dean3
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Posts posted by dean3
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People who use emulators are a tiny minority of video gamers.
Most people see that only 100 Xbox 360 games work and wonder how many of their current apps/games will work on the next generation.
It is a barrier to some people and a valid concern.
I fully expect a non-app variant to appear on BGG after a while.
People who print variants off of BGG are a tiny minority of board gamers.
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I think all the 2E monsters and Investigators will be miniatures. The "Conversion Kit" likely comes with chits or tokens for some/all of the 1E monsters so that they can be used by those who do not own 1E.
Otherwise non 1E players would be kinda pissed off that they paid for "Conversion" components for a game they do not own and can no longer buy.
24 monster miniatures and 33 monster tokens from the conversion kit.
The app must be able to use the CK monsters for people who don't own 1e or else the tokens would be pointless.
No, the tokens go in the monster bases, and have the stats and special attacks visible. These have likely changed for 2nd edition, so a new set of tokens is needed.
Jeffrey Paul reacted to this -
As a comparison, FFG lists Decent Second Edition with an MSRP of $80 and it has more content than what is in the MoM 2E box (and right now, the app for Descent as an effective price of ZERO). My main point to all of this is that, as a consumer, paying more for less just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Well $5 of that $20 is pure inflation (and it's $20, not $20-$30 - MSRP of 1E was always $80, here's someone moaning about it back then: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/565552/mansions-madness-80-and-not-coffin-sized-box )
On top of that - price of plastic has gone up loads in the past five years. And 2E has the exact same numbers of plastic bits as 1E. I appreciate you don't like paying more, but the problem, frankly, is that FFG are nice and when they reprint stuff, they don't up the SRP to account for increasing materials cost. If they did, we'd probably have seen 1E sneak up to $100 over the past five years anyway. The downside of this is when they release a new game, they price it based on the current market conditions, and it's always a big leap from the previous edition for slightly less stuff. Descent 2E was a rip-off compared to what you got in 1E too.
Inflation happens. Materials costs go up. You're always going to get less for the same amount of money every year.
Try to understand the option here wasn't a $80 box with loads of stuff in and no app, or a $100 box with less stuff and an app. It was $100 with less stuff and an app, or a $65 box with loads of stuff but no minis.
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I'm sorry, but building a mobile app in the vein of RtL or this MoM app doesn't even come close to the cost of making even a basic current gen console game. If we are going to agree that the cardboard in the box has a retail value of $60 (and even that is dubious given there is less physical content in this box compared to the first ed box from what they have shown), there is no way the app would be worth $40. It would need to have hundreds of scenarios built in to even come close to being worth that much, and as FFG's history in this area has proved, the app will most likely come with just a few scenarios with the expectation that we will need to purchase additional scenarios as IAP. FFG's last game that required an app was XCOM, which has the same amount of physical content that MoM 2e appears to have, and that game has an MSRP at $60.
XCOM had 12 minis, MoM has 32. If you really want to judge by materials costs, the plastic is 90% of the costs in both cases. The cardboard and cards cost a tiny amount in comparison. Nearly three times as many minis, similar amount of card, you're looking at a much higher production cost.
For your other comparison, Imperial Assault v MoM2:
Minis: 36 v 32
Tiles: 24 (+15 connectors) v 24
Cards: 289 v 235
Dice: 11 v 5
Tokens 173 v 147
So yeah, MoM2 has less stuff. But it doesn't have *way* less, and it has a very similar number of minis, which are most of the cost.
And the cost of developing the app - sure, it doesn't take a fraction of the cost of making a console game. But it won't be bought by a fraction of the number of people that buy a new console game either. 100,000 copies sold is a hugely successful board game whereas 1 million copies sold is a failure for a modern console game.
Instead of 4 minis, 24 little tiles, 64 cards , 6 dice and 26 tokens you get an app. That feels like a reasonable trade off to me?
JonofPDX and alexbobspoons reacted to this -
I agree the cost of the app should be a factor in the price of the total package but let's be honest here. From the "trailer" it is obvious that they are reusing the same app platform that was used for Descent. So the cost of developing/purchasing that platform was already spent. If we were to put a price on the app if it were to be sold separately it would be at most $10. And that is assuming it comes with more than just a handful of scenarios. We all know that one of FFG's primary motivations with using the app is to be able to sell us future scenarios via IAP. Just like they did/are,doing with the Descent app. Furthermore, FFG gave the base Descent app AND the first full campaign away for free which gives one the impression that there really isn't a tremendous cost involved in producting these apps (which there isn't).
So even assigning a retail value of $10 to the app alone, I am just not seeing an additional $90 of value in the box. Even though it includes the conversion kit, from what has been shown, that kit only includes the new investigators sheets. So unless there is A LOT more content in that box then what is being shown in the marketing materials, and with the original MoM having an MSRP of $60, this right now appears to be way over priced. Maybe FFG's new policy is to put core editions of product lines in big boxes and set the MSRP at $100 regardless of actual content just because they can...
Well just because the app is using a similar code-base to Descent, it doesn't mean it was free. Descent Road To Legend came out very recently, there's no way they developed this whole thing (app and physical components) in the three months since it release. Indeed, MoM would have been at the printers before RtL even came out.
So this was part of the strategy when they started work on the platform. So those platform development costs will have been split between Road To Legend, MoM, and anything else they're working on that might be using the platform. You don't just assign all the costs to the product that launches first. The fact that the Descent app and first campaign was given away for free if anything suggests that MoM was the core driver in developing the app platform and RtL was the extra...
Next, the Descent app was also designed to drive purchases of physical expansions, and dollar for dollar you get about the same amount of physical stuff in $100 of Descent expansions as you do in MoM.
Lastly: plastic. The cost of plastic and minis keeps going up. FFG have always opted to not raise the price of reprints of existing games, so the older the game, the better 'value' you get in terms of minis. MoM is one of the oldest games with minis in the catalogue, and even then the MSRP was $80, not $60 as you suggest. This edition has the same number of minis, which make up the bulk of the cost, so $100 with increased plastic prices seems reasonable.
The way to do a $60 version of this would be to go all cardboard, which just wouldn't be as much fun.
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Remember also that a figure blocks its own square for line of sight so always measure from the front side of the square out rather than the backside and through and the same goes for the target too. measure to the side closest to the attacker rather than through the square to the far/back side..
That's not how it works - checking line of sight and determining range are two totally different parts of combat in 2E, and don't relate to each other. You check line of sight first, from whichever corners will give you it. If you have line of sight from anywhere, you can go ahead and make the attack. When checking range after rolling, you count squares from the adjacent space of your choice to the target space. You don't have to start in a space adjacent to the corner that you have line of sight from.
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I'm not saying the entire party doesn't miss. I'm saying the fear of missing is gone in game deciding moments. Now if one monster is in the way or whatever they choose the guy who can't miss and now the randomness is gone and it's just as powerful in that situation as if no one could miss. Many quests boil down to a situation where one monster must be killed in a specific turn and this ability trivializes that.I kinda get this. But there's a 1XP Overlord card in the same expansion that lets you mess with hero turn order.
Also the mechanic already existed. The Beastmaster had Shadow Hunter which was also an unmissable attack, playable any time as long as he had his Wolf out already or had the one fatigue and action to summon. He's not regarded as one of the stronger classes.
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Radiant Light means 2HP monsters is a no-no, otherwise they just pop as soon as the Disciple has line of sight. They have fortune tokens to support their dice rolls as well. That's a severe restriction for me as a OL considering the fact every quest is a race which is where small monsters tend to excel.
I don't think there are any 2HP monsters in Act II.
Hybrid Sentinels are good with three players as you get two of them, and they have good defense and HP. And the masters have fire breath. With an automatic +1 to everyone if you start it at a hero with low strength.
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About the arguments being repeated, the thread itself is an iteration of many other ones asking the same thing...
But then, now is an interesting time to revisit it, as Nerekhall is out and has the influence mechanic that addresses some of these issues. You could probably house rule some retrofitting using these mechanics for older quests too.
In the given example, maybe there's a choice between Frederick attacking the players, or the Overlord getting to re-inforce an extra monster group or bring a different lieutenant in. It would still favour the Overlord of course, unless you did it random/blind like some of the Nerekhall quests.
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Curse is going to stop the Disciple getting off Radiant Light. Barghasts will sap his fatigue. Once Act 2 hits, Radiant Light won't one-shot small monsters any more, which makes them a lot appealing, because Logan isn't going to be able to take down more than two in a turn, and no mage/blast makes them pretty handy.
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As to all the people saying that runeplate wouldn't be so bad if it were act 2... it's significantly stronger than any other act 2 armor, as well... again, I point to my earlier post, where I said that I'm not WORRIED about power creep here because I think armor is too weak in the original Descent box, and I think we'll be seeing stronger armor in general going forward. But even in act 2, RP is still at the top of the power curve.Yeah it would still be one of the strongest items in Act 2. But that's fine, the shop deck doesn't have to be balanced, some stuff can be better that others, because you can't predict what will come out. There's a luck element there. To be frank it would be manageable in Act 1 if it weren't for that final "sort through the shop deck and buy whatever you want" phase. Yeah, it would be bad luck for the Overlord if the first three items the heroes were able to buy were Runeplate, Bearded Axe and Mana Weave but thems the breaks.
There's a similar item in Nerekhall - it lets heroes trade in two skill cards and get a refund on the experience. Only costs 75g. In isolation, kinda nice, certainly not overpowered. But it's an Act 1 item. So as long as the heroes save 75g for that shopping step, they can spec a hero in Act 1 with low cost skills, then trade them in at the start of Act 2 for stronger ones, without having to worry about saving up. The knowledge that that card is in the deck and will be made available, with absolute certainty, makes it far more powerful than if the shop deck were random.
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If the players decide they want to read the entire quest, the public information rule permits them to do so, and the overlord player would be wrong to prevent them from reading it.Even if one considers that players MAY not have all the information, if one of them wants to have it, one MUST provide it.
Whether or not the players decide to read the entire quest, the decision is not a "houserule," because it is not changing anything about the game, it is not changing any of the rules. It is interpreting the meaning of the rules, which is also at the discretion of any group of players.
Well sure, it's like with any game, you don't generally give the rule book to other players and tell them to read it. You teach and in any moderately complex game, explain some stuff as you go along, that's not cheating. But just like any game, you also don't want to be 'that guy' who two thirds of the way through the game, explains a 'new' rule right at the point he uses it to win the game. I'd say the Frederick thing fits in to that category.
Also worth noting: Nerekhall has an entire new mechanic specifically to add hidden information back in.
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Is it that great? There are items about that let you re-roll a die once per turn, and the chances of rolling two or more misses in one turn are fairly low.
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One can always just house rule to shuffle it in to the Act 2 deck. Draw from the bottom if you're fussed about knowing it's coming up.
The issue with it being in the Act 1 deck is less that it comes out in Act 1, and more that because of the post-Interlude shopping phase special rules, the heroes are guaranteed to get it. It's easily the best armour for a mage in the game, so there's no reason not to grab it unless you're planning to forgo armour on your mages entirely.
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As long as you're just doing one adventure per session, simply move the "Choose next quest" step to the end of each play session, and have the Overlord pick his monster groups then (or if you're playing Overlord, whenever). Then you only need bring the monsters for that quest, plus at most 4 hero pieces and the Overlord agent. You can also leave spare plot decks, out of act shop decks and unused tiles at home too.
If you're playing more than one adventure it gets trickier - though depending on the campaign you might have an idea what is coming next. If you're the Overlord it'll be easier as you'll better know what monsters to bring (you can leave Zombies at home 90% of the time), but worst comes to worst and you don't have the exact figure you want for the quest because something unexpected happens (travel card forces you to play a Rumour quest which the heroes then take), just use something else as a proxy - it doesn't matter hugely if they're wrong on occasion.
App-related Issues.
in Mansions of Madness
Posted
Most games will need taking care of to last ten+ years. Sleeves, storage in the right conditions, handling the cards carefully etc. That's no different to the app, it's just form that care takes is different. The average gamer doesn't sleeve either, so a game is not going to stand up to seven years of regular play physically anyway.