Carlos Saldanha
Portugal
Lisboa
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...I really do! But I can't!
I'm a great Tolkien fan, I own the collectors' edition books, the collectors' edition movies, some miniatures from Games Workshop and some of LOTR based games like the Lord of the Rings, War of the Ring and one of my fav games, Middle-Earth Quest.
So, since I got the info about this game I was all hyped... until the day I've bought it and played it! But we will get there in a sec...
I bought this game a long time ago, when it was released and I really loved it at first sight, the cards, oh my, those cards are just beautiful. The artwork is so well done, along with the card information and everything in it, the narrative text. It really gives the player that sense of adventure when a player plays the game... or maybe...
NOT!!
I've played it solo a couple of times and with my girlfriend (my partner in crime on this hobby) another couple of times, tested all adventures and all decks present on the main box. After several games I put this game on my "for trade" box, just two weeks after buying it.
But this last week, after listened some podcasts that made the balance of 2011 games and so many of them listing LOTR: LCG as one of the best games, the best card game, and so and so, that I really had to take another chance on this one!
So I went to the attic, I fought gigantic spiders, had to avoid some serious traps, removed some layers of dust to recover this game for another try! [/extreme dramatization]
And I played it... played it like a mad man!! And once again I got extremely disappointed!
I will base all my review on the Journey Down the Anduin (LVL:4 Adventure), Solo Play, various decks (mono-sphered, dual-sphered)
I also play allot of card games: A Game of Thrones (my fav), Magic: TG, Battletech, Legend of the 5 Rings, Dominion, etc etc... some game terms and comparisons are made with these games in mind.
ENCOUNTER MECHANISM
The first problem I got with this game was the Encounter Mechanism. At first glance it seems a really great gaming mechanism but once you got your hands on the cards and play 2-to-3 turns, you'll start to see some broken wheels on this mechanism. And this can translate into some really easy games or some really difficult games depending on the cards you draw. This invalidates all sense of strategy in this game if, per chance, you commit less Heroes to your Quest and draw one high Threat Location or you commit all your Heroes to the Quest and you draw a low priority Enemy that will attack you undefended.
Ok, I can hear you say "but you have to know when to assign Heroes to Quests and not assign them all" and so on... but when you got 2 Locations with 5+3 on Threat and you're over 30 Threat on your dial, what would you do to prevent your Threat scaling over without any Heroes/Allies on Quest?!
This game should give you the option to forfeit the Quest Phase, still giving one Encounter card but not adding Threat to your Threat Level so you can have a bit more time to work your game. And that leads to...
UNBALANCED FLOW
This game really feels unbalanced to me. And for unbalanced I don't mean "win every game", I play other Co-Ops as Arkham Horror, Defenders of the Realm, Fortune and Glory, Rune Age; all these games are difficult, some are still unbeaten by me but those games give me satisfaction when I play them as this game doesn't!
It's not fun to play a game and in 2nd turn you can feel you'll lose it, and in 3rd turn you're already lost! For me that's not fun at all... I can spend 4 hours playing one of those games mentioned before and lose after those 4 hours, but at least I was trying in those 4 hours, not having headaches because I couldn't play with the same speed as the Encounter deck.
And this is because of two factors: Low Resources and Character Exhaustion
RESOURCES
This is a major problem. There are few cards that can provide additional Resources, but that's not what I'm aiming at. It's the fact that it generates one Resource per Hero and most Allies cost 2/3 Resources. This will translate into 1 Ally per turn, dealing with one Encounter per turn. Well, that seems balanced... if the game didn't forced you to commit Characters in 2 compulsory Phases (Quest and Enemy Attacks) and 2 optional ones (Travel and Hero/Ally Attacks).
And there's no feeling of Resource scale in this game. Only one Sphere can mitigate this issue with some Attachments/Conditions but you'll need them, the Resources, in the first rounds of the game and not in the last ones. Also, when you'll lose an Hero you'll also lose a Resource provider, and Heroes are easy to kill.
EXHAUSTION
This goes with what I've wrote above.
This game has several Phases, some of them are very important, some less. The problem is that all those Phases are important, no matter what. And you'll have 3 Heroes + 1 Ally to manage 4 Phases, depending on the Characters the basis are 2:1, 2 Characters per Phase, so this leaves you with two Phases to work on and two to be ignored at an early stage of the game.
Well, you'll Exhaust Characters for everything: Quest, Travel, Defense, Attack.
This seems a very basic design for me. Yeah, you can think on Conditions, Combos and other stuff that could avoid Exhaustion or work Exhausted Characters... but normally that'll cost Resources, and it would bring you into the step above, the Resource management and not being able to deploy Allies.
I guess this is an issue that could be avoided if the game was more well written. Per example, the game would be more balanced if defending Characters wouldn't Exhaust. It's just a small change that would allow you to give you more balance and more room to breathe in this game, and maybe allow one Character to do the Travel Phase (a phase that was always dull in our games).
PHASES
Yup, the Travel Phase! I guess it's the least important Phase in this game comparing to others and their drawbacks and it should be treated after combat. I understand that from the narrative point of view this Phase makes sense the way it is, but from a gaming point, it doesn't.
I guess the whole Phases are wrongly done by one simple detail: Combat!
If I got stuck with an Enemy it doesn't makes any sense I'll have to step into a Quest and make some Travel to deal with combat after that. It's just... well, not narrative and not well designed in a gaming dynamics.
From a strategic/gaming perspective, it would make sense this way:
-Engage Encounters
-Combat
-Quest
-Travel
This way you could work the Enemies (both Engaged or in the Staging Area) and have several spared Characters to assign to the Quest Phase and even the Travel Phase. It would make so much sense...
In this way you can really improve the strategic level of this game and not having to depend on luck.
STRATEGY
Well, some of you will call me names for this but this game has little strategy in it. Even with the deck/combo design aspect in it. And why?! Because as mentioned before, the way this game is designed is strongly luck-dependent. And when you have a game that is strongly dependent from luck, the strategic level in it decreases.
You can plan one Round mathematically, with # Characters Questing, # Characters to defend/attack # possible Enemies, but you'll never know how that Encounter draw will affect your plan.
Some scenarios:
Scenario One - you have some high Threat Enemy in the Staging Area and you would like to avoid it so you'll bet the minimum Characters to prevent your Threat to rise and have other Characters to work in the following Phases. You draw a Threat 5 Location, your Threat rise and you'll have to deal with that Enemy. Or, you'll just draw a Surge Enemy...
Scenario Two - you think in forfeiting the Quest Phase to take care of those Enemies in the Staging Area. Your Threat will rise and you'll draw another Enemy, high Threat one (the worst!). Now you'll have to work with one additional, even worse, Enemy along with the one(s) on the Staging Area. Also, it's really good to draw Surge Enemies in this stage! 
Scenario Three - you have 2 Enemies and 3 Characters. You really want to take one of those Enemies out if you want to have an edge in the game and not play 1-to-1, so you'll defend one of those Enemies with a pawn (a low-end Ally) and have the other to attack undefended. You draw a Shadow card and... well, you know the rest!
I could spend hours mentioning possible scenarios where luck would break strategy. I'm able to deal with luck messing with strategy and I'm used to it in all the games I play, but I'm not used to luck breaking strategy.
This may sound as ranting but it's not. I really, REALLY wanted to like this game!
I love the theme, I love the artwork, I love some aspects of it, some mechanisms. But there are some key aspects of this game that leaves me deeply disappointed with it. I really wanted more of this game and I can't get, and I will not bet more money on expansions to make it more playable or desirable. I know that's the way FFG plans their games but I will not do it for this game, sorry. If you want me to spend my money on your expansions, make a Core game that works as the other FFG titles I have, both Core and Expansions (Runebound, AGOT:LCG, etc).
And I've read that the Star Wars: The Card Game is similar to this game. I hope not because if it really is, I will not even want to look at it! 
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Ordinary Evidence
Canada
Nanaimo
British Columbia
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I'm sorry, but didn't you post almost exactly the same review before, like sometime last year?
I'm also sorry you still don't like the game. I still do.
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Richard Morris
Scotland
Harrogate
North Yorkshire
Join the BGG Folding @Home Team !!
This user had more :gg: than sense
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So, basically, you are not very good at it, so you think the game is broken and needs to be made easier for the players?
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Jim Montanus
United States
Twin Falls
Idaho
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After purchasing the entire first cycle of LotR:TCG I finally got around to play it, with great excitement. Sadly, 1/2 way through my first game, I started to worry "is this it?" I will continue playing for a while, but I am terribly disaapointed and really surprised what all the hoopla is about this game. I miss my old MECCG days. Thanks for such a thorough and well explained list of shortcomings - I think your review was great and sadly accurate.
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oDESGOSTO wrote: if the game didn't forced you to commit Characters in 2 compulsory Phases (Quest and Enemy Attacks) and 2 optional ones (Travel and Hero/Ally Attacks).
oDESGOSTO wrote: Well, you'll Exhaust Characters for everything: Quest, Travel, Defense, Attack.
oDESGOSTO wrote: It's just a small change that would allow you to give you more balance and more room to breathe in this game, and maybe allow one Character to do the Travel Phase (a phase that was always dull in our games).
oDESGOSTO wrote: This way you could work the Enemies (both Engaged or in the Staging Area) and have several spared Characters to assign to the Quest Phase and even the Travel Phase.
You keep mentioning exhausting to Travel, or assigning characters to Travel. Now it's been a while since I've played, but I don't recall that traveling to a location has anything to do with characters (except for an occasional special effect). Am I misunderstanding something here?
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United States
Davis
California
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No you're correct sheafify. You only exhaust characters to travel if the card explicitly calls for it. The travel phase itself is simply the act of moving a location from the staging are to the quest card to make it the active location. To the OP, if you didn't like the game you didn't like the game but it sounds like you may have been playing with some of the rules wrong...
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Michele Esmanech
Italy
Milano
Milano
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sheafify wrote: oDESGOSTO wrote: if the game didn't forced you to commit Characters in 2 compulsory Phases (Quest and Enemy Attacks) and 2 optional ones (Travel and Hero/Ally Attacks). oDESGOSTO wrote: Well, you'll Exhaust Characters for everything: Quest, Travel, Defense, Attack. oDESGOSTO wrote: It's just a small change that would allow you to give you more balance and more room to breathe in this game, and maybe allow one Character to do the Travel Phase (a phase that was always dull in our games). oDESGOSTO wrote: This way you could work the Enemies (both Engaged or in the Staging Area) and have several spared Characters to assign to the Quest Phase and even the Travel Phase. You keep mentioning exhausting to Travel, or assigning characters to Travel. Now it's been a while since I've played, but I don't recall that traveling to a location has anything to do with characters (except for an occasional special effect). Am I misunderstanding something here?
I was hoping someone pointed this out, as I didnt have the time to quote all the quotes, like you did.
Anyhow, you don't commit characters to traveling.
Anyhow again, i am sorry you still don't like the game... I do, a lot, but To each, his own.
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Rory Mannix
United Kingdom
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I may have read this wrong but you said that you need to exhaust characters to travel to a location? Only some locations have this requirement, other locations (Old Forest Road) allow you to ready a character when your travel there. With regards to the encounter deck, you can control it to a certain degree using Denethor and Henemath Riversong(spelling?) who is a one resource cost ally and he lets you look at the top card of the encounter deck so you can plan your questing/attacking. There are other ways to accelerate resources with Steward of Gondor and with Gloin and Theodred.
This game is not for everyone and I admire you for going back to it and trying again and you sound like you have had a lot of experience with this sort of game before. Have you had a look at Boromir's Guide to Deck Building on the FFG website? As a relative newbie to this kind of thing (only started gaming this time last year), this really helped me spot where my decks were going wrong and what I needed to do to improve my chances of winning and finding different levels of enjoyment within the game. But if you've given it two chances, maybe it is best to get rid of it. Just because it is LOTR themed doesn't mean you have to like it (Leonard Nemoy singing about Bilbo Baggins anyone.....urrrgh).
*Edit* looks like everyone beat me to this, boy do I feel slow.
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LSU LSU
United States
Virginia Beach
Virginia
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Honestly, it sounds like you got some of the rules wrong and didn't do very well at the game...if anything, the early scenarios suffer from the opposite problem that you suggest - that they are too easy.
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Garth Boucher
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
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This game will slap you in the face with one hand then backhand you with the other before you can ask for more.
At first blush, it will appear an unbalanced dog where luck of the intial draw will see you sink or, well, sink a little slower with a good draw.
And it can be frustrating.
Then you start to see cards, combos and ways of mitigating the luck of the draw. And things that overcome the myriad of necessities and expectations that each character must face each turn (quest, defend, attack). If you've never played a CCG or LCG game before you won't recognize that the problems you're facing have long had names: card advantage, resource curve, action economy.
This game demands that you spend the time to deal with these issues. It seems to me that this is central to many/most of the negative reviews I've seen. Let me quickly add that I'm sure as hell not bashing anyone who doesn't like the game. To each his own and all that rot.
I guess I just find that the thing I really love about this game is the exact thing for which some take it to task.
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Our list of allies grows thin!
United States
Silver City
New Mexico
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oDESGOSTO wrote: Well, some of you will call me names for this but this game has little strategy in it.
.. I could spend hours mentioning possible scenarios where luck would break strategy. I'm able to deal with luck messing with strategy and I'm used to it in all the games I play, but I'm not used to luck breaking strategy.
The approach you took in criticizing the lack of strategy in this game could be applied with equal effect to games such as poker and you would reach the same conclusion that there is no strategy involved, it is just the luck of the draw.
In fact, many people play poker with that very shallow understanding. They make bids based solely on the cards they can see and the odds of getting particular hands. We have a name for such people. We call them suckers. The truth is, there is a level of strategy in poker that transcends the simple luck of the draw. Likewise there is a level of strategy in this game that transcends the luck of the draw. If you choose to not go deeper than the simple "luck of the draw", that's fine. That is your choice. Although it is not surprising that you find the game distasteful as a result. Your condemnation of this game after making the choice not to delve deeper is most charitably described as premature.
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B Smith
United States
Unspecified
New York
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garthasl wrote: This game will slap you in the face with one hand then backhand you with the other before you can ask for more.
At first blush, it will appear an unbalanced dog where luck of the intial draw will see you sink or, well, sink a little slower with a good draw.
And it can be frustrating.
Then you start to see cards, combos and ways of mitigating the luck of the draw. And things that overcome the myriad of necessities and expectations that each character must face each turn (quest, defend, attack). If you've never played a CCG or LCG game before you won't recognize that the problems you're facing have long had names: card advantage, resource curve, action economy.
This is the stage I'm at with the game where I'm finally(in great part due to the awesome advice of the people here on these forums) being able to string thrings together logically...replacing chance with card tactics. I am glad I stuck with it through the many early losses, and I still cannot solo a high level quest...but I love the challenge.
BitJam wrote: Likewise there is a level of strategy in this game that transcends the luck of the draw. If you choose to not go deeper than the simple "luck of the draw", that's fine. That is your choice. Although it is not surprising that you find the game distasteful as a result. Your condemnation of this game after making the choice not to delve deeper is most charitably described as premature.
I was almost "that guy" until I came to these boards, watched some of the youtube videos linked here, and sought advice. I have no prior experience with CCG's or LCG's....the only card game I really played before this was Thunderstone which is fundamentally different. If I can get the hang of this, in all my noob glory, so can anyone! Now I can't get the expansions fast enough! Glad I didn't throw up my hands and blame the game for my lack of understanding...I would have missed out on both a great solo game and a game I love playing with my teenaged son.
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Paul Hackman
United States
Champaign
Illinois
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I can agree that thematically some of the game mechanisms can seem strange. In this sense I can accept the frustration some might feel about the exhaust rule.
I can also agree that luck plays a role, but as far as I know this is true of any co-op game. I've had games where I had victory in my grasp as long as one particular combo of cards did not come up....and then they did. And given the relative power of some of the encounter cards you will likely have some games where the enemies overwhelm you before you can execute any of your own cool tricks. Luckily, it's not hard to reset the game quickly and play again.
But I can't really understand your complaints about the gameplay. I was very impressed about the strategic decisions built into a relatively simple game. When to gamble and when to play it safe is an interesting decision once you have some knowledge of the encounter deck's contents. As you get to know your own constructed deck better, you begin to sense when you need more cards versus when you need more resources. The way the encounters build up works well. The fact that you want to do multiple things but can only use each character once is a pretty standard and successful game mechanism.
I think the game could be made more strategic, but I've had plenty of fun making meaningful decisions so far.
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Jonathan Young
United Kingdom
Farnham
Surrey
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Fundamentally it just doesn't sound like you're very good at the game and that's coloured your appreciation of it. That's a shame because this is a game that repays the investment that you make in it. When I try a new scenario for the first couple of times, I know that I'll probably get destroyed, possibly in the first couple of rounds.
That's where the strategy comes in, as you build a deck that's tailored to the needs of the quest. Then as you play that new deck, the tactical choices that you make are both challenging and fun. To win, particularly solo one-player at the harder quests, you need to be good at both.
For me, this is a supremely challenging game, very tough but fair. When you get beaten you typically know where you went wrong and just try again with a tweak or two to your strategy.
This is my favourite game by far and I'm sorry that you don't like it. The fact that it's been as successful as it has does suggest that perhaps you're missing something rather than there being anything fundamentally wrong with the game though.
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I want to know if the OP was playing the rules correctly, at least as far as the travel phase is concerned. If he played with the correct rules and didn't like it, fair enough... but if he had the rules wrong and didn't like it, then I have to wonder a bit.
- Anatole
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Patrick Leacock
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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oDESGOSTO wrote:
NOT!!
Frodo: I wish the game had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the characters that are given to us. There are other forces at work in this game Frodo, besides the will of evil.  Bilbo was meant to find the cards. In which case, you were also meant to have them. And that is an encouraging thought.
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Colin Houghton
United Kingdom
London
London
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Had the game since Christmas, and still playing it and enjoying it. A few points made did ring true with me.
Luck or rather bad luck, can "spoil" a game within the first few turns if you draw a poor starting deck, even using the Mulligan, and you get some bad-ass encounter cards early on.
However, I like to play a game, and not be kicked in the nuts at the start, so there are little cheats you can engineer, to reduce luck and increase your chance of progressing to the end of the game.
These include choosing your starting hand of 6, having ther top card of the encounter deck always shown face up, and maybe the top card of the sphere deck, and,probably the most radical- having a once only per game temporal warp effect that allows you to go back one phase and re-play it. For use only when there has been some disastrous effect, like your threat is suddenly increased from 41 to over 50 by a combination of bad cards.
Yes, it is cheating, but I'd rather play this game with a mini-cheat here and there, keep playing and enjoy the game, rather than cussing it, sweeping it away and sticking it away in the loft.
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Carlos Saldanha
Portugal
Lisboa
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OrdinaryEvidence wrote: I'm sorry, but didn't you post almost exactly the same review before, like sometime last year?
Nope!
Maybe I could had replied to some review about this game but I didn't made any review of it.
AnnuverScotinExile wrote: So, basically, you are not very good at it, so you think the game is broken and needs to be made easier for the players?
Nope!
It was not a matter of being "good at it". If you read the whole review you'll notice that I've mentioned that. I play a lot of "difficult" games, even yesterday we played Arkham Horror...again! And we had fun playing AH and with this one we simply don't have fun because of the facts I've already mentioned.
jimmontanus wrote: After purchasing the entire first cycle of LotR:TCG I finally got around to play it, with great excitement. Sadly, 1/2 way through my first game, I started to worry "is this it?" I will continue playing for a while, but I am terribly disaapointed and really surprised what all the hoopla is about this game. I miss my old MECCG days. Thanks for such a thorough and well explained list of shortcomings - I think your review was great and sadly accurate.
I've also played MECCG! And I loved it too, one of the best CCG games I've played so far, with so many ways to win the game and so much strategy in it... but at the time I've sold all my MECCG cards (and also the Battletech and L5R) to buy more M:TG cards because of the tournament scene. Too bad!
AnotherHorrorFan wrote: You only exhaust characters to travel if the card explicitly calls for it. The travel phase itself is simply the act of moving a location from the staging are to the quest card to make it the active location. To the OP, if you didn't like the game you didn't like the game but it sounds like you may have been playing with some of the rules wrong...
And to those who pointed this out:
That's right! That was poorly written by me... what I did want to write is that some Locations have assets that need to be paid (like Exhausting a Character, discarding cards from your hand and so on) and that some times this phase is simply ignored because you have some priorities to deal first.
That was my fault. English is not my native language and when I write I write fast so sometimes my brain becomes messed up when I think in Portuguese and write in English! 
LSUtigers wrote: Honestly, it sounds like you got some of the rules wrong and didn't do very well at the game...if anything, the early scenarios suffer from the opposite problem that you suggest - that they are too easy.
Nope!
I've played this game so many times during this week and with the rules by my side. I've mentioned above the Travel deal I've mentioned before on the review.
The problem with the game is that in the first turns you'll make it or break it. In the Adventure Lvl:4 I ended the game losing on 3 Turn, knowing I couldn't do any better. There are Spheres that can't handle with the Hill Troll. You'll need more cards than the ones who came with the Core set (some 2x, other 3x). You'll depend so much on the luck of your draw that you can break this game in a good draw from the Encounter when Questing and make it an easy walk through the whole Adventure, and the very next game you'd be broken by Enemy swarming your Heroes because you couldn't summon at the same level the Encounter deck did!
That's what I've mentioned. This game can be so easy as just simply walking over it as it can be catastrophic to end with your Heroes in 3 turns. That's no fun to me!
garthasl wrote: This game will slap you in the face with one hand then backhand you with the other before you can ask for more.
At first blush, it will appear an unbalanced dog where luck of the intial draw will see you sink or, well, sink a little slower with a good draw.
And it can be frustrating.
Then you start to see cards, combos and ways of mitigating the luck of the draw. And things that overcome the myriad of necessities and expectations that each character must face each turn (quest, defend, attack). If you've never played a CCG or LCG game before you won't recognize that the problems you're facing have long had names: card advantage, resource curve, action economy.
This game demands that you spend the time to deal with these issues. It seems to me that this is central to many/most of the negative reviews I've seen. Let me quickly add that I'm sure as hell not bashing anyone who doesn't like the game. To each his own and all that rot.
I guess I just find that the thing I really love about this game is the exact thing for which some take it to task.
I understand all you've mentioned. Read my paragraph above.
I also play AGOT:LCG and my decks are tuned to play very agressive/competitive. I have Stark Siege, Martell Summer Snakes, Bara Rush, Bara Knights, Lannister Kneel... so I know how to deal with a LCG/CCG, I've also played M:TG in a competitive basis.
There are flaws in this game as you mentioned with the "slap theory" and can only be corrected with more purchases or expansions. That don't work for me as mentioned in my review post.
BitJam wrote: The approach you took in criticizing the lack of strategy in this game could be applied with equal effect to games such as poker and you would reach the same conclusion that there is no strategy involved, it is just the luck of the draw.
In fact, many people play poker with that very shallow understanding. They make bids based solely on the cards they can see and the odds of getting particular hands. We have a name for such people. We call them suckers. The truth is, there is a level of strategy in poker that transcends the simple luck of the draw. Likewise there is a level of strategy in this game that transcends the luck of the draw. If you choose to not go deeper than the simple "luck of the draw", that's fine. That is your choice. Although it is not surprising that you find the game distasteful as a result. Your condemnation of this game after making the choice not to delve deeper is most charitably described as premature.
When you play Poker you don't play the cards, you play the players (when playing on a casino or a face-to-face game) and you play the odds/bets (when you play online).
Poker is a game of statistics and the only strategy you play is the betting strategy. It can be strategic if played with the right players. You see the way Phill Hellmuth plays is way different from the way Sam Farha plays, one in a strategic level the other in the risk/luck/bluff level.
So, I don't understand why you've compared both games.
warth0g wrote: Fundamentally it just doesn't sound like you're very good at the game and that's coloured your appreciation of it. That's a shame because this is a game that repays the investment that you make in it. When I try a new scenario for the first couple of times, I know that I'll probably get destroyed, possibly in the first couple of rounds.
That's where the strategy comes in, as you build a deck that's tailored to the needs of the quest. Then as you play that new deck, the tactical choices that you make are both challenging and fun. To win, particularly solo one-player at the harder quests, you need to be good at both.
For me, this is a supremely challenging game, very tough but fair. When you get beaten you typically know where you went wrong and just try again with a tweak or two to your strategy.
This is my favourite game by far and I'm sorry that you don't like it. The fact that it's been as successful as it has does suggest that perhaps you're missing something rather than there being anything fundamentally wrong with the game though.
Once again the "you're not very good at this game and that's why you don't like it" story. I've replied to that before.
The hype about this game is that, by most of the reviewers who rated it, played the game 2 or 3 times and that was all. Game reviewers don't get stuck into a game as us, simple gamers, who like to play the game untill all the cards have seen the light of day on the gaming table. This is what I think about this game having so many great scores from the guys of the Dice Tower podcast and got the Card Game of the Year by almost all. I know those guys play A LOT of games so I don't see they spending their time customizing their decks to play a high level adventure, or buying some expansions to power up their game.
In this matter FFG did wrong, at least with me that I'm a FFG fanboy that buys almost all their games! (yes, I admit it!)
Chou4555 wrote: Had the game since Christmas, and still playing it and enjoying it. A few points made did ring true with me.
Luck or rather bad luck, can "spoil" a game within the first few turns if you draw a poor starting deck, even using the Mulligan, and you get some bad-ass encounter cards early on.
However, I like to play a game, and not be kicked in the nuts at the start, so there are little cheats you can engineer, to reduce luck and increase your chance of progressing to the end of the game.
These include choosing your starting hand of 6, having ther top card of the encounter deck always shown face up, and maybe the top card of the sphere deck, and,probably the most radical- having a once only per game temporal warp effect that allows you to go back one phase and re-play it. For use only when there has been some disastrous effect, like your threat is suddenly increased from 41 to over 50 by a combination of bad cards.
Yes, it is cheating, but I'd rather play this game with a mini-cheat here and there, keep playing and enjoy the game, rather than cussing it, sweeping it away and sticking it away in the loft.
Well, I have this politics of mine to play the game as it is. That's because I've bought the game and I want to play with what I've bought. I know it's a dumb thing to do but that's my character.
But I've also thought in making a slight tweak in the game that could improve it and it was changing the Phase Orders to deal with Encounter and Combat BEFORE Quest and Travel. That could give you that edge to balance out an enemy swarm since that would give you priority to combat and allocate the remaining Heroes to the Quest without having that fear to be trampled by a swarm of enemies or by high-threat Staging enemies. And would make so much logic from a narrative point of view!
That and the Resource management being worked out and I could live with Character Exhaustion and all the rest! 
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Richard Morris
Scotland
Harrogate
North Yorkshire
Join the BGG Folding @Home Team !!
This user had more :gg: than sense
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oDESGOSTO wrote: AnnuverScotinExile wrote: So, basically, you are not very good at it, so you think the game is broken and needs to be made easier for the players? Nope! It was not a matter of being "good at it". If you read the whole review you'll notice that I've mentioned that. I play a lot of "difficult" games, even yesterday we played Arkham Horror...again! And we had fun playing AH and with this one we simply don't have fun because of the facts I've already mentioned.
And so on.
These all say "I cannot play well enough with the proper rules, so here's a pile of suggestions to make it so easy that it is no longer a difficult game"
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oDESGOSTO wrote: You'll depend so much on the luck of your draw that you can break this game in a good draw from the Encounter when Questing and make it an easy walk through the whole Adventure, and the very next game you'd be broken by Enemy swarming your Heroes because you couldn't summon at the same level the Encounter deck did!
That's what I've mentioned. This game can be so easy as just simply walking over it as it can be catastrophic to end with your Heroes in 3 turns. That's no fun to me!
You're essentially saying you want the game to play the same every time. How is that fun? If that were the case, you'd play the quests once or twice and be done. That the game is very replayable due to such variance is probably my favorite aspect of the game.
Also, I find it odd that you're criticizing the luck of the draw when you seem to enjoy Arkham Horror. I feel this game has less random chance than Arkham Horror. Not only in the drawing of cards, but also because it doesn't have dice rolls.
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Carlos Saldanha
Portugal
Lisboa
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AnnuverScotinExile wrote: Nonsense. To paraphrase: There are not enough resources, we need more. Having to exhaust to do anything makes it too difficult. I don't think we should have to exhaust to defend. Having to decide who to commit to quests without knowing the difficulty makes it too hard. I think we should quest after we fight so I know who is free.
And so on.
These all say "I cannot play well enough with the proper rules, so here's a pile of suggestions to make it so easy that it is no longer a difficult game"
Ok, maybe I need to enlighten the so much enlightned one...
1. Resources: in card games there's one thing called a "curve" and it's normally connected with mana/money/resources. This "curve" is worked with two variables: the amount you can generate and the amount you need to spend. In some good games you can work this curve with the cards of your deck so you can have an equilibrium with the amount of things you can cast to the amount of resources you can generate. And you can work this curve by two ways: having more resource production or having less resource dependency.
Now, look at this game and the way it's designed and tell me how can I work the curve in a way it works, without having to buy a second/third Core Set and without having to mix Spheres?!
2. Exhaustion: if you really read what I wrote above you've noticed I suggested a way to tolerate Character Exhaustion, not having to make Defenders to not-Exhaust. The simple change in the Phases would turn this game more tolerable.
But since you wanted to turn this into a bragging context you can take the prize!
3. Quest: the way the game is designed makes the Quest Phase a pure draw of luck with no strategic content in it. It can make it both too difficult or too easy. Read what I have written before you make those comments.
4. Phases: yeah, the way I suggested makes perfect sense, both in a gaming way and narrative way. And if you're a "game designer" as your BGG profile tells, you should know that.
Also, I've read your impressions about this game that are on your profile and you've mentioned the same issues I also mentioned in my previous reply. So you're bragging just for the fun of brag?! Or right now is convinient to enjoy this game and all its flaws?! 
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Carlos Saldanha
Portugal
Lisboa
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binaryeye wrote: You're essentially saying you want the game to play the same every time. How is that fun? If that were the case, you'd play the quests once or twice and be done. That the game is very replayable due to such variance is probably my favorite aspect of the game.
Also, I find it odd that you're criticizing the luck of the draw when you seem to enjoy Arkham Horror. I feel this game has less random chance than Arkham Horror. Not only in the drawing of cards, but also because it doesn't have dice rolls.
Jason, let me put it this way:
How many turns can you play in Arkham Horror without knowing you had already lost the game?! The whole game! (unless you're playing against Azathoth)
I can example yesterday's game:
10 minutes to setup (because I have everything sorted)
2 hours playing the game
5 minutes in the last battle against Shub-Niggurath
We played the whole game knowing we couldn't seal the gates because of the Clue Rumour (the one that forces you to spend clues to remove clues) so we managed to close some gates and deal with some monsters to get ready to the final battle. In the final battle we won.
But even if we lost, we played this game for 2 hours! The game offers you many choices and even against all odds it allows you to play, to do something. And LOTR:LCG in three turns will limit all your actions to just surviving and not dealing with it!
This game (LOTR:LCG) is a leg-cutter since turn one, and in turn two-to-three you can't do anything besides avoiding the end in those same turns. If you fail a Quest to clean Enemies your Threat will rise and cut another leg.
That's what I lack in this game, a sense of achievement that I get in AH even when we lose a game. As in Defenders of the Realm, a game we still haven't beat, we enjoy playing it from beggining to end, and we spend more time playing the game than making the setup.
And I'd played LOTR:LCG games that took me less time playing them than setting up!
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Our list of allies grows thin!
United States
Silver City
New Mexico
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oDESGOSTO wrote: BitJam wrote: The truth is, there is a level of strategy in poker that transcends the simple luck of the draw. Likewise there is a level of strategy in this game that transcends the luck of the draw. When you play Poker you don't play the cards, you play the players (when playing on a casino or a face-to-face game) and you play the odds/bets (when you play online). Poker is a game of statistics and the only strategy you play is the betting strategy. It can be strategic if played with the right players. You see the way Phill Hellmuth plays is way different from the way Sam Farha plays, one in a strategic level the other in the risk/luck/bluff level. So, I don't understand why you've compared both games.
You are familiar with poker. Good. I compared the two games because they both involve a combination of luck and skill. In poker, poor players see it mostly as a game of luck while more skilled players can consistently win more than they lose. They know it is a game of skill. There is ample evidence on BGG that there is a similar range of skill level with this game. I admit the evidence is sparse and scattered and, of course, the skill does not involve bluffing or reading other players.
In poker, skill level can be measured with your overall winnings or losings. In this game skill can be measured with your win percentage. There are no hard and fast numbers but from what I've seen here and from my own experience, skill can be seen in lifting your win percentage from below 10% to over 25%.
When it is below 10% it really feels like the game is too harsh and too random. It is seriously not fun. There is a tremendous sense of accomplishment when you can lift your win percentage to over 25% solely through skillful deck construction and skillful play. (again, these numbers aren't hard and fast). When you do that, it feels like you've learned how to consistently beat that particular challenge.
A perfect example is beating Escape from Dol Guldur solo. The accepted wisdom here at BGG was that it was pretty much impossible and a win was just due to luck. I would translate that to a win percentage of less than 10% (it might be much less). Then one day an expert CCG player (maybe one of the top in the world) came by and said he had figured out a way to beat EfDG consistently (translation: greater than 25% of the time).
This was not due to a lucky streak (as your analysis seems to imply) it was the result of skill and a lot of hard work. I would say the amount of work required was on the level of what is needed to learn how to play poker well (I am including the CCG player's previous experience including his professional experience). The hardest scenario the core set throws at you is solo EfDG. The difficulty level solo is so high that many people considered it impossible. An expert/professional player was just barely able to beat it (consistently) after putting in a tremendous amount of effort.
I did a similar (but much less difficult and impressive) thing by figuring out how to beat Passage through Mirkwood consistently with the solo Tactics deck from the core set. It took a huge amount of effort on my part but I figured out how to make some small and subtle changes in my strategy and tactics that resulted in raising my winning percentage from below 10% to over 25%. After I got my ass kicked a dozen times in a row, I wrote up an analysis of the encounter deck which helped me figure out how to improve my play.
I was shocked by how dramatically my winning percentage changed due to these relatively small and subtle changes in my play. This caused an awakening in me to the subtleties and depth in this game. I will borrow a Go proverb and suggest:Quote: Lose your first 20 games as quickly as possible.
I tackled Tactics in PtM after first beating PtM consistently with a constructed deck and then learning how to beat Journey down the Anduin so consistently it became boring. Even after that, I had to get my ass kicked a dozen times in order to really learn how the Tactics deck interacted with the PtM encounter cards. I think this experience was necessary in order for me to make the most of the written analysis which followed.
You might be much better at this than I am. Or maybe this sort of challenge does not interest you. Different strokes for different folks and all that. But your claim that this game lacks deep strategy is provably wrong (assuming we are not lying). My path to joy and fulfillment with this game came from adjusting my play to beat the scenarios within the given rules, not by adjusting the rules to match my play level.
YMMVG. To each his or her own, etc.
Edit: typo
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Colin Houghton
United Kingdom
London
London
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Well said BitJam.
However I don't want to get my ass kicked all the time, but then again, I don't have a lot of free time to spend perfecting my deck. My first twenty games have taken me two months. Two months of losing most of the time, is a bit harsh.
I guess that's why I come on here, to get some quick wisdom, download a few player-aids as to how the cards react, and ask a few specific quesions.
It's horses for courses, floats for boats, and strokes for folks. I like the game even though sometimes, I get p'd off when I'm so close to winning and some stupid treachery cards knocks me over 50, or deals wounds to all my heroes.
But that happens in real life too. Only the other day, there I was whistling as I walked through Mirkwood, when all of a sudden...
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Richard Morris
Scotland
Harrogate
North Yorkshire
Join the BGG Folding @Home Team !!
This user had more :gg: than sense
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oDESGOSTO wrote: AnnuverScotinExile wrote: Nonsense. To paraphrase: There are not enough resources, we need more. Having to exhaust to do anything makes it too difficult. I don't think we should have to exhaust to defend. Having to decide who to commit to quests without knowing the difficulty makes it too hard. I think we should quest after we fight so I know who is free.
And so on.
These all say "I cannot play well enough with the proper rules, so here's a pile of suggestions to make it so easy that it is no longer a difficult game" Ok, maybe I need to enlighten the so much enlightned one... oDESGOSTO wrote:
1. Resources: in card games there's one thing called a "curve" and it's normally connected with mana/money/resources. This "curve" is worked with two variables: the amount you can generate and the amount you need to spend. In some good games you can work this curve with the cards of your deck so you can have an equilibrium with the amount of things you can cast to the amount of resources you can generate. And you can work this curve by two ways: having more resource production or having less resource dependency.
Now, look at this game and the way it's designed and tell me how can I work the curve in a way it works, without having to buy a second/third Core Set and without having to mix Spheres?!
So what? You should judge this game on its own merits, not say "XXX has yyy, this game does not, so it is broken/badly designed/not fun/no good".
The resources that you get are enough as the game stands. Of course, there are cards that are in the later expansions that give you much more control over your curve. That is one (of many) of the problems with this game as it stands out of the box with just a single core set. Only someone in FFG's marketing department would seriously try to suggest that the game has plenty of replayability in that state. There is enough replayability to make the game worth the money, and more than enough to give you a good impression as to whether you want to continue on the journey. But a single core set is lacking a lot. The fact that things have not yet been delivered in the core set does not mean that the game is necessarily 'wrong', even if it may be enough for some people to decide not to go any further with the game. oDESGOSTO wrote:
2. Exhaustion: if you really read what I wrote above you've noticed I suggested a way to tolerate Character Exhaustion, not having to make Defenders to not-Exhaust. The simple change in the Phases would turn this game more tolerable.
But since you wanted to turn this into a bragging context you can take the prize!
I did read it all - thanks for the further insults. You suggested both not having to exhaust to defend, and then changing the phase order. oDESGOSTO wrote:
3. Quest: the way the game is designed makes the Quest Phase a pure draw of luck with no strategic content in it. It can make it both too difficult or too easy. Read what I have written before you make those comments.
As above. There are cards in the core set that let you look at the encounter deck cards, which immediately discounts your 'no strategic content'. Of course, to use those cards you have to not use something else - this is a game of resource management, after all. oDESGOSTO wrote:
4. Phases: yeah, the way I suggested makes perfect sense, both in a gaming way and narrative way. And if you're a "game designer" as your BGG profile tells, you should know that.
The way you suggested makes sense, but certainly not more sense than the way the rules state. The game is an abstraction, as all games are. Mechanisms like turns and turn phases are all artificial, compared to what would happen in 'real life' (or 'fantasy life', as this is). Once the designer had decided on turn phases, he had to decide whether there was an order to them (rather than 'all at the same time' or 'in whatever order the player wants'). I have no problem with a fixed phase order, but perhaps the game might have been better (it would certainly have been different) with one of the other choices. As for the order - well I think that the designer probably got it right. If this was a head-to-head game, with a player playing either side, then things could have been different. As it is, when the 'baddies' only have an encounter deck, they can have no 'strategy'. There are all sorts of decisions the players can make to improve their chances, but the encounter deck has none of that. Changing the sequence of phases to your suggestion would have made the game much easier,. Not only would you always know which of your characters was 'available' by the time you came to quest, but you would never have to have an enemy that you did not know about when you made your decisions. Much easier. The cards in the encounter deck would have had to be made much stronger to compensate. Yes, the game would have had less luck, but in my view it would be a whole lot less fun, and certainly lacking in tension. oDESGOSTO wrote: Also, I've read your impressions about this game that are on your profile and you've mentioned the same issues I also mentioned in my previous reply. So you're bragging just for the fun of brag?! Or right now is convinient to enjoy this game and all its flaws?!
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