Mediocre games with high production values

There's a lot of hate for it online which I don't understand, a lot of it seems to be people who were expecting a wargame.

Maybe it just appealed to me, but I love it. The systems in the game are very slick and elegantly designed, and I find the mix of eurogame economy building and a light area control/wargame consideration very enjoyable.

Literally every game with miniatures
>dude I can't enjoy a game that doesn't ship with fancy toy soldiers

Kingdom Death: Monster

Eclipse

>elegant

It's a boardgame homo, not a piece of jewelry.

And? Mechanical elegance is still a thing, and it's something that it's always nice to see in design.

I like Bloodrage. I like it better with house rules (eg, whoever wins the battle wins the token, unlike the original rules, which states only the instigator of the combat can win the token).

Makes it play much faster.

Degenesis

I don't think you've ever played Eclipse if you think it's a mediocre game.

While I enjoyed Eclipse when I played it, I can see it. Mechanically it's a very deep and interesting game, but it's rather lacking in theme compared to some of the other sci-fi 4x board games available.

> whoever wins the battle wins the token, unlike the original rules, which states only the instigator of the combat can win the token

Uh, that kind of discourages pure aggressive play and "I lose all my fights" victories.

I guess I feel differently, it's as close to MoO2 as you can reasonably get in a boardgame.

What 4x scifi board games have more theme? The alien races in Eclipse seem pretty thematic without pigeonholing your play style.

Eclipse is too random for a euro and not fun or thematic enough for me.

Random VP, Random Tech, Random Exploration, Pointless diplomacy, Random Combat.

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eclipse is fucking awesome. It's twilight empirium when you dont have 8 hours to spend

>What 4x scifi board games have more theme?

Literally anything labelled SciFi 4x

Twilight Imperium. Proxima Exodus Centauri. Starcraft TBG. Eminent Domain even. Sid Meiers Civilization is better 4x than Eclipse. Warrior Knights is better 4X than eclipse.

And most of those games are only 3X since none of them really have "explore" options. It's just the exploration in Eclipse is a potentially wasted move, or gets you the best gear in the game.

>Random VP, Random Tech, Random Exploration, Pointless diplomacy, Random Combat
I think you're bad at the game.

No it's not. It is nothing like Twilight Imperium.

It's way more random than Twilight Imperium. In TI3, all information is known, except for a few action cards and secret objectives.

I've played it about 8 times. I've won 6. I've played TI3 about 30 times and won maybe 4? So I'm probably worse at TI3 but I like it a lot more.

Anyway, enjoy managing your science & build and then inevitably sending your entire fleet into the galaxy centre for the final round, as you spend 45 minutes figuring out who pinned who and then determining the winner of the game from random VP chits.

The random VP chits are to reward early aggression, as the higher point ones are gone by the late game.

Random Tech is meant to place more value on establish turn order and rewarding players for passing.

Exploration is random, but it's weighted towards better tiles in the center, making players chose between better tiles with less interaction with other players or worse tiles with more.

Diplomacy has decided all the games I've played, the 3 point swing from losing diplomacy and getting the traitor card can decide close games. Shakey alliances stop the big stack from running away with the game.

Combat is a little random in the early game, but later it's very much decided by your ship design choices. Randomized combat is great in my opinion, since it means you can't tell at a glance whether you'll succeed or not and adds an element of risk.

I take it back. You might be alight at Eclipse, but I get the feeling the people you play with aren't. Most of the balance comes from player interaction. Because of the nature of the game, even the biggest stack can't really hope to take on two other players, forcing players to pit themselves against each other in tense cold wars.

It's honestly, one of the best board games I've ever played.

This. 5e is a nice game with a lot of good ideas but when you take into account the sheer volume of knowledge they have from years of D&D's existence, and their past mistakes, the mediocrity of 5e really truly hits home. The resistance / vulnerability rules, the size-based hit dice, and the action economy, are the only places it really shines. Character customization is lacking, character creation is inelegant, damage and hp scaling are fucktarded, Power Attack is still a non-optional feat, the ASI structure is retarded, feats are slightly better but retarded, and Mearls is so bad at designing feats that he directly contradicts his own game design philosophy by adding a literal weapon focus clone to the game in UA. Also guaranteeing the best accuracy in the game can be achieved with bows, only closely followed by hammers. What the fuck, Wizards? And, since D&D's cultural niche had changed a lot in the six years between 4e's release and 5e's release (six, maybe five, I can't remember. Next was coming around in '12/'13 for playtesting but I didn't actually play it until 2015), the new edition was well received by a rapidly-expanding RPG market, which meant that the game had very good sales due to a larger market, and the developers attributed this to rules quality (as did most of Veeky Forums) and used it as a argumentum ad populum to shut down most criticism of the game. Not to mention that the idiocy of the ASIs is actually defended for being "instant gratification" proving that D&D really has entered a new era, an era where its fanbase is made up of spoiled vidya-playing twats who expect to "level up" right after the tutorial.

>Scythe
>high production values
It's above average, but not high. While the artwork is literally what sells the game along with minis, the board itself along with mecha minis are shit-tier.

I don't disagree with you. Honestly, I don't think the point of 5th was to be good.

It was to try and undo 4th. They might have wanted to make all sorts of changes to the game to make it better, but there is only so much they could do without angering the already perma-rustled jimmes of 3.PF grognards.

5th was designed to attract people who were playing 3.5 still and people who had jumped to Pathfinder, not reinvent the wheel.

>tfw nobody bites your bait

It never caught on Polish market, because it has absurd price for Polish standards. Nobody is going to shell out 350 złotych think as if it was value in dollars, because that's how it relates with Polish wages on a game that offers really poor gaming experience, is niche by itself (worker placement game with weird elements satelliting around it) and simply doesn't appeal with said aesthetics and gameplay to anyone in particular (this is Poland, so go figure)

Wouldn't that discourage aggression as well as Loki plays?

I haven't played BR in a while, but it worked well for us. I don't remember the Loki cards off the top of my head. Are they the ones that let you steal rage?

It's not shit, but it's definitely meh. For about two hours you are going to play with few other people as if each of you was playing singleplayer game about performing own moves and turns in a perfect vaccum.
It gets a lot of flak for not being a wargame that everyone expected, but the real issue comes from how poorly balanced it is and how many things ended up superflous in the end. Considering how expensive the game is and that price mostly covers for the artwork, it's simply not worth it.

tl;dr overpriced eyecandy

>even on the polish market it never cought on
Not with that price tag. You can get 2-3 great eurogames for what Scythe costs. The plastic pusher market isn't really here compared to the States, most are perfectly content with cubes and meeples if it means a lower price.
And honestly, while I like the art judging strictly by its quality, the fact how it screams "Chełmoński" to me makes me think more of all the soul-crushingly boring required reading I had to do in school than awesome battle mechs.

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>It never caught on Polish market, because it has absurd price for Polish standards
This.
The game costs a tonne. If you want to peddle tabletops in Poland, good luck if you cross the 100 zlotych mark. If your game is really good or some sort of classic, you can try to push for 150 (like the big box set for Carcassonne or the super popular Polish-made Magnates), but that's all.
So when you can buy 3 other games for Scythe's price, no wonder it barely sold in Poland.

Pic fucking related

Yes, it is pure dogshit that is very cleverly disguised.

What isn't there to like about the board? It's a nice compromise between colourful and interesting and being easy to read. The mechs aren't super great, but they still have distinct silhouettes and identities, which is all they really need.

I just buy them for the minis

Pleb detected

Ive heard good stuff about TI, whats wrong with it?

Considering the other minis are quality stuff and mecha ones look like someone printed them in his garage using low quality 3D printer... yeah

>Magnates
Translation when?
I know this game is very Polish in the subject it covers, but it still has great atmosphere and is fun to play, even if you don't exactly grasp the historical context. Still remember how my lecturer for Polish early modern history openly asked how many of us played this game, because it's the gameplay is the perfect illustration of what happens when powerful people have zero interest in working for common goals.

*because its gameplay

I heard their pirate game that is basically a dota2 in a box was actually good but I haven't played it so what do I know

It's a bad game.

The very thought of playing it again makes me want to throw up. It is my number one most hated game of all time.

Do you have a more comprehensive answer as to what aspects of the game make you think it's the worst game of all time, or are you just mixing up 'I hate it' with 'it's bad'?

Nothing, he is just butthurt I crapped on Eclipse. He has probably never played TI3 because he is afraid of how amazing it is (or can't justify spending the $200 on all expansions and then never being able to find anyone to play it with).

I'll crosspost a bit with another thread, but go figure... anyway:

By the end of this month my pack will pretty much split up, at least physically. Each of us will start our student grant in different country, and even if I and another guy will be both in China, we could be on the other edges of the planet, that's how far we are.
Anyway, we stay more or less in similar timezones, so we figured it will be possible to still play boardgames via net.
Thing is, we don't know any pages nor soft for this. Any ideas?
And no it's no piracy bullshit, we can even pay the fee it that what's it takes, but genuine question - what are the tools and/or places to play boardgames online?

There are a few more basic ones, but the fanciest/shiniest is Tabletop Simulator. It has a buy in and official DLC, but the workshop is huge and you can find basically all the DLC games as compatible files elsewhere online.

This is your best option.

Boardgamearena
Boiteajeux
Brettspielwelt
Vassal
Bunch of game specific sites like Snellman for Terra Mystica

Or Tabletop Simulator if you need shiny animations. It's paid though, unlike the rest.

Doesn't even have a lot of flash, since the art and and effects are shit.
Should have used shadowverse.

I enjoy it, and so do my friends. The action system is decent, and there's always a mandatory warmongery guy who fucks everything up instead of just building up points optimally, so there's plenty of amusement I've found.

As much as I would like to play it to make sure it seems like degenesis falls under thing but it seems like its bigger in the EU?

I'd guess a third of the player base would disagree, but that isn't exactly inaccurate. There are nuggets of enjoyment which keep me playing, especially colony building and the voyeurism in how their lives play out, and I'd assume everyone who bought in has some mechanism they really enjoy repeating.

Rum and Bones 2nd Edition? It is pretty darn fun, just sucks that I have to invest heavily since post kickstarter product is not only scare but scalper heaven.

High production values don't necessarily mean lack of substance.

That's not what high production values means, you fucking penis.

>really poor gaming experience

How so? I've only had the opportunity to play it a few times, but the gameplay itself seemed totally fine. The action boards have a really tight design, and all the different mobility tricks each faction gets make positioning your workers and resources fairly important even if you're not fighting all the time.

I feel like most of the hate for Scythe comes from people who were expecting it to be a giant robot fighty game instead of a resource management thing. And people who think it's overpriced, but a friend bought it so idgaf about that.

2 am, too lazy to type up a rant about it again. I should save it next time so I can post it

Lmao what pathetic cuck logic is "he hates it because he wants to play it"

For starters it's imbalanced as fuck

Mmmm. Fresh copypasta.

Bro of mine bought the game, loves it. I think the hate for it comes from people with different expectations of what it was going to be.

All hatred of scythe is perfectly justified. Game presents itself as focused on war and mechs. And then you get solo farm sim the game.

I've never understood this argument. It only makes sense if you only look at the artwork rather than reading any of the description of press materials.

Fuck, 'Don't judge a book by its cover' is a saying for a reason.

Not that user, but I played it and it is 100% a mediocre game at best, behind high production values. It even became so easy to break before the update we kept going only to see how it finished. In he end we didn't even want to finish a playthrough so we ended 3 years before the last fight.

I guess it was thanks to the fact that we played a print and play copy a friend did, so we didn't have any eyecandy to justify the rules.

Get out of here Jakob

>It was to try and undo 4th. They might have wanted to make all sorts of changes to the game to make it better, but there is only so much they could do without angering the already perma-rustled jimmes of 3.PF grognards.
True. Overall, I liked 5e. It was just full of so many inelegant flaws and crap that it will still not unseat 3.5 as my favorite edition.

People like you are the reason Veeky Forums is shit.

Sorry if art is what most people's first impression of a game, is based on.

Kemet will always be better than that overpriced, overhyped and unbalanced piece of shit

If I was sold on "this game is epic space battles and giant convoys of epic mining ships, ruthless pirates vs law and order, exploration" stuff and it turned out to be "microsoft Excel, the game" i'd be pissed too.

In fact, that's why I stopped playing EVE Online. Because what it's sold as sure as hell isn't what it's like 99% of the time.

I think it helped undo a lot of the bloat that 3.5 had accumulated. You could practically fill a book case with nothing but 3.5 splat-books. At this goal, I think 5e did a decent job. That being said..

1- I'm disappointed they didn't go for greater innovation. 4e had some pretty decent things, and people flipped the table and ragequit because it was "too different". That's a load of shit for a lot of reasons, and it really just stiffles all innovation due to WotC 4e Traumatic Stress Disorder. I can only imagine that if the internet had been as universal as today during the 2e --> 3e transition, we'd still be playing Super 2E instead of Super 3.5E. I also think they did a good job of expanding some monsters; adding things like lair-traits with special abilities and descriptors really can help with designing encounters by giving you ideas. Not necessary for experienced DMs, sure, but for new people it's not bad.

2- HP bloat is still a thing, and that is one of my main complaints with modern D&D. How hard is it to make armor damage reduction or something?? Or just give higher level people the ability to shrug off blows (make an instant miss or take half-damage) at the expense of some action points/times per day?

3- Character creation is still inelegant, I concede, but I think it does do a good job of helping people who haven't played an RPG before get into the mindset. they have a number of options for players to consider, though I prefer FATE's style of "phases" of life.

3.5 seems more flexible in some ways, if only due to the absurd number of splat books. BUT if I was playing with a group of TTRPG virgins and I was picking a D&D edition, 5e is probably the one I'd go to.

What you carefully forget to mention it the game being extremely unbalanced and often forcing you to pull military actions, which the game can't support properly, since it's worker placement game about harvesting.
As in - you start the game and are already fucked.

Can you explain this? Because having played the game I have no idea what you're talking about.

7th sea, 2e.

Hey, let's have a motherfucking pirate game with no rules for dueling or to ship combat, rolls are impossible to actually fail (you just add more complications), and if you kill anyone except in immediate self-defense you stop being a hero and become an NPC.

Good fucking job tricking everyone out of their money, Wick.

Local Game store finally are selling theses on the shelves been thinking about getting it, what's the down sides to the game play?

The price itself. You can get two other good games for that pricetag. It's been statistically proven Rusviet (red) wins more often than other factions, no matter what. Objectives are often impossible to meet due to your starting position alone. Combat was most likely just to push mechas, but serves zero purpose gameplay-wise (you are in fact going to lose if you are planning to start war).
And this could all worked out somehow (maybe, I know enough people who are into masochistic games), if not the biggest issue the game has: it's a solo builder game. There is pretty much zero interaction between players, you can hardly affect someone else (since combat is shit and other options are even more lackluster) and in the end everyone just performs their actions separately, as if other players weren't even there.
In the end it feels more like a poorly optimalised PC singleplayer game released as a boardgame due to no coding skills than actual boardgame.

Read above

Oh, and Jakob, stop furiously defend your game. It's a given you will pop-out each time there is a Scythe thread during CET daytime, but seriously, stop. It already reached the point of meme.

>and if you kill anyone except in immediate self-defense you stop being a hero and become an NPC
Say what
I was actually interested in playing a swashbuckling RPG but this sounds fucking retarded, as does the rest of it

Yeah, he's right. There a section in the GM part that does say that no PC can kill except in self defence, or they stop being a PC. It caused a fair shitstorm in 7th Sea threads during the beta release.

>In the end it feels more like a poorly optimalised PC singleplayer game released as a boardgame due to no coding skills than actual boardgame.
damn

If it helps, an RTS game (Iron harvest) using the same setting was already announced.
And I think it's the right direction. Don't get me wrong, Scythe is not as horrible as people make it most of the time, but the extremely limited interaction is just awful. When a single game takes between 1.5-2.5 hours, it kinda sucks you are just sitting around the board and the interaction boils down to casual chatter you can have about the weather outside, but not in-game.
So it's a product as described by OP. Looks pretty, is really well crafted when it comes to aesthetics part, but gameplay is simply mediocre. Half of it is Frankensteined from other games, so if you play a lot of euro, you can even pin-point what was picked from where.

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It's nothing special, but it serves it purpse.

>but it serves it purpse.
Causing brain cancer?

Someone make a "Virgin Eclipse vs Chad TI" pic.

TI is an amazing game, but the fun increases linearly with number of players and it requires literally 8-24 hours to get to completion with 6 people. The game sucks because of the logistics it expects from your group.

Post 10/10 games with mediocre production values

>Dohohoho
>GeeDubya ams eye rite guies! Ams eye funnies yet?!
Fuck off.

Are 10/10 games with shit production values allowed?

...

I'd seek second opinions elsewhere. Veeky Forums is a weird outlier to the general consensus.

Really disappointed by the system. The setting and the art is great in It's conception. But the rules are bad, combat is broken with player's easily becoming invencible just by wearing armor (forcing the game master to create encounters where It's obvius every enemy will have amor pearcing or do corruption damage to be considered a thread do the party.) Later adventures are pretty much copied idead from other sources. I don't really care if you take inspiration or take some parts of other places to make a adventure, but blatantly using Princess Mononoke Iron Box, to keep the forest spirit head is too much for me. I paid for the books, at least they could make some effort in keeping the adventure quality.

t. redshirt.

I didn't know that it was that bad. I kind of wanted to try the system because GMs don't have to roll too.

I agree with about characters become OP so easily that combat is not fun anymore. In this game, even with with medium armor, you are nigh unkillable. In addition, with 13-ish attribute and proper boons, it's impossible to fail a check unless GM goes full autistic and impose like -5~-7 penalty.