Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Compel wrote:
But yeah there is more than a kernel of truth in what you're saying but I figured it's worth giving another perspective too

You bring up good points, and I'm not familiar with Imperial Assault, so it's interesting to hear that they've managed it well.

For myself, though, any game that forces me to play as the Nexus / Overlord is a game I won't buy. But if someone else wants to pay for the game and play host, learn the rules, do setup & cleanup with all the cards, tiles, pegs, minis, and tokens, get stuck playing as the impotent Overlord, and then have to field "are you cheating? Is that really the rule?" challenges from under-challenged, overpowered hero players, then I'll be happy to come over and play as a hero.

That snark wasn't directed at you, Compel; Gimgamgoo's report that his son was never challenged by his Star Saga bad guy minions brought all my bad old Descent memories back. And you're right, there are ways around those problems if the game design is clever. Siege of the citadel makes the Overlord player a rotating role that everyone has to assume, and rewards strong Overlord performances with carry-over bonuses for the temporary Overlord player's next hero mission, so there's incentive to do well. I just really dislike 1-vs.-many games that stick one player (me) with the enemy DM role, and that probably does mean Star Saga is D.O.A. for me (as I'm not confident in the co-op rules being fully developed), so I'm done ranting about it.

You're not the only one to have issues with it Vermonter, though I don't have a hardline on saying no to games with a DM/Nexus/Overlord. I still will get some/own a lot.

One thing I'm liking the rise of is apps being the DM. FFG does a good app for their Descent series, and the new Mansions of Madness is designed from the ground up to use it.

Speaking of Imperial Assault, they're making one for that too...

 MrDwhitey wrote:
You're not the only one to have issues with it Vermonter, though I don't have a hardline on saying no to games with a DM/Nexus/Overlord. I still will get some/own a lot.

One thing I'm liking the rise of is apps being the DM. FFG does a good app for their Descent series, and the new Mansions of Madness is designed from the ground up to use it.

Speaking of Imperial Assault, they're making one for that too...

I have to admit that I'm very, very interested in how well that's working out for Mansions of Madness. I avoided the first iteration of that game for the reasons given above, but the app-run DM of the new version has me intrigued. It's just a shame that MoM's minis are so badly done, but I guess I could replace them.

...which is why I always tell people if they want an AI driven sci-fi game, check out Galaxy Defenders.

The system will wreck your heroes unless you really put some thought into how you deal with the aliens (who all operate quite differently), and even then between event cards and bad dice rolls they're still going to tear you up.

I don't get why Mantic hasn't picked up some of these newer AI driven games for themselves to give them a spin to see how it's done correctly.

I also don't get why Mantic hasn't taken the simplicity of a system like their Mars Attacks AI and modify that. It was simple and straightforward, and while not the most imaginative, it got the job done for the basic grunts.

I'm not really 'dissing' the game.
Firstly, it's Alpha, hopefully nothing is in stone yet and our comments and thoughts on the gameplay will make a positive difference.

After I discovered how easy it was to make the SciFi tiles, I've decided if the rules/cards/game/figures are good, I can design room layouts for all the missions if the tiles aren't exactly what I envision. I can also make new missions/tile sets with a bit of effort.

I'm DM for a D&D group - and have been each week - since around 1984 (eeek). I'm in the mindset of being the DM/Nexus Overlord so I don't mind that. However the best games are always those fraught with danger when the players feel they've "just" got through it. If I was to throw one quarter hit die goblins at the level 14 player characters, it would become boring. That's how the Alpha mission A, B and 1 felt to a 10 year old lad playing with me. It doesn't need to be "Lost Patrol" hard, but have a degree of threat about it making it feel worthwhile to play with danger vs rewards.

I was hoping Star Saga's missions (when they're finished) would give our group (and me creating adventures) a break from D&D a while to play something else - but a storyline with discoveries for the players to find out about as we go along is important. We did play quite a few Zombicide missions weekly for a while, but the lack of an ongoing storyline meant we eventually stopped playing.

I just don't understand why no game company has tried to recapture the RPG-lite awesomeness that was Warhammer Quest's Roleplay Book in their own dungeon crawler. I begrudgingly admit that that's what Mantic seemed to have intended with the Adventurer's Companion, but following Thornton's blog over the course of development it was clear he didn't get it and was fighting hard not to sully his Heroquest clone on rails and a timer with all that messy RPG stuff.

It's frustrating. All I want is a modern Warhammer Quest like game, but where you can challenge the heroes with fewer monsters at a time. (Needing 2d6 orcs or 3d6 goblins per encounter at higher levels started getting old.)

 Psychopomp wrote:
I just don't understand why no game company has tried to recapture the RPG-lite awesomeness that was Warhammer Quest's Roleplay Book in their own dungeon crawler. I begrudgingly admit that that's what Mantic seemed to have intended with the Adventurer's Companion, but following Thornton's blog over the course of development it was clear he didn't get it and was fighting hard not to sully his Heroquest clone on rails and a timer with all that messy RPG stuff.

It's frustrating. All I want is a modern Warhammer Quest like game, but where you can challenge the heroes with fewer monsters at a time. (Needing 2d6 orcs or 3d6 goblins per encounter at higher levels started getting old.)

Shadows of Brimstone does this (in my estimation) with great success.

I vaguely remember playing Warhammer Quest back in 1998 or so, it seemed vaguely interesting.

Interesting enough that I bought the computer game last year. I think I managed about 3 hours of it before I realised, "oh, it's yet another "Random for the Random God" and dropped it like a stone.

 Compel wrote:
I vaguely remember playing Warhammer Quest back in 1998 or so, it seemed vaguely interesting.

Interesting enough that I bought the computer game last year. I think I managed about 3 hours of it before I realised, "oh, it's yet another "Random for the Random God" and dropped it like a stone.

Warhammer Quest really shone when someone took on the role of game master (note: *not* adversarial player, but an actual neutral game master) and ran it as a RPG-lite dungeon crawler. I keep a group going through multiple parties in weekly sessions for about 3 years doing that. Sadly, a computer game can't replicate that yet, so the app version only simulates the random card-generated co-op mode.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
I'm not really 'dissing' the game.
Firstly, it's Alpha, hopefully nothing is in stone yet and our comments and thoughts on the gameplay will make a positive difference.

I hope so. I'd like to see your critique that it was too easy for the good guys get taken to heart and worked on. Because this sums up my feelings exactly:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
However the best games are always those fraught with danger when the players feel they've "just" got through it. If I was to throw one quarter hit die goblins at the level 14 player characters, it would become boring. That's how the Alpha mission A, B and 1 felt to a 10 year old lad playing with me. It doesn't need to be "Lost Patrol" hard, but have a degree of threat about it making it feel worthwhile to play with danger vs rewards.

Truthfully I'm starting to think that, like your homemade tiles, you have the real answer to this one already, too: house rule changes to the game to make it more challenging. And it would probably be worthwhile to just come up with my own A.I. system for full co-op play. Then the A.I. can be as simple or deep as I like.

eekamouse wrote:

 Psychopomp wrote:
I just don't understand why no game company has tried to recapture the RPG-lite awesomeness that was Warhammer Quest's Roleplay Book in their own dungeon crawler. I begrudgingly admit that that's what Mantic seemed to have intended with the Adventurer's Companion, but following Thornton's blog over the course of development it was clear he didn't get it and was fighting hard not to sully his Heroquest clone on rails and a timer with all that messy RPG stuff.
It's frustrating. All I want is a modern Warhammer Quest like game, but where you can challenge the heroes with fewer monsters at a time. (Needing 2d6 orcs or 3d6 goblins per encounter at higher levels started getting old.)

Shadows of Brimstone does this (in my estimation) with great success.

I'd forgotten I backed that one again. Here's to hoping they finish it up one day!

I would rather have a game system working correctly from start than house rule it to work.

When you are paying for a product and the rules are part of the product, you want it working, its not a side project for free from a game designer that wants to experiment with it.

Speaking of the above, how prone is Mantic to deliver the rule system unchanged despite having huge feedback against it?

On the campaign itself, it seems to have lost most of its steam and Mantic is surprisingly non existent in the comments.

The bloom is well and truly off the rose. For KS in general and Mantic in particular after so many projects, so many missteps and so many repeated "we'll do better" mea culpas that seem to have no effect. I strongly suspect Siege of the Citadel is eating a big chunk of their lunch as well right now, and with Eric Lang, Richard Borg and Jay Little on board for rules working over what is by all accounts a very good boardgame - as opposed to Mantic's in-house team (plus RC) rewriting Jake's messy Heroquest tribute..

I think the Rules Committee is going to make or break this game, as they're the ones willing to put in the necessary playtesting time to make sure the rules are sound and balanced.

But if I understand correctly, the RC for Star Saga hasn't been assembled yet. It would be reassuring to know that Mantic are assembling a good team for that ASAP, as I have a hunch that they will be doing the bulk of the A.I. rules development and testing, and the more time they have for that, the better.

But if the Mantic design team really is putting serious work into the A.I. mode right now, they should take credit for that by talking more specifically about how they're going to handle having the game be playable either with or without a Nexus player. (If an A.I. player is just as effective as a human player, then why have a human Nexus player at all? Why not go A.I. all the way like Gears of War or Zombicide? Or, if a human Nexus player can do things that card A.I. just can't match, is there any way to make up the difference, or is the A.I. version going to be a limited, dumbed-down version of the "real game"?) I'd really like to see some hard proof of equivalently valid co-op rules before this KS ends. I know Jake hates co-op games, but he's not spearheading this revision of his rules, so there's reason to hope that co-op might be pursued more seriously this time.

@Gimgamgoo - thanks for letting us know how your first test games went. If you continue play testing, I'd love to hear more as things evolve. It looks like we're both after a similar level of challenge from the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I would rather have a game system working correctly from start than house rule it to work.

You're right about that, of course; that's how newly released games should work. In practice, getting game systems right in the first release is always highly difficult, and V2s are necessary more often than not. (But home-runs out of the gate aren't impossible, either - there have been some remarkable successes). Also, I'm starting to wonder if my expectations and hopes for rpg-lite boardgames are just unrealistically high. There are such natural tensions between rpgs and boardgames that there may not be any fully satisfying middle ground between them.

Zombicide: Black Plague has come closest for me so far, but I have to agree with Gimgamgoo: it's best for one-off games, as the story continuity is incidental at best, and character development from game-to-game is zero. (Your character effectively goes through the entire Novice-to-Master lifecycle in every adventure and resets at the beginning of the next one.) I do need to try the app-driven games sometime. And thanks for the tip on Galaxy Defenders - I've heard it has great A.I. Like Mansions of Madness and Shadows of Brimstone, though, it has sub-par miniatures, and so far I've been too much of a snob to get over that. I should probably just take the plunge and replace the minis with better ones from my own collection some day.

That's the thing about Mantic: they can make boardgames with good miniatures, especially after their success with PVC in Deadzone 2. That's one reason I keep hoping that they'll release more solid, better tested rule sets. Thus far the Mantic game that's played best for me is Mars Attacks, a genuinely good game that's just saddled with a property I'm not crazy about. I'm hoping Deadzone 2 will play as well (just with more sophistication) now that it's V2, as I'm much more interested in Mantic's own sci-fi universe than Topps properties.

*sigh* Mantic's suffering from lack of goodwill due to the Adventurers Companion debacle, and I don't think they expected it or had a good plan for it. They're kind of flailing in the Kickstarter comments as the campaign stalls out on day three of trying to get the Survivor unlocked. Some vague promises of Ronnie showing up later this week to add some value to the base pledge, and I think they're pinning a lot of hope on the Reddit AMA scheduled for later today.

I hope all the silence the last few days has been from them preparing more rules for preview and getting ready to wow us with the AMA. Because they're not impressing on any other fronts, currently.

Star Saga is not the Kickstarter Mantic needs, but it is the one they deserve!




Looks fairly typical for them now, and it is still doing "OK", I suppose!

Day-by-day breakdown looks fairly typical for almost all kickstarters ever doesn't it?

Mantic is too established a company, with too inconsistent of a track record, to get people excited about alpha rules and renders. Especially since they're moving into a crowded market.

 Alpharius wrote:
Star Saga is not the Kickstarter Mantic needs, but it is the one they deserve! ...

I couldn't agree more.

If Mantic refuses to listen to the disgruntled backers of, during and after, their previous Kickstarter campaigns, maybe lackluster funding for their new projects will make them listen to new backers (or lack thereof).

The game / hobby community isn't a cash cow and the good will of backers is finite. Promises mean nothing if you don't deliver substance to back them up. Mantic should have learned that a long time ago.

Crystallan Merc sneak peak from TGN

Spoiler due to size


New update

Reworked tiles - improvement on the original art.



Painted Francesco - finally a real painted mini!!



To be added tomorrow - Nameless Expansion I'm glad they listened and added expansions with new races/miniatures



Add ons

The nameless stuff is a good tipping point for me.

Just get us those rules up to assuage fears of another Adventurer's Companion debacle!

The reworked tiles are better.

 Ctaylor wrote:
The reworked tiles are better.

But not much. They needed a redesign, not some very minor shading and a blood splat or two.

 CptJake wrote:

 Ctaylor wrote:
The reworked tiles are better.

But not much. They needed a redesign, not some very minor shading and a blood splat or two.

I agree. They still look more like walls than a floor surface.
I assume this is as far as they will alter them if they've already had Dark Ops make and paint mdf versions to show off.

So far I prefer the tiles I knocked up to alpha test with using a cheap Rpgnow found tile creator.

one of the nameless ...... things!

Eh, I'm quite happy for a spacestation floor to not be made from the sci-fi dungeoncrawler staples of:

1) Grating/Grilles (1-inch squares)
2) Riveted dark metal panels (1-inch squares)
2) Sheets of that high-grip utility sheet metal stuff.

It's at least distinctive, fits the shiny high-tech Warpath universe, and doesn't actually make me recoil like the first version did!

I'm surprised that the balance of UK/US backers isn't more skewed between this and Dungeon Saga, given the current £:$ exchange. Dungeon Saga was when the pound was at its strongest post-recession point! Today, well...

Dungeon Saga was:
37.5% US
22.8% UK
$100=£60.23

Currently Star Saga is:
35.6% US
22.6% UK
$100=£78.58

Ouch!

I wish the design elements of the tiles lined up with the grid, at least.

Mantic are certainly spreading the previews far and wide today Tabletopgamersuk have a preview of the Nameless

I do not think the tiles are much of a problem, feel like a hospital/ research facility floor even with the colour coding lines.

Nameless are an interesting addition but it still does not seem to move, I wonder what they will try next?

The Reddit AMA didn't exactly set my mind to ease on the Character and Mission Creator expansions. Sounds like they're still at the vague outline stage of development. Cripes, after the Adventurers Companion, you'd think they'd have done some more pre-campaign writing on this stuff, but nope...Mantic.

I have no idea if the advanced ruleset will be like Warhammer Quest, Advanced Heroquest, or 'here's some monster stats, learn how to put this stuff together on your own, champ.'