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Volkren

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Posts posted by Volkren

  2. Posted

     

    I think that FFG would play test this and there won't be some massive exploit with round effects.  It's obvious that FFG likes the tweaks they made to the Descent system for IA and it was well received by the masses, so they will forge ahead and if you don't like it well you don't have to use the app that is the beauty of it.  It's hard to discuss and argue this mechanic on a Descent forum where the majority of people have not played IA to the extent that maybe some of us IA first, Descent second, people have.  But from someone who has played both I can tell you that I think the IA system is superior in both mission progression and strategic challenges.  And we can argue this until we are blue in the face, but that is how I feel.  And I think that MOST people who have given IA a fighting chance and play it regularly will agree with me.  I know it is hard to accept change, but I highly doubt FFG will leave you high and dry with certain abilities unexplained, there is always a way to fix things. BUT, there will definitely be challenges against an automated AI, one of which like others have said being well which space do I move to if it just says to move 4 spaces away?  This is something that I am sure FFG is working on, reading about here on the forums and is play testing to tell us about in a future update.

     

    The sky is not falling, there is still a lot they need to reveal about this app before it launches and I will wait to pass my judgement until then.  It is definitely fine to speculate and raise concerns, but I would hold off on damning it to the abyss based off your interpretation of an un explained rule or mechanic.

     

    Oh you can count me decidedly on the side who is very enthusiastic about this app. I cant wait to try it out!

     

    My only concern with alternating turn structure is, as stated, any change that may upset the balance of all the class/monster skills already designed for the game as is. As long as nothing becomes to OP or Nerfed and they keep round integrity then I'm sure it will work fine and just add another layer to whats shaping up to be a fun new game mode.

     

    I have yet to play SW: IA, it looks really interesting and I'd love to try it out. I'm sure the alternating turns make for an interesting change in strategy.

     

    I'm very open to the idea of playing a co-op dungeon crawler type game mode using descent rules. The PoD co-ops were lots of fun. The fact this app plans to support more co-op adventures, a campaign system to link those adventures and support for all expansion we physically own is just plain awesome.

     

     

    Yes, this is exactly what I'm worried about. I'm excited and worried about the app, but well, as it is said, we don't know anything yet. Well, I will keep an eye on this topic for any other news. 

  3. Posted

    To be honest, I think that UI looks terrible just from a graphical standpoint as well.

    Doesn't seem on the level of quality that FFG normally has in its manuals/artwork

     

    I don't mind about it, it is free hahaha if I would had to pay for it, then surely I will worry about it. I also don't like it haha

     

    Unless there is an UNDO function, like a backspace key for a touch-keyboard to correct misses, you should never arrange buttons that imply a final decision in such a close proximity to each other. It increases the likehood of erroneous input and thus frustration.

     

    Now if you have an undo function or extra confirmation dialogue too, that would also work of course.

     

    This is something I didn't see it coming, well, I hope I won't comit any mistake or I will have a hard time apologizing everyone I screwed up hahahaha

  5. Posted

    Whaaaaaat!!! Who the hell though that alternative turns in the app will be a good idea? This now confirms Indalecio's perspective and makes it less exciting for me to use it.

     

    Before sharing my opinion I'll modify the first post of this discussion in order to add the second news for future readers. In addition, I ask Any2cards to do the same in his so useful topic "Index of Useful Links".

     

    That been said, here are my thoughts.

     

    1)    Whenever a new system is created, there are always interpretation issues. Oh yes, Zaltire, my friend, get ready to see posts like “Road to legend: Question about turn/activation?” or “Road to legend: Did I play this correctly?” I just hope FFG present each new concept very clear wihtout redesigning what already exists (3rd Edition is it you?).

    2)    In the beginning I was excited about the app because it was going to do the work on a few minutes. Now you come and tell me that after every hero turn a player must take the app and use it. In my group it means ME taking the app and put it near me, telling every time what monsters do, without the possibility of leaving it, otherwise the game will lag or stop. If that happens then I will return to the old system hahaha only I’ll play linear and clumsy… and no, I cannot afford ignoring this expansion, because I am one of the people that wants coop systems. The solution I can think is that all heroes take their turn and then I would grab the app FOR A COUPPLE OF MINUTES to activate the monsters. This reaffirms Indalecio’s fears, now the app will have a bigger presence in the table, something now I dislike. I wanted to be a support not a hero/overlord player system.

    3)    I share the idea alternative turns brings a more complex and strategically approach, but also I think it is awful to let this brainless system (move/attack/retreat) will be part of it. If FFG really want Descent to use this system, Why don’t they release a SKRIMISH mode for it?

    4)    The monsters and heroes are not designed to develop in this system, or I am the only one looking at the future problems. I think this is the strongest issue of all. For instance, it is said Mok will be useless, well I think the opposite. Will the Overlord turn be divided into monsters activation? If no, then when does the Overlord turn happens? If yes, then Mok’s hero ability will be awesome. Just imagine this, Mordog as knight, with defend, then he gets hits, recovers 1 stamina and Mok uses he’s ability, then another monster group does the same and Mordog repeates…and also does Mok’s because IT IS A NEW TURN. If Mok’s ability isn’t buffed then let’s take a look to Spawner ability in Kobolds: “Spawner: At the start of each overlord turn, place 1 minion kobold adjacent to this monster, respecting group limits”. Wow, just wow, as every monster group is an Overlord turn, then every time a monster group activates, the Spawner ability triggers; and this is for the SW:AI players out there, isn’t figure/actions economy something broken in this system? I ask because I’m new in this system and I see it can be very strong if there are objectives in play. You aren’t convince yet, ok, let’s take a look now to another ability, shall we? “Regeneration X: At the beginning of the overlord player's turn, this monster recovers X Heart.” Oh my…Sir Alric is laughing now, I can hear him from where I am. Man, I wish this could be use in Descent traditional system. Oh, oh, this one, this was something SW:IA players know and discussed, at least the people I know. Weakened condition now passes to be an extremely powerful (yet situational) condition. Heroes are tasked to kill a lieutenant, so they weaken him/her after the activation, they focus him/her (something common), however, now, the round is over, and the lieutenant still is weakened. Now, someone already issued this (we don’t know yet how to app chooses to activate a figure) that been said, let’s say the app activates the lieutenant at last in the round, that means heroes managed to hit the weakened lieutenant twice while it had the condition without that figure had the possibility to rest, once during the round he/she got weakened, and secondly during the round it activated (I hope I made this point clear). Or think it the other way, a hero gets weakened after his/her activation; then it seems that hero must activated after any other heroes next turn. I mean, I can continue with this (Air: elemental ability; Resilient: Bol’ Goreth ability; Unseen: Thief class; Undercover; Bounty Hunter class; Roganna the Shade’s Heroic Feat) the list is endless.

    This is what I meant in point 1, ruling, errata, patches…Anyway, if they say all of that monster abilities conrcen only to their figure activation and not to monster activation, Mok's ability continue to be awasome.

     

    Well, that is my perspective, I can be wrong, I don’t know how others see it. 

  6. Posted

    I noticed in the video that the app permits to register which lieutenant you own. This means that the app will be able to manage plot decks cause i don t see any other purpose ?!?

     

    I think it will be in order to spawn Lieutenant into the Dungeon. For example, openning a door and there's Splig with his army of Goblin Archers and Witchers; or perhaps Ardux Ix'Erebus with a legion of skeletons.

  8. Posted · Edited by Volkren

    (Robotic Voice) "Fear people of Terrinorth, as I, Skynet, your new Overlord will rule this land" *Pum, iPad hits the table and starts commanding legions of miniatures*

     

    Hahaha I really love this app, when I first saw the video I almost choke myself with my food. I was, and still I am, excited about this new tool.

     

    I see this as a potential way to introduce new players to the game. For example, when I first introduce a player to the game, I play along with them as a hero in the Forgotten Souls Variant, because there I could explain almost every basic rule as a tutorial. Then when people start to gain trust on their skills they ask me to play a couple of quest, even a campaign. This will help me to explain other mechanics outside the current Forgotten Souls variant.

     

    In the other hand, recently, my most advance playgroup has hit a lose streak and they have started to lose faith in the versus mode and are asking to return to the Coop variant, to never ever leave that place...* sigh* So now, this will help me rebuild their trust so they can be the heroes once they were (with me in their side ofc).

  10. Posted · Edited by Volkren

    A new trailer has been uploaded minutes ago in FFG YouTube channel call "Road to Legend". Here is the link:

     


     

    [Edit]: this is the foot page:

    "Make your games of Descent: Journeys in the Dark® completely cooperative with the Road to Legend™ companion app.

    To learn more, visit our website: www.fantasyflightgames.com"

     

    It seems to be an official Campaign Tracker and an Automatic Overlord sort of system (similar to what it is done with the coops).

     

    [Edit] Here is the Official News for this:

    https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/3/15/road-to-legend/

     

    What do you think it is?

     

    [Edit]: The second news, additional information:

    https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/3/30/deeper-into-the-dark/

     

    [Edit]:Here are the rules for playing this app:

    https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/3c/bb/3cbb5642-39da-41dc-821b-daf729b1f15e/road_to_legend_rules.pdf

    mnmoneil and Budapest reacted to this

  11. Posted

    Yes, what Zaltyre said is the thruth, none of the three Coops out there have any mechanic that will allow you to get enough fatigue to fill the column.

     

    My friends and I have houseruled that the same rule that applies "for killing a monster you get the damage tokens according to its base size", also applies to the fatigue in case of masters. For instance, if the master shadow dragon dies, you will be able to draw 7 cards intead of just 1. This beacuse the shop deck is pretty large if you get expansions, and you won't be able to reach a good variation of objects. Also, thematically (in RPG sense) when killing a huge monster you get a bigger reward.

     

    Another thing we houseruled was the selling process for items you don't need nor want anymore. You can sell them and obtain just 1 damage token in the loot track.        

  12. Posted

    What about adding some fanmades campaigns/quest that have been popular in the Quest Vault:

     

    Call of the Necromancer (CON) by Brutalien

    The Legacy of Timmorran by Zaltyre

    Mini-Campaign, Weapons of War by Zaltyre

     

    Other Quests I like, but this is my opinion, are:

     

    The Ritual of Immortality by BuBu

    The Ruined Mine by Draconic Lord

    Dungeon of Death by AceCaldwell

    Burying of Burden by Kringler

    The Dragon's Den by Kysra

     

    Some of the quest may need some balance or some spelling checks, but I like them, perhaps some others could too.

  13. Posted

    I think that besides that, the Quest Vault needs some other things to add:

    1)    An “encounter or quest” delete option: There are posts where people ask for help to delete either “encounters” or “quest”. Even there are quest that are published with an empty second encounter. I think that a missclik in “Add an encounter” should not be the reason to obligate you to either publish your quest with a blank encounter or redoing it.

    2)    A bookmark or highlight section: this will help to increase the popularity of Quests when people go to the profile of someone and see the Quests he had liked, bookmarked or downloaded. Then, they will give them a try and perhaps like them too and so on.

    3)    A “Most viewed/most downloaded” Quest section: related to what you ask, I would like to see a section similar to the “Top Rated Quest” where people can see the quest that had been viewed or had been downloaded recently. In order to make the Quest Vault more fluent and not just keep seeing the “The King of All Goblins” or “From the Ashes” quest all the time.

     

    4)    A notification system: I like the quest people create, I download them, but it is hard to keep track on them in case they modify them. A notification similar to the forums notification would help to see if the Quest you downloaded was modified.

     

    I think this could help to make Quest Vault a more popular tool.

  17. Posted

    In Descent, the components of the Lieutenant Packs are the Plot Deck, the miniature and cardboard tokens call Threat (except for Raythen’s and Serena’s packs, which also have a Hero Sheet and a Hero mini in order to use them as heroes). The Lieutenant is substitute by something call Agent. Agents can be played in any campaign and are consider a normal monster (without attributes) and substitute some of the monster groups you can bring to the quests. However, Lieutenant packs bring different strategies, not only the deck and the mini. If you want to buy them there must be before three categories, IMO:

     

    The miniature

    If you want to use the miniature because of its looking, then choosing and using the plot deck is useless. For example, I bought Queen Ariad beacuse it's a BIG SPIDER! hahaha

     

    The Plot Deck

    Sometimes the mini isn’t everything, there are some plot decks that are worth buying. For example, Raythen’s plot deck is useful to counter in some way a hero class (the Treasure Hunter). In other cases, Valyndra’s plot deck rewards the use of large monsters, while Verminous rewards the use of small and weak monsters. Zachareth’s deck plays with the rules by hitting the heroes when they buy their stuff. Therefore, you can see that it is not necessarily to buy them for the mini.

     

    The Agent

    Well, the bosses. You want to play with them because of their utility. Well you need to think first of their cost (in order to play them you substitute your monsters) and their weakness (once they are killed, you need to earn them again). So, there are Agent that focus on combat: Queen Ariad (highest defense in the game), Gargan Mirklace (highest attack) or Skarn (resilent through healing process); others help other units: Ardus Ix'Erebus (a high command unit), Splig (a decoy command unit) or Rylan Olliven (our Imperial Officer here in Descent).

     

    That been said, I give you a link where you can see the Plot Decks (a bit outdated but useful) and a sort of a rank where they highlight their strengths. 

  18. Posted · Edited by Volkren

    Well, this happened to me also. H&M Expansions does not bring any rules to tell you how to include and play rumors to the campaigns, they just say "incorporate to the Rumor Deck". So I had to look for the rules of any small expansion to know what to do. Here (page 7) you can see the rules for rumors.

     

    [Edit: Here is the Manor of the Ravens' rules, page 5.]

  19. Posted

    I guess it could be done. Any specific reason why you want to see this? Just for posterity or do you want to see this in the stats and stuff?

     

    Yes, mostly beacuse of the stats and graphics, as I said, my group and I found your site to be more than a tracker but also a source for decision making.

     

    As for the problems, the quest “Honor among the thieves” does not show a section of where you can select the objectives that were drawn aside from the ones need to win (for the heroes victory), so players need to add some extra search tokens to add the extra gold won from the quest.

     

    Mmmm...about changes to the site, now that I recall, there was a topic from a fan that created also an unofficial soundtrack. Perhaps adding it to the tracker as background music could help to armonize the game, but I think an authorization should be made to FFG. I mean, it will be very very very nice, IMO, to have the tracker with music. Whenever I play, I put this songs, and more others, to set an adventure environment. Just to give you an idea.

     

    Another thing that can be helpful is (however, I think it’s more complex) what do you think about adding a voice that narrate the story of each quest? Because, what I found is that my group and I lose too much time setting the map and then reading the story. What I do is that I have recorded some of these stories myself and I put them meanwhile I (the overlord) set the map. This because my friends found boring and disappointing sometimes to just fight without knowing what is going on (Why I need to save her, or kill this guy, or retrieve this objet) and I don’t care much of hearing the story because, as the owner of the game, I can read it whenever I want.

     

    I don't want to annoy much beacuse I could have these ideas but I won't be the one that execute them, so...tell me want you think, and I will try to help with whatever I can.

  20. Posted

    Atom, what can I say. I think you are an amazing person for doing my favorite game much more easier to play. Your site has become for my playing group almost a necessary tool. Not only for the Overlord (easy way to know which group you have available) but also for the decision making for the heroes (win/time ratio).

    One thing that may help to add to the site is to add in the monster selection if an agent was summoned, and in which monster group, if it’s not much to ask.

    For some time I tried to see if a girl I know could help with the drawings to put them in the quest selection, but then I remember that it could create a legal problem by using Descent images and so on, so I left that project. However, I think now I could help you with the quest summaries from LoR, MoR, CotF, GotD and CoD; in case you still need them. 

    Again, you are awesome man. Thank you.

  21. Posted · Edited by Volkren

    I think (just a speculation) that the "Rush Strategy" you are talking about does not happend so much in Descent as there are too many large (medium, huge and massive) monsters that help the Overlord to block passages and buy time, something IA does not have. If I recall correctly, the core set just have 3 large minis (the AT-ST, the machine-gun guy and the dog creature) sorry for not knowing the names. In addition, the Overlord have traps cards to really slow the heroes.

     

    As for the snowballing effect, well, all the mentioned above covers the topic.

    FrogTrigger and Indalecio reacted to this

  22. Posted · Edited by Volkren

    "I am the Law" from Marshal's class can also inflict a condition of your choice. 

     

    "Crippling Curse" from Hexer's class can also inflict condition of your choice.

     

    "Web of Deception" from Tangled Web (Queen Ariad's plot deck) may substitute a condition been inflicted to a hero to another of your choice.

     

    These and the one mentioned aboved are all the ways to inflict conditions freely. I will try remembering other ways.

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