Ghost Whistler
Legendary Pubber
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2018
- Messages
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I enjoy ccg's. Or I used to as I don't play them anymore. I do play LCG's, which, given they include a solitaire component, should be a better proposition.
There aren't that many around, I'm really only referring to the three that FFG has put out. I don't include things like Sentinels fo the Multiverse because there's no deckbuilding and that's a vital component of what I like about card games such as these. There may be other games (Pathfinder for instance), but I haven't played them and at the very least Pathfinder looks a bland..
I used to enjoy them. Arkham, LotR and the recent Marvel game.
They all have great mechanics and are very thematic, for the most part. Not all the mechanics are great; for instance the chaos token system in AH is fucking awful. End of.
The main problem is that I dont like "screw you" mechanics. Unfortunately for these games to work that's waht they have to use. THey are cooperative and so you face an AI in the form of an encounter deck, usually built from a number of differently themed sets (Orcs, Spiders, Cthulhu, Waitresses). Unfortunately in order for the game to be a challenge they are almost all universally awful effects. So severe that they just break the game.
So essentially it boils down to either you have built the correct deck (if you can), or you lose. Alternatively you draw the right card at the right time, or you lose.
Marvel, for example, is horrifically swingy. It's either extremely easy or, if you play on 'expert' mode (with the 2 toughest iterations of the Villain you're facing, instead of the 2 lowest), it's extremely hard.
But it' snot difficult in a satisfying way. It's often pre decided. That's what I mean to having the correct deck and the correct card at the correct time. Draw badly from Ultron's encounter deck and you're facing more enemies than you can deal with, all buffed up by Ultron's abilities. Auto lose.
It's not satisfying to play like this IMO.
LotR and AH are the same. With the latter the chaos tokens just make it worse since it's a random element, like a dice roll, that's out of your control. You can commit resources, pitch cards and still completely fail regardless. LotR can also have some horrendously powerful effects that are so overbearing that it takes the fun out of the game. For example, if you play the saga expansions for the LotR storyline itself, you will (really) end up with Frodo getting his Morgul wound. It's thematic, but the effect of the card essentially stops you dead if any of your heroes in play takes a wound. That's enough to shut the game down.
Obviously YMMV. But for me these kinds of effects, necessary for these games to function as coop games, are just not fun at all.
Marvel is getting a lot of plaudits at the moment, but the recent Green Goblin expansion was pretty poor. The first scenario is ridiculously easy and tedious, while the second one just trades on throwing goblin minions at you endlessly. I just don't find that fun.
Wow, that was long winded. More fool you to be reading it!
There aren't that many around, I'm really only referring to the three that FFG has put out. I don't include things like Sentinels fo the Multiverse because there's no deckbuilding and that's a vital component of what I like about card games such as these. There may be other games (Pathfinder for instance), but I haven't played them and at the very least Pathfinder looks a bland..
I used to enjoy them. Arkham, LotR and the recent Marvel game.
They all have great mechanics and are very thematic, for the most part. Not all the mechanics are great; for instance the chaos token system in AH is fucking awful. End of.
The main problem is that I dont like "screw you" mechanics. Unfortunately for these games to work that's waht they have to use. THey are cooperative and so you face an AI in the form of an encounter deck, usually built from a number of differently themed sets (Orcs, Spiders, Cthulhu, Waitresses). Unfortunately in order for the game to be a challenge they are almost all universally awful effects. So severe that they just break the game.
So essentially it boils down to either you have built the correct deck (if you can), or you lose. Alternatively you draw the right card at the right time, or you lose.
Marvel, for example, is horrifically swingy. It's either extremely easy or, if you play on 'expert' mode (with the 2 toughest iterations of the Villain you're facing, instead of the 2 lowest), it's extremely hard.
But it' snot difficult in a satisfying way. It's often pre decided. That's what I mean to having the correct deck and the correct card at the correct time. Draw badly from Ultron's encounter deck and you're facing more enemies than you can deal with, all buffed up by Ultron's abilities. Auto lose.
It's not satisfying to play like this IMO.
LotR and AH are the same. With the latter the chaos tokens just make it worse since it's a random element, like a dice roll, that's out of your control. You can commit resources, pitch cards and still completely fail regardless. LotR can also have some horrendously powerful effects that are so overbearing that it takes the fun out of the game. For example, if you play the saga expansions for the LotR storyline itself, you will (really) end up with Frodo getting his Morgul wound. It's thematic, but the effect of the card essentially stops you dead if any of your heroes in play takes a wound. That's enough to shut the game down.
Obviously YMMV. But for me these kinds of effects, necessary for these games to function as coop games, are just not fun at all.
Marvel is getting a lot of plaudits at the moment, but the recent Green Goblin expansion was pretty poor. The first scenario is ridiculously easy and tedious, while the second one just trades on throwing goblin minions at you endlessly. I just don't find that fun.
Wow, that was long winded. More fool you to be reading it!
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