Legendary 6 man difficulty

[Rhygar]

Did it at third time asking. Second time I had the wildcard that reduces 5 blessing in conjunction with night approaches . Boiled down to last 2 open location and my bad luck that at the death I still didn't sight the villain at all heh.

 

Third time lucky, I had retaliation paired with night approaches and despite merisiel goofing up her back stab on an ogre resulting in a blank slate of hand after first round , henchman didn't take too long to surface and the key as I'd always reckoned is the villain showing up early and the party winning the funnel first contact. With him funneled into 1 of 2 locations , true enough our mvp seelah ferreted him out with 10 turns remaining and all hands on deck dutiful closes out the remaining few locations that remained open as seelah laid the boss low.

 

So looks like it can be done, luck permitting. With huge ground to cover I can't imagine if it's feasible to team up from start even with small grouping of 2. Individual hardiness will shine in soloing location at least from start and in this regard seelah, seoni merisiel and harsk in particular with his 1d4 sniping helps. Having a balanced party obviously helped with pairing the strong die attribute with the righ location. Lini pointedly struggled without a damage spell card on hand in combat and her default deck wasn't great in that sense.

 

This episode really revamped my thinking of how larger party pay out not least in that I'd thought the blessing counter will be proportionately increased hah.

[Brainwave]

Of course it can be done. The point of the post wasn't whether it was possible at all, it was that the wildcards that affect the blessings deck are completely unbalanced compared to the others and specifically make 6 man groups very difficult to win with, compared to small groups. Even with just basic understanding of the game mechanics, it's fairly obvious that anything that affects the blessings deck is going to affect big groups more than small groups, I don't even think that's up for debate. So those powers are inherently unbalanced and I believe Night Approaches in particular (which btw is also backed up by at least two other posts I've read where people say they just forfeit if they get that power) is a problem. If other people want to keep playing with it and find it fun, that's up to them, but I do not.

 

Personally, this comes down to the idea that I don't agree that large groups are intended to be somehow more inherently difficult to win with in this game. I think in some ways they are as an unintended consequence of the way the game handles the blessings deck but I don't think that Paizo ever intended 6 man play to be some sort of super hard mode. In fact, they used to claim that everything was balanced whenever anyone would claim that 6 man was hard, based on discussions on their own boards. So saying that it's okay if those wildcards make 6 man much harder because it's already a hard mode, is a flawed argument, in my opinion. And I just don't see any reason for it.

[Hannibal_PJV]

Hmm... In small groups those powers that make check harder can be really hard. So different scenario powers affect different size croups differently. Is big part, if all Goblins Are 18 instead of 8 as normal, is not big deal because They have more plessings to kill those monsters. But if you Are solo playing and meat several 18 check Goblings instead of normal 8, it can be problematic.

Legendary level is suposed too be super hard (it actually is not super hard, hard for sure yes) so if we consider that the powers Are ok, because They hurt differently different size groups.

In Many games people complains that the game is too hard. But in this game you can chose to use easier settings if you like them better. You don't have to play with hardest settings if you don't want to.

I don't always play with legendary, only when I want to have real, "oh my good, we Are gonna dye"

Normally heroic is just fine to me.

And most players normal mode is the just right difficulty. The developers has said that They Are worried because people win in legendary more often than They lose. So if only one or two powers cause the lose sometimes, They most likely have to make those scenario powers even harder than They Are at this moment... I don't hope so because this game will become harder at level 5 and beyond without spesial powers... But the we Are suposed to lose more often than win in legendary mode, so Are we doing that?

[elcoderdude]

 

Honestly, I think the Wildcard Power would totally work if we had the option of declining to roll on boons, just as we do in the physical game. That would balance the Wildcard a lot.

 

Lovely idea, but from the PACG Rulebook (WotR, p 10), "Encountering A Card", subsection "Attempt the Check":

If the card is a boon, you may try to acquire it for your deck; if it’s a bane, you must try to defeat it (see Attempting a Check, below). If you choose not to acquire a boon, it counts as failing to acquire it.

 

So, you're still out a blessing.

 

 

We could make it work by making the wilcat power "discard a blessing from the blessing deck if you fail a check to acquire a boon".  Deciding not to acquire is failing to acquire, but it is not failing a check to acquire.

[Rhygar]

Of course it can be done. The point of the post wasn't whether it was possible at all, it was that the wildcards that affect the blessings deck are completely unbalanced compared to the others and specifically make 6 man groups very difficult to win with, compared to small groups. Even with just basic understanding of the game mechanics, it's fairly obvious that anything that affects the blessings deck is going to affect big groups more than small groups, I don't even think that's up for debate. So those powers are inherently unbalanced and I believe Night Approaches in particular (which btw is also backed up by at least two other posts I've read where people say they just forfeit if they get that power) is a problem. If other people want to keep playing with it and find it fun, that's up to them, but I do not.

Personally, this comes down to the idea that I don't agree that large groups are intended to be somehow more inherently difficult to win with in this game. I think in some ways they are as an unintended consequence of the way the game handles the blessings deck but I don't think that Paizo ever intended 6 man play to be some sort of super hard mode. In fact, they used to claim that everything was balanced whenever anyone would claim that 6 man was hard, based on discussions on their own boards. So saying that it's okay if those wildcards make 6 man much harder because it's already a hard mode, is a flawed argument, in my opinion. And I just don't see any reason for it.

I certain don't disagree that given the mechanic of the game ( I was surprised that blessing deck remains the same for the enlarged party size ) 6 man party will have it tougher than, say, a 2 man party in completing the same scenario. If that's something you disagree on with the design decision I take your point.

 

But perhaps when the game designers say it's ' balanced ' even with 6 man party , it means a fair chance to complete the scenario on normal mode with some re-strategizing and different approach play to mitigate the odds working against a 6 man party? I don't play enough 6 man party in this game for an informed opinion nor do I even follow the table top version that closely. But for sake of hypothetical argument, i consider that a 6 man game have this statistic : 8 locations , a mean of 5 exploration per deck to uncover henchman or villain . That translates to an of average 40 exploration needed in a game. Given a 30 blessing deck, and an estimate of 5 boons( 2 ally, 3 blessing ) per member of team, it would seem, at least in a simplistic evaluation way, that's enough to make at least 40 exploration with some leftover for enhancing die roll on difficult or essential checks. Again it's fair and obvious that a 2 man team has greater leeway to deal with unfavorable placement of henchman or villain than 6 man team .but still, it's playable .

 

Aren't those wild cards a product of the digital version of this game ? They are there for players who like the optional challenge . In the case of that approaching night wildcard , I personally find , as indicated in my post of my play through of a 6 man legendary scenario, it's a less a handicap than the placement of the henchman and villain. In subsequent play testing, I find that I mitigate that wildcard by focusing resources on ' burning ' the location put it in pinkrose parlance. That said, it's legendary difficulty and I have no issue in dealing with that handicap because it's expected to be tough. Super tough.

[Brainwave]

I agree with all of that except it's not super tough with 2 guys. I played a 2 man group up to lvl 12 on Legendary without ever touching a normal or heroic scenario and for the most part had no problems. Maybe a 10% mission failure rate. This is vastly different from playing 6 man.

 

That's my point. It's not that tough with 2. If it was, then the "Legendary is supposed to be next to impossible" argument would hold more weight with me.

 

And secondly, especially in a game where a forfeit button exists, there should be some attempt to balance the wildcards against each other. Otherwise it just encourages forfeiting if you hit that particular one (or perhaps the -5 blessings deck one) until you roll a game without those, which are significantly easier.

[Rhygar]

Super tough would be for the six man team with added legendary mode add on handicaps. It's like someone said on this thread. 2 difficulty slider , one intrinsic with party makeup and size, one with the digital version difficulty mode. Both to the max for,the extremist player .

[Hannibal_PJV]

Yes there Are those that have played pathfinder many year. I personally am just Beginner so it was real surprice that legendary was so easy. I normally leave those harder difficulty levels to real experts and newer Touch em...

I supose that we need some difficulty level above legendary to those who really know how to beat this game... Not for me but those really good players.

All in all the more we have different difficulty levels the better.

I have suggested that we should get at least two more levels

- Normal is normal table top version

- moderate: normal + move only to closest location

- heroic: as now one extra power

- epic: heroic + move to closest location

- legendary: like now: two powers and move to closest location

- demigad: I don't even want to know what this would do... Maybe every check difficulty is increased by adventure deck Number + legendary difficulties... Outch...

Edited May 16, 2016 by Hannibal_PJV

[Rhygar]

Hannibal I'm not so sure if the nuances justify that many difficulty level. I'm fine with them the way it is at the moment . But since this is a digital version, like some games I'd tried , an ironman mode with ladders ranking would be great, where permadeath is on and forfeit count as death. For those keen to compete on ladder ranking of course.

[Hannibal_PJV]

You want it rough!

;-)

 

I am more casual player, but permadeath really suits to this game so I am sure that all of my games after this summer will be using it. Just waiting some more bug fixes to make this game more stable. Could not play the tabletop version without permadeath!

[wakasm]

Interesting. I've only played RotR and Skull and Shackles and it could have been the groups I was in, but they felt about the same in terms of difficulty for 6 characters. I

 

In addition to power creep and some tough mechanics... Wrath has a lot of nasty barrier type boons that force everyone to encounter something, and you only succeed if everyone wins their personal encounter.   Such as Demonic Horde [link] or Arboreal Blight [Link].  So you end up wasting a lot of resources, and in some cases, if even one person fails, the card gets shuffled back in anyway.  

 

With 6 players, these cards are both time consuming in both the blessing sense and the real sense of the word.   Especially Demonic Horde because one person might fight 3 times back to back to back with unlucky dice rolls.  It's not 6 fights back to back, it's 6 fights randomly determined... which means you also can't strategically prepare that much.  And even people with evasion powers can't evade, because it requires everyone to defeat their summons to defeat the barrier.   Scouting gets a whole lot more useful in wrath!

 

 

So I can completely understand the "balance" criticism for sure.   However, it's not impossible.  

 

Hannibal I'm not so sure if the nuances justify that many difficulty level.   I'm fine with them the way it is at the moment . But since this is a digital version, like some games I'd tried , an ironman mode with ladders ranking would be great, where permadeath is on and forfeit count as death. For those keen to compete on ladder ranking of course.

 

 

I agree, I don't think we need that many difficulty levels.  Keep in mind there is a lot of content not unlocked and everyone currently playing the game is missing more than 50% of the cards in the actual game.  And the later editions of the game (Skulls / Wrath) do have more difficult cards and encounters/mechanics. 

 

Personally, I'm fine with the Legendary difficulty as is.  It was something I didn't expect from the app personally.  

 

I'm more interested in interesting mechanics... and I feel that they could do a lot more with the quest mode and/or custom adventures that are made for the app only.   They could do some sort of push your luck mode, or weekly scenario, but even then, there is a lot of randomness to the game that just can't be accounted for completely for any real kind of ranking.  

Edited May 16, 2016 by wakasm

[Narkon27]

@Brainwave: The 2 wildcard combo you  mentioned (-5 blessings in blessing deck AND -1 blessing each time you fail to acquire a boon) is straight evil. I tried to beat that combo a few times when I started playing the game, but now it is auto-quit for me. Which is why I can't imagine myself playing with permadeath this game. It is too RNG heavy for me to add the rogue-like element. I think a 3-4 person team is the ideal team, with a 2 person team being the easiest. Probably.

[Brainwave]

@Brainwave: The 2 wildcard combo you  mentioned (-5 blessings in blessing deck AND -1 blessing each time you fail to acquire a boon) is straight evil. I tried to beat that combo a few times when I started playing the game, but now it is auto-quit for me. Which is why I can't imagine myself playing with permadeath this game. It is too RNG heavy for me to add the rogue-like element. I think a 3-4 person team is the ideal team, with a 2 person team being the easiest. Probably.

Exactly.

[Longshot11]

I'm just going to leave here what I wrote on the Paizo forums a couple of months ago, when I first saw "Night Approaches':

 

"I may be wrong in trying to anticipate its effect, but Night Approaches looks a bit absurd, to the point of making a game un-fun really quick. When you think about it, this makes encountering a BOON much more dangerous than a BANE, which just ain't right in my book.

Oh, well, I guess, we'll be able to restart scenario until we roll decent wild cards at least..."

[Rhygar]

I'm just posting this as a way of substantiating what I believe -that ' balanced' gameplay' is still found ,with all the trappings of the wild cards power in this game , even when set against one of the most extreme scenario I could think of. Balanced as in a chance to complete the scenario. I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way.

 

Just recently, my 4 lv 30 toons together with its 2 newest members who aren't fully leveled yet, found 7 nightbelly boas henchman in a legendary game 6 man game in quest mode. Compounding the profound difficulty is , at the death, I finally found the villain hiding at the last card of the last location.merisiel went in to cap a heart thumping finale, but I didn't win though. She failed one of 2 checks and time ran out the next turn.

 

I'm sure a better player , or some party with better decks will have managed that win. It didn't have the 'night approaches' but i don't think this scenario pale in any way vs one with that wildcard. The winning probability , even with good decks, great strategic play will be significantly lower than a somewhat normal game , make no mistake. But these sort of scenario is certainly winnable and can, quite frankly, be thrilling.

[Hannibal_PJV]

Yep, in my books Gaming is not about winning. It is about a story of heroes going against overhelming odds. Sometimes They Are winners, sometimes They Are not.