PadmeSkywalker said:

Yeah, I thought that was a curious omission from the announcement. Based on the existing breakdown, I'd guess the lists for MaO and Lake-town would look something like this:

MaO:

3x Cut Off

2x Wainrider Captain

3x Captured Watchtower

2x Pelennor Fields

1x The Witch-king (just kidding)

--

Lake-town:

3x Esgaroth Wharf

1x Great House

1x The Master's Manor

2x Reckless in His Rage

2x Close to the Flame

This one is particularly difficult to adjust because so many of the nasty encounter cards are locations that provide crucial victory points. Removing them makes it easier to quest and battle Smaug, but may make it harder to amass the necessary VP level at the end of the game.

booored said:

I don't think a casual player would feel ashamed playing on easy mode. That's more the perception of how an 'easy mode player' should feel by competitive tournament players. And calling it anything else would lead to more confusion 'Story mode …. Is there more narrative elements in this?' Etc.

Besides beating a quest on easy mode doesn't have to be considered a final victory. Every time you get a new Hero or amazing player card you'll look back and think 'Great! An Eomer Hero! Now I'll go back and tackle that impossible Helm's Deep quest in standard mode.' I know spirit Glorfindel made a lot of the previous quests beatable in solo. That's the great thing about the game, it's always evolving, and having incremental difficulty levels only increases the replay value and longevity of the game.

Glaurung said:

I think a lot of us probably just don't have the time or desire to study every minutiae of the game and build meta decks to beat specific scenarios. I enjoy building fun, thematic decks and don't really care to buy more than one core set either. Playing solo (one-handed) can be pretty tough against some of the more difficult scenarios. I play only solo one-handed and haven't even attempted even Escape from Dol Guldur yet because of the difficulty. With easy mode rules I finally want to try it now!

I don't see how easy mode is a negative in any way. Players who like the challenge will still play normal mode or nightmare mode. Players who are part of leagues or getting together for casual play will find easy mode a much more enjoyable time and certainly less stressful. One of the biggest advantages to this new mode of play is the fact you pretty much can now construct the heroes and player deck that you find enjoyable and have a good chance of success. I think that is brilliant.

And for those who think easy mode was a bad decision. Easy mode has been available for awhile now…it's called using the Dwarf-tailored deck.

For the record, I have played the quest, Into Ithilien, 8 straight times with a carefully constructed Gondor deck and haven't sniffed victory yet. I have beat every quest up until now by the fifth try. What is going on here? LOL

@SystemIsDown

I thought the exact same thing about Dol-Gulur. But then I felt like I should at least give it one try just to see what the quest is like but then nver play it again. So I gave it one try playing solo with a pretty good deck and guess what!!! I won! It wasnt even super close. I was like what?? I thought this is supposed to be a hard quest. But I looked at all the rest of the cards that I didnt get and thought that I didn't get too easy of draws from the encounter deck. I got A jailer, Ungoleints Spawn, Hummerhorns, 2 Necromancer's reach(1 I cancelled). So I'd say that I got a pretty even game and I stll won. Now I have't given it a second try, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. You should give it a try i think Let me know if you want to see the deck.

@Experienced players at Dol-Goldur quest.

What do you think about the above? I am going to give the quest some more tries, but it seemed not that bad. I put the shadow key on frodo, and I had Strider to keep threat good. Do some of you find the quest easier with the bigger card pool now? Or is this quest still super hard and you always have truoble beating it solo?

Thanks

Khamul

Thank you Caleb and FFG for "Easy Mode". This is a fantastic option for the game. If want to use it, it's there for you. If you don't, you can still play the game as normal. Perfect.

The Battle of Five Armies is still hard solo, even with the easy mode. But I'll have to see how it handles with an outlands deck. I hear those are very good…

Khamul The Easterling said:

You was just lucky my friend and probably you play some rules wrong too…….this is really hard quest…..

Honestly I don't see the point.

What I mean is - this isn't FFG adding anything, all they're saying is take out the hardest cards and start with a resource. This isn't exactly an amazing inovation.

We already had an easy mode where they suggested playing without shadow cards.

If I had suggested starting with bonus resources (as a fan suggestion) people would have been saying it was cheating… I don't get why people are fooled into thinking this is any different.

(MInd you, I never objected to peopple taking out cards they didn't enjoy anyway - which is essentially what this change suggests).

Exactly my point. To me it looks like FFG has (finally) realised that many people get frustrated by the games difficulty. Now that's a good thing. But what they did in the matter was the absolute minimum. The game itself was left 100% unchanged.

I had hoped they would make the quests easier out of the box and sell "hard mode" to the players that want an additional challenge.

SystemIsDown said:

~signed~

karagh said:

OK, talking background. So you think it’s fluffy that we try a quest 5+ times until we finally make it with heavily modified decks? You think it’s in line with the story that we fail and die so many times while just encountering a fraction of the challenges the heroes of middle earth actually mastered all the first time (in a row)? I don’t like the idea that my party (e.g. Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli) got killed by that monster (again…) and now ponder about what equipment or allies they should have brought instead. Aragorn: „ Hey Lego, you are no big help here, I think we should replace you with a good quester!“.

This is actually the reason I play with general purpose decks only. The heroes have to deal with whatever is coming using what they have. To use your diction, the heroes can’t ask Melkor or Sauron „Hey wait, can we please change our equipment, get Elrond and Glorfindel and find some unexpected courage etc. before we start over with this battle we cannot otherwise win“?

Legolas of Darkwood said:

You can win this battle, but only if you try an get prepared for it. Any avtivity requires time to learn and master it, even those that don't require deckbuilding, or a table. And is pretty hard to eat a soup with a fork.

I agree that "heroes have to deal with whatever is coming using what they have". What heroes' have is YOU!!!

I played the first two Core quests with a themed 'Bilbo and The Elves' deck on Easy mode Now I know these quests are not exactly hard to begin with, but I had the most fun playing the game in a long time. Being able to play with Silvans (my favourite), which currently have little synergy going on, along with themed cards for each of the Heroes (Bilbo, Aragorn and Legolas) made for a fun time.

Khamul The Easterling said:

I used to try this quest every five or six months with the new cards, just to see if it could be completed. And I have never yet done so. Which is a shame, as I like some of the cards that come out of the encounter deck (which is weird, I know). I'd like to have a chance, though, and I think this might just be that chance, now

Legolas of Darkwood said:

I chortled as I read this It is a very valid point though. If we could start with nine heroes, I'm sure we'd be fine.

Legolas of Darkwood said:

The idea of this game is build up the deck and play. if you dont wont to building a deck and really think there is no way to win. So you want everythink easy cose you won win all the time and dont wont bother yourself tot much? is mean you not really good byer of this game and you are not real custoner for FFG Now you have easy mode so be happy. Main stream of the game should be on the same level for sure! otherwise the game will go down by sells. why? i can ecxplain you but really lazy to type a lot……… shortly: players who is really spend time with this game and buy all cards and packs need a challenge. if there is no challence people will play other game. no one will buy all pack if he play just for fun. to spend money on this game you must love.

Rapier said:

Rapier said:

Very good points my friend.

Glaurung said:

I have to say I find some of your comments in this thread insulting. I had approached this game hardcore to start with - 3 core sets, all expansions. I'd build killer decks to take down each scenario. But in the end? I didn't really enjoy it. I wanted a more thematic approach to the decks I was using, and not have a bizarre mishmash of Dwarves, Gondor, Elves etc. just so I could win.

But now that I'm stepping down to Easy so that I can play how I want to, apparently I am now not engaging my brain, playing like a kid, am not a real fan, and not suitable for FFGs products?

scottindeed said:

I think now with easy mode everyone will be happy. So now all players should be happy. This old story about difficulty now i hope solve once and for all.

Easy mode is nice, but no, I don't think the "old story" is solved unless the standard game manages to provide a better balance between challenge, fun and success for the average casual people. At the moment LotR is (very much to my sadness) frustrating and scaring away old players and having a hard job attracting new ones.

This has been my observation. Fine if it works for you.

Having tried a couple of easy games after a long hiatus (that wasn't difficulty-related; I just pursued other interests for a while and happened to come back to LoTR the same week they announced easy + the new saga expansions), I must say the biggest difference isn't in the cards that are removed from the encounter deck, but rather the extra resources at the beginning. The game has always been so that the first few turns (especially the first one) are critical; having double the resources to start with means more allies right at the start and a much easier pace for the player. Later in the quest, easy or normal makes littles to no difference (in most quests, you get to this point where you almost cannot lose; it's just a matter of score by then).

Man I see so much people talk as if their opinion means something in this threat. It's quite entertaining really; so here's mine:

At the end of the day, nobody cares if you played hard, standard or easy mode. You play solo, or with friends the way YOU want, in YOUR house.

You can cheat and win all you like at your table anyhow, and even lie and brag here on this forum you beat whatever quest on nightmare mode with 2 threat left. Whoopdidoo, you did not beat anybody but a faceless deck: This is not PvP but PvE. That's a fact.

The point is to have fun no?. Why worry and fight about difficulty? (or even the name of a mode!?) Let others have their opinion & play their game & have fun however they like. Do respect others preferences please, be it themed decks or hardcore.

…That said, I hereby like to thank FFG for taking this game we all play onto the next level! Easy mode + Campain mode = extra options = always a bonus for everyone!

scottindeed said:

Well follow Glaurung´s escapades on these forums and you will realize that his two main hobbies are:

1) Playing Lord of the Rings LCG

2) Insult people with different opinions

@ Noccus: Thank you for your smart input. Loving this game I wanted to state my opinion about the biggest problem with the game I see and maybe contribute to a future modification. But since I take no joy in beeing called a shallow-brained, oafish player and a bad customer I'll leave it at that.

Well follow Glaurung´s escapades on these forums and you will realize that his two main hobbies are:

1) Playing Lord of the Rings LCG

2) Insult people with different opinions

There is no way to edit a post in this forum, is there? (look up) :-)

Found it.

There is no way to delete a post in this forum, is there? ;-)

Legolas of Darkwood said:

I think standard games are already there.
Barring Print on Demands (which is clearly not meant for casual play), Last adventure pack of cycle (which should be above average challenge because it is finale), and Delux Expansions (which I think have higher difficulty on purpose so people would want/need to have player cards from relative cycle), the game isn't really that difficult.

The Saga expansions are especially well designed that I see many people saying they have gotten Core Set + Saga Expansions and are having good time.

I definitely don't want every scenario to be as difficult as Laketown or Dol Guldur, but I would hate to see every quest being as easy as Passage through Mirkwood. If a new expansion is 'fun and sucess' for player who builds thematic decks from limited card pool, what would it be like for people who are into deck-building and has all the card pool?

Now that there are Easy Mode (that doesn't need anything extra) for casual players and Nightmare Mode soon to be available for those people who are willing to spend few extra dollars for added dificulty, I think Standard Mode should keep the trend it has; initially difficult Delux Expansion (so people can have fun losing while waiting for Cycle to properly launch), relatively easier first 5 AP with gradual increase in difficulty (so we can go through them once a month) then relatively difficult final chapter (so we can have fun losing while waiting for next Delux expansion) while increasing difficulty between Cycles to keep up with the powercreep of Player cards.