There is a call for some serious errata, unfortunately.

Beyond that it's a decent game.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;483283There is a call for some serious errata, unfortunately.

Sadly, it's my understanding that this applies to a lot of FFG games.

Quote from: jcfiala;483285Sadly, it's my understanding that this applies to a lot of FFG games.

Which is why i'm reluctant to buy Blood Bowl Team Manager this week (that and it won't get played much, Elder Sign can be soloed).

FFG are now notorious IME for this. It's a shame, Elder Sign really desevers a proper playtesting and errata. THere are things that are on first glance broken (certain character abilities) and a few that are wholly unclear or ill thought through - for instance is it really ok to just dump monsters onto a single adventure where they will be no threat in lieu of any available monster tasks?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;483272(...)it was difficult to figure out why anyone would ever use a spell. It's far more likely to hurt you than to help you.

Even in AH there's not much reason to choose using spells over weapons, unless they happen to not require any spending of Sanity.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;478183(...) Ive been feeling, lately, that behind the sumptuous facade and concepts involved that FFG's efforts are a little hollow. (...)

Games like Elder Sign and Mansions of Madness certainly seem like bad attempts at trying to milk out the Mythos Monster Bashing concept some more. I won't be picking any of them up.

AH works fine, and the rules are not even that complex. It's really the way they are organized and explained that warranted all the errata. I don't know if this is also the case with Elder Sign and Mansions of Madness.

I've stopped getting more expansions for AH because a) it has become next to impossible to use all the expansions at the same time and b) each of them adds some new mechanic with more types of cards and more bean counting involved. Buying Elder Sign or Madness of Madness would kind of feel like buying another expansion.
I'd much rather see FFG produce expansions for AH that add more investigators, encounters, items and such to the basic set and not expand on the actual rules. I also really don't need more game boards.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;483272And some mechanical choices seem strange to me. For a couple of games we were misplaying the spell mechanic, but when we realized how it was supposed to work it was difficult to figure out why anyone would ever use a spell. It's far more likely to hurt you than to help you.

Spells are poorly explained, but my understanding leads me to say...'huh?'

How do they hurt you?

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;483359FFG are now notorious IME for this. It's a shame, Elder Sign really desevers a proper playtesting and errata.

For me, it's not just a matter of errata and playtesting. They are absolutely terrible at writing rulebooks. They aren't designed for easy referencing and they aren't designed for easy learning. What the heck are they being designed for?

Quotefor instance is it really ok to just dump monsters onto a single adventure where they will be no threat in lieu of any available monster tasks?

It definitely feels like there's a rule missing about keeping monster load balanced.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;483381Spells are poorly explained, but my understanding leads me to say...'huh?'

How do they hurt you?

You have to:

a) Declare you're using it before you roll the dice.
b) You are then required to put one die on the spell.
c) You can't remove the die until it's used to complete the task.

It's actually quite trivial to end up with a roll that doesn't include any results that are useful for your current card... and now you've not only effectively lost an extra die for the rest of your turn, you've also locked it down for everyone else in the game until somebody manages to use it.

So the only time a spell is actually useful is if you either (a) roll 2+ matches but don't match any set or (b) roll a successful set and an additional symbol that would be useful on your next roll.

The spell is useless any time you roll only 1 match.

The spell is harmful any time you fail to match any dice on the card or exactly match a set.

We didn't do an exhaustive statistical analysis of the various encounter cards. But doing some situational back-of-the-envelope calculations throughout the game, we never found a situation in which it made sense to use the spell. Maybe a few, rare marginal cases.

And the spells where you're forced to lock down two of your dice? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;483383For me, it's not just a matter of errata and playtesting. They are absolutely terrible at writing rulebooks. They aren't designed for easy referencing and they aren't designed for easy learning. What the heck are they being designed for?



It definitely feels like there's a rule missing about keeping monster load balanced.



You have to:

a) Declare you're using it before you roll the dice.
b) You are then required to put one die on the spell.
c) You can't remove the die until it's used to complete the task.

It's actually quite trivial to end up with a roll that doesn't include any results that are useful for your current card... and now you've not only effectively lost an extra die for the rest of your turn, you've also locked it down for everyone else in the game until somebody manages to use it.

So the only time a spell is actually useful is if you either (a) roll 2+ matches but don't match any set or (b) roll a successful set and an additional symbol that would be useful on your next roll.

The spell is useless any time you roll only 1 match.

The spell is harmful any time you fail to match any dice on the card or exactly match a set.

We didn't do an exhaustive statistical analysis of the various encounter cards. But doing some situational back-of-the-envelope calculations throughout the game, we never found a situation in which it made sense to use the spell. Maybe a few, rare marginal cases.

And the spells where you're forced to lock down two of your dice? Fuhgeddaboutit.

I don't think you are required to use the spell once you comit the card. I think you can choose not to add dice and let it fizzle.

Unfortunately the double dice spells are another poorly explained aspect, as in not at all.

I agree about the standard of their writing, but it is usually better than it is here. Elder sign is poorly written; of that there is no question. That's unfortunate. What's important, in lieu of that, is that they errata it. Whether this will happen I have doubts.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;483393I don't think you are required to use the spell once you comit the card. I think you can choose not to add dice and let it fizzle.

That may be the intention. But, if so, the rules need an errata in order to state it. Because that's not what they say right now.

Even if that's how they work, which may well be the case, I still don't really see the issue.