[Spoiler] The Essex County Express : Is it even playable with 4 investigators ?

[paulvonscott 3]

I appreciate it went well for some people and they had a good time, but we had a very different experience and it made for a poor gaming evening. 

There isn't really much to do beyond investigate at the start.  We were pretty thrifty with our actions and did well with the clues, but the treachery deck with its extra doom and hindrances didn't give us much of a chance. 

Personally, I felt it needed to give you a break at the start, because it could finish the story, or knock players out, very early on in a game.  Fine for a replayable scenario, very poor if playing as part of a campaign.  Plus it might be better if the story built up pace as it went along.

Win or lose, the scenario should be entertaining.  It shouldn't just be a good time if you win, and an early night if you lose.   If it doesn't give you the story, where is the entertainment? 

Hopefully that's the only scenario that'll do this, and my only complaint so far.

Paul

 

 

 

[Hannibal_pjv 203]

We did make it trough with first try. One character was very near to get doomed by a minion though.

but it is not important to win this scenario. You only get wery few XP if you win and only get some permanent damage if you lose, so it is not a big deal. You definitely need to investigate very fast. In our croup there Are a lot of two book icon cards so it did help a lot to boost clue gathering!

Edited May 11, 2017 by Hannibal_pjv

[Samea 141]

If you meet to continue the campaign and your gaming nights ends after two rounds, that sucks, of course.

The problem, however, is not the scenario itself, but the next scenario not being out, yet (which will be fixed a couple of months from now). Personally, I like it that a crushing defeat is possible without stopping the campaign. If you had to win every scenario to get to the end, it would not make for a very "Arkham Horror"-y experience, if you asked me. 

[klaymen_sk 131]

1 hour ago, Samea said:

Personally, I like it that a crushing defeat is possible without stopping the campaign. If you had to win every scenario to get to the end, it would not make for a very Lovecraftian experience, if you asked me. 

FTFY

[Samea 141]

Nah.

In my opinion, Arkham Files compares to Lovecraft as Dungeons & Dragons to Le Morte d'Arthur. Would't care to read the first or play the second.

[MoiMagnus 0]

We finally made succed the scenario, using this little cheat : instead of taking the 6 cars randomly, we chose them. So we eliminiated the two worst cars :

• The car with 3 clues per investigators
• The car with 2 clues per investigators, and a difficulty of 3

The resulting games was suprisingly easy. We even had the time to wait delay our victory in order to draw and play "dwelve too deep".

My analyse is that the cars are quite poorly balanced :

1. The passenger car "1 / 3 per investigators" is probably the worst car, because either you loose time, either everybody have to pass all their time to find the clues. So not ok.
2. The passenger car "4 / 1 per inverstigators" is ok.
3. The passenger car "2 / 2 per investigators" is ok.
4. The passenger car "3 / 2 per investigators" is just worst than the previous one, and has an entering effect on intellect, which is the most used statistic on this scenario. So not ok.
5. The passenger car "1 / 1 per investigators" is easy, but mostly ok. (Its entry effect is almost kinder than the other ones)
6. The sleeping car "4 / 1" is a joke. Seriously, it has less clue than the second car, no negative effect when entering, and a facultative effect which is possibly positive... So not ok
7. The dining car "2 / 0" is easy, but since it can surprise you with its monster, I would say it is ok.
8. The parlor car "3 / 1 per investigator" is mostly easy, but I would be ok with it if it was not a victory location. I don't understand the balance behind this. Puting victory points on the worst cars would be a correct way to balance them "either you have an easy scenario, either the scenario is difficult but you win more victory when succeeding". But since this location only forbid "investigation", and do not forbid other way of taking the clues, it would never be more difficult than the car with 3 clues per investigators, and had no effect when entering. So not ok.

14 hours ago, Samea said:

If you meet to continue the campaign and your gaming nights ends after two rounds, that sucks, of course.

The problem, however, is not the scenario itself, but the next scenario not being out, yet (which will be fixed a couple of months from now). Personally, I like it that a crushing defeat is possible without stopping the campaign. If you had to win every scenario to get to the end, it would not make for a very "Arkham Horror"-y experience, if you asked me. 

You're right on that fact, the main problem with being crushed by the scenario is that... you just bought a scenario where you basically did nothing, and you either have to do this scenario again until finishing it (which is kind of boring, because this scenario is not the best scenario), either wait for the next scenario (which is frustrating, because you don't have the feeling of having done anything).

I would be far more opened to that kind of scenario in a role-playing game, where you don't have the feeling of "missing a part of the scenario", but just "taking a different path, associated to your failure".

Note that a possible solution for making this scenario less frustrating would have been to have a second part of the scenario, only accessible if you failed, where you try to find some clues on what happened and to find back the things you've lost (Armitage, Necronomicon, ...).

(In the same why in a role-playing game, the DM will not say "well, you've failed in 10 minutes, but we need to wait for the next week to continue, so, I guess we will stop here", and he/she will improvise what happened in case of failure, so that the session can continue)

Edited April 9, 2017 by MoiMagnus

[Samea 141]

But this problem will be gone once the whole campaign is out. And I'd rather have FFG design scenarios with a whole campaign in mind instead of optimizing them for the few months in the history of humanity where the parts of a campaign are released one by one.

[Daft Blazer 291]

I'm waiting until the whole cycle is released before playing it with 4 players.

[StupidStupidDan 2]

19 hours ago, MoiMagnus said:

The resulting games was suprisingly easy. We even had the time to wait delay our victory in order to draw and play "dwelve too deep".

My analyse is that the cars are quite poorly balanced :

To play devil's advocate for a second here...

 

Seeing that you found the game "surprisingly easy" once you hand-picked the cars, and you think that the cards over all are "poorly balanced" (ie: some too hard, some too easy)...then wouldn't that make the design of the scenario balanced fairly well? 

 

Sure there may be times that it's a little more difficult, or a little easier (depending on the random draw). But, overall it seems like they spread out the difficulty.

[BD Flory 695]

27 minutes ago, StupidStupidDan said:

Seeing that you found the game "surprisingly easy" once you hand-picked the cars, and you think that the cards over all are "poorly balanced" (ie: some too hard, some too easy)...then wouldn't that make the design of the scenario balanced fairly well? 

Indeed, some encounter cards, locations, and other random elements are intentionally more or less difficult. Nate and Matt discuss this a bit in their interview with the Mythos Busters podcast.

"Balance" works slightly differently in co-op games than in competitive, especially when you have linked scenarios. Not only are you under no obligation to make each card balanced against each other possibility, and may want to avoid it to create hope and fear and suspense, but the overall scenario itself might be intended to be more or less difficult, with outliers among the random selections either giving you a lucky break or hosing you, depending on how they compare to the majority of the elements.

This also allows them to create scenarios that can still challenge players who have already seen every possibility.

Finally, in this scenario specifically, the results of losing one or more investigators can have specific outcomes that seem to be shaping up as a focal point for at least part of the campaign. Individual investigators losing in the way that is done here allows the resolutions to be less binary, and can present interesting choices in gameplay. Who's going first to clear the car, knowing they can't move? What do we stand to lose? Do use our high Intellect gator to be sure to clear, or do we risk failure with a gator with lower Intellect in order to save the higher Intellect gator for a later, higher-shroud car that may not even have been selected? To say nothing of lower-Intellect investigators failing too often, forcing another investigator to stay behind.

I mean, it's a shame some players had a bad experience, but it's perfectly fine for scenarios to create variance, or flat out difficulty, with imbalanced scenario cards. Given the freedom we have to choose and customize investigators, it's basically impossible to avoid, anyway.

[BD Flory 695]

20 hours ago, MoiMagnus said:

 

(In the same why in a role-playing game, the DM will not say "well, you've failed in 10 minutes, but we need to wait for the next week to continue, so, I guess we will stop here", and he/she will improvise what happened in case of failure, so that the session can continue)

The key difference here is that FFG has only x card slots in a pack, and there's no GM to improvise.

Expecting a card game to reproduce a roleplaying game in this way is a recipe for disappointment.

Sometimes players get eliminated. Sometimes it happens quickly. That isn't unique to this scenario.

[MoiMagnus 0]

4 hours ago, StupidStupidDan said:

To play devil's advocate for a second here...

 

Seeing that you found the game "surprisingly easy" once you hand-picked the cars, and you think that the cards over all are "poorly balanced" (ie: some too hard, some too easy)...then wouldn't that make the design of the scenario balanced fairly well? 

 

Sure there may be times that it's a little more difficult, or a little easier (depending on the random draw). But, overall it seems like they spread out the difficulty.

(Even if I know you were playing the devil's advocate, I will still answer it)

The problem is that if there is some randomness on encounter cards, player card draws, tests, ... since you iterate them a lot, so you can expect each game to be approximatively balanced. Here, you're chosing 6 cars from 8, one time, at the begining of the game, and they are clearly not equivalent. It seems to me as poorly balanced as a scenario starting with "roll a dice and add that many doom counters on the first agenda, and the first investigator take that many horror and damages".

If the 8 cars where used, or if the car draw where depending on the difficulty of the campain (so two car anotated easy/standard, and two cars anotated difficult/nightmare), I would be ok with it. But here they put 8 cars in order to make the scenario replayable, so I have the feeling that all the 20160 resulting scenarios should be approximativelly equivalents.

The museum also used this mecanic of random locations, but as a player, it feeled far more balanced and interesting, because you could sometimes avoid a location if you don't liked it.

In conclusion : In cooperative games, there is some kind of difficulties that I try to fight when encountering them, accepting my defeat if I fail, some that make me want to build an appropriate deck to overpass them, and others that make me want to cheat to avoid them. Most difficulties on previous scenarios were of the first or second kind. This is the first scenario which is of the third kind.

(Note that when I say "poorly balanced", it is quite subjective and probably exagerated. I have to admit that Arkham Horror is mostly well balanced and is still a very good game.)

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by MoiMagnus

[BD Flory 695]

49 minutes ago, MoiMagnus said:

The problem is that if there is some randomness on encounter cards, player card draws, tests, ... since you iterate them a lot, so you can expect each game to be approximatively balanced..)

 

This isn't really the case, though. With lower player counts and larger encounter decks you're very likely to see only half or less of the deck, and it's very likely that all copies of a few cards -- whether strong or weak -- will all appear or not in some plays.

Other scenarios have mechanisms that show only a fraction of the deck before recycling it through various card effects, producing high variance if you hit the same effect on each cycle. Consider what happens if you hit 2 Ancient Evils in the first agenda of Devourer, then hit them again after a shuffle.

And, well, no one ever said different versions of the same scenario would be equally difficult, nor that they would reward you if they were more difficult.

[Samea 141]

40 minutes ago, MoiMagnus said:

But here they put 8 cars in order to make the scenario replayable, so I have the feeling that all the 20160 resulting scenarios should be approximativelly equivalents.

Why bother to have lots of variations if they're all "approximately equivalents"? Obviously the core idea of this scenario is running a deadly obstacle course. Why should I care about different obstacles if they're essentially the same?

Of course, a given layout might turn out to be a near unbeatable killer combo, but the same is true for the encounter deck or the chaos bag in every scenario. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst" is what this game is about, making it more predictable and "fair" would also make it more bland, imho.

Personally, I did not like this particular scenario very much, but I doubt making it less random would improve it for me.

[Athenor 18]

Well... We got wrecked by drawing a cultist and a leader on our second mythos phase when we took one turn to gear up....

 

We went from 2 players to 3 to introduce a guy to the game. He was beating himself up....

I wonder, would having the first advance being based on the number of investigators solve the issue of getting out of the super deadly first car?

[BD Flory 695]

The scenario really doesn't need fixing. If you get a location thick with clues, don't waste time playing assets in the first car. If its's high shroud/low clues, then obviously do what you need to to get them, but don't waste time throwing down weapons or whatever.

The first Act is "Run!" Not "Take Your Time!" Get some breathing room behind you, then set your board.

[Athenor 18]

On 5/9/2017 at 8:43 PM, BD Flory said:

The scenario really doesn't need fixing. If you get a location thick with clues, don't waste time playing assets in the first car. If its's high shroud/low clues, then obviously do what you need to to get them, but don't waste time throwing down weapons or whatever.

The first Act is "Run!" Not "Take Your Time!" Get some breathing room behind you, then set your board.

It is theoretically possible to lose in the first round with 3+ players. 

 

Train car with 3 clues / investigator. 

Everyone gets all their clues, but cannot move. 

1 doom on agenda from mythos. 

All 3 players draw cultists. That's game. 

 

[Doma0997 72]

Right idea, wrong cards. The cultists increase doom, but cannot advance the current agenda. You'll just sit at max doom until the next round. However, drawing three ancient evil's, or acolytes and then an ancient evil will do it. 

[Athenor 18]

... Hmm. Maybe we've been playing wrong then. I think we've been advancing the Agenda the moment total doom reaches the required amount.. 

[Doma0997 72]

It's actually under doom, rather than under the act deck. Bold is mine for emphasis. 

 

=If there are no “Objective – ” requirements for advancing the current agenda and the requisite amount of doom is in play (among the agenda and all cards in play), the agenda advances during the “Check doom threshold” step of the Mythos phase. Unless a card otherwise specifies that it can advance the agenda, this is the only time at which the agenda can advance.

This is what makes Blood pact and Arcane Initiate good because you can use the abilities/play them the same turn doom would go over, but it doesn't advance the agenda. Then all of it gets wiped off when the agenda advances next round anyway. 

[Athenor 18]

Okay. That might have gotten us the one breath we would've needed to survive. Thank you for the clarification! 

[BD Flory 695]

13 hours ago, Athenor said:

It is theoretically possible to lose in the first round with 3+ players. 

 

Train car with 3 clues / investigator. 

Everyone gets all their clues, but cannot move. 

1 doom on agenda from mythos. 

All 3 players draw cultists. That's game. 

 

Back of the envelope, and remembering the third card has to be Ancient Evils, since Acolytes don't advance the agenda on their own, the odds of this happening are about one in a thousand 3-player games.

I'm not being glib with the number. It was .12%, and actually a bit lower because I didn't bother accounting for one or both of the first two draws being an Ancient Evils, making it less likely the third will be, which is required to flip the agenda.

Player error seems much, much more likely to me. The odds of the no-win draw are negligible. I have my doubts that 1000 3+ player games of (published) ECE have even been played.