Post originally by Daniel Strain at 2004-06-17 12:03:20
Converted from Phorums BB System

Thanks much for your elaboration on those things Shannon.

I surely wouldn't expect that playing more would make you personally like something you didn't (probably the opposite haha). But I do think you'd probably feel differently about the randomness and balance issues.

On the characters for example, you said that Xun was overpowered, but I think with more plays you'd see that he is difficult to play due to the bounty. My wife actually hates playing him. As for Mihoko Fujiwara, her piloting skills actually won her the game in two critical places in the last game we played. Certainly Mikk's ability to upgrade so quickly seems like a huge advantage, but we've seen him lose as often as others in the long run. As analytical as you have been (to your credit!) I think there are some things which only bear out over actual experiment (thus the importance of play-testing).

As for randomness, I've already adressed that from a more generalized philosophical point, but I'm sure it no doubt seems more random to a new player. For instance, the Crime Lord offers and planet events were intentionally made to be significant and central to the game, but they are not entirely random.

With the Crime Lord offers, you have to weigh the size of the Starport (smuggling difficulty) against your current ability with that and the potential profit. Your decision on how to juggle those odds is crucial. I've seen just as many people find themselves with failed Crime Lord offers and immense bounties than have made it with offers, all because they made poor choices about what was exceptable risk for the return.

On the special planet events, you not only have a race to get there with the limited goods they'll buy, but if you can't win that race do you wait and attack them on the way to the plagued planet to take their goods? Do you try and do something else more profitable? All of this is moderated by your current abilities and options.

The third really major event to look out for are the contracts, and those are open to competitive bidding. So, again, it's like life - random events in which your actions and responses have an overall impact. On a side note, you mentioned that even the Character you have is dependant on the luck of the draw, but even here we were sure to provide double the number of characters as players so you'd have a choice between at least two characters.

About the Destiny deck's constant difficulty, that's a good point and you are somewhat correct here. But we did consider that and here's why we did it...

Firstly, many of the effects of the cards are not nearly as mindless to a player's situation as it would seem. For example, with pirates you have to have cargo, and you have to make the stubborn choice to keep it. It may be wise for weaker players earlier in the game to give up their cargo rather than fight - so there is decision making here. With the Bounty Hunters, there is a built in mechanism where the tougher ones only attack you if your bounty is high. So, as your bounty creeps up you are open to the chance of more powerful BH's attacking. This is something you can monitor and decide on the level of risk you want. You also have Military Ships, which only attack you if you're up to illegal business. Many games have been won through legitimate trade alone so that's a decision to accept a level of risk again. It may be wise for players to wait until they're up to it before attempting some crimes. Space monsters and hazards are about the only things that are completely random as to their effecting you, but they are less common.

Even then, the idea that a game starts of harder and gets easier is ok, when one considers that the difficulty is shifted from the environment, to the more intensive conflict between players as they gain in power. All in all, it's a good model of reality (well a reality with giant amoeba in space anyway).

Please don't take this as a personal attack - you do good work and, like I said, not all games are for all people, but some of your analysis from limited play simply doesn't hold up to the experienced of having witnessed perhaps over a hundred games. Many times, the fact that strategies must be learned over time can be confused with the lack of strategy in early play. Given that, the use of objective language like "flawed" and "doesn't work" seems out of place.

I'm sure there will be those who don't like this game, just as with all games and that's cool. I'm not at all being defensive - I just love talking about this game (and games in general) and like going over a lot of points and issues about them. As I said in the other thread, I think that open dialogue (or polylogue) can only help the consumer make the choice that's right for them.

Take care!

Daniel