Dear all,

My friends and me have played the game several times, but I have to say that I think the game is unbalanced. It is too hard for three marines to win from the invaders.

Does anyone have experienced the same? Do you have any suggestions changing the rules?

Hmm, on the other hand, yesterday someone with 'killer instinct' killed the whole room with huge monsters in an eyeblink. Does the marine card killer instinct really work like that? that is, each time the marine with killer instinct kills a monster, it can walk 4 steps and start killing again? That would mean that he can keep killing?

Thanks for the answers.

Brok

In my games, the marines always win except if I manage to separate them.

You can always get the difficulty cards from the net (or supplied in the expansion) if you think one side is winning too much

The killer instinct only works once a turn.

1st thingie ie YES. It's hard for the marines to win - that's the reason I picked the game. It's a constant strugle for survival. That's what it makes DOOM diffrent from Descent - you can always change to that system.

2nd as Knuckles Eki suggested you can change the game diffculty - another great thing about the game!

3rd read the cards mate - from top to bottom :) Killer Instinct can only be used once during each turn :) (as again Knuckles Eki pointed out)

4th Which scenario were you playing and how many marine players were there? Maybe just get rid of 1 invadr per new room and it will bring back the joy? Test, test, test. I read and talked with people who were very fond of the game's difficluty and liked to play the same scenarios again and again just to make it throu. Even if it ment to play it 10 times in a row to score 1 win!

Don't blame the game. Experiment, test :)

And keep asking.

I find difficulty depends on who is playing what.

I am generally lethal no matter what role I play, but some of my mates suck at playing invader :)

I show no mercy and play event card after event card after event card.  But they still manage to win some of the times

They cheat I tell you! They alway cheat!

They didn't cheat...

The dice!  It's the dice!  The dice are trying to kill me! Hates the dicessss.... Hatesss them...

We found that one off games are okay - usually it's not too difficult on the Normal level.

However, we found that the Campaign was far too difficult. We ended up inventing a "Save" system, where the Marines get one free save per level. They can elect to save at anytime and should they die, the game resets back to the save, though lives are fully restored.

The Marine ability giving three Cancel Invaders' Cards is a must. Also the Efficient Killer skill is a big help because you never run out of ammo for the Shotgun/Machine Gun, which means you can hand off any spare ammo to other players.

Still, the Campaign mode gets boring very quickly. Unmodified, the Marines lose the campaign as soon as they fail a mission. However using the Save system I mentioned above still doesn't fix the problem of the missions getting boring. It's the same thing over and over "Marines enter room, there are [insert enemies here], surrounding a [dead lab technician/key/puddle of ooze].

It's a great game once every few months but if if I want to play a similiar system in a campaign, Descent is the way to go.

Cailus said:

So in essence the Invader needs 7 Frags to win?

Cailus said:

Weird. That's the first card that gets dumped by my friends. 3x cancelling an Invader Event (note, doesn't work on Spawn cards) sucks monkey-balls. Tech Op and Careful do a well enough job of simulating that (negating Jammed and Dud for the former and all Event cards during or just before the latter's turn).

Cailus said:

True. Efficient Killer on one Marine and Tech Op on the other (we play with 2 Marines) makes Duds "perfect" discard cards for the Invader.

Regarding the Cancel Event cards, I understand that this does not work against Spawns, but when the Invader uses Rage (attack twice) on a daemonhound (or whatever they're called), these guys are fast enough to reach you and then frag a Marine in the process.

There are some other Invader cards that can ruin a Marine's day and we found that the Cancel Events helped us when we were in the deep.

Regarding the Save system, I didn't like the way it worked. It was used just to get over the "Marine lose 1 mission, campaign over".

I would have preferred that each lost mission gives the Invaders some kind of subsequent bonus, whether he then gets an extra card in his hand or makes the final campaign boss harder.

come on man keep them together, never seperate them. have fun and run fast....(or you can play the doommaster, like me)

oh by the way check out if the doom master cheats on you.

Mr_Brok said:

The game is hard for three marines, yes, but not unbalanced.  The important thing to remember is that this is a HORROR game.  It's not very horrifying if the heroes can cakewalk it.  The game is designed to be slanted against the marines, on purpose.  When they win, though, the victory is that much sweeter.  =)

Also, it should be noted that the game is harder for three marines than it is for one.  Yes, you read that right.  The reason being that the number of monsters on the map is less with fewer marines, but the amount of ammo stays static.  More marines means higher demand, lower supply -> harder game.

Oh definately the game is *easier* with fewer Marines. Not only is there more Ammo, there are more Weapons (especially if you play the Fully Loaded mod) so you don't have to worry who gets the BFG, the one Marine gets them all. The single marine also starts out buffer (more Health, more Skill cards, etc). I've played twice with my 2 kids (ages 8 and 9) and they won both games (dice love my kids) but it was by far easier than with 3 Marines.

-shnar

Experience counts for a lot.  An invader player not using his cards at appropriate times can make it easier for the marines.  Marines thinking that they should kill absolutely everything before they leave an area makes it easier for the invader player.  Get an experienced player(s) on both sides?  The game can and will go either way.

If someone is finding it too hard, talk about the game after.  Point out where things could have gone differently.  I always enjoy discussion after the game is over.  I think it's great to get input from the other players. 

We played this again lastnight for the first time in a long time with some new players. And I have to say this time around I really did a number on the Marines. They just could not get through the first map. And I think it was due to me playing event card after event card to really slow them down. Dice rolls were not really in their favour and the issue of trying to kill everything instead of moving forward really was a factor. They were playing on Hurt Me Plenty difficulty and took a beating unlike other games. I love how hard the game is but I also love how it can go either way. After being away from the game for quite sometime I just love it even more. I really hope FFG decide to breath life back into the line again. A new expansion would be great to see.

As far as the Campaign Mode goes, it seems kinda like it was thrown in at the last minute, similar to the Descent Campaign mode for Vanillia. 

On the other hand, the last I heard...  Shnar was working on a new Advanced Campaign mode.  He posed a LOT of interesting ideas on BGG but I haven't seen a 1.0 of the rough draft yet.  Any news yet, Shnar?  Lots of us are watching this eagerly.....