Dear all,

My friends and me have played the game several times, but I have to say that I think the game is unbalanced. It is too hard for three marines to win from the invaders.

Does anyone have experienced the same? Do you have any suggestions changing the rules?

Hmm, on the other hand, yesterday someone with 'killer instinct' killed the whole room with huge monsters in an eyeblink. Does the marine card killer instinct really work like that? that is, each time the marine with killer instinct kills a monster, it can walk 4 steps and start killing again? That would mean that he can keep killing?

Thanks for the answers.

Brok

In my games, the marines always win except if I manage to separate them.

You can always get the difficulty cards from the net (or supplied in the expansion) if you think one side is winning too much

The killer instinct only works once a turn.

1st thingie ie YES. It's hard for the marines to win - that's the reason I picked the game. It's a constant strugle for survival. That's what it makes DOOM diffrent from Descent - you can always change to that system.

2nd as Knuckles Eki suggested you can change the game diffculty - another great thing about the game!

3rd read the cards mate - from top to bottom Killer Instinct can only be used once during each turn (as again Knuckles Eki pointed out)

4th Which scenario were you playing and how many marine players were there? Maybe just get rid of 1 invadr per new room and it will bring back the joy? Test, test, test. I read and talked with people who were very fond of the game's difficluty and liked to play the same scenarios again and again just to make it throu. Even if it ment to play it 10 times in a row to score 1 win!

Don't blame the game. Experiment, test

And keep asking.

I find difficulty depends on who is playing what.

I am generally lethal no matter what role I play, but some of my mates suck at playing invader

I show no mercy and play event card after event card after event card. But they still manage to win some of the times

They cheat I tell you! They alway cheat!

They didn't cheat...

The dice! It's the dice! The dice are trying to kill me! Hates the dicessss.... Hatesss them...

We found that one off games are okay - usually it's not too difficult on the Normal level.

However, we found that the Campaign was far too difficult. We ended up inventing a "Save" system, where the Marines get one free save per level. They can elect to save at anytime and should they die, the game resets back to the save, though lives are fully restored.

The Marine ability giving three Cancel Invaders' Cards is a must. Also the Efficient Killer skill is a big help because you never run out of ammo for the Shotgun/Machine Gun, which means you can hand off any spare ammo to other players.

Still, the Campaign mode gets boring very quickly. Unmodified, the Marines lose the campaign as soon as they fail a mission. However using the Save system I mentioned above still doesn't fix the problem of the missions getting boring. It's the same thing over and over "Marines enter room, there are [insert enemies here], surrounding a [dead lab technician/key/puddle of ooze].

It's a great game once every few months but if if I want to play a similiar system in a campaign, Descent is the way to go.

Cailus said:

So in essence the Invader needs 7 Frags to win?

Cailus said:

Weird. That's the first card that gets dumped by my friends. 3x cancelling an Invader Event (note, doesn't work on Spawn cards) sucks monkey-balls. Tech Op and Careful do a well enough job of simulating that (negating Jammed and Dud for the former and all Event cards during or just before the latter's turn).

Cailus said:

True. Efficient Killer on one Marine and Tech Op on the other (we play with 2 Marines) makes Duds "perfect" discard cards for the Invader.

Regarding the Cancel Event cards, I understand that this does not work against Spawns, but when the Invader uses Rage (attack twice) on a daemonhound (or whatever they're called), these guys are fast enough to reach you and then frag a Marine in the process.

There are some other Invader cards that can ruin a Marine's day and we found that the Cancel Events helped us when we were in the deep.

Regarding the Save system, I didn't like the way it worked. It was used just to get over the "Marine lose 1 mission, campaign over".

I would have preferred that each lost mission gives the Invaders some kind of subsequent bonus, whether he then gets an extra card in his hand or makes the final campaign boss harder.

come on man keep them together, never seperate them. have fun and run fast....(or you can play the doommaster, like me)

oh by the way check out if the doom master cheats on you.

Mr_Brok said:

The game is hard for three marines, yes, but not unbalanced. The important thing to remember is that this is a HORROR game. It's not very horrifying if the heroes can cakewalk it. The game is designed to be slanted against the marines, on purpose. When they win, though, the victory is that much sweeter. =)

Also, it should be noted that the game is harder for three marines than it is for one. Yes, you read that right. The reason being that the number of monsters on the map is less with fewer marines, but the amount of ammo stays static. More marines means higher demand, lower supply -> harder game.

Oh definately the game is *easier* with fewer Marines. Not only is there more Ammo, there are more Weapons (especially if you play the Fully Loaded mod) so you don't have to worry who gets the BFG, the one Marine gets them all. The single marine also starts out buffer (more Health, more Skill cards, etc). I've played twice with my 2 kids (ages 8 and 9) and they won both games (dice love my kids) but it was by far easier than with 3 Marines.

-shnar

Experience counts for a lot. An invader player not using his cards at appropriate times can make it easier for the marines. Marines thinking that they should kill absolutely everything before they leave an area makes it easier for the invader player. Get an experienced player(s) on both sides? The game can and will go either way.

If someone is finding it too hard, talk about the game after. Point out where things could have gone differently. I always enjoy discussion after the game is over. I think it's great to get input from the other players.

We played this again lastnight for the first time in a long time with some new players. And I have to say this time around I really did a number on the Marines. They just could not get through the first map. And I think it was due to me playing event card after event card to really slow them down. Dice rolls were not really in their favour and the issue of trying to kill everything instead of moving forward really was a factor. They were playing on Hurt Me Plenty difficulty and took a beating unlike other games. I love how hard the game is but I also love how it can go either way. After being away from the game for quite sometime I just love it even more. I really hope FFG decide to breath life back into the line again. A new expansion would be great to see.

As far as the Campaign Mode goes, it seems kinda like it was thrown in at the last minute, similar to the Descent Campaign mode for Vanillia.

On the other hand, the last I heard... Shnar was working on a new Advanced Campaign mode. He posed a LOT of interesting ideas on BGG but I haven't seen a 1.0 of the rough draft yet. Any news yet, Shnar? Lots of us are watching this eagerly.....

I'm currently of the opinion that game is very hard with three marines as well. Since that's what I'm likely to always play, I've been trying to find the right balance in the mods. Here's what I'm doing now. Feel free to comment if you think I'm doing too much or not enough.

Organized Marines

Well-Trained

Super Shotgun

Unending Pistols (modified) = Marine must have ammo. Pistols simply don't deplete it.

I'm currently considering ditching Well-Trained in favor of Standardized Training. I'm reluctant to hand out three skill cards to each marine though.

I'm also thinking of not having armor reset when re-spawning. That should allow the marines to prolong a few frags at the very least.

We'll probably try this new set of mods out next time we play and if the game proves too easy (or hard) then we'll tweak it again. Ideally, I'd like for them to win after 5 frags. I understand wanting the game to be hard to give the marines a real sense of achievement, but that's not totally practical for me. I just don't play this game often enough and we might be struggling with the first scenario forever.

Trump said:

We use those, bar Super Shotgun (2-Marine games). Blow-through on Shotgun makes it very desirable, especially against 2x2 invaders. I've never even tried Super Shottie, but just don't see Knockback being better than B-T. More useful? Still would lean toward B-T. For monsters Knockback makes sense, as you can chuck marines next to poochies or re-position them to make their next turn harder, etc.

Dam said:

Yes, I don't think Super Shotgun is as dangerous either but it has a visceral appeal, you know? The knockback MIGHT be useful with some hazardous terrain or to position baddies next to the chainsaw marine... but more often than not, it wouldn't be anything special.

I find any campaign where the marines are able survive the first level can quickly turn into a joy ride for the marines players. However if no one rools tough or are able save up for the amor boast by the 2nd level the game can be a real nightmare for the marine players. However their is one huge obstacle to finding a conclusive answer to whether the game is too hard or not, and that is the fact the difficulty of the game hindges on the skill of the invaders player. I have seen some invader players who can kill a 4 man team on the first level while others struggle to KO one.

Trump said:

I notice you say "very hard with three marines". This would seem to reflect a similar conclusion to what I came to long, long ago.

And that is, the difficulty of the game varies with the number of marines. The game is much harder with three marines than it is with one.

And some say that the difficulty also varies greatly with the skill of the invader player, and this is true enough, but a skilled invader player against three marines will still give a far tougher game than a skilled invader player against one marine.

But I don't think mods are the way to go to balance the game for varying numbers of players. Doom is scenario-based. The difficulty is set not just by the rules, but by the scenario.

And when I sat down and looked at what changes when the number of players changes, I was forced to conclude that the biggest change is actually in the scenarios. The number of enemies varies linearly with the number of marines, but the amount of resources available to the marines is relatively static.

Three marines have to face about double the number of invaders, but the number of respawns available to them does not change and the amount of ammo, healing, and boosts do not change. Their damage output increases, but this isn't enough, especially when they run out of ammo (which I observed to be common in the first scenario with three marines).

So when I was playing the invader against a couple of friends all the way through the standard ten scenarios, I revised the scenarios. I added ammo, healing and armour such that they vary with the number of marines in a similar fashion to how the invaders vary with the number of marines. This meant that I had ammo marked as white, red, green and blue, the same as the invaders, and the same for health packs and armour and so on.

I did not increase the number of weapons. I did not think this was necessary, as with good play they should find plenty of weapons anyway.

And I found that this worked very well.

We also played that a loss by the marines just required them to play that scenario again. Most scenarios were not overcome by the marines on the first try, and none of us really wants to have them start the entire series over again with each loss.

wraith said:

Sure, a bad invader player is going to make a mess of things, but this isn't rocket science. After a few plays to become familiar with the rules, aren't the strategies fairly straightforward? <shrug>

wraith said:

Hmmmm. Is changing the scenarios all that different from using mods? It just seems to be another way to go about it. I agree that the marines don't seem to need increased damage output. They seem to need longer lives.

I'm not exactly sure how much equipment you're adding, but it sounds like more than I'd be comfortable with. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be enough to simply give medpacs a global effect. One player triggers one and every marine heals three wounds. I've already decided to not reset armor when respawning. What do you think? Will that be enough? Is it too much?

wraith said:

Yikes! I wouldn't dream of restarting the whole thing.

Trump said:

There aren't many games which are rocket science, but in a great many games one can attain greater skill. I don't see any reason why a player could not be a particularly skilled invader player.

The point, though, is that this really isn't the issue.

Trump said:

Hmmmm. Is changing the scenarios all that different from using mods?

Yes, I believe it is. Changing the scenarios allows us to address the issue at the source. It lets us give the marines the extra resources they need when the game is too hard (due to the lack of those resources) without affecting the difficulty of the game in the case when it is well balanced.

You could come up with a different set of mods to use when you have one marine, two marines and three marines... but even then, you may find that your mods interact with different scenarios in different ways. Mods affect the way the game as a whole plays. Scenarios, and changes thereto, have a very localised effect.

Trump said:

Roughly, half again what appears in the standard scenarios for two marines, and double what appears in the standard scenarios for three marines - approximately the same increase in equipment as the increase in the number of invader figures.

And the increase only applies to health packs, ammo and armour, not to weapons. The extra equipment tokens are distributed around the areas in which they appear, so marines can't easily get huge boosts by picking up large stacks of tokens - they still have to work just as hard for their extra ammo.

Trump said:

That would add even more healing than what I have. It will nearly double the healing available with two marines, and triple it for three marines. If you aren't comfortable adding as many tokens as I have, you certainly shouldn't be comfortable with this.

Trump said:

That will be definitely problematic in campaign scenarios. Marines will just keep getting tougher and tougher until they are unkillable.

The first scenario (standard) has two armor tokens, in areas 2 and 4 out of a total of eight areas (plus the starting area). I think it would be fairly conservative to estimate that the invader can kill marines who have picked up armor tokens twice during the scenario. That means you have effectively added two more armor tokens during the course of the game. That's equivalent to what I added to this scenario when using three marines.

But now going into the second scenario, every frag of one of those armored-up marines is going to be yet another armor token effectively added to that scenario. This should easily add the equivalent of, say, four armor tokens to scenario 2.

And once the marines have found two armor tokens each, every frag (assuming you can still get them) is effectively adding 2 armor tokens to the scenario.

This very quickly gets out of hand. My own changes to the scenarios are considerably less generous than this.

wraith said:

Hmmm. Or you could put in extra tokens in areas they wouldn't normally go. For example, the west hallway on the first scenario. Alter that hallway to include a little room full of goodies connected to it and they might be willing to go that extra mile, eh? I just don't think my marines really need more ammo as much as they need armor/health.. They need a chance to stay alive longer.

wraith said:

Yes, that does add more healing, but I'm ONLY adding healing with this idea. Maybe I should just allow medpacs to be picked up and used later? Perhaps simply say they heal up to 4 instead of 3?

wraith said:

I don't play campaigns, but I agree with you on that point. I wouldn't want to do that in a campaign either.

The difference between my armor staying and you adding armor is that mine wouldn't allow as high an armor total as you and that I'm still keeping one of the three marines from getting any... which makes him a prime Invader target.

Here's a different tact. What if you borrowed from Descent's conquest tokens idea? Set up certain events in the game which make the Invader give up a frag. For example, the first scenario might give an extra frag when you go to the BFG room in a certain space (known to the players, not hidden) or when the blue security key is picked up and it's broken.

Trump said:

Putting the extra tokens in new areas makes it harder to get the new tokens than it is to get the original tokens. Each new area adds more opportunities for the invader to spawn, adds to the time taken to complete a scenario, generally adds to the logistical difficulties the marines face. When trying to rebalance the scenarios so that they are about as hard for the marines no matter how many there are, this additional difficulty is not desirable.

I observed long ago that respawning often leaves marines no better off than they were before the frag. In a three-marine game, frags often occur due to lack of ammo with which to kill off attackers. Respawning leaves the marine with no ammo again, which means he just dies again. When people were considering altering the balance of the game by just allowing the marines more frags before losing, I pointed out that it wouldn't make very much difference, because once the marines are unable to use most of their weapons, the invader player can frag them with inpunity.

Adding healing without adding ammo does the same thing. Sure, it's longer until the marine is fragged, but if he can't kill off the demons, the frag remains almost inevitable.

With one marine, there is a lot more ammo (proportional to usage requirements) to go around. One-marine games have often been observed to be much more balanced. The idea with these fixes is to bring the same balance into the game with two or three marines as we are generally seeing with one. So, it makes sense to do something about the ammo factor. We know the amount of ammo that works for one marine. Why not do the same with three marines?

Frankly, I consider the ammo I added to the scenarios to be by far the most important balance fix I did.

Trump said:

Healing 4 instead of 3 is smaller in proportion than what I have done, and doesn't leave an option for scaling for every number of marines. If the marines are being pushed hard, carrying med packs won't help them much, as they should need the med packs by the time they get to them. Also, carrying med packs is another change that doesn't scale.

Trump said:

Even if you don't play campaigns now, I would think that you would want the solution to the balance problem to work for campaign play in case you ever do decide to play a campaign. You wouldn't want to spend months playtesting fixes to your fixes in order to modify them for campaign play, would you?

Trump said:

The difference between my armor staying and you adding armor is that mine wouldn't allow as high an armor total as you and that I'm still keeping one of the three marines from getting any... which makes him a prime Invader target.

The weak marine with no extra armor is another effect that we do not see in the well-balanced one-marine game. If you are interested in playing a well-balanced game, why are you seeking to retain this additional imbalancing effect? Give the marines a chance to spread the armor around and cover that vulnerability, just like they can with one marine.

As for piling on the armor until they have a very high total, that's only going to happen if they concentrate the armor, leaving at least one marine easy pickings. It's one thing to force a vulnerability on the marines through scenario design, and quite another for the marine players to choose to accept that vulnerability. Target that weakling and start racking up the frags. If you're a good invader player, they'll soon learn not to do this.

On the other hand, especially for campaign play, a good invader player has to just man up and kill off the heavily-armored tank marine occassionally. If you don't, the armor will build up (usually over multiple scenarios) to make that marine effectively unkillable.

Now, how about a quick analysis of what my extra armor does to the first scenario? With one marine, there are two armor tokens on the board. If the marine can get from the first to the second without getting fragged in between, he winds up with 4 armor in total.

When there is a second marine, I add a second armor token in area 2 (which will generally be visited before area 4). Assuming the two marines manage to gather all three of the armor tokens, they can wind up with armor totals of 4 and 3, or 5 and 2, depending on how they distribute them. Even with 4-3, they still have a marine more vulnerable than the marine in the one-marine game. With 5-2, one marine is much stronger, but the other marine is much weaker. A good invader player should certainly be able to leverage that.

When there are three marines, I add yet another armor token in area 2, making three there in total. Add the fourth in area 4, and they can divide the armor 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 5-3-2 or 6-2-2. Sure, you can wind up with one very tough marine, but it's a frag-fest for the other two. Compared with the one-marine scenario, every distribution leaves additional vulnerability, and any distribution that results in one tank more heavily armored than the single marine also leaves at least one marine at half the armor of the single marine.

Add to that the difficulty of getting from area 2 to the armor in area 4 without losing any armor to a frag, and if you want to build up to 5 armor on one marine you have to do it while attempting to protect a vulnerable partner... A single marine building up to a high armor total doesn't look like that big an issue to me.

Trump said:

There isn't a lot of difference between adding frags and adding healing. Every extra frag is effectively about 8 health points (in the three-marine game). Once again, we have much finer control if we add med packs to the scenario map based on the number of marines and the needs of the scenario.