Ah bitch, bitch, bitch...

darkkami said:

So... you hate the cards, want dice instead but also hate chance, but most importantly you feel slighted because Fantasy Flight didn't want your amateur remake of their game.  Well, I'm sorry you don't like it, but you will have to pay a lot more than $100 to have a game custom made to your own specifications (or make it yourself, good for you!).  Personally, I think Runewars looks amazing.

darkkami said:

No offense, kami, but it seems like every time I see you post something in these forums, you're always bitching about how it isn't what you want and FFG are fools for not listening to your (I'm guessing here) unsolicited e-mails.  Time and again you mention how you are or were working on your own board games that are a thousand times better, so why don't you go play those games and stop harassing those of us who enjoy FFG's products?  No one's putting a gun to your head and making you buy FFG games.  If you don't like what they're doing "to Battlemist" then don't buy it.

I'm sure there are no small number of us who enjoy making house rules as a way to express our creativity and to fix things we're not so hot on about these games.  I know I like those sorts of things just to experiment with what might be.  Doesn't mean I'm going to sit around here hating on Corey for the decisions he made that I happen to disagree with.  I'll just fix it for my own games if it's that big a deal.  Don't like the card combat?  Fine, write up a chart that emulates the same probabilities and roll dice instead.  Want more choice and less random?  Make a house rule where each player holds a hand of combat cards and picks one each time he fights.  Better yet, have players draw a hand of cards each battle, that way no one can horde the really good cards.  See?  It's easy.  And that's assuming you go ahead and buy the game which we've already established you don't need to do.

I also seem to recall a post of yours claiming you were done around here and wouldn't be coming back.  Right now, I kind of wish that had stuck.  The more I hear from you the more I think you're just an angsty, lonely closet gamer who berates anything he didn't make himself out of spite that no one seems to care about his own inventions.  If you're really interested in becoming a professional game designer (for any company) you're going to need to learn how to handle rejection better than this.  If you're making any serious effort to submit game ideas to FFG as your post suggests, then ranting on their forums and insulting their existing designers isn't helping your chances.

You start by talking about how 10-sided dice are OK, but then go on to say you don't like your battles decided by luck?  Rolling dice isn't necessarily any more or less "luck"ful then cards - it depends on how they are done.  I've seen a massive fleet in TI3 get unlucky against a smaller defensive force and wiped out because of "luck".  I've seen a Zergling force beat back the Protoss in Starcraft because of some lucky card pulls.

You make it sound like there will not be any skill or strategy in the battles, but just a Risk-like lucky draw.  From everything I gather, strategy, from army composition to maneuvering, will play just as much a part in winning a battle as the random card pull.

To "guarantee" that you can activate the special every single time just cheapens the specials.  It seems like you'll have to plan carefully on how you build your army to best maximize the outcomes to your benefit.

I think people who are rushing in to judge the flaws of the combat system before they even know the details of how it works are jumping the gun quite a bit.  Yes, we have some previews discussing it, but really, my guess is they are just scratching the surface, and there will be a lot more to the combat than just "move units, draw a card, done".

I hope that the combat system will be more than just a pool of comparable troups attacking another pool. I hope that there will be the possibility of really tactical decisions in the battle, for example splitting up the troups in battle-formations (for example Starcraft-like front-troops and rear cover / backup-reinforcement).

Going back to the original discussion in this thread, I'm actually kind of looking forward to the card based combat. Yes, it could be bad, but it could be fun - I guess I'm taking a wait and see attitude. I understand all the concerns, but I'm not as worried.

My favorite combat system is the one employed in Hero Quest, Heroscape, and Warcraft: The Adventure game - where you roll a number of attack dice based on your unit's strength and the other person rolls the defense dice. But I don't want to own the same game all the time, so I'm open to this card system.

My hope is the battle lets you draw one fate card per battle and the fate adds up per unit - so a sizeable group of archers with fate on their side could take down a major enemy. I think that makes sense and would make the number of cards manageable. But I also enjoy a bit of luck in my games, too! ^_^

please tell me when you find a war game which dosn't include any form of luck will ya?

MeisterH said:

Diplomacy doesn't have any randomized results as far as I know.  It may not be a war game on the same scale as Runewars and the like, but it does involve building armies and using them to control territories, which is the basic premise of most war games.

Yes it has when it comes down to neutral units.

It's been a while since I played Diplomacy, but I don't remember there being any neutral units.  (Or was that a variant for fewer than seven players?)  But its simultaneous action choice can be considered luck, of a sort.

If you consider Chess a wargame, that certainly doesn't involve any luck.

Lindsey said:

I was going to suggest that, but I didn't want to sound flippant. Chess requires a high degree of skill to be successful. It's a game I'm beginning to *really* get into, largely because I know I'll never find anyone to play FFG games with me....:(

I would definatly say chess is a war game. you got me now. but we can probably conclude that most games include some form of luck

sometimes it plays a big role other times it dosn't

darkkami said:

Yeah, we get it. Time to stop spamming these threads with your rants.

I just want to say that contrary to what has been said, not everyone completely adored the card system (and the battles in general) from Starcraft. I for one think the system makes the game boring and predictable.

It's just my personal opinion, I'm not trying to say Starcraft's system is better or worse than any other system, just don't call it "perfect" because a perfect system would please everyone and that's not the case. Anyway I'm glad FFG sees through that and keeps adding different elements to their games reworking some mechanics and introducing new ones.

Well, I said this elsewhere, but may as well mention it again: just look at what FFG has been putting out lately. I mean, their general approach to game development has been solid. I liked the card based mechanics in SC myself, but recognize they were cumbersome in ways, so then we see another, smoother variation come out in MEQ. I don't see any reason why the mechanics in RunWars, and in Horus Heresy (which will also use cards for combat from what I understand), should not be an even more refined system than in previous iterations.

Since we don't have the rules and only basic overviews of mechanics in the diaries, I think our best source for judgement now remains our past experience with FFG. Short of Android (which has some redeeming qualities, not enough, but some), I have yet to be burned by a big FFG title and I respect how they approach game design.