It's not a misconception in my case for sure. Out of my usual gaming group, one flat-out refuses to play the villain in scenarios like this, and one could be pressured into it but wouldn't give the rest of us much of a challenge. On the other hand, there's one more player who would be willing and would do a perfectly good job, but I usually end up doing it by default anyway.
Why can't there be an alternative mode for full cooperative? Why is it locked into 1 vs. Many? TMNT is a 1vs Many, but they also promised to release an expansion that would make it full coop. Imperial Assault is exploring ways to make it a pure coop. Mansion of Madness 1st edition required a game manager, and now the 2nd edition doesn't require it. Why is Sentinels so locked in? Why does it have to be a core mechanic? This isn't exactly a fundamental change in the game from where I'm sitting. I think they'd appeal to a broader base if there were options. That's just how I see it.
That being said, I really like the game and I'll continue to support it. I want to play it more and I appreciate the feedback and the discussion on it. Since it's Father's Day weekend, I'm sure I can get the kids to give it a go either a skirmish or story mode. My son loves SoTM!
HonestlyThis type of game is completely possible coop. There is already several examples of it including ones that have scenarios. Mice and mystics comes to mind as a great one that.
People i I have played againist are usually frustrated with the 1 vs many because either a, the many completely overpower the one or b) the one does something that locks down the many and they don't feel like they are having fun anymore
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I'll explain what I mean in this context.
A long time ago at the height of my KS purchasing, I bought Mars Attacks. Now, it wasn't really my style of game, backed it more out of nostalgia, but it was also a miniature tactical game that promised a solo/coop mode as a stretch goal for an additional purchase. So they created an AI deck. The game isn't really amazing to begin with, but the solo/coop mode might as well not have existed. It was ineligant at best and just tacked on to the base game system. The issue, as I'm sure the creators found out, was that their game system was just not designed with solo/coop in mind at all, and to try and deliver on that promise while making it both elegant, engaging, balanced, and fun, would require so many new assests, systems, mechanics, and rules, that you might as well be creating a brand new game from scratch.
Idk anything about TMNT or Imp Assault. But I'll hazard a guess that, when they do introduce co-op modes for their primarily cometitive game systems, it will likely fail in one or more of the bolded catagories above.
Could we create a pure co-op mode for Tactics within the confines of the current game systems? Sure. Would it be good? I'd bet it would feel like a half baked idea tacked onto a system that was never ment to support it. You may not think its a fundamental change in the game from where you're sitting, but in order for co-ops to succeed they need a system desgined specifically with them in mind. From my perspective, it's a massive change, and one that is far out of the scope of the rework.
Again, these are my opinions and do not nessesarily reflect feelings or opinions held by >G, just to make that clear.
Well, there are at least three major choices each turn for a "Tactics AI": Power Card, Action One and Action Two.(some characters have three actions, but everyone has at least the two. Branching from there, every attack needs a target, and the choice to spend Aim and Attack +1 tokens. Every Defense needs the choice to spend Dodge and Defense +1 tokens, and also to assign blocking dice. Before they get there, the AI would need to get into range, which means they would need to move into range, which is a decision as to what path to take and how close to get before stopping, and do they sprint? If one were to decide on utilizing an "Ultra-Agressive" AI, one that spends all tokens when it can, and moves as little as necessary, attacking at every opportunity, there is still a question of any and every card that says "may" on it. If you wanted to have an AI that always uses the same two(or three) power cards, then at that point, you're more or less playing that character anyway. As someone who routinely plays multiple characters at the table, I may be a little biased and jaded; however, treating the "enemy" or "AI" team as always doing the most obvious and agressive thing seems to me the closest thing you will get to an "official" co-op mode.
TL;DR, SotM is a fantastic Co-op title, Tactics is meant to be competitive. If you want to make it Co-op, treat all of the decisions as the opposite of SotM player decisions: if there's a decision you get to make for the "villain", do it to your disadvantage.
Some games just don't work that well as co-op. But that's fine because there are plenty of great dedicated co-op games out there that you could play instead!
i like the new coop game called Damn it, Ronway. It's where we all just blame Ronway. Lol
Just chiming in to say that there is a pretty high demand for a fully cooperative mode, though, because the majority of people who sought out the game are cooperative, SotM players. As tthorn23 said, there are working, loved examples of it being possible and, in truth, when I backed the original KS, I expected to get a superhero Mice & Mystics. Now, I know GTG was upfront about what it was at the very beginning so it's not like I feel cheated in any way, but my expectations did not match was what delivered and I can hazard a guess that that is true for a number of people.
Quite frankly, people didn't like the system and they heard that, which is great, and are making strides to change how the game plays. I think it's really important when a company can listen to their fanbase and self-correct. But I can't deny that, in my own opinion, they would have had a larger hit on their hands with a cooperative game a la Mansions or Mice & Mystics (and now Gloomhaven). Since it's still in development (again)...I think some are well-founded in seeing if they can nudge GtG in that direction.
I'm not a playtester or anything. But I would estimate that adding a fully cooperative mode would mean another year or two of development at least, on top of what is currently being done.
As the saying goes: Fast, good, cheap - choose two. (In this case, replace cheap with cooperative.)
You can complain about the long dev time, and you can ask for a cooperative mode. But I don't think that you should do both at the same time.
I totally have an "I Blame Ronway" tshirt. I play that game all the time!
I was actually introduced to this game via tournaments. I saw them and fell in love with this competitive aspect of sentinels. I love sotm and it will always have a special place in my heart as my favorite board game of all time. Now that being said ive always wanted to be the bad guy in stories. My first game i played baron against wraith and unity. It was such a difficult battle for me but it was so much fun. I appreciate the departure from coop games that >g is doing in tactics. Its similar to Isaac the greater of gloomhaven. He made a coop game but didnt stick to that type of game. Changed it up as you will. Stagnation in one mechanic or experience seems very detrimental to any game company and i think that stands for >g just the same.
Let's be fair though. M&M was designed specifically with co-op in mind. The core game system it uses is perfectly suited for it. This is very much not the case for the base system that Tactics uses. This comes off strongly to me as an Apples/Oranges comparison.
Edit:
To reiterate a previous point. We could absolutely tack on a coop mode. But I don't think there is an elegant way to do it that would turn out to be a satisfying experience given the current confines of the game system. I'm sitting here thinking hard about ways to do it, and the first problem that springs up is how do you design an AI system for tactical movement on a Hex board without creating instant confusion about the path that's supposed to be taken. How can we do that in a clear manner? Do you scrap it for some kind of stationary "Boss" that spawns turrets/robots/citizens/bombs on random hexes? Would that even be fun? If it's fun once, would you want that same thing for all possible "bosses"? Gets old. Maybe we don't have a "boss" and just make players go through stationary objectives through the map with some kind of limiter mechanic like a timer of some sort (a disable the bombs scenario). Again I'd ask would this even be fun? Does it fulfill the fantasy this game is shooting for?
Look at Galaxy Defenders for AI movement on a Hex board.
At Range 0 - they do X
At Range 1 - they do Y
At Range 2 - they do Z
More than 2 - they do something else.
It's a pretty fast-paced system. It doesn't have to fully mirror the choices and options that players have like the +1's and what not. Just tell people what to do.
I've been playing Mechs vs. Minions on-and-off with some friends. There are things there that could help us get to some interesting options, but I think most of it's AI is built into the game, making it hard to do something similar.
Plus, while I'm a huge coop and SotM fan, I don't think Tactics is meant to be coop. It just isn't. If we want it to be, we will probably need to come up with some home-rules to make it happen...
The lack of co-op play is one of the things that keeps me away from Tactics. The other is, well, the whole "measure out hexes to figure out your movement/attack/whatever" fiddly detailed shenanigans necessitated by the gameplay of the sort of game it is.
But not playing it, as a SOTM fan, feels wrong. :( So I'm all for methods to try and houserule it into something else, and I'm sure this community can come up with something workable given enough time.
I would play the hell out of a digital version of Tactics. I'd play the 1-v-many scenarios more if the setup didn't take so darn long. I've played a lot of D&D, especially the fiddly 4th edition, so I don't mind the slower gameplay, but setting everything up for one game takes me close to half an hour.
i can set up Arkham Horror in about 20 min. It shouldn't take you anywhere near that long for Tactics
Yeah, I don’t really get this attitude that it’s not possible to make a co-op mode for Tactics. “All” we would need is a good decision engine for the villain to run.
Now, I put “all” in quotes because I fully realize that this is a non-trivial task, but I am sure that the engine would support it. There would certainly have to be a lot of thought put into it.
would love to summon Christopher and get his thoughts on the possibility of this. It would be a fun addition to this