@@MrMountie11 I think we can put the politics aside, none of us can really address the situation in the middle east and say who is good or bad but... You're absolutely right on the extortionist, scammer, and bad content part.
Honestly not sure how you could reasonably have so many cards and resources and cities built by chapter 2 if there are other people at the table who "know the game" it's really hard to figure out where you went wrong with your sudo recreation of what happened. It is likely that something was missed or not defended by other players. Would have loved to see the actual play through in detail since your recreation has some pretty large holes in it about how things happened. Lastly and most importantly. I feel like many of your video titles are starting to feel really clickbaity and calling out SUSD to drive the algorithm and grow your audience by piggy backing feels pretty cringe. If your analysis is good and your videos are compelling you don't need to try and create some sort of cheesy beef video you did the same thing with a previous arcs video before even learning the game. Did that video get more views because you mentioned SUSD in the title? Based on your other videos you are capable of making good content without this tactic
I mean, he could've had at least 4 from the leader he was playing with, but players should've seen that in chapter 1. None of what he says makes sense assuming the players he's playing with have any amount of competency.
This video could have been: "Watch out for this CRAZY Psionic x Warlord Arcs Combo!" and an overview of how you managed to play yourself into an insanely strong position (presumably because everyone else at the table was asleep?). Instead you pitched it negatively, presumably to drive engagement... Honestly, the lesson here is pretty simple: Never allow someone to go unchallenged for a victory condition. If someone had competed over psionics, you wouldn't have had those defacto points - And in fact as the Noble you would have probably lost them all for coming second.
How is it that you have uploaded 4 separate videos about one of the HOTTEST games right now, but you are still continuing to lose subs? 42.4 now? This is supposed to have the opposite effect isn't it? Anyway, your repeated mention of SU&SD in the TITLE of your video is absolutely tasteless. No matter how you spin it, you are definitely using them to attract clicks. If it was solely about the conversation surrounding their review, you could simply discuss it within the content of the video and not name them in the title to avoid using them, but you're doing this purposefully. Extremely tasteless and if you can't see this as part of the basis for your viewer distrust prior to ATO, there's no helping you. It honestly makes your previous set of apology videos mean very little because you keep employing the same practices. This is not me trolling you btw, i'm actually being sincere.
If you run a business why would you not talk about what's relevant? Shut up and sit down (least one of them) call it there #1 game. I appreciate the polarity of point of views.
@@TabletopFamily That's not the point. It's completely fine that he's talking about a relevant game as well as how his views contrast SU&SD. However, what a lot of people take issue with is his use of SU&SD's name in the TITLE of the video in order to generate clicks. It's sleazy and he has apologized for this sort of behavior in a series of apology videos fairly recently, but the fact that he is continuing to do it shows he wasn't being sincere. There are endless ways of generating clicks and working the algorithm that don't need to include using SU&SD.
@@TabletopFamily Yes and even in commercial marketing it's shameful and sometimes, depending on the country, it's not even legal to use another brand with intent to capitalize on their reputation. You are welcome to disagree, but given that he's lost probably around 200 subs in the past day or two, clearly plenty of people share the same sentiment as I do.
It's clickbait. His own rep is in the toilet, so he wants to generate clicks by calling out a RUclips channel that has some legitimacy. **** me, I hate myself now for both clicking on this video AND commenting on it :(
This seems incredibly specific and incredibly contrived. How can you have one game of, on your own accord, so much luck, and still believe it's a sweeping statement?
couple comments on this. Firstly, harvesting shut up & sit down's popularity for clout is... sad. People are clearly very angry in the comments about it and many of them are being uneccesarily rude, but I'd encourage you to form your own opinions without feeling the need to drag someone elses through the mud. Secondly, while I agree this game certainly has blow out victories, you're missing that it also has unexpected comeback arcs. I encourage you to watch one of Tom's games: ruclips.net/video/B1cWCzYySjM/видео.htmlsi=x1btwvGq47Z35Zsa where he was very clearly loosing for a long time - so much so that they considered calling the game early - but managed to have an unexpected and glorious comeback. This game allows players to score huge amounts of points in a single chapter but that's not a bad thing. Something that I think you're missing about your own victory illustrated in this video, is that this game was actually really kind to the losing players. By ending the game quickly in chapter 2, other players weren't forced to sit there for another hour knowing they'll loose like they often have to in root, TI, or risk. Imagine if you won by the same number of points, but you scored them slower over the course of 5 chapters instead. That game would be miserable for everyone involved. And finally, like many people in the comments said, I don't think you winning was anywhere close to inevitable. You drafted strong cards, but anyone else could've seen the combo and counter drafted. You got lots of psyonics but anyone else could've seen that and raided you. You got loyal empath, but someone else could've (and should've) challenged you for it. All experienced players know loyal empath is one of the strongest cards. You had arms union, but arms union is really easy to steal and you waited a long time to use it. It's also important to note that the ambitions are sorted from worst to best. Tycoon is by far the hardest to secure and maintain while empath is the easiest. As soon as you declared empath, you should've been the tables target but it sounds like they didn't attack you at all. That was on them. TLDR: you won because you played well and literally nobody even tried to challenge you
The point is that if you win all 3 ambitions with all buildings placed, you get 27 points. That doesn't rely on an inordinate amount of setup - it's going to happen in many games where someone gets combo pieces and isn't checked. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it happens and is worth noting. "Truly insane" is pretty outsized criticism...
@@Quackalope, really not interested in the pitty party... I got caught into the SUSD message and got nothing constructive from the vid. Hence felt click baited... As per your own admission a few comments in, is something you did. Fooled me this time. Never again.
It just seems like the rest of the table allowed you to run away with the win! You have to agree that having all buildings on the map, a ton of psionics and the most kills is very hard to pull off. More than anything I think this is a lesson for your friends about having more awareness and being proactive on possibly game winning game states!
These constant posts about the hottest game are a bit tiresome. A lot of words that will not age well in fact. This is a dishonest channel and it doesn't surprise me that the people are leaving... Besides that I think Shut up & Sit down have by far the most informative and interesting takes on a lot of my favorite board games and you can see it's from the heart. So maybe I would also refrain from bringing up other channels it will do no good :p
- Sees the amazing video SU&SD did - Thinks “what if I do a contrary video?” - Only reveals that he hasn’t played it enough & doesn’t understand the game well. Desperate. Sadly desperate. I hope you get the help you need once you give the channel up.
You have played a handful of games. Tom of SU&SD have played 40+. But HE is the one missing something? No. You are the one that pulls new players into the campaign, without playing the base game first, disregarding the recommendations, and still complain about the experience. You are the one, going into a boardgame, expecting the game to hold your hand and ensure that everyone finishes at roughly the same score. Like a family going to a bowling alley, and have the guardrails pop up for the kids, to help them not throw the ball in the gutter every time. And thus, players of wildly different ability levels can have a bit of fun together. This game is NOT that. You can get obliterated by a smarter player (or alliance of players) playing a fate which is better suited for the current environment. Any one game will not protect you from that. It leans into it, and the stories it creates. THEN comes the guardrails, which allows you to reboot your faction with a new fate, and allow you to attempt a comeback in the next game. That is not a flaw in the game. That is a clear design choice. That type of game experience may not be for you. And that is completely fair. But please don't be the guy that goes into a game of Diplomacy expecting everyone to get along, or a game of Fluxx, and then complaining about your lack of strategic options. You are putting forth specific expectations for the game, which it by design will not deliver. And it shouldn't. It's like demanding an easy to learn, cooperative game experience from a game of Advanced Squad Leader, and not realizing this is a different game than what you were looking for, but insisting that it is a problem the game didn't give you that experience. (You may or may not have touched on some of these points later in your video, but after watching the first few minutes of the video, I did not care to stay for the rest. Sorry.) And to the haters that just turn up to drop hate: Please move along now. This channel erred on a few occations and got slammed. We _all_ make mistakes. And if you got slammed for something like that, you would probably appreciate the chance to move on. Perhaps even forgiveness. What is interesting is what the channel decide to do moving forward. That is what will show the real character behind. Don't bash on people. Not even the ones you don't like. State your opinion when the matter is relevant. Don't be a hater. Nobody likes haters.
I agree with many others that you should probably keep another creators name out of your video titles (unless it’s a colab), it feels juvenile and unprofessional. I appreciate the attempt to make this video work, it’s hard to find reviews that are 100% honest and not just clouds and rainbows. That being said, the negativity and length of the video makes it hard to watch. Maybe reviews for games that aren’t good to you could be reigned in a bit and/or shortened. I like how some other channels put reviews for games that didn’t meet their expectations (good or bad) in list style videos so that the point that the creator wants to make is short and sweet. In the past, I was a more regular viewer when your videos were focused on positivity and having fun with your wife and friends/creators. To be fair, I’m only here because I saw Tom’s tweet, the algorithm hasn’t been pushing your videos to the top of my feed for some time now. Hopefully this felt constructive to read and not annoying (If you read it at all lol), keep on working hard and keep on quackin’ man. 🦆
Dang, you could’ve just given your own review without mentioning SUSD in the title. This isn’t a peer-reviewed article where citing folks you part company with is standard practice.
So the game is awful because you gained 27 victory points in one turn? I did that in root against 3 other experienced players recently, jumped from dead last to well over 30 to win. Does that make root terrible? Even if you're all mostly experienced, that doesn't make you all skilled. Luck, and certainly skill played a part in this.
Tom from SUSD has played 50+ games of Arcs. Jesse has barely played 5 times and somehow thinks he has enough knowledge of the game to make 4 videos, which end up being filled with rules mistakes and terminology errors. He’s not adding to the conversation, just convoluting it with lazy journalism.
@@boxcarbuddha6505 . . . 5 times at this point of recording this. You popped over to leave rude comments and didn’t even watch 10 seconds of the video?
@@Quackalope I edited my comment to 5 times played on your end. I made it as far as I could in the video, apologies for misrepresenting you dude… although I think the rest of my comment still stands. Whether or not SUSD’s video is higher praise than you agree with, Tom has created two very long and extremely thoughtful video essays that are (to my knowledge) void of rules mistakes. You should simply take more time understanding the games you are pumping out videos for, so that you could in turn influence to your audience more fairly.
For me, I’m going to be producing 10-12 videos around Arcs and most games I cover going forward. It’s how we can do deep content without killing / or sacrificing the channel as a whole. It’s hard to find the right balance for sure - but for us - a single review after 40 games or even two reviews - would be the death of the channel due to the time invested. On top of that - I would be competing directly with SUSD who have years and year ahead of me and honestly - make the best content of their style in the whole space. No Pun has ran into this issue many times. So, for us - we are doing our own style and approach to deep coverage. Videos like this - are one snapshot of our experiences - leading up to a final review after 10,20, or maybe even 40 games.
@@Quackalope I won’t pretend to have any insight on the behind the scenes of your content creation. Even now you have shed some light regarding the parameters that you have to deal with in terms of time management for each project. Although I feel as though you have a responsibility to your audience, as well as those who brought us the game in the first place, to represent it accurately. I appreciate your response and hope that the future of your channel will find that sweet spot.
Thanks for the advice and well worded response. I do believe that I am representing the game accurately - granted - I am representing it throughout my play experience. So my first impressions are accurate for only a few plays. This experience is an accurate recounting my 5th game. It’s a unique one. It’s certainly able to be mitigated by experienced players - however - many tables will have this same moment as they start digging into the game. My final video - after 20+ plays - will be accurate. Just like SUSD is in many ways. However - it’s only accurate in context. The right group. The amount of players. The number of times you all played. Etc. My issue with their review is that it does little to account for the other very different experiences this game is designed to facilitate. I hope to be a bit more wide with my coverage. It very well be the best game of the year for some (I don’t think they are lying) however, it’s certainly not for many others - and it’s worth exploring why for both.
Next week’s video: Why all the games in the top 100 are actually terrible! Bonus episode: SUSD has a problem! They like playing board games… board games are bad.
WTF two chapters should not take you 100 - 120 minutes. You’re all either taking way too long or the style of game is simply not meshing with most of the group. Unless that one person is exceptionally skilled, with repeated plays amongst most of the same people should not see early blowout wins like this. And if blowouts in general are occurring frequently, early or late, everyone is not watching the board state enough or not considering the possibilities. You should not simply be focused on your game. Each Chapter should almost be considered as its own state to start from. There is only so much you can strategize long-term in a game like this.
i like your content. im not a hater. so please understand this as someone who keeps watching and wants to see you succeed. dont use other reviewers and such in your titles. unless this is literally a review of them as a company (avoid that like the plague), then there is no place for this terrible video title. comments on the game should be on the game. attempting to generate clicks for a single video like this is not a sincere way to make board game review content. and especially in the wake of the prior year's issues (btw i am not one who views your actions as malicious in that case and in fact had about equal distaste toward ATO's actions). i hope that you can get the channel back on track with honest, sincere game loving content. im rooting for the channel to thrive for you again.
Have to agree. I'm rooting for the channel and am invested in it's content, but name-dropping is bad form. Make compelling content and the views and subs will come. Scratch their name an propose an industry question instead. "...is this compelling?","...success or frustration?","...what are we missing?" Having said that....I hear you. If everyone is hunting for the blowout victory or none are then maybe it's not a problem, but if only one is playing for it, it may be frustrating. It's the same with build and "deny progress" mechanics. If all are building then it's a competition for the best builder, but if one plays denial, the rest may just find it a turn-off.
I agree with the above sentiments. I want you to succeed and feel you bring a valuable perspective to this space, but including SU&SD in the title comes of as a ploy for more clicks and feels a bit mean. Opinions and experiences should be shared and discussed in an objective way. Your experiences and opinions of the game are well articulated and valid. But so are the thoughts and opinions of SU&SD. Please consider changing the title of this video to make it more about your experience and not a dis of someone elses. ✌️ ❤
Hi Jesse! I tried to follow your move but when you destroyed those two Cities you should have Provoked Outrage in both Resource Types, one of which was Materiel. You place Agents on them on your player card and the effect is you cannot use those prelude actions. So I think your two city builds were illegal?
Hey, the two locations I broke in order to build were space ports not cities. Again, this is not a perfect reflection of the game - it is an attempt to walk you all through how it worked and felt at the time. Everyone was following, checking, and understood the rules. We even had a rules lawyer sitting at the table who was 4 games deep at the time :)
Also, the places I built on were clear before I took the final turn of the game where I built. I did not take any prelude actins out of order. In this breakdown I made that a bit more confusing than I would have preferred.
@@Quackalope It's not the rules that went wrong. What went wrong is that your rivals didn't have their eyes on the ball, err, ambitions. You went after every ambition you could get and were allowed to get them all, which shouldn't be possible and implies that your rivals were distracted. So the VPs reflect the situation correctly.
I won't comment on the nature of the video as others have done that already, but I will praise you Jesse for allowing constructive and even non-constructive criticism to remain throughout every video on your channel. A lot of content creators would just delete negative comments, so the fact you uphold that transparency deserves some praise in my book.
Appreciate it. I’m happy to talk and engage and read what people say and think :) sadly, many in the comments just want to drop their opinion and expect me to agree and capitulate.
@@Quackalope No problem at all! I personally appreciate your more sceptical coverage of this game. I was ready to go out and buy this but I am thinking more critically now, partially because of the concerns you have raised in your various videos. It’s important to have balanced coverage of games. Thank you for providing a more apprehensive viewpoint.
Glad to add my voice to the conversation. I don’t hate it for the record like many seem to think. In fact, it’s got some very cool elements at play. However - it’s going to be wrong for many many people.
Lesson for the other players: Stopping somebody else winning multiple ambitions is maybe more important than trying to snap a few points of a single one. Also, leaving your buildings unprotected while owning a cartel card is just stupid. Takeaway: If you can’t read the board other players will win big. Not a bad game - just bad players.
@@Quackalope it depends on the game and the type of game it's trying to be. For example, checkers takes like 30 games, and you can be really good at it, you can play chess 1000 times and still be ass at it.
Have had nothing but close games with arcs. I feel like one player got the best guild cards in the game and everyone else at the table did nothing about it. Biggest lesson from this is that "experienced players" should read the cards in the game and understand that cetain cards and combos are able to take game winning actions. This video has little to nothing to do with SU&SD.
@@coolguymanthing6925 this absolutely feels like a scenario that did not happen. It feels like “can I fabricate a scenario that looks like it breaks the game and then harvest views from it?”
I think some of your issues is a fixation on points as defining a margin for victory. It was not a blowout as, theoretically, any player can score the required points to win. Losing Chess in in 15 moves is not always a blowout. Someone may have made a mistake or someone played very well or some combination of both. Many games that have potentially 30 turns can at any point be 1-3 turns from the end of the game.
Chess is somewhat different since there's only two players. The problem really isn't the blowout itself, it's the manner in which it occurs. It's the same issue the Vagabond had in Root - when you've got a game where two or three players are in fierce competition on the score track only to lose suddenly to a player who, at least seemingly, has done nothing up until that point it's a fairly big anti-climax and will tend to leave players feeling unsatisfied.
@markwatson8714 i would say thats a far better option then to have a game where 2-3 people are on fierce competition and the 3-4th players are just out of contention waiting for the end or king making. Everyone loves an underdog story 😜
@@zak1090 It's more down to the game. There's nothing wrong per se with allowing a player to go from zero to victory in a single turn, many games actually do that. They do however tend to be those intended for much shorter play times, Fluxx for example. The problem you get in a longer game is it's incredibly tricky to do it in a way that doesn't leave the losing players feel like they've just wasted the past two hours of their life (which is one of the reasons most people go off games like Fluxx and Munchkin after having a game of it run to the two hour mark).
something is wrong here. Can't say that people weren't in a position to ever win, and then say you can win in a turn. Means you always get the option. Also, it was in two turns, the setup in the first turn is part of it.
wow.. you try so hard to keep audience since that issue with the kicstarter.... next video title "Tom Vassel is a big ass".... and mid video you say "a big asset in the the board game review community" .. how sad..
@@Quackalope Yes but what's it to you? Your channel surely isn't about commenting on other channels for clicks? A direct reference like that feels like you are trying to leech and garner momentum because their is a hype wave right now. The unfortunate thing about it is that your video is actually good, the points you are making are totally worth discussing but the clickbait stuff...let's move past that already
@@elqord.1118 Man, it’s relevant to the conversation. They are the BIGGEST in the space. I’m not picking on them. I’m posting quality content and doing my best to get it viewed. I understand if you hate the way it works - I get it - trust me. However, I didn’t invent the game and I’m sure not able to fix or change it. If this video was titled “A breakdown of a single game of Arcs” or “How I won Arcs in a unique and conflicting way” it would get absolutely no views, no engagement, and have died in the RUclips black hole. I get it. Trust me. I have overstepped in the past and my goal is not to do that in the future. However, referencing the biggest reviewer in our industry - who gave complete and unabashed praise to this very game - is completely and totally fair.
@@Quackalope I completely agree with the OP, would have been a way better video without the SU&SD leeching, and you probably could have avoided the sub loss. Using SU&SD in your title is not "totally fair," and not necessarily the "way it works." You are convincing yourself of this and a large portion of the board gaming community is telling you that they hate it. You want to be a part of the community but you're not listening whatsoever. What sort of game do you think you're playing if everything you are doing is ending in a loss?
@Quackalope it's an 8.4 on bgg for the base game and 9.2 for the expansion. I think it's fair to say it's the best thing to come out this year so far.
Honestly, this shows me how great the game is. You played a tactical game and your opponents played a strategic game, focusing on their own goals, and ignoring the rest of the board. Great play on your part and I guarantee they won’t let something like this happen again.
Right? How're you going to line everything perfectly and execute a plan, with a bit of luck from the dice and not be extatic that you pulled of the perfect move???
@@okkiebok a game that has been played and lauded over for 1500 years, and it turns out you can straight up LOSE on turn 4?!!? My god, guys, how is everyone missing this? This is a FATAL FLAW in a game that seems to be unstoppable in the minds of so many. I am disappointed, and honestly, I don't think I'll show a single one of my friends chess ever again.
If every other game ends in chapter 2 that might be problem. But as a rare occasion - while other players were focused on their own stuff and not paying attention to what that player over there is doing, while he does everything right - not a biggie. It's possible to win chess in a few moves if the other player doesn't pay attention. Not having an Aggression card isn't a major problem. Tax a weapon and any card has aggression. The comparison with Root is interesting. Sure, there's no possibility of somebody winning in round 2. But as much as I like Root, my number 1 problem with it is that the VP track often leads to boring non-climactic endings Somebody crafts a boot and gets to 30. Glorious.
Haha, the classic Boot win :) I understand and totally agree with your thoughts. What is your opinion on every one of our 5 games being a blowout victory so far?
Slight correction, a weapon adds battle to any card, it does not turn the card into an aggression card. I have to check myself every time I start to make this mistake, when I remember that the card I am trying to (roughly) “turn into an aggression card” has no ability to Move on it. I love the chess analogy. To the question of whether (assuming similar skill levels and play to win, non-experimental mentalities) five out of five games being blowouts is a good, bad or indifferent thing, I would say there is a rebuttable presumption that that is bad. My ideal game has no “one best way to play.“ But rather there is balance between different approaches to playing the game. Sometimes this might even rely on alliances between some players to counter the leading player. If uncounterable automatic wins can be had, a game is typically termed “broken.” A designer, of course wants to test for and eliminate this problem.
@@Quackalope To me the important question is: Did the better player/strategy win? By how much is entirely secondary. If I lose 4 vs 22 in a 2 player game (this happened :-) ) does that properly reflect that my opponent grasped the quasi-trick taking faster and was better focused on the ambitions? The answer is yes and so the scores were correct. Whether I'm at 4 or 17, I lost because my opponent played much better. I believe the more extreme differences are mostly due to the +2/+5 for 4/5 cities.
If everyone was playing the Corvid Conspiracy or Woodland Alliance in Root. Wouldn't all victories appear to be blowouts? This is a nuts scenario to be sure. However, I think the point of the game is wrestling over who is letting who blowout. This ain't a Euro game with incremental points. This is "trying to wrestle an electric eel that hates you". You might get zapped lol. If you don't like base game I can't imagine you liking campaign. It just aint for you mate.
Yes, but only after the game has gone on for many rounds and ignored them as they spread . . . and everyone can't play them. The root math wont allow it.
@@QuackalopeI think you're missing my point. Obviously Root can't be played that way. But Arcs IS played that way. Anyone can explode at any point, winning the game. The scoreboard doesn't reflect how close or far away people are from victory, it reflects who achieved it first. Just like if everyone we're playing Corvid, people would be trying to stop each other from exploding, but inevitably one person would. Their score would be way above the others. That doesn't mean others weren't close to exploding, it just means they didn't do it first. People should be wary of and trying to stop/achieve explosions all game. It's fundamentally an opportunistic game. Your game was a freak incident where everything aligned so you could capitalize on an opportunity. You won. To me that sounds hilarious. But I could see how it rubs people the wrong way. If it didn't happen for you that turn, and someone else exploded next turn, it didn't mean that you weren't close to winning the turn before. You know what I mean? I could still see why someone wouldn't like that, but I hope I'm getting my point across that it's more about opportunity capitalization than it is purely about getting points like a euro game.
Hey, I love SU&SD, if Arcs had been available I would have bought it instantly because FOMO. Like I did with a second hand copy of Android Netrunner. But it is good to hear negative thoughts as well. I don’t know what all the drama is with this channel, but I’m always surprised people get so invested in calling out negatives. So I hope you took my comment as an attempt at humour, that’s all. And good luck.
Haha, no worries at all :) I even take the “your a idiot” one with a sense of humor. The internet is a funny world :) I love SUSD as well - and have bought from Fomo so much!
So basically, they successfully made it feel like your playing space factions balancing each others powers as if you were a leader actually doing so. Not just a chess game more like root. Actually has politics and self balancing that naturally happens between factions. This means someone good at paying attention, negotiating, and all that does well here and still has a chance to completely take over if they run free long enough without others realizing. Idk how to word it. lol... Game is basically balanced around politics like your actual factions maneuvering around and against each other to try and get away with things without notice as long as possible so as to get the most out of something as much as you can before that option is found out and shut down. Failure to notice results in the chance for massive gains. Actually a cool and good thing as a catch up/surprise/tension/keep behind players in the game, type of mechanic.
Yeah, a lot of the fun in the game is having the possibility to do amazing turns like yours. Allowing that possibility to exist usually means the game isn't going to be balanced around non-interaction, simple and less swingy abilities. The game seems to reward more plays. Like you said the person who also enjoyed it had played more games than the other two who didn't like it. I think it's like you compared to Root. This is a game that will grow with more plays and has a lot of depth to it to really avoid the types of blowouts you are describing. I'm curious how the campaign would play out since you'll have more time to do something about someone who is ahead by that much. Base Arcs I don't think was the game that Cole set out to design, the fullly developed and purposeful game is in the blighted reach. Cole did say bad plays should be punished so it does fit in his philosophy that he doesn't design games to keep players close in score intentionally.
Experience is going to be essential. In fact, I would love to play this with anyone who knows the game deeply! However, major swings like this - felt bad for all players involved.
@Quackalope yeah I get that. Might be fun to play on TTS with other fans. The physical version might be hard with a general game group. I'll play with you any time :)
1. Heavy cardboard has multiple plays, both standalone and campaign, without this level of imbalance. Perhaps reach out to Edward to discuss? Could be an interesting new crossover I'd be interested in watching. 2. While you went from 0 to hero in a hurry, there was a lot of telegraphing what your intentions were to get all the necessary pieces in place to do it. If your table was not situationally aware enough to deny them to you, I'm very hesitant to solely blame the game. This is partially an instance of plan better, play better. You did, they didn't. Learning experience. 3. You did mention the inclination towards games that require player initiated balancing... Cole and Leder are both known for leaning into this type of design (Pax Pamir and Crystal Cavern are good examples, and Root also requires this to some extent). Perhaps this just isn't your favorite game mechanic? I'm generally not a fan of co-op or campaign games so I actively avoid them, though there are rare instances where I enjoy both (like Too Many Bones). Root might be one of your exceptions.
@Quackalope My pleasure. I actually re subscribed hoping for some interesting content but this is just deliberately contrarian and clearly using click bait titles. Susd didn't miss anything Tom played this game hundreds of times over months. You opened it a week ago and set out to stir the pot for views.
heartly message, I didn't know you were driving your channel with cheap clickbaits tactics. but since sometimes I am noticing a trend with you. and now I realize even the characters font and size of your caption are odd... this is deceiving, I thought more highly of you. I don't know if it is because of money issue or just your nature but try something else. you can actually talk about boardgames in an very insightful way and bring value. don't jump in the RUclipsr drama farming loop just to build engagement on your channel please. SUaSD can be wrong, this is an opinionated hobby very rare things are objective, you don't need to drag your viewers into a channel vs channel set up. your viewers are not brainless teenagers TikTok users addicted to dopamin rush. they will spot the strings of the cheap clickbait scheme. profiles who follow boardgame channel know about the schemes of internet. boardgames are exactly the kind of product you don't have to make a video to explain why someone else opinion is wrong. you are not reviewing technology. plus there is no huge engagement to farm on boardgame video with baiting tactics. and you don't need this to be interesting. please do better.
Arcs and Root are singularly outstanding games to a large number of gamers. They are also disliked for a few things like king making, player balancing, learning the pros & cons of the asymmetric factions, finding a group that likes to grow with the game, etc. These are characteristics of COIN games. I love these games where learning how to play the game better with each play is so satisfying!!! As with Quacks videos on Root I would not be surprised that the rules are not being understood and followed. While it is fine to be one who doesn't like these types of games and expressing that, I don't see why Quacks is making so many videos on Arcs. It seems Quacks just wants to trash the game.
I think one reasons that Wehrle's games can often garner very mixed responses is that they often take mechanisms and systems that *look* familiar but play around with them in ways that are unfamiliar, which can mean that heuristics associated with those systems can turn out not to be unhelpful. So in the example play you describe it sounds like you had built towards a much stronger position to win than anyone realised because two board games tropest that usually give you easy ways of telling 'who is winning' turned out to be misleading. You had 0 VP, and other players had more, so everyone assumed you were in the weakest position. You didn't have loads more pieces on the board than anyone else, so didn't look more of a threat than anyone else threat. In most games those simple to read metrics of threat are reliable guides, but not in Arcs it seems. You're *real* threat was the combination of leader and guild cards , but in order to realise that other players needed to read all those cards, and grok how they interacted with the games systems and realise the combinatorial threat they represented and spend more of their resources trying to raid them from you, or prevent you from securing them all in the first place. Also the fact that you're next two cities uncovered the extra VP bonuses, is a threat, but one that is hidden as small bits of text under under 2 triangles of cardboard. That requires much more cognitive load, and a more sophisticated understanding of the game than looking at positions on a VP track, or seeing map dominance in numbers of pieces. In order to get a full view of the state of the game a players needs to read and understand the every players tableau of cards and player board. That makes the game much less accessible than other games, even thoigh it doesn't look that way at first glance. So you caught everyone by surprise, and losing by surprise is often the most disappointing, it either makes you feel stupid, or makes you want to 'blame the game' (Why didn't the game tell me he was winning?)
I've been following you for years and have watched many videos with enthusiasm. Now I write constructively that I find it a shame that your thumbnails are very negative and somewhat take away the desire to watch the videos, and you immediately delete this comment? Wow ... and unfollowed :)
Hm, that's pretty strange because I could even see the comment in my RUclips app under the video for a few minutes after sending it 🤔. If that's the case, I'm very sorry for my reaction. Was a bit too triggered 😅
No worries. I don't tend to remove comments - even mean ones I often just engage with. If someone said something about my wife . . . . I would remove or block it then.
My original comment was not meant to be mean. I just wanted to point out that I find it a bit unfortunate when thumbnails for Arc, for example, are so sensationally negative: "skeptical", "don't buy on hype", "...you Play it wrong" (I know this title is not theoretically meant to be negative, but in the series of others, even the wording is negative) and "... terrible horrible...". I understand the need for a certain amount of "clickbait", but I don't think it needs to be so pessimistic, even for a polarizing game like Arc. This is all my opinion and meant constructively :).
This video is a good example why you are losing subs. Youve only played the game FIVE times. This is a severe edge case that probably rarely happens. SUSD has played the game FIFTY times. Im trusting them over you.
5 times with 5 blowout victories (this being the worst of the lot) seems like a notable achievement for such a edge case scenario. Especially when SuSd didn’t have a dedicated moment of criticism in their initial video. 40 games seems like enough to find a few problems . . . Or at least point out where the game won’t work for other groups.
If that event keeps you engaged and excited about the game then this video is a pure clickbait and a very effective advertisement for this awesome game. this is a silly game, both frustrating and rewarding. and thats why it's so popukar right now. because it breaks the rules.
Yep, I am not trying to hurt the game . . . I am trying to talk about it and share more information as I explore and experience Arcs through multiple plays. It's as if you think I don't want it to be or I would be upset if it were good advertising for them?
Watching both channels videos I have some thoughts that I think are important to remember… I feel that part of the disconnect between SUSD & Quack is that Tom has played far more games and seems much more comfortable and versed. Quacks played, by his own admission, 5 games, Vs. 40+ that Tom has played. That’s a huge difference in experience and I would say that Quacks plays still puts him at a learning stage. It also sounds that Quacks group is just not the type for Arcs, he wants solvable games, Arcs is not that. There is a layer of chaos baked into the game that will always be there.
My plays have been with a range of people. 2, 3, and 4 player experiences. With a total of 6 different people. I 100% agree that being 40 plays deep is an important factor and I will add that everyone at the table needs to be just as experienced or you will have major problems. However, how have they not seen situations like this happen in 40 games? Every single one of my 5 plays have resulted in a blowout victory with some players feeling completely shut out.
@@Quackalope It's totally possible that they have seen blowouts like this and their playgroup is more okay with it as long as there's a good story told or whatever decides a good game night for them? Would be interesting to see the results of Tom's games
Hey Superslomoe, I think the only way to prevent blowouts like this is to have active table negotiation happening. Something I think SUSD is doing when they play - but not something the core game is designed to facilitate. It is mentioned as a option in the rules but importantly noted "nothing is binding" if they players do engage in table talk and deals.
I havent played Arcs and know nothing about the fame but from your "something along the lines" recreation I see two problems. One is that you missed some kind of rule and the other is that your opponents dont know how to play. After pretty much any thing you did you followed up that no one could do anything about it. Its super weird that this can be the case so early in the game. And you being the most experienced with 5 games isn't really giving me confidence
The biggest issue I can see from this, the conversation, and game session moving forward - is that fairly significant knowledge is needed to be effectively competitive at Arcs. This scenario is certainly one mixed with both inexperience / poor strategic play and a game system where large swings can happen with no mitigation if you don’t recognize the threat and act multiple turns in advance.
Listen, it’s a competitive game. The best player will win, unabashedly. I feel like you guys are playing it in more of a “let’s have fun and laugh about our day as we play!” type game. You can do that, but… it’s kind of like doing that in chess and then hanging a rook… yeah, then it’s gonna be a blowout and there’s nothing the other player can do about it. You have to be very engaged the whole time. Honestly I think ROOT was the outlier for you guys with Cole Wehrle games. They are niche for a reason.
If you want to hear my opinions - you should not mind us making a thumbnail and title that gets your attention. RUclips won’t show this to you and others like it has if we use bland headings.
The board seems to be set up as if it was for 5 players but there are only 4. Also the open 5 player sector has only the "winner" towns/colonies and ships. Curious.
This sounds like an awesome game of Arcs! I don't know what your group wants out of games?! If you cared about your group enjoying Arcs, then you should NOT play with Leaders and Lore because the players don't enjoy an extra layer of "sneaky" tactics to keep track of.
It sounds like randomness is the key issue here, with agency (or lack thereof) not having enough of an impact on that randomness, which can result in the types of situations you're talking about (ie. blowout victories and inability to win). Ie. That random chance to get your combo is probably quite rare, but yes it's a problem. Those being rude to you here - love that you pinned the most offensive. hahaha. Good on you. I think it's important for everyone to take in all perspectives on a given title, and then make your own decision. The issue you've highlighted here I don't necessarily think is a huge issue for the game, the game itself is quite good, but randomness can always ruin a good experience :P I also think it's more of an issue with the campaign side of the game (you mentioned act 2), so it's worthwhile pointing out that you used the expansion which has way more game systems in play, which compounds that randomness aspect.
Appreciate your findings and feedback despite the global hype. For those who can’t play the game digitally to make your own decision we need the most diverse opinion possible to find why or why not the game might be for you and your game group
It's an weird title, "Why is Shut Up & Sit Down missing this?". And a particular session for "Why SUSD love it?" When has this channel become a "response to SUSD channel now?"
@@Quackalope I'm not here to pass judgement, if it did happen then it's on very rare occassions and exclusively dependent on certain factors so it's a none issue.
The play you described actually sounds awesome. Had i not already owned the game you would have just sold it to me. On a side note, have you made a video about what kind of values you want from a board game experience? For me, if I can walk away from a game with a thematic experience I’m pretty happy, win or lose. I never worry much about winning.
I think the swingy nature of the game is an inherent design choice. I am currently watching the Arcs Campaign review and they showed a picture of the scorepad used for a game early on. Interestingly, one player seemed to have had a blowout victory in the 3rd act (there are 2 scores in for the 3rd act 52 and 16 shown) but, I think a blowout in one act can be offset by the scores in the second or third. I'm interested in how you think the campaign goes and am looking forward to it.
I find that Arcs draws in a certain type of player - one that enjoys climbing "the ladder of chaos" and also doesn't mind getting up from being kicked down or striving from a seemingly bad score/position (or doesn't take it as personally). It is a mean game - players in a losing position can be poached on from other players and there is nothing stopping that except good will. It also has a high skill curve - someone with experience will almost always stomp on newer players. In this way it probably has an overlap with players who love games like TI4 (which SUSD love).
I'm really excited to try this game out. I honestly think all of Leder Games' games have this kind of problem to it just becuase of how complicated they are. Can't say that any of them are perfect but what board games are? I do believe that this game though just cause of how the actions are and the cards you get dealt cause a lot of issues for consitency and whatnot but it's kind of interesting at the same time. Also that shirt is awesome! Again awesome work Jesse! Would love to see some gameplay whenever you have time :)!
The game is a wonderful in a number of ways. The card play is absolutely excellent, the dice are magical, and with a group of players who are 10-15 games deep . . . man, it has got to be brilliant. However, I would never want to teach this game to a new group every time I played. It is way too unbalanced.
@@Quackalope yeah I get that for sure! Again I believe every Leder Games game is like that as well lol. Showing Root to a new group for the first time was a terrible experience for me 😂!
Though I disagree with your take, I am not going to be a hypocrite like some people and be civil, by not sinking down to the level of name calling. I think it is good to have a contrary opinion about Arcs on RUclips. Though I disagree with your opinion, I respect you none the less. I sill absolutely frickin love this game, but your video has helped me a few of its flaws. Nothing is perfect, but it can be enjoyed none the less.
I’ve played twice at 3 and 4 players. Our games have been long. 4+ hours each. They both consisted of large amounts of nasty negotiation, threats and insults. It is mean and very cutthroat. I do think that negotiation and alliances are a big part of the game. In order to survive you have to beat up on the leader or person who is going to benefit the most if you don’t. I’ve been having fun and I also think it is worthy of attention. I will say with my limited plays It feels like it has a high skill limit. Not everyone in my group loved it but they all admitted that it is very interesting. We will add leaders and lore next. This I’m sure will add another layer that you have to pay attention to. I think some of the combos the mini expansion gives can be quite powerful.
Wow - just stumbled on this and feel really sorry for this guy. Why does everyone need to be so unnecessarily cruel and mean spirited. You don’t agree with his commentary? Fine - that’s like 5 mins of your life; it didn’t cost you anything.And let’s be obvious - most already knew what they were going to comment irrespective of the content and getting sick pleasure from the bullying. This is a human being, even if you don’t like what he/the channel did. Just leave it and watch SUSD instead.
I’d be surprised if they really cared that someone has a different opinion. I can image that they would find it funny you keep naming them in your video titles. Bit obvious.
They saw your broken court cards and ignored the threat they represent. If I take out my gun, load it, say I am gona shoot, aim it, you would be a fool to say that the noticable threat started when i pulled the trigger. Its just a lack of game knowledge on their part (and if not its ignorance) Its not that deep man... You played with "normal" ppl. Nomies play these games like a race. They dont try to outsmart others or negotiate, they just simply find a path to victory and blindly focus on that completly ignoring the other players progress. And by that I dont mean they dont get if someone else is in the lead they just dont recognise their agency in changing someone elses game state.
You know, you could've just said "how did other reviewers miss this". But you didn't, and you know why you didn't. That's sad, hope you find yourself man.
@@dukiwave yea, I didn’t because SUSD the biggest channel in the industry I work in called this game “the best of 2024” in their thumbnail and potentially “the best game they have ever played” without adding critical commentary to their review.
I don't understand why this is bothering people so much. However, just know that you're "outrage! Unsubscribe!" comment is fueling the youtube algorithm and making this video more visible. So thank you angry people, I guess?
@@dodong_daniel Well, don’t spoil it by telling them. Idk, I get it, I have read it all, I can argue their side of the complaint. I just don’t agree and have no interest in listening to a small group of people on BGG who already view me as the enemy. We will keep on keeping on :)
Ah yes, this terrible if only the stars align at the right moments scenario is what really puts the mechanics of this game into question whether it’s even worth playing. You should reevaluate the kind of content you wanna make, this current I wanna push against the grain and have an edgy take thing doesn’t make you look smart.
@@MusicColorz . . . All five games have been blowouts so far. I’m not being edgy - I’m digging into a title and covering it across many plays and with a wide range of content. Go watch, insult, and complain on someone else’s free content.
>video name and opening monologue talks about winning on "turn two" >the 'how it happened' section says it happened on chapter two, is full of approximations and inaccuracies so which is it, you lying fraud? Quackalope more like Clownalope am i right? But seriously, any player worth their wooden ships will be able to see such a win from a mile ahead and make moves that stop it. Denying Empath Bond (a strong Lore card for any leader) to a strong upside Leader (yes, getting free court cards is a strong upside). Denying you the Initiative so you can't Declare Ambitions and use your upside that often. Breaking cities to deny the bonus VP or force inventory reorganization that makes raids easier. And before you say "outrage", one resouce being unuseable means approximately one fifth of the galaxy is now your oyster to feast upon. Yeah you might miss the "free" build or move or something, but raiding Psionics and Relics and Court cards from enemies that even dared settle on a planet of a certain type more than makes up for that. In short, please stop living in miracle christmasland, and play the game you're bashing on vs the people you're bashing on (Tom Brewster can't get enough of Arcs he'll be happy to play you and show you how it's done) before you actually commit to bashing. It's ok to be wrong, it's not ok to proclaim to be right based on minimal evidence and single digit sample sizes.
That's a tough experience. It seems like in this specific game, you simply outplayed your opponents. Your Arms Union card (the Union cards are pretty easy to recognize as some of the strongest guild cards in the game) seems like it sat out and available on the board for quite a few turns before you used it, without anybody trying to take it, and it's a bit confusing what everyone else was doing to pursue the declared ambitions that were available. When you spent your Psionic resources early in the chapter to clear space for the materials did nobody tax to scoop up the now available resources? In my plays whenever someone has a Cartel card everyone else immediately prioritizes taxing that specific resource and it takes away all value that the card has, and it usually just gets discarded during prelude to steal a fuel. There are a lot of things to keep track of, and a ton of guild cards and other abilities on the table so it's definitely tough to both remember what's on the table and also to take all of into account when planning for the future, but simply declaring an ambition and then sitting to protect that one, or allowing someone else to have one because "they're winning by too much", allows those players to make plays like you did to not only aim for that ambition but also the other ones, and that's where it gets dangerous. In my play experience, we haven't had any blowouts, and I think the initiative and declaration play has helped mitigate that significantly. It is very difficult to go for more than one, mayybe two ambitions at a time unless the rest of the table just completely lets you do your own thing (in a similar way to in Root the game is built around the factions interacting and if everyone just does their own thing then some factions will straight up win quicker). The 0 marker meaning that when you declare an ambition (presumably one that you have a good chance at winning), then it both gives the rest of the table the potential for more actions AND essentially guarantees that you won't have initiative the next round. So declaring more than one ambition in a chapter, especially in a 4 player game, is very difficult to do, meaning you have to be able to somehow outplay the whole table at 3 separate objectives that all require different resources/actions. Sure that might happen sometimes, and clearly in this instance for you happened perfectly due to seemingly passive play from the table along with great rolling luck and very smart gameplay by yourself, but over a large number of games is pretty unlikely. I personally prefer the ambition system to Root's scoring (and Root is one of my top 3 favorite games of all time) because it allows for comebacks in a way that Root just simply doesn't. If a 27 point swing is possible in the 2nd chapter, I believe it's 34 (?) points in chapters 4 and 5, so you can literally be at zero and still always have a chance of winning. Very hard to do, yes, but in Root with the much more slow and consistent scoring, there are games where even though you can score it is basically impossible to win the game after turn 3 or so. Arcs having the potential for such explosive scoring, and that scoring requiring a combination of luck, good play on your part, and mistakes on the part of the rest of the table, means that no matter how many points you have heading into a chapter there is ALWAYS a chance you have to win. Sure the game doesn't really give you the tools to comeback in a way that some do, but the scoring structure means that the last few chapters always have at least the potential to lead to awesome moments. My second game playing this, for example, had a player who was at 0 heading into chapter 4, scored second place in one ambition, and in the 5th chapter vaulted into a tie for first (he lost on the tiebreaker due to initiative order, but was a couple die rolls away from winning). That was much more exciting than most endgames that Root has had for our group. Of course, that was just my group's experience so that's not to tell you how it should be! I hope you are able to learn to love this game as much as I do but it's definitely not for everyone, despite what some reviews might say. I don't think there's a single game that exists that's for everyone, though, to be fair.
This is a really wonderful response and one that I agree with in its entirety I believe. The challenge you present to my criticism of "blowout victories" is really well thought out and articulated. The idea that a player can swing back and win at any moment of the game is compelling - even if they are at 0 on the scoring track. I would have to observe and see if that type of smart dexterity in play is likely or common. In my experience, the players who did the best in round 1 and 2 - will secure enough points in round 3 to close the game. The opportunity for a player who is behind to come back seems very unlikely. While the game system might allow it - I don't know that it would every fully happen.
@@Quackalope It's certainly less likely to happen than the person being in first winning haha. Which I think is good, it would probably feel equally bad to regularly "throw away" the first 3 chapters for someone to steal it in chapter 4 every game! But even if it's a 5% chance as opposed to in some other games means that it can be very exciting - as long as all the players are willing to keep trying their best and don't just give up as soon as they are down by 10 points which has happened in a couple of my games and is very frustrating for the whole table. This game I imagine will take a large number of plays to fully grasp, and I definitely am not even close to there yet. It is so different from anything else in its genre (if such a game even exists), and the card play is so important and the ambitions such a driving force of the game that doing regular "collect some resources, spread out and secure some territory, do a few battles" that is generally good strategy for other space/battle-y games is often completely wasted actions here. I have a long way to improve but I've found that generally strategy tips for other games that have been ingrained in me and my habits have often not served me well in Arcs haha. It's very tough to have a game that requires players to be willing to have multiple (maybe even 10+) bad experiences before it "clicks", assuming it ever does, because who wants to show up to game night and get dunked on for 2 hours? Especially if you don't have regular games nights. Leder and specifically Cole have repeatedly said that they don't want to make games for everyone but rather want to make some people's favorite games of all time. That's a paraphrase but essentially depth, not width of audience. That's unfortunately why I basically don't teach Root to anyone anymore, the difference in skill level would be too much to be fun for anyone involved, and new players need to just be okay with being very confused and losing badly multiple times before it'll really be fun. With Root and Oath I was able to get to a point where they are two of my favorite games ever, but it's hard to ask that of others. I always wish I could play Root more than I actually do.
Interesting. I’ve played the game 6 times now. Have had one blowout and 5 insanely close! Butt clenching, Sweat dripping, Stress inducing games. Most recently I played the campaign and I won the game in a 1v1 by a whopping 1!!! Point lead. Most fun me and my girlfriend have had playing a board game in a long time. I love Root so much! I’ve played it more than any other game in my library and have all of the expansions but in those 30+ games I’ve seen only a handful of close games. A lot of them are blowouts. I love arcs because the points are so specific and catered to 5 easy to grasp concepts. BUT they are decided by players and should be taken into consideration and not claimed without the player being aware that the others could quickly sweep points away from them. This scenario seems awfully specific and I’m not gonna lie it also seems made up. Giving you the benefit of the doubt I’ll say it was real and did happen. You got lucky, but also analyzed your resources exceptionally well. If the other players knew the components of the game it should be no surprise you can milk a whole turn just for yourself with a union card. Dont drag others or the game down because of one scenario. SUSDs video was very well crafted and you’re using his name to boost your not so well crafted video.
The aggression card was the only card left at the table. My 7th card after players had already put down their 6th and last card. So, it came to me naturally and I was the only one to play.
@@Quackalope I see, I was just replaying this part till you put the nr1 again on the table thinking I am missing something and didnt catch it was the last card for everybody
@@Quackalope Do you think limiting the +2 and +3 bonuses to be counted only to one ambition per chapter would help prevent that (Or possibly twice, that would need some testing)? Just by default if you use it 3 times in a chapter, you get a minimum of 25pts, which sounds kinda insane
I think smaller scoring pockets would be interesting. Maybe you score 2 times in a chapter instead of once. Something to allow the game to progress and draw attention to a powerful player - without them closing the game before we can react.
Late to the party, and I don't see anyone else pointing this out, but spending a Weapons token doesn't give you another battle action - it gives you battle as an option for your 3 action pips. There shouldn't have been a 4th action to seal the game. Easy to miss; had to have it explained more than once in my first play through. Huge misplay here though.
The comments here are unreal. Seems every community -- even board game nerds -- are triggered into a rage at every little thing, including title wording, thumbnail choice, etc. I don't give to craps about Arcs (which is a mediocre game), but SUSD's over-exaggeration of this game should be just as maddening as anything else to you geniuses. Oops, triggered again! Sorry!
Man, going against hype sure draws you a lot of fire. As someone who's excited about the game... I don't quite get why everyone's so upset, just cause you don't like the boardgame they probably havent even played yet. I can totally understand that for a lot of people (you included) something like this would ruin the game. I personally think that this is just really cool. I also think however, that this is just kinda how Leder games work. Kingmaking, runaway victories, keeping eachother in check is pretty common, and I have had a player mope for an entire week over this after a game of Oath. And I think it's a valid matter of taste. This game is just a tad more trashy than you prefer I think. Again, you don't deserve the hate. Thanks for helping people make an informed decision.
I do want to add that the way you respond in the comments and title the video is definitely the thing drawing ire here. If it's intentional just to feed the algorithm, I kinda get it but I personally don't really believe in the whole "All publicity is good publicity" stuff.
That seems likely - but what do we default to then? Should the Victory points needed to win and end the game be less or more? Should the "take a card back" ability be removed or acknowledged as overpowered? The players at the table had little to no ability to counter this single turn victory. None of them saw it coming (even myself) and none of us enjoyed it.
@@Quackalope You have to design a game with smaller (micro?) turns (e.g. Antike). If you can do 17 things while everyone impotently watches, there is no stopping you. Fatal flaw.
I've been fooled once with the title, won't happen again. Taking one specific case with so many parameters that could have been different and claiming that because that is possible, the game is broken is BEYOND ridiculous (also, quite exhausting). If anything, you've shown that a losing player can still stay in the race and win. Well done, it increases my love of the game. And last but not least, I have seen MANY games finish with players very close to each other in terms of score. You can't have played that many times.
@@Scallywagz33 We used to :) it was hijacked by the mods when reddit tried to cancel me for a critical review. We have not made one since. Might get back to it.
I have had some amazing plays in Root as a Vagabond where I scored 15+. This victory was a result of luck and 2 hours of play prior. My first game, 2 player, had a 3 point difference in score. Maybe it's your player base?
![OsamaSon - ik what you did last summer [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4DIQDnu3mr4/mqdefault.jpg)
You're a pathetic loser, is that civil for you?
@@user-nz2bb4gp2d Perfectly clear. Thank you.
This is uncalled for. Please stay away from here.
@@MrMountie11 I think we can put the politics aside, none of us can really address the situation in the middle east and say who is good or bad but... You're absolutely right on the extortionist, scammer, and bad content part.
@user-nz2bb4gp2d lol, is that you, Leder games? :P
What the heck is this?
Honestly not sure how you could reasonably have so many cards and resources and cities built by chapter 2 if there are other people at the table who "know the game" it's really hard to figure out where you went wrong with your sudo recreation of what happened. It is likely that something was missed or not defended by other players. Would have loved to see the actual play through in detail since your recreation has some pretty large holes in it about how things happened. Lastly and most importantly. I feel like many of your video titles are starting to feel really clickbaity and calling out SUSD to drive the algorithm and grow your audience by piggy backing feels pretty cringe. If your analysis is good and your videos are compelling you don't need to try and create some sort of cheesy beef video you did the same thing with a previous arcs video before even learning the game. Did that video get more views because you mentioned SUSD in the title? Based on your other videos you are capable of making good content without this tactic
I mean, he could've had at least 4 from the leader he was playing with, but players should've seen that in chapter 1. None of what he says makes sense assuming the players he's playing with have any amount of competency.
This video could have been: "Watch out for this CRAZY Psionic x Warlord Arcs Combo!" and an overview of how you managed to play yourself into an insanely strong position (presumably because everyone else at the table was asleep?). Instead you pitched it negatively, presumably to drive engagement... Honestly, the lesson here is pretty simple: Never allow someone to go unchallenged for a victory condition. If someone had competed over psionics, you wouldn't have had those defacto points - And in fact as the Noble you would have probably lost them all for coming second.
How is it that you have uploaded 4 separate videos about one of the HOTTEST games right now, but you are still continuing to lose subs? 42.4 now? This is supposed to have the opposite effect isn't it? Anyway, your repeated mention of SU&SD in the TITLE of your video is absolutely tasteless. No matter how you spin it, you are definitely using them to attract clicks. If it was solely about the conversation surrounding their review, you could simply discuss it within the content of the video and not name them in the title to avoid using them, but you're doing this purposefully. Extremely tasteless and if you can't see this as part of the basis for your viewer distrust prior to ATO, there's no helping you. It honestly makes your previous set of apology videos mean very little because you keep employing the same practices. This is not me trolling you btw, i'm actually being sincere.
If you run a business why would you not talk about what's relevant? Shut up and sit down (least one of them) call it there #1 game. I appreciate the polarity of point of views.
@@TabletopFamily That's not the point. It's completely fine that he's talking about a relevant game as well as how his views contrast SU&SD. However, what a lot of people take issue with is his use of SU&SD's name in the TITLE of the video in order to generate clicks. It's sleazy and he has apologized for this sort of behavior in a series of apology videos fairly recently, but the fact that he is continuing to do it shows he wasn't being sincere. There are endless ways of generating clicks and working the algorithm that don't need to include using SU&SD.
@@StephenSnyder-pd4yk it's called marketing. Make sure you never buy anything you see in a commercial ever again. Ridiculous
@@TabletopFamily Yes and even in commercial marketing it's shameful and sometimes, depending on the country, it's not even legal to use another brand with intent to capitalize on their reputation. You are welcome to disagree, but given that he's lost probably around 200 subs in the past day or two, clearly plenty of people share the same sentiment as I do.
@@StephenSnyder-pd4yk I think he had to pay for the game and therefore feels like he needs to trash the game
Not sure why you're trying to start a war with SUSD. You've used them in at least two of your titles.
There is no war, how is he starting a war?
He uses SUSD in the title because they are more popular and will help bring traffic to the video
It's clickbait. His own rep is in the toilet, so he wants to generate clicks by calling out a RUclips channel that has some legitimacy.
**** me, I hate myself now for both clicking on this video AND commenting on it :(
@@john-qz3fuare you in ba sing se?
Right when I thought you hit rock bottom, you somehow can make it worse.
He is a dumpster fire of a content creator at the moment. Desperate times (and desperate people) call for desperate measures I guess.
...huh?
@@feruspriest ...huh?
What do you mean?
The fact that this critic, requires so many specific things to happen in game, invalidates your whole argument. Whole thing seems entirely set up.
Pull out the tin hats
So you found the one way that someone can get 27 points in one turn? I’m not sure what the point is, the game doesn’t have guardrails?
This seems incredibly specific and incredibly contrived. How can you have one game of, on your own accord, so much luck, and still believe it's a sweeping statement?
I also win every board game I play in one turn against my imaginary friends.
🤣
Quackalope continues to innovate in the realm of boardgame "content" 🙏 when you think they've hit rock bottom they keep digging down 💯 god bless
@@funnyonlineuploads what happened with the channel
couple comments on this. Firstly, harvesting shut up & sit down's popularity for clout is... sad. People are clearly very angry in the comments about it and many of them are being uneccesarily rude, but I'd encourage you to form your own opinions without feeling the need to drag someone elses through the mud. Secondly, while I agree this game certainly has blow out victories, you're missing that it also has unexpected comeback arcs. I encourage you to watch one of Tom's games: ruclips.net/video/B1cWCzYySjM/видео.htmlsi=x1btwvGq47Z35Zsa where he was very clearly loosing for a long time - so much so that they considered calling the game early - but managed to have an unexpected and glorious comeback. This game allows players to score huge amounts of points in a single chapter but that's not a bad thing. Something that I think you're missing about your own victory illustrated in this video, is that this game was actually really kind to the losing players. By ending the game quickly in chapter 2, other players weren't forced to sit there for another hour knowing they'll loose like they often have to in root, TI, or risk. Imagine if you won by the same number of points, but you scored them slower over the course of 5 chapters instead. That game would be miserable for everyone involved. And finally, like many people in the comments said, I don't think you winning was anywhere close to inevitable. You drafted strong cards, but anyone else could've seen the combo and counter drafted. You got lots of psyonics but anyone else could've seen that and raided you. You got loyal empath, but someone else could've (and should've) challenged you for it. All experienced players know loyal empath is one of the strongest cards. You had arms union, but arms union is really easy to steal and you waited a long time to use it. It's also important to note that the ambitions are sorted from worst to best. Tycoon is by far the hardest to secure and maintain while empath is the easiest. As soon as you declared empath, you should've been the tables target but it sounds like they didn't attack you at all. That was on them.
TLDR: you won because you played well and literally nobody even tried to challenge you
A truly insane attempt to point out a problem that requires an inordinate amount of setup in order to even exist. Very cool.
The point is that if you win all 3 ambitions with all buildings placed, you get 27 points. That doesn't rely on an inordinate amount of setup - it's going to happen in many games where someone gets combo pieces and isn't checked. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it happens and is worth noting. "Truly insane" is pretty outsized criticism...
Pure clickbait nonsense... Thanks for wasting my time...
Yea . . . it's not though. The content of the video is worthwhile. Despite BGG and twitters hatred of me.
@@Quackalope, really not interested in the pitty party... I got caught into the SUSD message and got nothing constructive from the vid. Hence felt click baited... As per your own admission a few comments in, is something you did. Fooled me this time. Never again.
Sorry you are disappointed. Glad others have enjoyed the content.
@@Quackalope No. Nobody does.
@@stephanclose9384 I do :)
I’m so glad I stopped following this channel a long time ago.
then why are you here?
Still following!
I’m so glad you came to let everyone know you aren’t coming.
Thanks for the support! Glad to have you here :)
It just seems like the rest of the table allowed you to run away with the win!
You have to agree that having all buildings on the map, a ton of psionics and the most kills is very hard to pull off.
More than anything I think this is a lesson for your friends about having more awareness and being proactive on possibly game winning game states!
These constant posts about the hottest game are a bit tiresome. A lot of words that will not age well in fact. This is a dishonest channel and it doesn't surprise me that the people are leaving... Besides that I think Shut up & Sit down have by far the most informative and interesting takes on a lot of my favorite board games and you can see it's from the heart. So maybe I would also refrain from bringing up other channels it will do no good :p
- Sees the amazing video SU&SD did
- Thinks “what if I do a contrary video?”
- Only reveals that he hasn’t played it enough & doesn’t understand the game well.
Desperate. Sadly desperate. I hope you get the help you need once you give the channel up.
Please, it's past embarrassing now.
Hard disagree. Sounds like you all just need to play the game more.
You have played a handful of games. Tom of SU&SD have played 40+. But HE is the one missing something?
No. You are the one that pulls new players into the campaign, without playing the base game first, disregarding the recommendations, and still complain about the experience. You are the one, going into a boardgame, expecting the game to hold your hand and ensure that everyone finishes at roughly the same score. Like a family going to a bowling alley, and have the guardrails pop up for the kids, to help them not throw the ball in the gutter every time. And thus, players of wildly different ability levels can have a bit of fun together.
This game is NOT that. You can get obliterated by a smarter player (or alliance of players) playing a fate which is better suited for the current environment. Any one game will not protect you from that. It leans into it, and the stories it creates. THEN comes the guardrails, which allows you to reboot your faction with a new fate, and allow you to attempt a comeback in the next game. That is not a flaw in the game. That is a clear design choice. That type of game experience may not be for you. And that is completely fair. But please don't be the guy that goes into a game of Diplomacy expecting everyone to get along, or a game of Fluxx, and then complaining about your lack of strategic options. You are putting forth specific expectations for the game, which it by design will not deliver. And it shouldn't. It's like demanding an easy to learn, cooperative game experience from a game of Advanced Squad Leader, and not realizing this is a different game than what you were looking for, but insisting that it is a problem the game didn't give you that experience.
(You may or may not have touched on some of these points later in your video, but after watching the first few minutes of the video, I did not care to stay for the rest. Sorry.)
And to the haters that just turn up to drop hate: Please move along now. This channel erred on a few occations and got slammed. We _all_ make mistakes. And if you got slammed for something like that, you would probably appreciate the chance to move on. Perhaps even forgiveness. What is interesting is what the channel decide to do moving forward. That is what will show the real character behind. Don't bash on people. Not even the ones you don't like. State your opinion when the matter is relevant. Don't be a hater. Nobody likes haters.
Looks like SU&SD didn’t pay the $7,500 reshoot fee 😢
I agree with many others that you should probably keep another creators name out of your video titles (unless it’s a colab), it feels juvenile and unprofessional. I appreciate the attempt to make this video work, it’s hard to find reviews that are 100% honest and not just clouds and rainbows. That being said, the negativity and length of the video makes it hard to watch. Maybe reviews for games that aren’t good to you could be reigned in a bit and/or shortened. I like how some other channels put reviews for games that didn’t meet their expectations (good or bad) in list style videos so that the point that the creator wants to make is short and sweet. In the past, I was a more regular viewer when your videos were focused on positivity and having fun with your wife and friends/creators. To be fair, I’m only here because I saw Tom’s tweet, the algorithm hasn’t been pushing your videos to the top of my feed for some time now. Hopefully this felt constructive to read and not annoying (If you read it at all lol), keep on working hard and keep on quackin’ man. 🦆
Dang, you could’ve just given your own review without mentioning SUSD in the title. This isn’t a peer-reviewed article where citing folks you part company with is standard practice.
So the game is awful because you gained 27 victory points in one turn? I did that in root against 3 other experienced players recently, jumped from dead last to well over 30 to win. Does that make root terrible?
Even if you're all mostly experienced, that doesn't make you all skilled. Luck, and certainly skill played a part in this.
Tom from SUSD has played 50+ games of Arcs. Jesse has barely played 5 times and somehow thinks he has enough knowledge of the game to make 4 videos, which end up being filled with rules mistakes and terminology errors. He’s not adding to the conversation, just convoluting it with lazy journalism.
@@boxcarbuddha6505 . . . 5 times at this point of recording this. You popped over to leave rude comments and didn’t even watch 10 seconds of the video?
@@Quackalope I edited my comment to 5 times played on your end. I made it as far as I could in the video, apologies for misrepresenting you dude… although I think the rest of my comment still stands. Whether or not SUSD’s video is higher praise than you agree with, Tom has created two very long and extremely thoughtful video essays that are (to my knowledge) void of rules mistakes. You should simply take more time understanding the games you are pumping out videos for, so that you could in turn influence to your audience more fairly.
For me, I’m going to be producing 10-12 videos around Arcs and most games I cover going forward. It’s how we can do deep content without killing / or sacrificing the channel as a whole. It’s hard to find the right balance for sure - but for us - a single review after 40 games or even two reviews - would be the death of the channel due to the time invested. On top of that - I would be competing directly with SUSD who have years and year ahead of me and honestly - make the best content of their style in the whole space. No Pun has ran into this issue many times.
So, for us - we are doing our own style and approach to deep coverage. Videos like this - are one snapshot of our experiences - leading up to a final review after 10,20, or maybe even 40 games.
@@Quackalope I won’t pretend to have any insight on the behind the scenes of your content creation. Even now you have shed some light regarding the parameters that you have to deal with in terms of time management for each project. Although I feel as though you have a responsibility to your audience, as well as those who brought us the game in the first place, to represent it accurately. I appreciate your response and hope that the future of your channel will find that sweet spot.
Thanks for the advice and well worded response. I do believe that I am representing the game accurately - granted - I am representing it throughout my play experience. So my first impressions are accurate for only a few plays. This experience is an accurate recounting my 5th game. It’s a unique one. It’s certainly able to be mitigated by experienced players - however - many tables will have this same moment as they start digging into the game.
My final video - after 20+ plays - will be accurate. Just like SUSD is in many ways. However - it’s only accurate in context. The right group. The amount of players. The number of times you all played. Etc. My issue with their review is that it does little to account for the other very different experiences this game is designed to facilitate.
I hope to be a bit more wide with my coverage. It very well be the best game of the year for some (I don’t think they are lying) however, it’s certainly not for many others - and it’s worth exploring why for both.
Next week’s video:
Why all the games in the top 100 are actually terrible!
Bonus episode:
SUSD has a problem! They like playing board games… board games are bad.
@@howlerandstumonkey love the ideas! Thanks for this brainstorming session :)
🤣
WTF two chapters should not take you 100 - 120 minutes. You’re all either taking way too long or the style of game is simply not meshing with most of the group. Unless that one person is exceptionally skilled, with repeated plays amongst most of the same people should not see early blowout wins like this. And if blowouts in general are occurring frequently, early or late, everyone is not watching the board state enough or not considering the possibilities. You should not simply be focused on your game.
Each Chapter should almost be considered as its own state to start from. There is only so much you can strategize long-term in a game like this.
Wasn't there an issue before with this channel and some game publisher who refused to pay them and got a bunch of negative videos?
i like your content. im not a hater. so please understand this as someone who keeps watching and wants to see you succeed. dont use other reviewers and such in your titles. unless this is literally a review of them as a company (avoid that like the plague), then there is no place for this terrible video title. comments on the game should be on the game. attempting to generate clicks for a single video like this is not a sincere way to make board game review content. and especially in the wake of the prior year's issues (btw i am not one who views your actions as malicious in that case and in fact had about equal distaste toward ATO's actions). i hope that you can get the channel back on track with honest, sincere game loving content. im rooting for the channel to thrive for you again.
Have to agree. I'm rooting for the channel and am invested in it's content, but name-dropping is bad form. Make compelling content and the views and subs will come. Scratch their name an propose an industry question instead. "...is this compelling?","...success or frustration?","...what are we missing?"
Having said that....I hear you. If everyone is hunting for the blowout victory or none are then maybe it's not a problem, but if only one is playing for it, it may be frustrating. It's the same with build and "deny progress" mechanics. If all are building then it's a competition for the best builder, but if one plays denial, the rest may just find it a turn-off.
I agree with the above sentiments. I want you to succeed and feel you bring a valuable perspective to this space, but including SU&SD in the title comes of as a ploy for more clicks and feels a bit mean. Opinions and experiences should be shared and discussed in an objective way. Your experiences and opinions of the game are well articulated and valid. But so are the thoughts and opinions of SU&SD. Please consider changing the title of this video to make it more about your experience and not a dis of someone elses. ✌️ ❤
I’m not sure what he’s going through right now but this series of videos have been disappointing
This channel sucks so much now...
Hi Jesse! I tried to follow your move but when you destroyed those two Cities you should have Provoked Outrage in both Resource Types, one of which was Materiel. You place Agents on them on your player card and the effect is you cannot use those prelude actions. So I think your two city builds were illegal?
Hey, the two locations I broke in order to build were space ports not cities. Again, this is not a perfect reflection of the game - it is an attempt to walk you all through how it worked and felt at the time. Everyone was following, checking, and understood the rules. We even had a rules lawyer sitting at the table who was 4 games deep at the time :)
Also, the places I built on were clear before I took the final turn of the game where I built. I did not take any prelude actins out of order. In this breakdown I made that a bit more confusing than I would have preferred.
@@Quackalope It's not the rules that went wrong. What went wrong is that your rivals didn't have their eyes on the ball, err, ambitions.
You went after every ambition you could get and were allowed to get them all, which shouldn't be possible and implies that your rivals were distracted. So the VPs reflect the situation correctly.
Tldr trying to play Arcs like multiplayer solitaire doesn't win you the game.
Why not have a few games on TTS and see if you’re getting the same result?
I won't comment on the nature of the video as others have done that already, but I will praise you Jesse for allowing constructive and even non-constructive criticism to remain throughout every video on your channel. A lot of content creators would just delete negative comments, so the fact you uphold that transparency deserves some praise in my book.
Appreciate it. I’m happy to talk and engage and read what people say and think :) sadly, many in the comments just want to drop their opinion and expect me to agree and capitulate.
@@Quackalope No problem at all! I personally appreciate your more sceptical coverage of this game. I was ready to go out and buy this but I am thinking more critically now, partially because of the concerns you have raised in your various videos.
It’s important to have balanced coverage of games. Thank you for providing a more apprehensive viewpoint.
Glad to add my voice to the conversation. I don’t hate it for the record like many seem to think. In fact, it’s got some very cool elements at play. However - it’s going to be wrong for many many people.
Lesson for the other players: Stopping somebody else winning multiple ambitions is maybe more important than trying to snap a few points of a single one. Also, leaving your buildings unprotected while owning a cartel card is just stupid.
Takeaway: If you can’t read the board other players will win big. Not a bad game - just bad players.
Haha, this could very well be true - also, how many games should you have to play to be competitive with a game?
@@Quackalope it depends on the game and the type of game it's trying to be. For example, checkers takes like 30 games, and you can be really good at it, you can play chess 1000 times and still be ass at it.
Have had nothing but close games with arcs. I feel like one player got the best guild cards in the game and everyone else at the table did nothing about it. Biggest lesson from this is that "experienced players" should read the cards in the game and understand that cetain cards and combos are able to take game winning actions. This video has little to nothing to do with SU&SD.
@@coolguymanthing6925 this absolutely feels like a scenario that did not happen. It feels like “can I fabricate a scenario that looks like it breaks the game and then harvest views from it?”
I think some of your issues is a fixation on points as defining a margin for victory. It was not a blowout as, theoretically, any player can score the required points to win. Losing Chess in in 15 moves is not always a blowout. Someone may have made a mistake or someone played very well or some combination of both. Many games that have potentially 30 turns can at any point be 1-3 turns from the end of the game.
Chess is somewhat different since there's only two players. The problem really isn't the blowout itself, it's the manner in which it occurs. It's the same issue the Vagabond had in Root - when you've got a game where two or three players are in fierce competition on the score track only to lose suddenly to a player who, at least seemingly, has done nothing up until that point it's a fairly big anti-climax and will tend to leave players feeling unsatisfied.
@markwatson8714 i would say thats a far better option then to have a game where 2-3 people are on fierce competition and the 3-4th players are just out of contention waiting for the end or king making. Everyone loves an underdog story 😜
@@zak1090 It's more down to the game. There's nothing wrong per se with allowing a player to go from zero to victory in a single turn, many games actually do that. They do however tend to be those intended for much shorter play times, Fluxx for example. The problem you get in a longer game is it's incredibly tricky to do it in a way that doesn't leave the losing players feel like they've just wasted the past two hours of their life (which is one of the reasons most people go off games like Fluxx and Munchkin after having a game of it run to the two hour mark).
Hmmm we loved it and all player counts loved it not seeing the issue here
something is wrong here.
Can't say that people weren't in a position to ever win, and then say you can win in a turn. Means you always get the option.
Also, it was in two turns, the setup in the first turn is part of it.
wow.. you try so hard to keep audience since that issue with the kicstarter.... next video title "Tom Vassel is a big ass".... and mid video you say "a big asset in the the board game review community" .. how sad..
@@americoxx77 Great title. Thanks.
Different question: Why are you so hung up on what SUSD is saying? Would have been an amazing video without that
They are the biggest BG review channel . . . They called this the best game of 2024 and potentially Tom’s best game of all time.
@@Quackalope Yes but what's it to you? Your channel surely isn't about commenting on other channels for clicks? A direct reference like that feels like you are trying to leech and garner momentum because their is a hype wave right now. The unfortunate thing about it is that your video is actually good, the points you are making are totally worth discussing but the clickbait stuff...let's move past that already
@@elqord.1118 Man, it’s relevant to the conversation. They are the BIGGEST in the space. I’m not picking on them. I’m posting quality content and doing my best to get it viewed. I understand if you hate the way it works - I get it - trust me. However, I didn’t invent the game and I’m sure not able to fix or change it. If this video was titled “A breakdown of a single game of Arcs” or “How I won Arcs in a unique and conflicting way” it would get absolutely no views, no engagement, and have died in the RUclips black hole.
I get it. Trust me. I have overstepped in the past and my goal is not to do that in the future. However, referencing the biggest reviewer in our industry - who gave complete and unabashed praise to this very game - is completely and totally fair.
@@Quackalope I completely agree with the OP, would have been a way better video without the SU&SD leeching, and you probably could have avoided the sub loss. Using SU&SD in your title is not "totally fair," and not necessarily the "way it works." You are convincing yourself of this and a large portion of the board gaming community is telling you that they hate it. You want to be a part of the community but you're not listening whatsoever. What sort of game do you think you're playing if everything you are doing is ending in a loss?
@Quackalope it's an 8.4 on bgg for the base game and 9.2 for the expansion. I think it's fair to say it's the best thing to come out this year so far.
Honestly, this shows me how great the game is. You played a tactical game and your opponents played a strategic game, focusing on their own goals, and ignoring the rest of the board. Great play on your part and I guarantee they won’t let something like this happen again.
Right? How're you going to line everything perfectly and execute a plan, with a bit of luck from the dice and not be extatic that you pulled of the perfect move???
Honestly to me this video seemed like a video to brag masked as a video about a problem with the game. But maybe that’s just me idk
XD not quite - but I can see how you get that impression. If I was all about the ego boost . . . BGG would be crushing my sole at the moment!
Wait until he hears about Fool's Mate... 😅
That game is also difficult to teach. And nobody I play with wants to play it! WHY DOES SUSD LIKE IT SO MUCH?
@@okkiebok a game that has been played and lauded over for 1500 years, and it turns out you can straight up LOSE on turn 4?!!? My god, guys, how is everyone missing this? This is a FATAL FLAW in a game that seems to be unstoppable in the minds of so many. I am disappointed, and honestly, I don't think I'll show a single one of my friends chess ever again.
If every other game ends in chapter 2 that might be problem. But as a rare occasion - while other players were focused on their own stuff and not paying attention to what that player over there is doing, while he does everything right - not a biggie. It's possible to win chess in a few moves if the other player doesn't pay attention.
Not having an Aggression card isn't a major problem. Tax a weapon and any card has aggression.
The comparison with Root is interesting. Sure, there's no possibility of somebody winning in round 2. But as much as I like Root, my number 1 problem with it is that the VP track often leads to boring non-climactic endings Somebody crafts a boot and gets to 30. Glorious.
Haha, the classic Boot win :)
I understand and totally agree with your thoughts. What is your opinion on every one of our 5 games being a blowout victory so far?
Slight correction, a weapon adds battle to any card, it does not turn the card into an aggression card. I have to check myself every time I start to make this mistake, when I remember that the card I am trying to (roughly) “turn into an aggression card” has no ability to Move on it.
I love the chess analogy.
To the question of whether (assuming similar skill levels and play to win, non-experimental mentalities) five out of five games being blowouts is a good, bad or indifferent thing, I would say there is a rebuttable presumption that that is bad.
My ideal game has no “one best way to play.“ But rather there is balance between different approaches to playing the game. Sometimes this might even rely on alliances between some players to counter the leading player.
If uncounterable automatic wins can be had, a game is typically termed “broken.” A designer, of course wants to test for and eliminate this problem.
@@Quackalope To me the important question is: Did the better player/strategy win?
By how much is entirely secondary.
If I lose 4 vs 22 in a 2 player game (this happened :-) ) does that properly reflect that my opponent grasped the quasi-trick taking faster and was better focused on the ambitions? The answer is yes and so the scores were correct. Whether I'm at 4 or 17, I lost because my opponent played much better.
I believe the more extreme differences are mostly due to the +2/+5 for 4/5 cities.
If everyone was playing the Corvid Conspiracy or Woodland Alliance in Root. Wouldn't all victories appear to be blowouts?
This is a nuts scenario to be sure. However, I think the point of the game is wrestling over who is letting who blowout.
This ain't a Euro game with incremental points. This is "trying to wrestle an electric eel that hates you". You might get zapped lol.
If you don't like base game I can't imagine you liking campaign. It just aint for you mate.
Yes, but only after the game has gone on for many rounds and ignored them as they spread . . . and everyone can't play them. The root math wont allow it.
@@QuackalopeI think you're missing my point. Obviously Root can't be played that way. But Arcs IS played that way. Anyone can explode at any point, winning the game. The scoreboard doesn't reflect how close or far away people are from victory, it reflects who achieved it first.
Just like if everyone we're playing Corvid, people would be trying to stop each other from exploding, but inevitably one person would. Their score would be way above the others. That doesn't mean others weren't close to exploding, it just means they didn't do it first.
People should be wary of and trying to stop/achieve explosions all game. It's fundamentally an opportunistic game.
Your game was a freak incident where everything aligned so you could capitalize on an opportunity. You won.
To me that sounds hilarious. But I could see how it rubs people the wrong way. If it didn't happen for you that turn, and someone else exploded next turn, it didn't mean that you weren't close to winning the turn before. You know what I mean?
I could still see why someone wouldn't like that, but I hope I'm getting my point across that it's more about opportunity capitalization than it is purely about getting points like a euro game.
One does not simply walk over SU&SD and Arcs.
Seems fair - good thing I’m stopping to make 10-12 videos.
Hey, I love SU&SD, if Arcs had been available I would have bought it instantly because FOMO. Like I did with a second hand copy of Android Netrunner. But it is good to hear negative thoughts as well. I don’t know what all the drama is with this channel, but I’m always surprised people get so invested in calling out negatives. So I hope you took my comment as an attempt at humour, that’s all. And good luck.
Haha, no worries at all :) I even take the “your a idiot” one with a sense of humor. The internet is a funny world :)
I love SUSD as well - and have bought from Fomo so much!
So basically, they successfully made it feel like your playing space factions balancing each others powers as if you were a leader actually doing so. Not just a chess game more like root. Actually has politics and self balancing that naturally happens between factions. This means someone good at paying attention, negotiating, and all that does well here and still has a chance to completely take over if they run free long enough without others realizing. Idk how to word it. lol... Game is basically balanced around politics like your actual factions maneuvering around and against each other to try and get away with things without notice as long as possible so as to get the most out of something as much as you can before that option is found out and shut down. Failure to notice results in the chance for massive gains. Actually a cool and good thing as a catch up/surprise/tension/keep behind players in the game, type of mechanic.
Yeah, a lot of the fun in the game is having the possibility to do amazing turns like yours. Allowing that possibility to exist usually means the game isn't going to be balanced around non-interaction, simple and less swingy abilities.
The game seems to reward more plays. Like you said the person who also enjoyed it had played more games than the other two who didn't like it.
I think it's like you compared to Root. This is a game that will grow with more plays and has a lot of depth to it to really avoid the types of blowouts you are describing. I'm curious how the campaign would play out since you'll have more time to do something about someone who is ahead by that much.
Base Arcs I don't think was the game that Cole set out to design, the fullly developed and purposeful game is in the blighted reach. Cole did say bad plays should be punished so it does fit in his philosophy that he doesn't design games to keep players close in score intentionally.
Experience is going to be essential. In fact, I would love to play this with anyone who knows the game deeply! However, major swings like this - felt bad for all players involved.
@Quackalope yeah I get that. Might be fun to play on TTS with other fans. The physical version might be hard with a general game group. I'll play with you any time :)
1. Heavy cardboard has multiple plays, both standalone and campaign, without this level of imbalance. Perhaps reach out to Edward to discuss? Could be an interesting new crossover I'd be interested in watching.
2. While you went from 0 to hero in a hurry, there was a lot of telegraphing what your intentions were to get all the necessary pieces in place to do it. If your table was not situationally aware enough to deny them to you, I'm very hesitant to solely blame the game. This is partially an instance of plan better, play better. You did, they didn't. Learning experience.
3. You did mention the inclination towards games that require player initiated balancing... Cole and Leder are both known for leaning into this type of design (Pax Pamir and Crystal Cavern are good examples, and Root also requires this to some extent). Perhaps this just isn't your favorite game mechanic? I'm generally not a fan of co-op or campaign games so I actively avoid them, though there are rare instances where I enjoy both (like Too Many Bones). Root might be one of your exceptions.
Came here to drop a dislike
Thanks for the dislike :)
@Quackalope My pleasure. I actually re subscribed hoping for some interesting content but this is just deliberately contrarian and clearly using click bait titles. Susd didn't miss anything Tom played this game hundreds of times over months. You opened it a week ago and set out to stir the pot for views.
Well, he did leave out any criticism in his first review. So, it feels like something was missed.
Idk - you tell me if it’s perfect :D
Is this yet another Quackalope downfall?
Nah, not even close :) - just a angry nest of hornets.
@@Quackalope That will buzz things up a lot
@@filippoghisoni6569 They really like to nest on BGG and Twitter.
@@Quackalope relentless
heartly message,
I didn't know you were driving your channel with cheap clickbaits tactics. but since sometimes I am noticing a trend with you.
and now I realize even the characters font and size of your caption are odd...
this is deceiving, I thought more highly of you.
I don't know if it is because of money issue or just your nature but try something else.
you can actually talk about boardgames in an very insightful way and bring value.
don't jump in the RUclipsr drama farming loop just to build engagement on your channel please.
SUaSD can be wrong, this is an opinionated hobby very rare things are objective, you don't need to drag your viewers into a channel vs channel set up.
your viewers are not brainless teenagers TikTok users addicted to dopamin rush. they will spot the strings of the cheap clickbait scheme. profiles who follow boardgame channel know about the schemes of internet.
boardgames are exactly the kind of product you don't have to make a video to explain why someone else opinion is wrong. you are not reviewing technology.
plus there is no huge engagement to farm on boardgame video with baiting tactics. and you don't need this to be interesting.
please do better.
Arcs and Root are singularly outstanding games to a large number of gamers. They are also disliked for a few things like king making, player balancing, learning the pros & cons of the asymmetric factions, finding a group that likes to grow with the game, etc. These are characteristics of COIN games. I love these games where learning how to play the game better with each play is so satisfying!!!
As with Quacks videos on Root I would not be surprised that the rules are not being understood and followed. While it is fine to be one who doesn't like these types of games and expressing that, I don't see why Quacks is making so many videos on Arcs. It seems Quacks just wants to trash the game.
Jesse, there's this game called chess, and I think it has a similar fatal flaw.
Why is GothamChess not seeing this?
Haha, the investment of rules, time, and open information makes this a very silly argument.
I think one reasons that Wehrle's games can often garner very mixed responses is that they often take mechanisms and systems that *look* familiar but play around with them in ways that are unfamiliar, which can mean that heuristics associated with those systems can turn out not to be unhelpful.
So in the example play you describe it sounds like you had built towards a much stronger position to win than anyone realised because two board games tropest that usually give you easy ways of telling 'who is winning' turned out to be misleading.
You had 0 VP, and other players had more, so everyone assumed you were in the weakest position.
You didn't have loads more pieces on the board than anyone else, so didn't look more of a threat than anyone else threat.
In most games those simple to read metrics of threat are reliable guides, but not in Arcs it seems.
You're *real* threat was the combination of leader and guild cards , but in order to realise that other players needed to read all those cards, and grok how they interacted with the games systems and realise the combinatorial threat they represented and spend more of their resources trying to raid them from you, or prevent you from securing them all in the first place. Also the fact that you're next two cities uncovered the extra VP bonuses, is a threat, but one that is hidden as small bits of text under under 2 triangles of cardboard.
That requires much more cognitive load, and a more sophisticated understanding of the game than looking at positions on a VP track, or seeing map dominance in numbers of pieces. In order to get a full view of the state of the game a players needs to read and understand the every players tableau of cards and player board. That makes the game much less accessible than other games, even thoigh it doesn't look that way at first glance.
So you caught everyone by surprise, and losing by surprise is often the most disappointing, it either makes you feel stupid, or makes you want to 'blame the game' (Why didn't the game tell me he was winning?)
I've been following you for years and have watched many videos with enthusiasm. Now I write constructively that I find it a shame that your thumbnails are very negative and somewhat take away the desire to watch the videos, and you immediately delete this comment? Wow ... and unfollowed :)
I have not removed any comments. lol
Yeah nothing deleted here
Hm, that's pretty strange because I could even see the comment in my RUclips app under the video for a few minutes after sending it 🤔. If that's the case, I'm very sorry for my reaction. Was a bit too triggered 😅
No worries. I don't tend to remove comments - even mean ones I often just engage with. If someone said something about my wife . . . . I would remove or block it then.
My original comment was not meant to be mean. I just wanted to point out that I find it a bit unfortunate when thumbnails for Arc, for example, are so sensationally negative: "skeptical", "don't buy on hype", "...you Play it wrong" (I know this title is not theoretically meant to be negative, but in the series of others, even the wording is negative) and "... terrible horrible...". I understand the need for a certain amount of "clickbait", but I don't think it needs to be so pessimistic, even for a polarizing game like Arc. This is all my opinion and meant constructively :).
This video is a good example why you are losing subs. Youve only played the game FIVE times. This is a severe edge case that probably rarely happens. SUSD has played the game FIFTY times. Im trusting them over you.
5 times with 5 blowout victories (this being the worst of the lot) seems like a notable achievement for such a edge case scenario. Especially when SuSd didn’t have a dedicated moment of criticism in their initial video. 40 games seems like enough to find a few problems . . . Or at least point out where the game won’t work for other groups.
If that event keeps you engaged and excited about the game then this video is a pure clickbait and a very effective advertisement for this awesome game.
this is a silly game, both frustrating and rewarding.
and thats why it's so popukar right now.
because it breaks the rules.
Yep, I am not trying to hurt the game . . . I am trying to talk about it and share more information as I explore and experience Arcs through multiple plays.
It's as if you think I don't want it to be or I would be upset if it were good advertising for them?
Watching both channels videos I have some thoughts that I think are important to remember…
I feel that part of the disconnect between SUSD & Quack is that Tom has played far more games and seems much more comfortable and versed. Quacks played, by his own admission, 5 games, Vs. 40+ that Tom has played. That’s a huge difference in experience and I would say that Quacks plays still puts him at a learning stage.
It also sounds that Quacks group is just not the type for Arcs, he wants solvable games, Arcs is not that. There is a layer of chaos baked into the game that will always be there.
My plays have been with a range of people. 2, 3, and 4 player experiences. With a total of 6 different people. I 100% agree that being 40 plays deep is an important factor and I will add that everyone at the table needs to be just as experienced or you will have major problems.
However, how have they not seen situations like this happen in 40 games? Every single one of my 5 plays have resulted in a blowout victory with some players feeling completely shut out.
@@Quackalope It's totally possible that they have seen blowouts like this and their playgroup is more okay with it as long as there's a good story told or whatever decides a good game night for them? Would be interesting to see the results of Tom's games
@@Quackalope an inexperience with how to prevent said blowouts?
Yes, I agree - but for a review I think it would be mentioned.
Hey Superslomoe, I think the only way to prevent blowouts like this is to have active table negotiation happening. Something I think SUSD is doing when they play - but not something the core game is designed to facilitate. It is mentioned as a option in the rules but importantly noted "nothing is binding" if they players do engage in table talk and deals.
I havent played Arcs and know nothing about the fame but from your "something along the lines" recreation I see two problems. One is that you missed some kind of rule and the other is that your opponents dont know how to play. After pretty much any thing you did you followed up that no one could do anything about it. Its super weird that this can be the case so early in the game. And you being the most experienced with 5 games isn't really giving me confidence
The biggest issue I can see from this, the conversation, and game session moving forward - is that fairly significant knowledge is needed to be effectively competitive at Arcs. This scenario is certainly one mixed with both inexperience / poor strategic play and a game system where large swings can happen with no mitigation if you don’t recognize the threat and act multiple turns in advance.
Listen, it’s a competitive game. The best player will win, unabashedly. I feel like you guys are playing it in more of a “let’s have fun and laugh about our day as we play!” type game. You can do that, but… it’s kind of like doing that in chess and then hanging a rook… yeah, then it’s gonna be a blowout and there’s nothing the other player can do about it. You have to be very engaged the whole time.
Honestly I think ROOT was the outlier for you guys with Cole Wehrle games. They are niche for a reason.
I got it now, i found that most people hate this game because they can't 'control' the game, that's what I heard all this about
It took you two hours to play two chapters?
Would love a gameplay video rather than purely retrospective. Love the content & thoughts.
Coming soon! We are building to a 3 part campaign series.
Okay, I instantly regret clicking on this video now that I've seen the full title. I want to hear your opinions, why do you have to be so instigating?
If you want to hear my opinions - you should not mind us making a thumbnail and title that gets your attention. RUclips won’t show this to you and others like it has if we use bland headings.
@@Quackalope Your thumbnail got my attention. Your title repulsed me, and lost my entire interest.
Appreciate it. They did leave out any criticism . . . So hopefully their “best game of 2024” also repulsed you as at least equally skewed.
The board seems to be set up as if it was for 5 players but there are only 4.
Also the open 5 player sector has only the "winner" towns/colonies and ships.
Curious.
Yep, did you hear me outline that this was a general recreation with the hope of sharing - not recreating.
This sounds like an awesome game of Arcs! I don't know what your group wants out of games?! If you cared about your group enjoying Arcs, then you should NOT play with Leaders and Lore because the players don't enjoy an extra layer of "sneaky" tactics to keep track of.
It sounds like randomness is the key issue here, with agency (or lack thereof) not having enough of an impact on that randomness, which can result in the types of situations you're talking about (ie. blowout victories and inability to win). Ie. That random chance to get your combo is probably quite rare, but yes it's a problem.
Those being rude to you here - love that you pinned the most offensive. hahaha. Good on you.
I think it's important for everyone to take in all perspectives on a given title, and then make your own decision. The issue you've highlighted here I don't necessarily think is a huge issue for the game, the game itself is quite good, but randomness can always ruin a good experience :P I also think it's more of an issue with the campaign side of the game (you mentioned act 2), so it's worthwhile pointing out that you used the expansion which has way more game systems in play, which compounds that randomness aspect.
Appreciate your findings and feedback despite the global hype. For those who can’t play the game digitally to make your own decision we need the most diverse opinion possible to find why or why not the game might be for you and your game group
It's an weird title, "Why is Shut Up & Sit Down missing this?". And a particular session for "Why SUSD love it?" When has this channel become a "response to SUSD channel now?"
"you have to believe that it happened." - the book of Proverbs 3:05
So . . . you don't? :)
@@Quackalope I'm not here to pass judgement, if it did happen then it's on very rare occassions and exclusively dependent on certain factors so it's a none issue.
@@DanielPhelan every game has been a blowout - that’s the other issue.
@@Quackalope what do you mean by blowout?
Victories where one more players have less than 10 points and in some cases have less than five.
The play you described actually sounds awesome. Had i not already owned the game you would have just sold it to me.
On a side note, have you made a video about what kind of values you want from a board game experience?
For me, if I can walk away from a game with a thematic experience I’m pretty happy, win or lose. I never worry much about winning.
So, was it Leder Games or SU&SD who wouldn’t pay your ransom?
I think the swingy nature of the game is an inherent design choice. I am currently watching the Arcs Campaign review and they showed a picture of the scorepad used for a game early on. Interestingly, one player seemed to have had a blowout victory in the 3rd act (there are 2 scores in for the 3rd act 52 and 16 shown) but, I think a blowout in one act can be offset by the scores in the second or third. I'm interested in how you think the campaign goes and am looking forward to it.
I find that Arcs draws in a certain type of player - one that enjoys climbing "the ladder of chaos" and also doesn't mind getting up from being kicked down or striving from a seemingly bad score/position (or doesn't take it as personally). It is a mean game - players in a losing position can be poached on from other players and there is nothing stopping that except good will. It also has a high skill curve - someone with experience will almost always stomp on newer players. In this way it probably has an overlap with players who love games like TI4 (which SUSD love).
I'm really excited to try this game out. I honestly think all of Leder Games' games have this kind of problem to it just becuase of how complicated they are. Can't say that any of them are perfect but what board games are? I do believe that this game though just cause of how the actions are and the cards you get dealt cause a lot of issues for consitency and whatnot but it's kind of interesting at the same time. Also that shirt is awesome! Again awesome work Jesse! Would love to see some gameplay whenever you have time :)!
The game is a wonderful in a number of ways. The card play is absolutely excellent, the dice are magical, and with a group of players who are 10-15 games deep . . . man, it has got to be brilliant. However, I would never want to teach this game to a new group every time I played. It is way too unbalanced.
@@Quackalope yeah I get that for sure! Again I believe every Leder Games game is like that as well lol. Showing Root to a new group for the first time was a terrible experience for me 😂!
Though I disagree with your take, I am not going to be a hypocrite like some people and be civil, by not sinking down to the level of name calling. I think it is good to have a contrary opinion about Arcs on RUclips. Though I disagree with your opinion, I respect you none the less. I sill absolutely frickin love this game, but your video has helped me a few of its flaws. Nothing is perfect, but it can be enjoyed none the less.
“I think fun is, uh, overrated as a
design goal. What I am interested in is,
is the thing worthy of attention?”
Cole Wehrle
Haha, well - Arcs is 100% worth paying attention to. So much of the game is designed brilliantly - it is just, maybe, unbalanced.
I’ve played twice at 3 and 4 players. Our games have been long. 4+ hours each. They both consisted of large amounts of nasty negotiation, threats and insults. It is mean and very cutthroat. I do think that negotiation and alliances are a big part of the game. In order to survive you have to beat up on the leader or person who is going to benefit the most if you don’t. I’ve been having fun and I also think it is worthy of attention. I will say with my limited plays It feels like it has a high skill limit. Not everyone in my group loved it but they all admitted that it is very interesting. We will add leaders and lore next. This I’m sure will add another layer that you have to pay attention to. I think some of the combos the mini expansion gives can be quite powerful.
@@jaymar5189 I would love to join your group sometime! It sounds like the perfect experience for the game :)
Wow - just stumbled on this and feel really sorry for this guy. Why does everyone need to be so unnecessarily cruel and mean spirited. You don’t agree with his commentary? Fine - that’s like 5 mins of your life; it didn’t cost you anything.And let’s be obvious - most already knew what they were going to comment irrespective of the content and getting sick pleasure from the bullying. This is a human being, even if you don’t like what he/the channel did. Just leave it and watch SUSD instead.
Trying to start some beef?
Not at all - trying to give some insight into our experience and a touch of context for theirs.
@@Quackalope Sure my dude...no fury like a reviewer scorned
Let them be scorned.
I’d be surprised if they really cared that someone has a different opinion. I can image that they would find it funny you keep naming them in your video titles. Bit obvious.
relax
Thanks. Worthwhile reminder - been a stressful week :)
They saw your broken court cards and ignored the threat they represent. If I take out my gun, load it, say I am gona shoot, aim it, you would be a fool to say that the noticable threat started when i pulled the trigger.
Its just a lack of game knowledge on their part (and if not its ignorance)
Its not that deep man... You played with "normal" ppl. Nomies play these games like a race. They dont try to outsmart others or negotiate, they just simply find a path to victory and blindly focus on that completly ignoring the other players progress. And by that I dont mean they dont get if someone else is in the lead they just dont recognise their agency in changing someone elses game state.
You know, you could've just said "how did other reviewers miss this". But you didn't, and you know why you didn't. That's sad, hope you find yourself man.
@@dukiwave yea, I didn’t because SUSD the biggest channel in the industry I work in called this game “the best of 2024” in their thumbnail and potentially “the best game they have ever played” without adding critical commentary to their review.
I don't understand why this is bothering people so much. However, just know that you're "outrage! Unsubscribe!" comment is fueling the youtube algorithm and making this video more visible.
So thank you angry people, I guess?
@@dodong_daniel Well, don’t spoil it by telling them.
Idk, I get it, I have read it all, I can argue their side of the complaint. I just don’t agree and have no interest in listening to a small group of people on BGG who already view me as the enemy.
We will keep on keeping on :)
Ah yes, this terrible if only the stars align at the right moments scenario is what really puts the mechanics of this game into question whether it’s even worth playing. You should reevaluate the kind of content you wanna make, this current I wanna push against the grain and have an edgy take thing doesn’t make you look smart.
@@MusicColorz . . . All five games have been blowouts so far. I’m not being edgy - I’m digging into a title and covering it across many plays and with a wide range of content.
Go watch, insult, and complain on someone else’s free content.
@@Quackalope oooh nooo I hurt your feelings, and here I was trying to be genuine in my comment.
@@MusicColorz yep, clearly hurt :)
I feel like you've screwed up with another video once again. Too bad. Steered to heavily into going 'edgy'.
You know you can win Chess in two moves…
Chess has no staying power, a game for babies
>video name and opening monologue talks about winning on "turn two"
>the 'how it happened' section says it happened on chapter two, is full of approximations and inaccuracies
so which is it, you lying fraud? Quackalope more like Clownalope am i right? But seriously, any player worth their wooden ships will be able to see such a win from a mile ahead and make moves that stop it. Denying Empath Bond (a strong Lore card for any leader) to a strong upside Leader (yes, getting free court cards is a strong upside). Denying you the Initiative so you can't Declare Ambitions and use your upside that often. Breaking cities to deny the bonus VP or force inventory reorganization that makes raids easier. And before you say "outrage", one resouce being unuseable means approximately one fifth of the galaxy is now your oyster to feast upon. Yeah you might miss the "free" build or move or something, but raiding Psionics and Relics and Court cards from enemies that even dared settle on a planet of a certain type more than makes up for that.
In short, please stop living in miracle christmasland, and play the game you're bashing on vs the people you're bashing on (Tom Brewster can't get enough of Arcs he'll be happy to play you and show you how it's done) before you actually commit to bashing. It's ok to be wrong, it's not ok to proclaim to be right based on minimal evidence and single digit sample sizes.
Calm down man
That's a tough experience. It seems like in this specific game, you simply outplayed your opponents. Your Arms Union card (the Union cards are pretty easy to recognize as some of the strongest guild cards in the game) seems like it sat out and available on the board for quite a few turns before you used it, without anybody trying to take it, and it's a bit confusing what everyone else was doing to pursue the declared ambitions that were available. When you spent your Psionic resources early in the chapter to clear space for the materials did nobody tax to scoop up the now available resources? In my plays whenever someone has a Cartel card everyone else immediately prioritizes taxing that specific resource and it takes away all value that the card has, and it usually just gets discarded during prelude to steal a fuel.
There are a lot of things to keep track of, and a ton of guild cards and other abilities on the table so it's definitely tough to both remember what's on the table and also to take all of into account when planning for the future, but simply declaring an ambition and then sitting to protect that one, or allowing someone else to have one because "they're winning by too much", allows those players to make plays like you did to not only aim for that ambition but also the other ones, and that's where it gets dangerous.
In my play experience, we haven't had any blowouts, and I think the initiative and declaration play has helped mitigate that significantly. It is very difficult to go for more than one, mayybe two ambitions at a time unless the rest of the table just completely lets you do your own thing (in a similar way to in Root the game is built around the factions interacting and if everyone just does their own thing then some factions will straight up win quicker). The 0 marker meaning that when you declare an ambition (presumably one that you have a good chance at winning), then it both gives the rest of the table the potential for more actions AND essentially guarantees that you won't have initiative the next round. So declaring more than one ambition in a chapter, especially in a 4 player game, is very difficult to do, meaning you have to be able to somehow outplay the whole table at 3 separate objectives that all require different resources/actions. Sure that might happen sometimes, and clearly in this instance for you happened perfectly due to seemingly passive play from the table along with great rolling luck and very smart gameplay by yourself, but over a large number of games is pretty unlikely.
I personally prefer the ambition system to Root's scoring (and Root is one of my top 3 favorite games of all time) because it allows for comebacks in a way that Root just simply doesn't. If a 27 point swing is possible in the 2nd chapter, I believe it's 34 (?) points in chapters 4 and 5, so you can literally be at zero and still always have a chance of winning. Very hard to do, yes, but in Root with the much more slow and consistent scoring, there are games where even though you can score it is basically impossible to win the game after turn 3 or so. Arcs having the potential for such explosive scoring, and that scoring requiring a combination of luck, good play on your part, and mistakes on the part of the rest of the table, means that no matter how many points you have heading into a chapter there is ALWAYS a chance you have to win. Sure the game doesn't really give you the tools to comeback in a way that some do, but the scoring structure means that the last few chapters always have at least the potential to lead to awesome moments.
My second game playing this, for example, had a player who was at 0 heading into chapter 4, scored second place in one ambition, and in the 5th chapter vaulted into a tie for first (he lost on the tiebreaker due to initiative order, but was a couple die rolls away from winning). That was much more exciting than most endgames that Root has had for our group.
Of course, that was just my group's experience so that's not to tell you how it should be! I hope you are able to learn to love this game as much as I do but it's definitely not for everyone, despite what some reviews might say. I don't think there's a single game that exists that's for everyone, though, to be fair.
This is a really wonderful response and one that I agree with in its entirety I believe.
The challenge you present to my criticism of "blowout victories" is really well thought out and articulated. The idea that a player can swing back and win at any moment of the game is compelling - even if they are at 0 on the scoring track.
I would have to observe and see if that type of smart dexterity in play is likely or common. In my experience, the players who did the best in round 1 and 2 - will secure enough points in round 3 to close the game. The opportunity for a player who is behind to come back seems very unlikely. While the game system might allow it - I don't know that it would every fully happen.
@@Quackalope It's certainly less likely to happen than the person being in first winning haha. Which I think is good, it would probably feel equally bad to regularly "throw away" the first 3 chapters for someone to steal it in chapter 4 every game! But even if it's a 5% chance as opposed to in some other games means that it can be very exciting - as long as all the players are willing to keep trying their best and don't just give up as soon as they are down by 10 points which has happened in a couple of my games and is very frustrating for the whole table.
This game I imagine will take a large number of plays to fully grasp, and I definitely am not even close to there yet. It is so different from anything else in its genre (if such a game even exists), and the card play is so important and the ambitions such a driving force of the game that doing regular "collect some resources, spread out and secure some territory, do a few battles" that is generally good strategy for other space/battle-y games is often completely wasted actions here. I have a long way to improve but I've found that generally strategy tips for other games that have been ingrained in me and my habits have often not served me well in Arcs haha.
It's very tough to have a game that requires players to be willing to have multiple (maybe even 10+) bad experiences before it "clicks", assuming it ever does, because who wants to show up to game night and get dunked on for 2 hours? Especially if you don't have regular games nights. Leder and specifically Cole have repeatedly said that they don't want to make games for everyone but rather want to make some people's favorite games of all time. That's a paraphrase but essentially depth, not width of audience. That's unfortunately why I basically don't teach Root to anyone anymore, the difference in skill level would be too much to be fun for anyone involved, and new players need to just be okay with being very confused and losing badly multiple times before it'll really be fun. With Root and Oath I was able to get to a point where they are two of my favorite games ever, but it's hard to ask that of others. I always wish I could play Root more than I actually do.
Great reply. Just letting you know I read it and really appreciate the depth in conversation. I would love to play Root with you one day :)
@@Quackalope Yeah! Love what your channel brings to the conversation. That would be great! Dibs on the Eyrie
Thanks so much! Haha I want the Corvid then :)
Are you around the Cleveland Ohio area? We have a game group I host every week.
Interesting. I’ve played the game 6 times now. Have had one blowout and 5 insanely close! Butt clenching, Sweat dripping, Stress inducing games. Most recently I played the campaign and I won the game in a 1v1 by a whopping 1!!! Point lead. Most fun me and my girlfriend have had playing a board game in a long time.
I love Root so much! I’ve played it more than any other game in my library and have all of the expansions but in those 30+ games I’ve seen only a handful of close games. A lot of them are blowouts. I love arcs because the points are so specific and catered to 5 easy to grasp concepts. BUT they are decided by players and should be taken into consideration and not claimed without the player being aware that the others could quickly sweep points away from them.
This scenario seems awfully specific and I’m not gonna lie it also seems made up. Giving you the benefit of the doubt I’ll say it was real and did happen. You got lucky, but also analyzed your resources exceptionally well. If the other players knew the components of the game it should be no surprise you can milk a whole turn just for yourself with a union card. Dont drag others or the game down because of one scenario. SUSDs video was very well crafted and you’re using his name to boost your not so well crafted video.
How did you get the initiative with the nr 1 aggression card? You dont mention you played an extra card to seize it
The aggression card was the only card left at the table. My 7th card after players had already put down their 6th and last card. So, it came to me naturally and I was the only one to play.
@@Quackalope I see, I was just replaying this part till you put the nr1 again on the table thinking I am missing something and didnt catch it was the last card for everybody
Yep, not a problem at all :)
@@Quackalope Do you think limiting the +2 and +3 bonuses to be counted only to one ambition per chapter would help prevent that (Or possibly twice, that would need some testing)? Just by default if you use it 3 times in a chapter, you get a minimum of 25pts, which sounds kinda insane
I think smaller scoring pockets would be interesting. Maybe you score 2 times in a chapter instead of once. Something to allow the game to progress and draw attention to a powerful player - without them closing the game before we can react.
Late to the party, and I don't see anyone else pointing this out, but spending a Weapons token doesn't give you another battle action - it gives you battle as an option for your 3 action pips. There shouldn't have been a 4th action to seal the game. Easy to miss; had to have it explained more than once in my first play through. Huge misplay here though.
He didn’t play the weapons token as a weapons token, he played it as a Psionics token, which Loyal Empaths allows him to do.
The comments here are unreal. Seems every community -- even board game nerds -- are triggered into a rage at every little thing, including title wording, thumbnail choice, etc. I don't give to craps about Arcs (which is a mediocre game), but SUSD's over-exaggeration of this game should be just as maddening as anything else to you geniuses. Oops, triggered again! Sorry!
Man, going against hype sure draws you a lot of fire. As someone who's excited about the game... I don't quite get why everyone's so upset, just cause you don't like the boardgame they probably havent even played yet.
I can totally understand that for a lot of people (you included) something like this would ruin the game. I personally think that this is just really cool. I also think however, that this is just kinda how Leder games work. Kingmaking, runaway victories, keeping eachother in check is pretty common, and I have had a player mope for an entire week over this after a game of Oath. And I think it's a valid matter of taste. This game is just a tad more trashy than you prefer I think.
Again, you don't deserve the hate. Thanks for helping people make an informed decision.
I do want to add that the way you respond in the comments and title the video is definitely the thing drawing ire here. If it's intentional just to feed the algorithm, I kinda get it but I personally don't really believe in the whole "All publicity is good publicity" stuff.
A game design where the last player to go can take a monster turn can always have this problem.
That seems likely - but what do we default to then? Should the Victory points needed to win and end the game be less or more? Should the "take a card back" ability be removed or acknowledged as overpowered?
The players at the table had little to no ability to counter this single turn victory. None of them saw it coming (even myself) and none of us enjoyed it.
@@Quackalope You have to design a game with smaller (micro?) turns (e.g. Antike). If you can do 17 things while everyone impotently watches, there is no stopping you. Fatal flaw.
This is also a possible solution. I think we agree however, that a solution is needed.
@@Quackalope To be fair, I love games where you can kind of sneak a win (e.g. Pax Renaissance), but the situation you showed goes a bit beyond that.
Yep, and at the same time, I understand the love for those games! You are the type of player I should be playing this with . . . come visit?
I've been fooled once with the title, won't happen again.
Taking one specific case with so many parameters that could have been different and claiming that because that is possible, the game is broken is BEYOND ridiculous (also, quite exhausting). If anything, you've shown that a losing player can still stay in the race and win. Well done, it increases my love of the game.
And last but not least, I have seen MANY games finish with players very close to each other in terms of score. You can't have played that many times.
Sorry about deleting my comment! I was thinking "eh no one will respond" and saw your reply right after I did.
Haha, no worries - I do my best to respond as often as I am able.
@@Quackalope Good to know! do yall have a discord?
@@Scallywagz33 We used to :) it was hijacked by the mods when reddit tried to cancel me for a critical review. We have not made one since. Might get back to it.
I have had some amazing plays in Root as a Vagabond where I scored 15+.
This victory was a result of luck and 2 hours of play prior.
My first game, 2 player, had a 3 point difference in score.
Maybe it's your player base?