[HB] 8/20/19 Playtest

[Eliahad]

That...was...really bad.

Okay, so we know that Heroball in its current state does not work as a quickstart thing. This has a lot to do with the hero powers, which I take responsibility for, since I wrote most of them. I think they are a new play space that needs to be figured out for sure.

That said, I think the first next step is to get decks of god powers whipped up first and test a couple full games first. More to make sure that some of our other changes (getting rid of kick, the new movement rules, favored terrain) work first. Because if we spend a bunch of time on heroes and then find out that the premise of our changes is wrong, we have to work on two things again. So I suppose what I'm suggesting is that we do a proof of concept game of version 1.9 or whatever this is, and then we dive back into making the heroes work and see if we can craft together a quickstart from that.

Positives:

I think the new movement rules are going to be quite effective. They certainly made things a little more mobile. Or at least that was the impression that I got. It makes terrain placement that much more important, and the bonus from favored terrain gives a very, very different feel to everything. (Aphrodite might need a couple more move terrain cards.

Unique hero powers are ALSO going to be awesome, they are just not there yet. It's going to take some doing to get there.

Tabletop Simulator is going to be great, I think, once we work out some of the kinks. I have an idea on how to fix the cards. Also, there's a toggle in settings to have the hand view pop back up. I don't know if I enable it globally or if each individual player has to do it.

Neutrals:

Action Point Pool size. I'm wondering if we should go back to a max pool of 6? From what I remember from the Tahlvin, Zen, SB + us 5 player game was that we all slowly whittled away our stamina until, by the end of the game, we were tired and scrounging for points. But for the first 6 or 7 rounds at least, it felt like we could always do something. Again, this question can't be answered until cards come back.

Should hero powers have limited ranges?

Negatives:

Reactions for hero powers stink. They don't stink, but without the god powers to generate some chaos, they can't react to anything. For the quickstart the hero powers really should have something that can happen on every turn and reactions are just too infrequent. (Or in the case of Achilles way too frequent.)

Specific things: Gorgo's Pummel can stay, I think. But her Predict isn't that useful all on its own.

Achilles Pole Vault is hilarious, but paired with invulnerability/vulnerability, it's too powerful. What if invulnerability has an activation cost, and/or a huge refresh cost? (OH MAN, the flip side could be "twisted an ankle" and he can't run on his next turn. Or something.)

Herakles moving terrain around is great, but his second or third power should be something related to Push.

In heroball, the goals are potentially too far away. Because they are just far enough away that you can see someone try to score, you don't want to chase them. Which means they can easily camp on the doorstep and just drop the ball in when you get close. It might mean a different play style is necessary, or it might mean that we need to make some adjustments. This is why I want to try a full game next. Get a feel for the new goal distance.

Also, I stink at my own game. Oi. I'll work on it.

[Mike]

Great summary. I agree on all of this.

Let's definitely get a handful of playtests of the full game, and then get down to hero powers. I'm thinking every hero gets 3... 1 Unique, which is generally their most "powerful"... 1 lesser but still cool and useful ability... and 1 reaction or otherwise minor ability that adds to flavor.

I don't know about range necessarily, but I was thinking that we shouldn't be shy about really getting out there with the hero powers.