respect".

This said, feel free to answer, but don't expect me to reply. There's no interest for the community in having any thread flaming and destructive observations bring never any good.

At Dan ...

I played - on draw - the Elder where all costs were doubled. A few turns after start I could not get rid of a certain Adventure that kept spawning Monsters at midnight, then I drew the 3 Monster Mythos, followed by ... the shop closes forever...

I ended up with 6 normal adentures and 2 Worlds, all stuck with monsters. At that stage you simply want to survive and pray for the last fight. I lost that of course with 8 Dooms remaining (2 dead investigators before that fight, so my points were rather low to survive many rounds).

To both ....

This is a ... card draw AND dice game btw. Ayone proclaiming he can't loose is like stating he manages to roll sixes ... all the time.

You see your problem is NOT the ratio of Doom or Elder tokens, the difficulty lays with the monster spawns mostly. As the Omen version clearly proves.

---- You didnt even try what I asked for -----

Now do the challenge: download Elder Sign the Omen, the most apparent change there is that the placements of monsters is random. Play with 4 investigaters even to migitate the replacement of dead ones somewhat

I am quite convinced you will loose several out of 10 played games.

It is called: computers don't make rules mistakes.

11 people made up 62% of your "representative" stats. That's silly in view of the fact NO ONE can even control the statements made by these people.

Several players though posted far more credible scores, like 60% wins etc... I bet you 10.000 dollars many players will "not post a massive number of losses" in ANY GAME btw. That is simply a human factor to be considered in ANY game. I remember someone on BGG stating he never lost the Lotr Carrock scenario in 20 runs ... ... Yeah right. People lie on the internet... all the time.

But THIS game simply has too few samples to be credible: it is a pure bandwagon effect, protected by the "hardcore I play better than the masses dudes". Good for them.

As for the better player: why could this forum NOT answer a very simple rule question in another thread for ... 8 months ? While all is indicated in the clear cut rules AND confirmed by the ES iPad version ... I had to stumble over it and .... answered it correctly, even referring to the computer version to prove it...

So humble me, the "bad player" with a mere 40-50% wins ... answered a rather simple rules question that kept unsolved for 8 months by the usual invincable champs...winning 99% of their games. Yeah ... right.

I doubt very much you play any better. You simply post more victories in a self controlled board game. That was very clear with that ongoing rule question.

Now play the Omen version and you will do a lot worse than losing 1 or 2 games out of 40 matches. My record there is around 1 in 3 wins... Lets see where you arrive in that game. If your stats are worth anything you should win 8/10 Omen games (excluding the expansions).

If not ... well it is the SAME mechanics and draw your own conclusions...how much better you really are. It is a challenge, take it ...

I have no problem who is the superior player, I have a problem with inventing stats by an elite uncontrolled dozen posters that make up stats and spread it as a reference.

Apparently the other Lovecraft games have more individual posters, but I am quite convinced that the real average of wins is mostly overrated in these games too. People don't post their failures in general.

This is a ... card draw AND dice game btw. Ayone proclaiming he can't loose is like stating he manages to roll sixes ... all the time.

You see your problem is NOT the ratio of Doom or Elder tokens, the difficulty lays with the monster spawns mostly. As the Omen version clearly proves.

---- You didnt even try what I asked for -----

Now do the challenge: download Elder Sign the Omen, the most apparent change there is that the placements of monsters is random. Play with 4 investigaters even to migitate the replacement of dead ones somewhat

As for the better player: why did this forum could NOT answer a very simple rule question in another thread for ... 8 months ? While all is indicated in the clear cut rules AND confirmed by the ES iPad version ... I had to stumble over it and .... answered it correctly, even referring to the computer version to prove it...

So humble me, the "bad player" with a mere 40-50% wins ... answered a rather simple rules question that kept unsolved for 8 months by the usual invincable champs...winning 99% of their games. Yeah ... right.

I doubt very much you play any better. You simply post more victories in a self controlled board game. That was very clear with that ongoing rule question.

If not ... well it is the SAME mechanics and draw your own conclusions...how much better you really are.

First off, you don't need to roll sixes all the time, 4s and 5s will do at some points. And since, barring a mandatory arrow Adventure, you have the choice of what row to complete, anything from 1 to 6 can be a potential success.

I don't have anything that could be used to play ES Omens, so that's not going to happen. Not that I play digital board games anyways. But I don't think anyone is claiming ES and Omens are the same, in terms of gameplay or difficulty. That's beside the point for me, since I'm only interested in the physical game. From what I've heard/read, Omens does several things differently than ES, you don't even see the Mythos cards in that one, do you? Are there conditional Mythos in Omens? They just happen. If there's random monster placement, that's another difference to the physical game where players have the choice (unless there is only one available monster task or such situation). Omens also has very weird requirements in some of the scenarios (Ithaqua one comes to mind) that would simply don't have in the physical game. Is Blessed/Cursed even in Omens? What about adventure swapping or monster-removing cards that come in UF? Doubled shopping rate from the UF Entrance cards?

Also, playing solo with 1 investigator, all the gains go to one investigator, all the trophies and such. Having 1 investigator that is Blessed and a surplus of Items is better than having 2 investigators with only one of them Blessed and Items split between them (since non-Blessed investigator now does half a day's actions instead of having only the Blessed investigator going for Adventures). Then again, we've won 2-player games with doom track on 0 after UF, but you can see the difference even there, one buffed up investigator with all the goodies versus two investigators with spread out goodies, running with just one investigator is easier.

I've logged all my 120+ games of Memoir 44, with a win-% of just over 50, according to you, I guess I MUST be holding off from logging some plays, gotta be some more losses somewhere, right?. Same with 120 plays of Battle Cry, not even sure I have a 50% win rate in that one. LotR the boardgame, again, everything logged, less than 50% win rate. I log everything for all the games I play. Out of those games, ES and Pathfinder the Adventure Card game are the ones where a good deal of people other than myself claim the games are too easy (PACG is even worse than ES, I mean rolling 5d12+d10+3 and needing a 10 or more, yeah, that's going to fail a lot, right?). I personally don't find Arkham Horror hard either.

Out of curiosity, which rules question are you referring to?

I have to say from the moment I've picked up Elder Sign (and by extension, Arkham Horror ), I've been enamored by the rule-set, development of play, and the mechanisms engaging the players. While as Dam mentioned in one of his posts, it's always a bonus to "win" that's not the focus of the game for me. If I'm playing with others (<10% of the time), it's a great puzzle and a social event. If, however, I'm playing solo, I still find the entire enterprise intriguing. I'm not going to kill off a character to save my win, but I can certainly see it as a legitimate tactic.

Bear in mind that your dealing with nearly several hundred cards in Elder Sign and nearly two thousand with Arkham Horror (I know...I've sleeved them ). With those numbers randomized across the length of an entire game, it's quite possible to field a few cards which will greatly disrupt your delicate plans for winning...I'm sure Julia , Dam , and Tibs can all attest to the "game knows what I'm thinking" scenario when a Gate opens in Arkham with no one around or two cards in Elder Sign add an inordinate number of monster tokens...it happens. Just get back in there and play...play, play, play with an eye toward how things work.

My colleague, Julia, and I have shared a number of stories and while our approach to these games differs on the periphery, we're both about having fun. Now, with nearly three decades of experience playing board games (and now designing, developing, and play-testing them), I would hope to have a fairly robust win-loss ratio, or maybe board games aren't for me. Anyway, I hope you're having fun with the games and continue to contribute the larger dialogue.

Cheers,

Joe

I just remembered that Eldritch Horror's mobile version ("Omens") is, from what I've been told, significantly harder than the tabletop game. This stats site is intended only for the tabletop game. There could be your discrepancy.