Today, join me in reacting to some negative reviews to some of my favorite games. Today I'm reacting to reviews for the new game: ARCS! Contact 115 Gaming Here: thecrobros@gmail.com Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio
Listen, I came to this video expecting a reaction to negative reviews. And I got something totally different! This was a review of the negative reviews, not at all what I paid for. Lol, loved the video. It drives me bananas when people talk about arcs like it isn't the game they kickstarted. The irony that a simple review of kickstarter page knocks that argument dead 😂
@@115-Gaming Haha, I should have been clearer in my response. It was intended to be sarcastic and a comment on how silly the arcs Kickstarter complainers are. I should have remembered that it's easy to lose intent when writing in text format. For real, I didn't think you were too serious in the video, I thought you were pretty charitable to those commenting and simply called out some of the false narratives that exist. Keep up the good work!
Good video. I am in agreement on basically everything. I think the problem is just people have an expectation of a game that "let's you do whatever you want to do" and then are frustrated because Arcs isn't meant for that. It's not a power fantasy; it doesn't hand you a trophy every time you make a choice. It's war. Every hand says "I'm sorry Mr. president, but your generals failed, the troops are freezing, and the people are nearly in revolt. What would you like to do?" I think a lot of people want an EASY game system to play against their friends. Arcs is a HARD game system (Punishing as opposed to complex); sink or swim Thanks for the great videos. I appreciate your perspectives on this and 6 siege.
I love your content - keep it coming. Regarding your rebuttal to people complaining about the changes to the Arcs board design, I think you missed their point. Personally, I find that a lot of the negative feedback from the game stems from peoples comparisons to previous games, and what they don't get is that Arcs is genre bending/breaking. I think the people who were complaining about the changes in the board design thought Arcs was going to be a 4x space game. That's it. When it moved away from being a 4x (not sure if it ever was, but that apparently was their expectation / hope), they lost interest. It's the same thing as when people say, "every hand of Arcs is a bad hand." This is rubbish, but it comes from the expectation that you can or would want to lead every time, and that you SHOULD be able to use all of the Action Pips on every card in your hand in every Chapter, which is just ridiculous once you know how Arcs works. If people are willing to give it a shot, I think they'll really like it, but some people are set in their ways and will continue to view the game from the perspective of previous games. As we all know, Arcs is not like any previous game. Anyway, keep up the good fight. Like I said, I love the content on your channel. Your introductory review/tutorial on Arcs was AMAZING. It totally made me laugh, too. I was trying to figure out how to teach Arcs to my gaming group and I was worried that player's views of the game would be warped by expectations from other games. Your approach of teaching it to 2 other reluctant / negative gamers (both hilariously played by you) was perfect in that you're trying to convince them to give the game a shot. Just brilliant. Thanks again and keep up the good work.
enjoyed the video! very excited for the campaign review. i just finished my first ever campaign and my opinions are... mixed despite loving the base game, so I'll be interested to hear your take on it.
@@remarkablysquare3216 the biggest difference btwn doing the review for the base game and the campaign game is that it’s much easier to play the base game. I want to play the full campaign game a lot to really feel confident to write a review but that’s a much slower undertaking. 🤣 I feel like I want to complete 2-3 more full in-person campaigns before I can fully nail down my thoughts on it.
I admit I did not like the map until the final proofing, but I could see the difference right away compared to the early in-studio game streams. The early game was plodding but I do love the snappy, reactive map we got. The tiles to cover parts of the map are also great to make board set up so much more entangled and interesting.
@@LucasWolfox I just think it’s insanely impressive from a design perspective how they were able to build a singular map that can be smaller for the base game and bigger for the campaign game! Originally it was going to be two separate boards, and I’m impressed how they were able to work around it into a singular board that supports both at the same time.
@@115-Gaming the box just packs so much content for that base price tag. I know people are balking a bit at the MSRP but man.... they added so much stuff! It is like you said, it is the game we were promsied but so much more.
Exactly this. I also didn't like the look of the map, but actually playing on it for any time at all thoroughly justified the changes. It's just so extremely well designed for what it's for.
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." I have had the displeasure of watching the shine fade from a lot of eyes when I tell them that even if you're amazing at a game, you're still going to lose sometimes. That's how games work. And if you're playing with good players who want to win, you're looking at a 25-ish% chance of winning. Playing board games is supposed to be fun. I have fun playing the games; it's the competition that I want. Winning just means the game is over. Who played the best that time isn't nearly as important as whether or not everyone had a good time. Also, getting upset that you have a handful of the same cards in a trick-taking game means you didn't understand what kind of game you were playing. That's the kind of hand where you start cackling like a hyena and loudly declare an Ambition.
@@pittsmichaelj Journey before Destination my friend 😌 When I feel like I played well and I lose… I’m not upset, I take note of the strategy of my opponent to see what I could do better next time. The competition and the chance to get better next time are what drives me, not the win itself
Curiously, that's also the reason why the fun of competing and losing fairly, without randomness meddling with the fun, matters more than the loss itself
Agreed! The competition and fun comes from reacting to the randomness and interaction of other players. "Winning" is a bonus reward for playing well/some luck, but the mechanics and social dynamics should be fun for all players regardless of whether they win or play well. The only thing I'd say against "randomness" is luck of the draw events or things that really destroy any sense of control the player has. It's the difference between input and output randomness. "Reacting" to random draws, events, etc is good. But having your outcome determined by extremely positive or negative chance isn't satisfying for the player because they don't get sufficient meaningful decisions (instant death cards are the classic example of terrible game design). Input randomness is good because it still gives meaningful decisions but also spices it up!
It seems like most push back for Arcs comes from a place of misplaced expectations. However the game is such a different beast, and so much more than the sum of it's parts that it's difficult to pitch the game to potential players to correct their expectations. What should someone say this game is, to get them hyped for the game that they're actually going to play?
make sure to emphasize how you'll need to change your plans on the fly and improvise based on your cards and the ambitions that seemed to be a big point of contention in these reviews.
@@remarkablysquare3216yes? But no? That's exactly my problem. Arcs is phenomenal. But if someone pitches a game to me and and says you have to constantly change your plans... That sounds bad. Even though arcs is good.
@@j.prt.979 I agree, it is tactics, and maybe that should be the language. A game described as constant changing plans, feels more like I'm describing a game like Flux than what Arcs actually is.
Root was extremely hyped. I played it but I really don't like it. Is it my bad for getting high expectations after all the hype? I mean there's videos like this that put the hype train on the rails and then say 'you don't like the game because of bad expectations'. I'd say the onus is on reviewers to also show the bad sides of the game.
My 2 cents about the map ( see my context at the end of my message) : without playing the game, the map feel very abstract. I do not care about hex or 4x, but it really look like two circle ( 1 D) VS a 2D map. Being able to traverse a 2D space seize up the imagination far more. Now i trust you when you say it is for the better, and that it feels good playing it. But it look more abstract than the KS game. My context : i just discovered the game 5 days ago, feel very excited about the game, and am checking a lot of content to see if it will fits my taste AND my friends taste. I discovered the KS only today so have no beef here. A guess here : the region limit are too high contrast vs the planet, so it does not feel like moving from planet to planet, but simply changing region. The exact same map without region but with dotted line showing 'hyperspace path' and a central black hole would feel far more like a map. But it would make understanding which planet each ship belongs to far harder to understand - so would probably be a bad idea. PS : sorry, english is not my native language, i hope i made myself clear enough.
I’ll never say anyone’s like, or dislike, of anything is wrong. I don’t like asparagus while other people do. Their like of it does not invalidate my dislike, nor does that make me wrong. Having said that, those who dislike Arcs, are, well, wrong! Just kidding. I agree with some of the criticisms, but for me, those criticisms are likes for me. One roll of the dice to determine the entire outcome? Great. No complex math or multiple dice rolls. Quick and efficient. A bad hand? No such thing. Adapt and be creative to the situation. The game wants you to think on your feet. The game rewards creativity. That doesn’t mean you can’t plan at the start of the round. Resources are huge in this game. The cards are just the fuel. The resources are the motor. Root is still my favorite Leder game, but this one has moved into the number two spot.
@@mrsteve4569 yeah the only “opinions being wrong” hill I’ll die one is people complaining about the map changes because it doesn’t have hexes. 😂 If you don’t vibe with the action cards or the dice, that’s all good. But the map is not poorly designed just because it doesn’t look like TI or Eclipse…
"It is not a 4X game, it shouldn't be compared to a 4X game like TI4" I think I agree with some of the conclusion. But I think the discussion is incredibly valuable. TI4 might be the board game I played the most in my hobbyist life. I've struggled to find the magic that I was able to find in it back then. This incredibly involved engine for player relationships and board positions, diplomatic puzzles etc etc etc. That's the game I fell in love with, but the better I got at it, the more it became apparent the game can tell one story really well (cold war with civ building aspects) and is ill-equipped to frame the other stories for you. I feel it's on the table to bring those dynamics with TI4 nowadays. Now, some players I play with are absolutely still in love with the kind of planning TI4 rewards. But others can find it pretty restrictive. Most of the memorable single plays i've seen in that game were bad plays that the person removed from their arsenal in future games. You look at TI4, and you might expect it to be a permissive game when it's really specialized as a 4X / Civ builder. You look at Arcs and might expect a 4X when it's really specialized at the thing I just said TI4 struggles to accomodate. That's the area where I think it's important to keep comparing those games. You might play TI4 expecting those crazy maneuvers to be the game and probably will bounce off it in some part. And vice versa for Arcs. That point of comparison is incredibly valuable for players. I agree we shouldn't treat Arcs as a 4X, but I think the reference that exists alongside it provides a fantastic starting point to explain what it is and does well. I really struggled to explain why I was growing cold on TI4 before playing Arcs and Oath. And now I can explain what it is that bothers me about ti4 without punching it too hard.
Hey man, love your videos, just discovered you and your channel and I instantly subbed. Im just wondering, as someone who has never played Arcs, what are the cons of Arcs to you? It seems like for every negative review you have a counter argument thats positive and it makes sense when listening to you. It does sound like its your favorite game of all time. Is it? Its fine if it is. Id be curious to know if there is anything you dont like with the game as a consumer who needs to be careful about when and where I spend my spare money for hobbies lol. Cheers!
@@dbern939 I think the base game is genuinely very solid, with few critiques. As I played more after I finished my review video, I have played with some slower players, so one thing to keep in mind is that for slower players who are learning the game, they can drag the length of the game out. Granted, this obviously goes away when they play more, but it’s still worth mentioning. Part of that, which I did mention in my review, is that the first couple learning games will feel more random and frustrating as you’re slowly figuring out the flow of play. I think I didn’t feel super comfortable with Arcs until like ten games in maybe? Tbf, these games were spread out over months on TTS, I probably would’ve gotten better a little faster had I started played in person first. Finally, I haven’t done my review for the campaign yet, as I want to play it more. But I think I might end up being a little more critical of that one, but we’ll see. I don’t know if Arcs is my favorite game, but I am certainly very positive of it! Like I said, I think it’s just solid game
Love the game and agree with pretty much everything you said. The only thing I'm having a tough time figuring out is it can feel really hard to take back the initiative in some instances in a 2p game, and that can snowball really fast.
@@UntitledSix yeah that’s true, 2p is insanely mean and cutthroat. You have to be ruthless to each other constantly or you can fall behind easily. My biggest thing with 2p is that you need to come out the gate swinging and never feel bad being mean.
@@115-Gaming Tbf the game plays fairly decently at 2p for the style, but I would say definitely shines at 3 or 4 player. I think it would benefit from some type of balancing mechanic for going second. Because going first chapter one does feel like a clear advantage.
Yup, I think that the issue is not the kickstarter page and how Leder presented the game, but rather all the early reviews (including that one) that basically all marked it as a a 4x and compared or to TI and Eclipse. Not sure if that was how Leder explained it to them or if they know certain keywords will draw more eyeballs or if just seeing the original hex map and ships made them assume that's what it was - whatever the reason, though, basically every early review of Arcs gave that impression way more than the kickstarter ever did.
I get where people who don't like getting their possibilities doctated by tje cards are coming from. But it's baffling to me that they seem to be unable to adapt to this kind of tactical gameplay. War of the Ring is one of my favourite board games of all time, highly strategic and tactical and also evocative. And at the beginning of each round all your possible actions are dictated by the dice you roll. If you wanted to wage war but didn't get the dice for it - too bad. But to make the most of it and do adapt on the fly is what makes this puzzle so interesting.
@@RaK0 the argument I’ve heard against this from a buddy of mine is that he feels cheated by the fact that in Arcs you can be “cheated” by the cards others play but in War of the Ring, your opponent’s dice don’t affect you. I personally see that as a feature, not a bug, but I can see how it bothers people who are just learning the game for the first time.
@@115-Gaming The enemy's dice may not affect your actions as directly but they definitely affect your game state if they pound your fortresses while you can't move your reinforcements or if they roll a lit of eyes in a round where you wanted to move Frodo around. I think it boils down to taste and preference like most of the time. But I'm always sceptical if people say a game mechanic is outright bad. More often than not they weren't able or willing to adapt to it. I'm actually looking for more games that follow this short term tactical style because it makes turns snappy and reduces AP. Also, it's easier to swallow a loss that you can partially pin on your cards/dice in a 2h game than a terrible defeat after an 8h game where you had to realize late that your strategy didn't work out. For example, Eclipse didn't work for me. At all. I'm really interested in ARCS and will buy it sooner than later to see for myself if it scratches this itch for me.
Have you played Cosmic Encounter? I’ve been playing Cosmic Encounter with my group for almost a decade now and it’s still by far our favorite game. Several mechanics in this game remind me of CE, so I was curious if other people saw the comparison. Keep up the videos!
@@fedotowsky1327 Cosmic Encounter was a huge gateway game for me! I LOVED it back in the day… Id have to think about that comparison more, I never thought to compare the two
These responses are a bit strange. To say that the card play mechanism is “extremely flexible” undermines your own point about how the restrictions reduce AP. Having the odds of success on a player aid isn’t going to satisfy someone who isn’t into rolling dice to resolve combat outcomes (im guessing these gamers are more into deterministic combat like in Gloomhaven). These reviews are unfair but I doubt these responses to them will persuade anyone who feels the game is too long, boring, restrictive, etc. More likely the game’s just not for them (which is fine because frankly a game that’s for everyone is probably not a very good game).
@@rahawala the cards by themselves can be restrictive for sure, but it’s the resources, guild cards, and seizing rule that give the flexibility. Also agreed, not really looking to change everyone’s mind (except the ppl complaining about the map change 😅), the video is meant mostly in good fun!
I think you need to do another one of these now that the first wave of very positive reviews has come and gone and now lots of negative/"is Arcs overhyped?" reviews have come out over the last few weeks! There are so many of the same complaints that before going into the reviews you already know what they are going to say (too mean, too random, if you don't pull the card you need you lose at no fault of your own, etc). I've particularly noticed lots of strawman arguments where people argue that if you get a hand of all Construction and Administration in Chapter 5 you will lose (when first of all that's not true and second of all the odds of that are like 1/128 or something tiny like that), or that if you get all low cards you are screwed (the odds of getting a hand in a 4p game with only 1-3s is like 1/400ish). It's like saying you'll lose Root if you roll 0/0 every time you attack. Well duh but that's not a legitimate argument as to it being a bad game or even too luck-based. So many of the complaints are either cherry picking the most extreme scenarios that will happen one every 20-ish gameplays (where most reviewers have likely played the game 3-5 times, if we are being generous), or showing examples of straight up poor gameplay and complaining that the game doesn't hold their hand to allow them to still do well even when actively playing poorly. For example, a thread on BGG recently said that the game has a low skill ceiling (!?!) and gave a scenario where a player made a risky and unwarranted raid, got burned for it and lost half their fleet, and had burned all their construction cards on spreading out with multiple cities and starports rather than ships, and so couldn't defend them, then the next chapter drew 0 construction cards and lost basically all their pieces due to having only a few damaged ships trapped on the other side of the map with undefended buildings. It was explained as "He tried to raid and due to the bad luck of the dice and the bad luck of his next card draw, he was basically removed from the game through no fault of his own." Almost every time I see someone complain about the game it's followed by one of these two things. Sure it's not a literally perfect game and it's certainly not for everyone, but it feels like people get so salty and look to blame the game rather than themselves when they aren't perfect in their first time ever playing the game. --Also this map is genius and I will hear no slander against it. It's incredible and you never feel safe, but also never feel quite able to reach where you want to go. It's so engaging and drives interaction in amazing ways. And I haven't even played the campaign yet.
I'm still laughing at Quackalope's "video" detailing how he made a really good play by using everything he had available to him that allowed him to win in the 2nd or 3rd chapter... and how somehow that's a bad thing???? "I was able to win by playing really well and that's BAD." 🤣
@@115-Gaming Yeah I've never understood why it's viewed as wrong that a game "allows" for a better player to win? Why is it viewed as better game design to reward poor play rather than good play? Sure if I'm playing against my mom then I want something where I won't destroy her, but also if I choose to do that it's my fault. It feels much worse when a game holds your hand so much that you can only get so much better after repeated plays. Is it bad that chess "allows" you to capture your opponent's queen if they expose it to a knight fork? No it just means that player needs to get better. Obviously "git gud" is a meme and can be a way of excluding new players from a game/community, but sometimes it has a basis in reality. That's part of why I regret running my first play with one of my playgroups with the Leaders and Lore. In terms of complication rules-wise, it adds very little so everyone understood how the abilities worked, but there was so much complaining about "my leader doesn't do anything and yours is broken". Um it's our first game we clearly aren't going to play very well and aren't aware and able to take advantage of our abilities or realize why our downsides are so significant. I hate when people declare a game or ability "broken" on their first time ever playing it. It's happened in Root as well and my gaming group has had to stop playing because a couple of our players played one time and declared that there is no way for the birds to ever be good because they lost, and that the game is broken because whoever wins comes strictly down to what faction you are dealt. And if you have to play multiple times and understand what each of the factions does and how they interact then it's bad game design. I hate that mindset so much. People will complain that the game is too restrictive "I can only do the random actions that I'm dealt" but also like in Quackalope's case that the game is too open and allows for too much freedom? Confused.
Every time I have played, my wife has won. This suggests that it’s not just a luck fest. Granted there is a lot of randomness but I don’t think the winner is determined by luck, it’s more like a fighting arcade game in that a lot of things you try get blocked and when your good you learn to chain together combos and if you play against someone who understands the combos better than you you lose. Also, like a fighting game, being good has a lot to do with reading your opponent and anticipating their move.
I don't know, man. I have seen people AP things that they have no business APing. There are just some games that aren't for some people, and this is just the way it is. You can tell them the right way to approach a game, and they'll still AP the shit out of the game. There are some games I don't intoduce to some people cause they literally can't seem to not be an AP monster about that game. I think that it can be true that you love Arcs and for you ita a fast and snappy game. It can also be true that the design of Arcs encourages AP in some people, and for some its gunna be a nightmare slog. You have to accept that
@@dcrbdh that is true… I was a little worried my tone came off as a little elitist and was telling ppl they’re stupid for having AP. I hope that wasn’t how it came off. But I’m also conflicted because I really do feel like Arcs choices in each hand are much more limited than other big games like this and it should help focus players’ directions. But like you said, AP players are gonna AP probably no matter what.
@@115-Gaming If I was to call you elitist I would be a massive hypocrite :D . I am super snobby when it comes to games. When it comes to AP, I think it's behaviour that gets rewarded. I have a friend that AP is his super power, and when we just let him lean into his AP powers he tends to win the games. So, he is rewarded for his AP.
with the exception of the art style... I feel like I didn't just say "nuh uh." I tried to give counterarguments or explanations for why things are the way they are. (i.e. how it's not just random because of cards and resources, how the new map is more readable than the old map, how Arcs isn't 4X so you can't knock it for not doing 4X things, etc.) Unfortunately, my tone came off as too serious, but the video is really meant in good fun anyways.
In this day and age, I think most reviews are misleading. Most often then not, it's a first impression as it seems many people play a game once and move on. It's not bad in itself, there's plenty of games out there, it can be justified to focus on only those that would blow you away on the first play. But I feel being overly critical of a game on a first play is a bit unfair. This is one of the reasons I take BGG rating with a grain of salt.
The dice... I mean, a lot of games are decided by raid dice. Last game I played I rolled well on my raid dice. One of the other players rolled bad on all his raids. Saying the statistics are predictable doesn't mean anything. It's the effect of the deviation from the mean that's the issiue. Will it have a big effect or small effect? In Arcs, the randomness will often decide games. Ok, but can you do things to mitigate bad rolls? Nope, not really. Other games without randomness mitigation always get bad reviews, because it's just not popular mechanism. The combat has no mitigation (because you are often forced to Raid in the final round of the game), nor is there any mitigation for the hand (could have been drafting or being allowed to keep a card between hands etc). And calling on resources for mitigation isn't really valid imo, because you need those for winning, it's not certain you will even get hands that allow you to claim resources and thus mitigation, and they can easily be taken away again not giving any mitigation). For us at 4 players we have managed to get it down to 3.5 hours. Maybe we can get the base game down to 3 hours, who knows? But people generally don't wanna play a reactive game for 3 hours. They don't wanna play a reactive game for 2 hours. Reactive games are good for 20-30 minute games at most. They wanna play something like King of Tokyo in that case, quick, snappy, reactive, feel-bad-galore. But it's fast enough that it doesn't matter. Most people don't like games that play them. They wanna play the game. So saying the game isn't about planning but doing the best of the hand you are given without any means of mitigation isn't really addressing the critique, it's confirming it. Despite my text above, I still wanna try the campaign. But I feel you are completely missing the point of the negative reviews. The game has A LOT of mechanisms that normally cause people dislike a game, so it makes sense that a lot of people would dislike the game. That some people like it is great. But that some dislike it doesn't mean they are wrong (which is the core idea behind this video), because the critique is generally about things people normally don't like in other games by other designers.
The only critiques that I think are "wrong" are the people who complain about the map. 😅 I totally understand the rest being preferences! I think this video came off as more serious and antagonistic than I intended. I really meant it to be in good fun, and have kind of regretted uploading it since due to the more serious tone I ended up having in the finished video. Oh well... lessons learned for next time!
@@115-Gaming I do see your point, and it's just a discussion about a game and preferences so it's all good. But I'm a bit surprised at how very defensive some people are getting when it comes to critique of the game. It's got several things that normally cause people to dislike a game. Sure, the art is great and the designer is well known. But objectively speaking, a game with several unpopular mechanisms ought to receive quite some negative feedback one would think? I do agree the map works well when playing. But I still don't really like it, because it doesn't tell a story. I don't feel like I'm somewhere in the outer reach of a collapsing empire. I feel like I'm placing ships on a board, because the map doesn't look like it's depicting a location (which is what maps normally do). Ofc there's the ever present discussion about space being 3D etc, but still that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't look like it's a place, 2D or 3D, so it's not really a map anymore.
@@Superslemmet that makes sense! I personally don’t think just because a mechanic is generally unpopular in isolation (dice, randomness, etc. ) doesn’t mean it’ll never work in any game. I think Arcs has a reason for every mechanic it employs and that they work well for what Arcs is going for, but if you’re the type of player to never like dice… then yeah, no video is gonna change that. Even if my video had come off as less defensive like I originally intended.
Haven't played the game yet, but the fact that I need to play this game in a certain way seems like a controversial design choice to me. I can see why people are put off by this as the game forces you to play it how IT wants not how the PLAYER does. It seems like a tactical game where you make the best of what you get rather than a strategy game.
@@nagysuti let me try and phrase it more better! it’s not that you HAVE to play it this one way. There are still multiple playstyles here, I’ve seen it. But what I’m trying to impress is that many people are willfully ignoring some of the game’s systems and then calling it too random to succeed. It’s basically like if people never traded resources with each other in Settlers of Catan and then said that it was impossible to get resources you didn’t have access to. Does that make more sense?
@@115-Gamingsort of makes sense. Since I have had experience with the previous games of the designer, I am quite sceptical about this title. From all that I have seen through reviews both positive and negative the game to me seems like loving to tie systems together for the sake of being clever and thus adding complexity. A fair few in my group have ordered it so I will most certainly get hands on experience with Arcs, however as of now, I can absolutely see why people are hesitant about this. It's systems are anything but straight forward and I can't really fault people for not willing to put in 3-6 plays before they "get it".
Without playing it, to me, this is much harder to teach or to comprehend than even Twilight Imperium. I like flexibility and pivoting strategies, but you mentioned a lot how much the cards tell you what to do. Without playing I can't say it definitively of course, however that kind of speaks to the game giving you a more or a less generous tool kit every turn that you have to make the best of and that just does not work for every player.
Between the crazy hype and the harsh nay sayers, the game is probably somewhere in between. And that's fine. As long as there are people who like it, great!
@@nagysuti I’d agree the strategy is harder to learn than TI, but I never thought TI was super complex myself. It’s a big game, but mechanically it’s pretty straight forward. Arcs is obviously very different in every way to TI. I like both!
@@novon246 it doesn’t really have them though, not in the traditional 4X sense. You can’t really “expand” because you’re not building an Empire, players have a pretty limited supply of ships. You’re not really “exploring” because everything about the map is known from the beginning. I guess “exploit” is there because you tax resources? And the goal of the game isn’t necessarily to “exterminate” either. You can go the majority or maybe even the whole game where exterminating the rivals doesn’t help you win at all. Arcs doesn’t play at all like a 4X strategy game, and if you approach it like that, you’re gonna lose. Badly. I know this from experience.
@@115-Gaming Honestly I have no horse in this race, I've just heard some other reviews call it a 4x or war game, but you explicitly said it was neither here. That's why I was curious. I'd say you expand around the map, explore the court deck (biggest variability about any particular game), exploit others by taxing and raiding, and you constantly exterminate each other. But yes, the WHOLE game isn't revolving around this conflict, as the winning conditions are so varied and flexible!
So I played an early prototype of Arcs and I wasn't a fan it felt restrictive in actions compare to Oath which I adore. I think the map might be part of it. I remember someone having access to early fuel which let them move more freely while I felt like most of my turns were sub-optimalm having trouble to seize the initiative. I also compete against another player for a card in the market and we spent multiple turns and round to try to win it. I finally lost that card to that player and it felt like I spent most of my actions to gain nothing out of it. It was a bit frustrating to say the least. But, I'm very open-minded and I would definitely try Arcs again now that it has changed so much. Oath was once my #3 ranked game and I could see Arcs climbing that high too for me. My biggest issue, I feel like, would be that I feel like Oath and Arcs would fight for the same tabletime. If you have played both, it there one you prefer over the other or do you feel like both play differently enough for you to have space to own both in your collection?
@@Renegade_KT I’ve played and loved both… I think they both do different things and even though I’d love to play both equally, the biggest thing in Arcs’ favor is that it’s much easier to get others to play with me. Oath is very intimidating to most ppl who aren’t already sold on it. Arcs is a hit for both the veteran gamers and the casual players. In Oath you have to get a group to commit to a full chronicle, but Arcs has the base game and campaign games separate.
@@115-Gaming Is the base game as fun to play as the mini campaign? For Oath, I'm currently playing online a 3 to 5 games of it, mini-campaign style. And so far, we only played 2 games and I had such a blast. Does a 1 off of Arcs deliver as much of a punch as playing the campaign?
@@Renegade_KT To me, yes. I really love the base game a lot. I know a lot of ppl think of the base game as the thing you have to suffer through to get to the campaign version but I think the base game really does hold it's own against Root and Oath even before you consider the campaign game.
Hmm.. the comment I would add about unlucky card draws is this. I caveat by saying I hope this is a niche experience where the odds just aren't high it'll happen again. We just played a game, where I drew a hand with no tax cards and no aggression cards. The only ambition options I had were for resources or tyrant. I had no way to get resources because nobody played a tax card that round, and even if they did I can only get one (since it's one action that i'm copying). Tyrant was useless to me because I had no way to secure cards - IE influence enough to then secure. So I think you can get stuck with cards where you cannot claim an ambition you can actually do, AND have no control if other players choose an ambition that doesn't work for you. In this case the three resource ambitions were chosen.. I'm not sure how this can be mitigated.
What happens if it isn't? Are you going to go into full fanboi mode like this dude did? He isn't rebutting things he is just saying "Nuh, uh. I'm hyped and everything is great to me so you are wrong"
So what you're describing here is a hand of only Construction and Mobilization. Lets imagine you have no guild cards at all and no resources on your board. You're in a bad spot for sure, I would say you might not score any ambitions this round. But this hypothetical situation is honestly kind of wild. If you have even one or two resources, that at least gives you something to try for. A resource icon on a card, one resource in your hold, and one tax action puts you at 3 for any given resource ambition, which is probably good for second on Keeper or Empath, maybe even first. There's only 5 in the supply after all! You said no one played a single Administration card you could copy...but then what were people playing? You had no Admin, they had no Admin...was it just 6 straight hands of Aggression to lead? At that point, you can still copy to raid some resources right? I'm not trying to over-analyze the example you're giving, cause I don't want to make it seem like your remembering of the events is false or something. What I'm saying is your situation wasn't a "niche experience." Every hand of Arcs plays out somewhat similarly: you didn't get dealt the exact card you wanted, or maybe you were but you never had the initiative to play it, or maybe you did but you rolled bad on the dice! This game is all about looking at what you were dealt, and finding a way to make that work. Maybe this round, "work" doesn't mean "score points," maybe you have to change your goals a little to match your options. So declare Tyrant three times when no one has captives. Or build out all your Cities so next round you get a ton of bonus points. Or park a huge fleet above your opponent's planet so you can tax them aggressively next round. The options in this game are hugely varied, and when people say it's overly restrictive it's just because they're selectively looking at only the options that they don't have.
@@efarien140 Great feedback, thank you! I think this really boils down to the first few playthroughs and these openings will make more sense in the future.
... Ok I'll subscribe.... How much social tabletop fun/banter is there? You should consider writing the sales copy for this game and pitch it to Leder Games... Seems like lot of these comments had different expectations. Nice job pushing back on the negative reviews - you were meme-ing hard bro. You could edit this to do hard-hitting pushbacks.
@@truce11 there’s definitely a lot of cool social fun/banter in the campaign version. The Fates and the Imperial politics lend itself well to fun roleplaying btwn players.
Didn't like this style of reaction video. I would've preferred if you had curated a set of bad reviews that had some valid criticism. You basically just contradicted all of the reviewer which I don't find to compelling, especially as someone still trying to form an opinion on the game.
I tried my hardest to not just "disagree" with the reviews but to explain why I disagree with each one I listed here. With the exception of the review bashing the art style (which I maintain was unnecessarily mean), I felt like I gave a legitimate reason why I felt each review was an unfair one.
I was Trying to figure out if i want to spend money/time on the game so came here, got confused. First review says that if you dont have the right cards you wont be able to do what you want to do. You say its wrong, and explain that you need to 'let the cards determine what you can do' in 5:05 repeating for multiple similar reviews... Arent you saying the same thing?what am i missing here?
@@sc2sc286 good question! I think there’s two things to this: 1.) if you take advantage of the Resources and Guild Cards, you have huge flexibility that allows you to do pretty much what you want to do no matter what. Many reviews seem to ignore these two facets of the game that are there for this very reason. 2.) it’s mostly a mindset thing: the cards can limit your actions in a round… if you go into each round with a predetermined plan. In that case, sure, the cards will limit you. But they’ll only limit you if you’re only relying on using the cards. And also they’re limiting in a good way. They may or may not align with a predetermined plan, but they will let you go for something. Once you let go of trying to maintain a long strategy and learn how to work with any of the cards, pivot, and adapt on the fly, they no longer feel limiting. All in all, there’s two big ways you can approach Arcs: spend the first while assembling a pile of resources and a tableau of guild cards so you can do exactly what you want in the second half of the game, or go with the flow of what your hands dictate and jumping btwn goals every round based on the cards and your card counting skills. Of course, I think the best Arcs play is a balance btwn those two approaches :) Does that answer your question?
"If you dont have the right cards you wont be able to do what you want to do." Ok think about it like this: if what you want to do is "attack Steve's ships over there" well guess what, you need an Aggression card! That's the only suit that lets you take Battle actions. But oh no! You didn't draw an Aggression card. Now you can't do what you want to do! That's what this criticism looks like during the game. But wait, what if you have a Weapon resource? That lets you Battle with any kind of card! Or what if someone else leads with an Aggression card? Now you can Copy with one of your non-Aggression cards and take a Battle action. Or maybe you have a Lore card that lets you move Steve's ships out of the way without battling at all! So really, do you NEED the right cards to do what you want to do? And the second half of this argument comes down to understanding WHY you want to "attack Steve's ships over there." If all you care about is "KILL STEVE," then yes you're going to be upset when you don't get the right hand. But if you're flexible with your goals, you can learn to use any hand to accomplish those goals. Maybe you just want to control that sector with Steve's ships. Killing them is one option, but maybe you should use your Construction cards to just build a bigger fleet and take control that way. Or maybe you want to fight Steve to steal his resources and beat him on Tycoon. In that case, an Administration card in your hand could help by letting you tax those resources instead. This is what people are talking about when they say to "let the cards determine what you can do." It's about being flexible in your goals and understanding what options are available to you with a given set of cards
One comment on the "childish art": I thought the background on the art style originating from Root was Kyle Ferrin making these animal characters for his children, and that style has carried forward to the other games. I know the reviewer meant it as an insult, but I can acknowledge that the art is "child-like" but I enjoy it.
@@user-mj1wy2up3y I think there’s a difference btwn acknowledging the art is obviously often “silly” and “child-like” and using that as a weird snobby insult. It just rubbed me the wrong way, it seemed unnecessarily mean? If the comment just said “I don’t like the art style.” I’d obviously disagree, but it’s not a big deal…
I like most of your responses, but I think the game does (by design) have a lot of potential feel bad moments. It's great that Cole designs these brittle games in which the experience is very driven by players, and lets so many different types of narratives emerge. But not every game is for every player, and I think it's fine if some players want to play games in which most of the potential feel bad moments are designed around, whether that be a low interaction euro, or a co-op. As a fan of both styles of game, I think I would be disappointed in it if a game like Arcs DIDN'T get some negative reviews because weird things happened (such as all of the ambitions markers piling on the same ambition) or some players were shut out of the game because of missing their opportunites for counterplay.
@@thomgizziz I'm sorry... I'm really trying but I'm not understanding the point you are making here.. Maybe because I'm sleep deprived? But you are going to have to spell it out for me. Good day.
But it fits comments that are not nuanced also. What is there to say in reply to a comment by somebody who clearly backed a game s/he didn't read about?
@@pudicio I meant the video in good fun…. When it was done I was little worried it just came across as shouting “you’re wrong” at ppl which isn’t my intention 😅 I tried to give detailed explanations for why I disagreed with each negative review though (The ppl who complain about the map are straight up wrong though I’ll die on that hill lol)