24 replies to this topic

[dboeren]

You've probably seen some of the rumors about an Arkham Horror co-op LCG.  We don't know yet if it's real, but if it is we'll likely see it at Gencon in just two months.

 

I was curious what the LotR community thought about this, since as another co-op it would in a sense "compete" with LotR.  Assume for the moment that LotR keeps going, I'm not interested in a gloom & doom thread.

 

What do you hope to see in an Arkham Horror LCG that improves on the ideas of Lord of the Rings?  Would you play both?  Would you switch games if you liked the mechanics or theme better?  How do you feel having just one Investigator will change the game compared to having three Heroes?  How do you see the theme impacting the game?  Any other insights?

 

[alexbobspoons]

There's an 8 page thread on this very subject in the FFG official LotR forums, opinions are all over the place generally, was a bit of an opening can of worms

For me as a LotR player I love the idea of another game with similar mechanics set in Cthulhu Mythos. As long as they don't finish LotR too

One investigator would be good as some changes to the LotR format will keep it fresh and different so I'm in favour and imagine they would account for this difference in general rules and/or design of decks. If you wanted an investigator team just play with friends or multi handed.

I'd buy and play both!

[mnBroncos]

First I'd absolutely buy and play both and hope keep lotr going as I think they will at least for the time being. 

 

Improvements to the game could change. 1) make games have more impact from game to game. The saga games have done a great job of this of having them impact future games and they have already commented on a campaign in this game if the leak is true advertisement so already seems to have that improvement. 2) don't have as many auto loose effects in game/auto includes in the decks. Lotr has a problem with some quests were there are some just game destroying effects and because of this you need to include cancel effects in your decks, hope to see lot less of this in this game. 3) since only getting one "hero" in this game hope have a different way of getting resources only one a turn be really odd. I'm kinda worried about the one hero thing, but I have a feeling it maybe like Pathfinder type thing where your hero improves. Otherwise i'd much prefer more heroes because opens up deckbuilding a lot more, however, people complain about constantly making decks for lotr so maybe this will be easier for casual players. 4) I hope for some way maybe in a weird deluxe expansion or something for some form of playing as opposite side. In lotr I always thought be cool if there were some quests you play as the bad guy and hope this one has a way for you to play as an ancient one (I also think every old CoC player would like that since you could play as them in that game). 

 

those are just things that pop in head right away. I think there is market for another coop lcg especially since they are so much more popular now I think a lot of people would like not having to invest as much right away to get into lotr. 

[MightyToenail]

I want them to change how locations work, I want less autoincludes and auto loss cards, so that you don't have to build different decks for every scenario, as that could get clunky with Campaign mode. I also want a heavier importance on combat, as in Lotr you can just ignore combat if you have enough willpower.

[dboeren]

There's an 8 page thread on this very subject in the FFG official LotR forums, opinions are all over the place generally, was a bit of an opening can of worms

 

You know, it's so hard for me to remember those forums still exist, since 99+% of the Cthulhu traffic is here so I unconsciously assume that this is the case for other LCGs as well.  Thanks for pointing this out!

 

After having looked at the thread there however, it contains very little discussion of what people think about the Arkham Horror game, it's mostly a combination of doom for LotR, complaints about the movies and Christopher Tolkien, and stuff like that.  Not all that useful, I think the crowd here on Cardgamedb is still superior

 

In the last few days I've been sampling a few LotR podcast episodes and locations definitely seem to be a recurring feature that people feel could be done better, and I'd already heard about issues with auto-include cards.  I have some concerns with how this combines with playing two-fisted too, if you need certain auto-includes and you're playing solo out of a single collection, you're not going to have 6x copies.  Now, maybe that many isn't necessary, but it may be an advantage.  Admittedly, I'm still trying to shift mindset over from competitive (where any advantage matters) to co-op (where people often deliberately play weaker decks for fun) so I may just not be properly adjusted yet...

 

I'm not familiar with what sort of auto-loss cards different quests have, but it doesn't sound good.  Is this basically just "you need at least X cancels" or are the requirements on the player deck more specific than that?

 

Earlier on I thought that it would be cool to use a system similar to Conquest where your Investigator comes with a set of their own custom cards and this can help compensate for not having 3 Heroes in terms of deck variety.  However, now I am not sure that would be possible without a change to the distribution method.  A LotR pack generally comes with 1 Hero who takes up 1 card slot, and a new quest which takes up a fair bit of space (I don't know exactly what the average is, but it's a substantial amount of the pack).  Then what's left is player cards.  If the hero took up 9 cards (as in Conquest) and the quest was about the same size, there would be too little room left for player cards, so this seems unviable unless you make other changes to help compensate.  I still like the idea from a flavor point of view, but it may just be impractical if they keep 60 card packs and want to release new Investigators in them.  If you keep Investigators for boxes it could maybe still work.

[divinityofnumber]

I LOVE the LOTR LCG and would happily welcome a CoC cooperative LCG. I would absolutely play both games.

 

The cooperative games won't compete with each other as much as the competitive games. You can play cooperative games however you want to, whereas the competitive games get to a point where you either play X, Y, and Z cards or decks or you are going to lose. With a game like LOTR, I often build the most powerful decks that I can, but I also sometimes build random, fun, janky decks and have just as much fun. Further, with cooperative games, there is not as much pressure to own the entire cardpool; you can play them at your own pace and in your own way. 

[slothgodfather]

I'm not familiar with what sort of auto-loss cards different quests have, but it doesn't sound good.  Is this basically just "you need at least X cancels" or are the requirements on the player deck more specific than that?

 

Early on in the Dwarrowdelf cycle (the second cycle), there is a quest where you are escorting Arwen to see her father.  She has an ability to generate a resource when you exhaust her, so it's natural that you want to include her in the quest so you can have the resource as early as possible for events.  However, during combat, there is a shadow card that has the text "Defending player must discard all exhausted characters he controls."   If she is exhausted and controlled by that player, you lose unless you can cancel it.  There are plenty of other nearly auto-loss cards that make it next to impossible to beat if you don't have a cancel or some way to mitigate the effect, but this one is always the first one that comes to mind when I think "auto-loss".   

 

I do agree that the FFG threads - there are 2 now - that talk about this game are not very focuses on what they hope Arkham brings to the table.

 

I like the single investigator deck idea since that will help players group up quicker with having far less opportunity for unique-overlap.  Assuming none of them are as OP as Glorfindel (spirit), then I imagine everyone will be able to have multiple decks made at the same time and can select what to play quickly rather than having to make changes to your heroes, allies and deck themes if you have conflicting unique characters like in LotR.

[mnBroncos]

Yeah auto loss was an overstatement you don't actually loose most of the time, however there are some significantly more power shadow card effects that if don't cancel make it almost impossible to over come depending on deck and scenario

[dboeren]

I like the single investigator deck idea since that will help players group up quicker with having far less opportunity for unique-overlap.  Assuming none of them are as OP as Glorfindel (spirit), then I imagine everyone will be able to have multiple decks made at the same time and can select what to play quickly rather than having to make changes to your heroes, allies and deck themes if you have conflicting unique characters like in LotR.

 

That's a good point, at least if they still have uniqueness work the same way.

 

I've heard people say they wish corruption was a bigger thing in LotR, maybe this game will feature more insanity and corruption, like using magic spells can help you but also you start losing your grip on reality if you do it too much.

[mnBroncos]

That's a good point, at least if they still have uniqueness work the same way.
 
I've heard people say they wish corruption was a bigger thing in LotR, maybe this game will feature more insanity and corruption, like using magic spells can help you but also you start losing your grip on reality if you do it too much.

Think the threat of going insane matchs theme of a CoC type game a lot more and would expect it to make a bigger game impact

[dboeren]

Yeah, I'm pretty excited about the potential of a new co-op game and I'm pretty sure there will be enough differences that neither one makes the other obsolete.  Lord of the Rings will always have a much bigger deck design space with three Heroes and a huge head start on the pool, which will be something nice to work on while we wait for the Arkham Horror to start building up expansions.  On the other hand, I expect Arkham Horror to have some improved ideas and come out of the gate with the higher and more varied quest quality that LotR enjoys these days.  Both games should do very well I think.

 

Even though I'm planning on buying Arkham Horror when/if it comes out, I think I want to buy into LotR as well so I'm going to be on the lookout for a good deal on a used collection.

[divinityofnumber]

The Master's Malice:

 

This card is not an auto-loss, but OMG does this hurt if you are not playing a mono-sphere deck.

[dboeren]

Yeah, that looks pretty harsh.  A good example of a scenario that you probably want to specifically build for, as well as I would think one that works better with more players so that you can still cover multiple spheres with each player being mono.

 

I suppose you could still splash some non-character cards from another faction (going 2:1 on heroes) but that's just a different way of building specifically for the scenario and you're taking a bit more risk with your initial draw.

[slothgodfather]

And the 1 hero will take the damage.  So they better not have 3 HP. 

 

But yea, those types of cards are pretty much auto-loss cards if you don't have the cancel or have built/prepared for it.  

[phillosmaster]

I'm looking forward to a new co-op LCG.  I hope the rumor is true.  I think FFG has learned tremendously from LOTR, and all their newer LCG releases have been significantly improved in the area of rules writing, card design, card pool design, instruction manual writing... So seeing a new system standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before it sounds great to me. 

 

I'd support both. I play LOTR more than the other LCGs I support so it's likely one of the others will fall off before LOTR.  I think the single investigator deck idea is great since it will make your deck feel more like your character thus making it more personal.  Hopefully that will help the game avoid the unique character overlap issue that does hurt casual pick up games for LOTR. 

 

I do think replacing the threat track with an insanity gauge would be very thematic.  Items and events that give you mythos knowledge effectively having Doomed sounds thematically great.  That said I hope this rumored game isn't too much of a reskin.  I'd rather it be informed by the strengths of LOTR rather than emulate it completely.  I suspect that won't be a mere reskin considering the differences between Invasion and Conquest gives us some historical confidence in them treating new LCGs as an evolution of design rather than an excuse to rehost rules.

[divinityofnumber]

If FFG does another cooperative LCG,  I hope that it has a long-form campaign mode, where players actually level up, or something similar. I love the campaign mode for LOTR, but refer to something more akin to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. 

 

I was hoping that Warhammer: Quest card game would be like that, but it doesn't look like it will get expansions with any regularity, if any...

 

LOTR does what it does perfectly, in my opinion, and I don't really want it to change much. I hope LOTR keeps going for years and years. It is one of FFG's best-selling products of all time, so I think that they will keep it going for quite a while. 

 

That said, I would like to see a long-form, almost tabletop RPG style campaign mode if they do a new cooperative LCG; something where you can have an ongoing game with your playgroup over many, many sessions. 

[mnBroncos]

Agree I think the one investigator system makes it seem like be more pathfinder like where that one hero levels up.....I've thought about making a boarderlands themed like game before and I thought be cool for a rpg type game to have cards that go in your deck have requirements to include them

[dboeren]

There's a bit of conflict there though since in an LCG people are accustomed to designing their deck which is different than Pathfinder.  I don't know if people want to have to randomly find a card before they can use it.

 

They could reuse the Boon system from the saga expansions, or maybe something new.  What they could do is level up your Investigator by having them earn new abilities or something.  Another option would be to level up individual cards by reducing their cost or buffing their stats?  You'd still build with anything you want, but you'd be replacing your base level cards with better versions.  If anyone here plays Solforge, that's a big part of that game - every card you play levels up so you're always having to balance the immediate effect of what a card will do for you now against how well it powers up for later.

[mnBroncos]

There's a bit of conflict there though since in an LCG people are accustomed to designing their deck which is different than Pathfinder.  I don't know if people want to have to randomly find a card before they can use it.

 

They could reuse the Boon system from the saga expansions, or maybe something new.  What they could do is level up your Investigator by having them earn new abilities or something.  Another option would be to level up individual cards by reducing their cost or buffing their stats?  You'd still build with anything you want, but you'd be replacing your base level cards with better versions.  If anyone here plays Solforge, that's a big part of that game - every card you play levels up so you're always having to balance the immediate effect of what a card will do for you now against how well it powers up for later.

 

I don't mean gain cards pathfinder style but already having access to the cards but can't use them until reach like a level or somthing. So when you get better you have access to better cards that you can put in your deck when deck building. 

[dboeren]

Ah, that makes some sense.   Like if you imagine the cards having a trait similar to Netrunner's "Influence".  Starting out maybe you can only use Influence 1-2 cards from your investigator's faction and Influence 1 cards from other factions.  Then each quest you survive, you can bump one faction's influence limit up by 1.  Probably not exactly like that, but the general idea...