Huh, well whaddaya know? There doesn't seem to be a review/impressions thread yet! Here's my 2 cents: I know I may look like ranting, but the game left a really good impression on me and I had a really fun time while playing it with friends. It's just some aspects of it that don't let me to enjoy it completely. And I'm saddened that CB will not develop and improve the game further. What I liked: - I really liked to play some coop Infinity for a change. Just to chill with some dudes where no one will try to CC+Move me from the corner. - That feel of a journey with salvaging equipment on the way and pimping your ride between missions. Pretty good and gives some rogue-like vibe. If only it had more depth. (*Hopes for a generic mercenary company endless campain in expansions*) - That Aristeia-like game engine is really easy to learn, explain and play. I really hope they'll keep making similar games. What I didn't like: - Starting equipment have no value, so after a few missions it ends up to be a dead weight somewhere in a locker on the Defiance. - Low amount of 'universal' equipment cards. Most of the armor pieces require speciality so only one character can use it. All hacking devices except Defensive require hacking. Since you can obtain 35 intel packs at best for the whole campain that makes mediocre equipment useless. Why waste money on them instead of top tier equipment? - Low variaety of builds and thus limited replayability, some specialities are pretty useless. (Like a switch that you will get for some top equipment anyway since there's not much equipment to choose from) - Total amount of Intelpacks makes it somewhat impossible to test something during campain, sell it and pick something different. Only the cheapest stuff. Makes you want to min-max builds right away. - Expandable equipment (from crates) has no value; it cannot be sold, bought or stored, just thrown away. Would really help to get more money during campain and give a reason to waste time looting containers for otherwise "one use" stuff OR give some depth of planning for the mission when you buy expandable stuff (UPD. yeah, there's like 1 d-charge you can buy which is kinda meh). Would also help getting up to speed for assault mode characters. - Some ship upgrades are kinda 'meh'. Like the ones that let you store Medkits or repairkits. Not free medkits, just store medkits that you already have. Why waste limited packs on that? (Unless you play Rahman/Trisha, they might get some benefit since they get some free stuff, but still pricey) - Assault mode feels really underdeveloped. Extra characters become part of the crew after mission 3, they get nothing for that mission. They start from scratch after that and can only get up to 6 specialities before the jump (cause 10-13 are 'technically 3 acts of one mission'). Just why. Why would you use them like this? Whould be really nice if campain was a few missions longer, just to get everyone up to speed. - Could use 6 player mode since there's 6 characters already. A lot of people in my local group were eager to play when it came out, but not many turned out to play regularly. - Some rules are unclear and require further explanation, some require errata. Boy, good thing I didn't waste 250+ eur on an invalid book with no digital version. Oh, wait... Not that I expect it to be perfect, but it's a one time thing with no more reprints and you already have 5 pages of faqs. - No reference sheets in a box. From the guys who made Aristeia. Which came with a reference guide. All these AI special skills, alert levels, how round goes and what AI instruction mean are only in the book, states are only on cards. Some players compiled them together into reference sheets (kudos to them), who knew that would be of use, right? - Typos and misprints. I get it, to err is human and all, but getting printed materials with errors and spanish words here and there (in English version) really devalues it in my eyes. Especially since its a limited run product and CB has no plans of developing it further. And turns out there even weren't any plans for digital rules release! - It's a one time thing. You may have some fun right now, but CB stated numerous times there will be no general releases or other expansions. As a long lasting game it is dead. And since its rules are not available digitally, community will soon wither as well. (Imagine If they released the rules for everyone right before some Infinity Silencer KS or something, oh boy, who would have thought...) What I would like to see (but won't since CB will not develop game further): - There's literally ONE mission (first) that may or may not force you to skip next mission as a result of your actions; and TWO chase mission (second and 11) where you run away putting new tiles as you go. Those were pretty good, would be nice to have a few more of them. - Shorter campain/standalone missions (we've been playing for 3 months and still not done with first run) - Or, on the contrary - longer campain. Like a really long/endless campain to play for months on weekends (given there's variety of missions and builds and equipment). - Equipment as an optional mission reward. Like Mission 3 - kill Charontid phase 2 for money OR get one plasma rifle. Maybe something Necromunda-like - didn't win the main objective but looted a lot of stuff. - Extra equipment/skill/program decks. - Dire foes-like mission and character packs. - Getting 3+ busy people together turned out to be a pain in the ass. Would be nice to have a campain-like mission pack (maybe tied by plot, but all missions are separate) with starting levels and money to buy equipment for each mission (you know, like *sell* them in packs with minis similar to old dire foes) OR a campain with 6-8 active characters to choose from that have an impactful role on the ship and in the field that level simultaneously and can be swapped to have different people participating in one campain. - I think selling equipment mechanic should be revised, getting only a half of money (rounded down) kills any intrest of getting low-grade/mid-grade equipment. - Would be nice to have more games with similar mechanic tied together. Like, say, TAGline being hex-based game with equipment cards which can then merge into bigger Defiance scenarios and all... (which, as we know is not happening) - Some actual CB human to visit these parts of forums once in a while.
Ok my take: To summarize, pleased with the game mechanics but game material is lacking and somewhat underwhelming The KS feels like a ton of metalic miniatures with some dungeon crawler rules/scenario. I was expecting it the other way around. What I like: A coop game to play with friends who are not necessarily into Infinty The feels of rush when ennemies keeps poping during mission The campaign setting and feels of urgency with salvaged equipement and al... Great Missions, all different with great mechanism (not always best explained that's all) Game mechanics are simple and easy to explain/learn Miniatures, playable unit tokens, tiles What I didn't like: Some Rules and most missions are badly explained, we definitely need Cheatsheets and Memento (Even if most have created/printed them It's painfully lacking for a KS game ==> Just 4 2-side cards Tarot Size are enough) Setting up the game is somewhat painfull, difficult to see what's deployed and when as the mission maps shows everything and available/deployed units changed every time. Again we're lacking Summary Cards (I made some BTW!) Lack of Card/Token Management Stuff to ease setup, Lack of additional Boards to ease setup The Narrative is somewhat screwed up, lack of synthetic background during mission. You feel like you're supposed to know everything about the universe (who are the shaavastii? What's the IE? Fighting such an ennemy you'd think you'll learn things about them!! Would even be better upgrade than some ship upgrade and loot) Secondary caracters like Cuervo have too much presence in the narrative. (even Cho feel more developped/incarnated than our heros) Who cares about their act/acting/coolness I don't want a second grade Nick Fury.... I AM THE HERO not those motha f*รน$@. Personnaly I replaced them with anonimous/elusive characters called "CONTROL" and "Base Commander" Twist fall flat when you don't now the settings (Zaandar belongs to an ennemy alien who cares not developed) and when you do know (Victor and Aida are traitor alien no shit!!) I don't know my dudes, playing a campaign with them you'd like to get concerned about them (The 1 page introduction per caracters is a pain to read when you don't know the setting) Tokens everywhere even when not required!! Agro/Damage/Reinforcement Tokens are a pain to manage (especially when you play several caracters) ==> Dices/Dials/tracks are better choices and prime material for a KS I spend too much time reading the rule/campaign book cards or sheets can be shared between players to manage the game flow Like Lucian said above, campaign/Character Development mechanism are a mixed bag: lot of choice but not very balanced in a constrained setting like Defiance. If you can't sell/recycle items your trapped to find the best equipement. I invested time correcting most of the lacking points on my game so it's not big issue for me but for other it can mess with the fun of this game.
Additionnal note regarding the narration: The encounter with the Sygmaa Zaandar offered a unique chance to get the perspective from the Sygmaa regarding IE/CombinedArmy/Tohaa. But the case is jettison on the second mission instead of being exploited as a guiding thread throughout this adventure.
Finally got with my group to play Missions 10 & 11 and they feel sooo cluthered (mostly mission 11): There's always something going on, some mission specific stuff (something should blow up at the begining OR in the end of the round) You constantly shuffle board tiles You have to roll where enemy deploys You have to roll where breach deploys (And if there already was a breach there's a free reinforcements) There's a lot of enemies that have "add " or "add " to enemy rolls So much stuff going on that you have to go back and forth to description and still struggle to get everything right (sure, second time I'll get better; but ot sure I'll play it again). Some kind of tokens to keep track of "add " or "add " to the enemies and some sort of mission events deck (like the ones Anaris posted in his thread) sure would be nice. And a card for those breaches - I was so tired that I kept forgetting where they deploy.
Just finished the story and surprisingly enough, Megalodron mission turned out to be one of the most engaging ones in the whole campain. The boss might move between positions, there's somewhat randomised failure conditions (number of minotaur engines left that he destroys) and you can't even fight him head on since he's too strong and almost immune to hacking. The downside of this mission - Megalodron has sooo many special rules that you'll probably forget half of them during the game.
Gotta admit, I don't really like the Outcast's final mission twist. Pretty much the whole mission exists to justify the gimmicky "non-lethal" mechanic. It would be better if the final mission was branching out depending on humanity level (and humanity wasn't only kill/not kill but also some moral dilemma like looting O-12 armory while they fight aliens etc.): not human - fight O-12 somewhat human - the one that is now pure human - fight CA + boss fight Kudos for adding extra missions btw. At least they can be played as one shots.
