Optional expansion idea?

General GTG General Discussion
1

Just throwing out some thoughts.

Is it possible to have a Sentinel expansion to add content to existing decks (a la Miskatonic Horror expansion from Arkham Horror)? A number of cards (3 - 6 maybe) will be available for each existing decks. These additional cards would swap out existing cards via recommendation. The players can optionally swap out any cards or just added to decks without swapping for fun. This allows fixing of thematic issues (Greatest Legacy <> Fortitude, Superhuman Durability), perceived deck weakness (Absolute Zero, Expatriatte, Fixer), exploring what-if scenarios (how would Freedom Six play)... or just an exercise on creativity!

I am sure a lot of balancing work will need to be done, but hey, I am sure there will be demand. I'm certain the players are more than happy to help provide ideas for each decks :) The expansion can be listed as non-canon/optional, and I would still totally dig it.

2

I asked that question a while back, and the answer was that each hero's deck was fixed and there were no plans to extend or modify them.  I suppose they could change their minds though.

3

This already kinda sorta happened with Enhanced Edition; A few clunky mechanics were changed, some cards were adjusted for better balance, the (H) mechanic from Rook City was incorperated into the core villains. I think they stated that those were all the changes to existing decks they planned to make. Now they have playtesters to help them make all the necesary changes before they release the final version of a deck.

The promo cards give players the option of playing a hero in a slightly different style which they might prefer( i.e. for those who find dealing damage as Absolute Zero too convoluted, now we have a promo A0 with a damage-dealing base power). Percieved deck weakness can vary from person to person; some people just find certain playstyles more appealing than others. For me, Argent Adept looks really cool but playing as him is too overwhelming— so many options, so many options for getting more options... I just take too long trying to work out the best course of action. But I have friends who do great as him. This convinces me that every hero has the potential to work really well in the right circumstances, in the right hands.

As for thematic issues, it's easy to come up with explanations when the origional comics these games come from are imaginary. Maybe America's Greatest Legacy aquiring powers a future generation was supposed to develop is a side-effect of Time Shenanigans. Maybe you can remove an infection via RPG launcher because... ummm... okay, give me a minute. Because... the explosion... uh, startled the infected hero? And... errr... the rush of adrenalin they got... like, it overrode their system and wiped out the mind-control neurotoxin, so it cleared their head and gave them the will to overcome? Comic book science!

That said, swapping out cards for new ones just to try something new could be fun. Things like giving Unity a different set of Golems, or Dawn a new cast of Citizens, or Haka a new set of... Hakas might be neat. But what's really fun is discovering new synergies between heroes, and with each expansion the amount of new ones to discover increases exponentially!

4

I love the idea of the promo card, especially the villain promos. They give a way for villains to interact with his/her/its deck in a whole new way.

 

However, with Villain decks getting more tightly written, I'm afraid there won't be many more Villain Promos.

 

But I hope I'm wrong.

5

I think promo hero and villain cards are enough for needs like this.

6

The main point here is allowing >Games to create an alternate expansion to sell. Promo hero/villian cards work great, but do not sell as an expansion. If my count is correct, at Shattered Timelines, we will have 18 hero, 18 villian, 12 Environment decks. If each deck gets an average of 5 cards, there's a total of 240 cards, enough for a new expansion. Now, the question is.. is there demand or if >Games want to do that? Again, I know I'll buy it!

 

As a side note, I think promo villian cards are the best value for a player, since they can totally change how a villian deck plays.

7

Yeah, I like how each villain is like a separate game you can play. Villain promos are awesome.

8

Haven't got to play with promo Villans, they definitely sound cool.

I think Heroes are just easier to balance and create since they are only 1 power. And you can argue for people that love playing one Hero promo heroes work better as they can face 15 possible bosses (not including Advanced or new expansions).

 

I also think they try not to add extensions to existing deck is if someone who only has the core buys(or Vengeance), then they would have a ton of cards they cannot use until they get the other expansions. While current expansions, you can buy and combine in any order and all the cards will be playable right away.

9

While I think that it would be very cool to have some cards exchanged in a deck to add more flavor to the alternate promo hero cards, I would much rather have the >Games team focus their efforts and resources in creating new heroes and villains and fresh new materil for SotM. 

That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing some fan versions of these replacement cards (and will probably work on creating some myself at some point). 

10

The main problem I see is balance: this game is done so that there are some cards that are plainly worse than others (I can't remember the name, but Visionary has a cards that does 2 damage to all non-hero targets and another that does 2 damage to 3 targets). Likewise Tachyon would be much better if we added a few extra burst cards.

 

So the only way to keep it "balanced" is to add cards that are as bad as the current worse cards each deck has...which removes the metagame of choosing your cards!

11

Yes, keeping the balance would be a priority. I see this more as a way of replacing cards that don't fit thematically with the promo alternate hero card and replacing them with something similar (in terms of power) but more closely related to the flavor or theme of the alternate hero (like time and generation approriate powers for the different Legacies). So the cards replaced wouldn't be left to the player's discretion, but it would be a prescribed change instead. I like the preset decks and wouldn't really want to turn this into a Magic-style game of pre-building your hero deck.

12

I do not dispute your conclusion, but I will say that Cerebral Hemmorhage (2 damage to 3 targets) has plenty of useful applications over Psychic Maelstrom (2 damage, all targets).  Cerebral Hemmorhage spares targets you don't want to hit, which I find a surprisingly frequent occurence.  Off the top of my head - spare Citizens so Dawn doesn't flip, leave Blade's devices in play so he doesn't flip, avoid damaging helpful environment cards, avoid damaging Relic Spirits, avoid killing ALL of the Matriarch's birds before you're ready, avoid harming the Chairman or anybody who could backlash and kill you… Sure, Psychic Maelstrom is better, but don't discount Cerebral Hemmorhage.  

13

I don't think an expansion would sit too well with everyone, because if the new cards were weaker, then why get it. If they were stronger, than people would see it as >G instituting a powercreep unecessarily for a quick money grab. Even if they were balanced heavily enough, it still doesn't fit with the kind of game Sentinels is.  If you are sideboarding a limited pool you start wishing you had more options, and then start wondering why you aren't playing MtG - Archenemy, or something of the sort.  

 

That being said, I think alternate cards could work as promos that went along with alternate hero cards, and specifically state what in the deck it replaces. That way you still have the set in stone feel of SotM, and you have a themed card.

14

One promo example that jumps to mind, is for Greatest Legacy. You probably won't have fortitude as previous generations do not have impenetrable skin(unless those 2 are basically 2 different legacy trait). You might replace it with something that boosts legacy's max health by 2 instead to make it work better with the innate power.

Or changing Tempest's spell so he cannot use any cards that needs him to use both hands. Like the shackles for example.

15

I think rather than going the route of the "replacing cards in a hero deck", we should just stick to being happy with the villain promo cards. I'm sad we didn't get any this Kickstarter, but I'm assuming that's just because we're getting 9 hero promo cards. If we can get more villain promos in the future, and possibly as a bundle, that'd be what would satisfy this sort of need. The current two, Baron Blade and Omnitron, change up those decks enough to make both battles seem totally different than their original ones. If we could get bundles of villains like that, I'd be happy.

The problem is they released Blade and Omnitron as a special reward. They'd need to reprint those if they wanted to make this villain promo thing a regular deal.

16

Doesn't the Oversized Villan Cards come with Blade and Omnitron? So they are not unobtainable unlike Young Legacy, Rook Wraith, Ra promo and Reedemer Fanatic.

17

 

As someone who has stopped playing Tachyon because she is simply too good… I think more burst cards is kind of the exact opposite of what she needs. She's a character with a fairly speedy, if you have any sort of decent draw, build up with phenomenal reward at the end of the ramp. Unlike Haka, it's not a ton of work to build her up to her end game, and unlike Bunker, it's pretty feasible to build her up and keep doing other things (I have seen /so many/ Heavy Plating + Omnicannon + Recharge Mode games, with an optional side of Ammo drop if you're feeling whacky).

I agree with some previous statements, creating side boards makes this feel more like a CCG. That's not what >G needs. Part of the high point of Sentinels (to me) is that it plays sort of like a CCG (so many different decks with different playstyles and mechanics and the like), without actually being one. There's an expansion every year or so, sure. But that's not the same as going back and changing or editting already published material. Promo cards do that well enough I think.

18

I like the Lord of the Rings LCG well enough, but the customizable decks are both its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. Every time I play I need to make sure whetever decks I've got built make sense together. If I've fiddled with something or built decks for a particular scenario, sometimes this means spending an hour or two getting everything sorted before we can actually play the game. It's fun, but it's also time consuming and inconvenient. With Sentinels and its fixed decks, I can just have everybody grab a deck and then pick or random up a villain/environment and go. And the play experience itself is just as satisfying. I definitely think there's a place for deck construction in co-op games, but I would prefer that SotM not change courses midstream.

19

 

Whole heartedly agree - I sold my LotR to fund getting Shattered Timelines as I was fed up with all the time consumed with deck building.

20

I also like the pre-built decks of SotM and wouldn't want to have to sort through a ton of cards to build my hero every time I want to play a game... but as a personal project I might take a look and see what I can change permanently to add flavor to the alternate characters.

By a twist of fate I have two copies of the game so I can play multiples of the same character in a single game with originals and promos playing side by side (thank you time-travel)... so I'd like to make the different versions a little bit different where it might enhance the theme.

I was going through all the promo cards to see what changes I might make and found that there really aren't that many:

Young Legacy:  There's really no need to switch any cards.  Her Atomic Glare power really does make it feel like she is the next evolution of Legacy

Rook City Wraith: No need to switch out cards.  Her power does really make it feel like she is taking a more active role in investigating her environment.

Redeemer Fanatic: No need to switch out cards.  It really is just the same character with a change in world perspective.

Ra: Horus of Two Horizons: No need to switch out cards. Same as above.

Dark Visionary: This one I would like to change one or two cards for this promo to really accentuate the dark side.  Maybe change Brain Burn and/or Wrest the Mind so that instead of dealing psychic damage to herself she deals it to another hero... or even to the whole team. I think this would really bring out her dark side.  She still fights evil, but she isn't trying as hard to keep her powers in check so as not to hurt her allies.

Team Leader Tachyon: I think I'd get rid of Fleet of Foot (she already has her base power) and maybe instead give her a non-burst card that allows another hero to play a card or something leader-like. 

Elemental Absolute Zero: Wouldn't change anything.  I think this card kind of gives the feel that AZ finally, after years of fighting and watching his colleagues fall, embraced his destiny to be a hero and learned how to control his suit to deal damage more efficiently.  I like it as is and deifnitely changes his game enough.

One-armed Tempest:  I don't think I'd change this one either.  Other than to get rid of active chain lighting, I am not sure when I'd use that base power either, though.  tempest usually has a ton of cards.

Last Stand Wraith:  This one is the one I feel really doesn't match her deck anymore.  There is an air of desperation to her now... she almost looks like she actually died and came back and is very angry.  I just don't see her using a Trust Fund anymore or consulting a Mega Computer, she just seems to want to kick ass... but since I don't really know what her flavor is supposed to be I can't say for sure what changes i would do.

Golem Unity: I like this one, but I have my take on her origin being both the real Unity AND a golem (I posted my thoughts on that elsewhere on the forum) so theonly thing I'd add is the mechanical golem category to her card.  The rest of the deck still works fine.

Engine of War Bunker:  I think this one works as is too.  I kind of like the hulky Fright Train just ignoring the technological complexities of the Bunker modes and just smashing ongoings instead.

The Eternal Haka: No changes.  This makes perfect sense thematically too with an old and wise Haka calmly seeking the right tools for the job at hand.

Greatest Legacy: I'd probably just take out Fortitude since it is mentioned that is Finest Legacy's power. I might switch it for something that reduces damage dealt by villain targets (striking fear into the hearts of the enemy). Might modify Superhuman Durability as well. Maybe.

So really there are only 4 that I feel warrant some kind of change... definitely not enough for an expansion.