I have recently began revisiting playing Standard II. I think a few things happened to really hurt Standard II when it was released: 1) The Hood with standard II is a nightmare. (Example: I was playing 2 handed and I resolved over 16 encounter cards in 1 villain phase. That’s was not in the fun zone.😅 And that was just regular expert.) 2) I think Ronan and the surge fest from GMW was still burned in people’s minds. I think they shouldn’t have used the surge on the Standard II. I have liked playing Standard II on villains that aren’t Venom Goblin, Ronan, Loki, etc. And I actually beat the Mutant Genesis campaign on Standard II with Iron Man & War Machine. It was a lot of fun. I did remove formidable foe bc I agree that card ruined Standard II for me and I think a lot of others. I like how it does remove chump blocking (which I personally think is vital part of the game) but it does make you think about it bc overkill is an option. I like there are more boost to be aware of. Playing standard II also allows you to start on the 1st stage of the villain when usually means less up front tempo for the villain but the villains can still hit those tempo turns unexpectedly throughout the game. I have been enjoying it once I eliminated the FF environment.
great talk! I haven't tried Standard II yet, and honestly I'm more excited about Standard III 😅. I agree that the environment can be discarded for some villains but might be interesting in others that you're not too worried about Steady, I think it forces the players to realize the value of Tough over any other status card. I recently went through the GMW box on expert, not in campaign mode though, and I feel that this box difficulty really makes you build different decks with the needed strategy to defeat each scenario (on brandt's point of having to deck build), while other boxes you might be just tweaking your decks or maybe change one deck for one or two of the scenarios... it can get frustrating but once you get the win it feels so great, still haven't defeated Ronan though 😢 but I blame that on the pair of heroes I chose. I will give Standard II a try when I feel ready though, I went through standard quickly, and moved to two-handed for Expert.
Love to see a Std 2 advocate here! Since it came out i've exclusively played on std 2 + exp 1(sometimes exp 2). I also agree with your poor game design perspective on the environment but i take it even further: i think stun/confuse is bad game design as is. it is incredibly broken and trivializes every single encounter that doesnt have steady/stalwart. The other big problem for me is the reliance on surge flooding as the only way to increase difficulty instead forcing interesting choices on the player the way Arkham or LotR do. MC has narrowed its encounter design space so much to appeal to very casual players in a way that LotR or Arkham never did. Mojo Mania addressed this alot and it remains the most interesting encounter design so far.
I actually think Standard 2 saved the game for me. I 100% agree that the difficulty was so low at some point that once you learned a few basics, such as board control and how the economy flows, you are literally unable to lose unless you skipped entire turns or something. So I would always recommend Standard 2 to everyone wishing a greater challenge that makes games much more interesting. That said, I actually disagree on Formidable Foe. Partially I am with you that the card itself is so disruptive that it feels like an anomaly. I feel like it would have been better to have it as a separate one-card encounter. However, stun and confuse have always been so ultra powerful that I don't mind in the slightest seeing them nerfed in this way. I would go as far as to say that Steady should have been a built-in mechanic for all villains, due to the fact that skipping an activation is such a major thing. A great portion of villains rely on their activation to even push a mechanic of their own. Being able to consistently shut that down trivializes a lot of games and it feels like it makes things too easy. The thing I agree is that the Expert side of Formidable Foe is just dumb. I usually ignore the Steady minions part, but I am consistent in that the villain should be Steady and often use just Formidable Foe for that purpose. The acceleration icon, as you said, is a rather meh addition, which seems kinda weird. And while I find Steady villains to be a good sport, I understand the pushback. I think a good way to go around this is to introduce an alternative form of nerf, which can replace the Steady on Formidable Foe. Instead of Steady, imagine Formidable Foe has this kind of ability: When you stun/confuse a villain, you may pay one resource of any kind. If you don't, the villain gains Steady for the status card just placed. If you happen to place 2 cards with one ability (which is bonkers to begin with), you need to pay 2 resources. Otherwise they keep the card and do not become stunned/confused, and you treat them as having Steady. That keeps stun/confuse-rich heroes viable, while nerfing that aspect of their kit at least a bit.
@@DescryGamingMC the mid-game slump has probably been the biggest negative about Marvel Champions and a consensus among reviewers that it's a bad thing. The fact that you know for sure that you are going to win with an almost 100% certainty and you are just playing out a few more rounds is not that good of a thing for a coop game. I get that some people like winning, but let's be real - knowing your decisions don't matter during what's supposed to be the culmination of the game is not exactly enticing. This is the reason why I have been experimenting with ways to buff the second phase of the game. Such as giving the villain Osborn Tech attachment, or putting an Environment from AoA in play with the villain triggering its special every time they activate. Them regaining tempo is absolutely crucial for an interesting gameplay.
The problem I have with Formidable Foe is most with True Solo. Stun and Confuse are indeed very powerful, but I think it's the necessary kind of power. In solo games, there are not a lot of ways to set up so that you can flip to Alter Ego or to not need to flip to Alter Ego. This makes Stun/Confuse a big part of solo play, whereas in multiplayer you can just take turns flipping without having to do any special setup. Weakening the statuses takes a lot of the color out of the ways that you can handle this problem. You CAN handle it, but it's a lot less interesting to do so, to the point where I far prefer to just play Heroic and see more activations and tempo plays from the villain, rather than use Formidable Foe. You ended on the right track, but I think it's best to avoid punishing the player for playing a certain way (like Total Annihilation lets the villain play around chump blocking, but does not feel it PUNISHES you for chump blocking either) my idea would be two copies of an Attachment with Surge that gives the enemy Steady and gets discarded when Stun or Confuse triggers. I think Standard 2 is pretty cool but I actually think Heroic mode is equally underrated. It's super fun for any villain that isn't already super hard on Expert mode, and I highly recommend experimenting with playing Heroic but NOT Expert for an intermediate difficulty, it's really fun for a lot of villains, there's a lot of cool stuff they do if you aren't able to consistently handle their threats faster than they throw them out, IMO it's frequently more interesting than just "balancing" Stun/Confuse/Chump blocking/Villain activation values the way Standard 2 does. Heroic also solves the midgame slump because villains hit so hard that it's difficult to set up too much and trivialize late game, you're better off trying to push tempo whenever you can, you usually win almost immediately when you are set up and clear all villain threats.
You actually convinced me. I am getting frustrated by some Villains' difficulty on expert, but I remember when playing Standard, a long time ago, that Stage I of the Villain felt too much like a few free turns for setting up, and getting a shot at obliterating stage II in a turn or two. Standard 2 might actually be a good compromise to that, I will definitely try it again. It felt horrible with the Hood at the time, but heh, time to give it a new spin!
100% agree with your take on Formidable Foe. In order to feel like you can meaningfully interact with it they'd have to make status effects more available but doing so would trivialize every villain that didn't have steady and bring an insane amount of powercreep into the game. They could have experimented with a heavy discard cost (take 5 damage, deal 3 encounter cards etc)
I don't think I need super comebacks from villains late game for the price of more messy/random early game. I would definitely love to see new Standard/Expert sets with difficulty somewhere between Expert 1 and Standard 2.
Not ready to jump into the pool, huh? Ok I see you I see you 😉 This was super interesting! Did it change my mind? Well it depends on what we’re changing it from. Did I think Standard 2 was bad? Not necessarily, but largely because I’ve pretty much written it off from early on. Like you said about me, I’m really happy with the level of difficulty on Expert. For how much time I have to play the game it fits me well. And I am one of those people who gets more enjoyment out of building and playing decks than I do overcoming a difficult challenge, so I’m not necessarily looking for more hurdles. But what I really enjoyed about this and hadn’t considered before was what you said about the late game. Allowing the villain to still compete in rounds 5 and on is a really great point, and for that my mind was changed to think Standard 2 is better than I ever gave it credit for. Where my concern still somewhat lies is the fact that they can still get those cards in rounds 1-4, making early startup potentially frustrating. The other big thing about it is of course the environment. I like my stuns and my confuses and I really don’t like how that just negates many hero cards. And I know you can choose to play without it, but then we’re in house rule territory and not everyone is comfortable with that. I’m generally not super comfortable with it myself, but I’d probably be willing to set it aside for this. All that to say even though I’m not really looking for the game to get harder for my personal playstyle and enjoyment, I really appreciate the work you put into this, and I think you made some great points, so I’ll definitely be getting it back out. I’ll play at least the next 5 games in Standard 2. On another note: sorry if this is weird but I just feel like I have to say it, there’s been a fair few random shots at Villain Theory in the last few videos. Not sure what that’s about but as a big fan of both of you so it’s just a little off putting I suppose is how I wanna say it. You’re both good dudes and good creators and hopefully we can all have a great time on TH-cam!
@@DescryGamingMC no worries, I just feel like the big brother of the CC’s lol (because of my age not any status or anything) But don’t bury the lead here, this was a very good argument and I’m actually looking forward to trying out S2 in the near future 👍👍
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 91 | คู่เอก "คมอาวุธ vs อเล็กเซย์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/V0RkEfYFsgM/mqdefault.jpg)
I have recently began revisiting playing Standard II. I think a few things happened to really hurt Standard II when it was released: 1) The Hood with standard II is a nightmare. (Example: I was playing 2 handed and I resolved over 16 encounter cards in 1 villain phase. That’s was not in the fun zone.😅 And that was just regular expert.)
2) I think Ronan and the surge fest from GMW was still burned in people’s minds. I think they shouldn’t have used the surge on the Standard II.
I have liked playing Standard II on villains that aren’t Venom Goblin, Ronan, Loki, etc. And I actually beat the Mutant Genesis campaign on Standard II with Iron Man & War Machine. It was a lot of fun. I did remove formidable foe bc I agree that card ruined Standard II for me and I think a lot of others.
I like how it does remove chump blocking (which I personally think is vital part of the game) but it does make you think about it bc overkill is an option.
I like there are more boost to be aware of.
Playing standard II also allows you to start on the 1st stage of the villain when usually means less up front tempo for the villain but the villains can still hit those tempo turns unexpectedly throughout the game.
I have been enjoying it once I eliminated the FF environment.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I agree with you a ton. It will be interesting how standard 3 plays out.
great talk!
I haven't tried Standard II yet, and honestly I'm more excited about Standard III 😅.
I agree that the environment can be discarded for some villains but might be interesting in others that you're not too worried about Steady, I think it forces the players to realize the value of Tough over any other status card.
I recently went through the GMW box on expert, not in campaign mode though, and I feel that this box difficulty really makes you build different decks with the needed strategy to defeat each scenario (on brandt's point of having to deck build), while other boxes you might be just tweaking your decks or maybe change one deck for one or two of the scenarios... it can get frustrating but once you get the win it feels so great, still haven't defeated Ronan though 😢 but I blame that on the pair of heroes I chose.
I will give Standard II a try when I feel ready though, I went through standard quickly, and moved to two-handed for Expert.
Thanks for sharing!
Love to see a Std 2 advocate here! Since it came out i've exclusively played on std 2 + exp 1(sometimes exp 2).
I also agree with your poor game design perspective on the environment but i take it even further: i think stun/confuse is bad game design as is. it is incredibly broken and trivializes every single encounter that doesnt have steady/stalwart.
The other big problem for me is the reliance on surge flooding as the only way to increase difficulty instead forcing interesting choices on the player the way Arkham or LotR do. MC has narrowed its encounter design space so much to appeal to very casual players in a way that LotR or Arkham never did. Mojo Mania addressed this alot and it remains the most interesting encounter design so far.
I actually think Standard 2 saved the game for me. I 100% agree that the difficulty was so low at some point that once you learned a few basics, such as board control and how the economy flows, you are literally unable to lose unless you skipped entire turns or something. So I would always recommend Standard 2 to everyone wishing a greater challenge that makes games much more interesting.
That said, I actually disagree on Formidable Foe. Partially I am with you that the card itself is so disruptive that it feels like an anomaly. I feel like it would have been better to have it as a separate one-card encounter. However, stun and confuse have always been so ultra powerful that I don't mind in the slightest seeing them nerfed in this way. I would go as far as to say that Steady should have been a built-in mechanic for all villains, due to the fact that skipping an activation is such a major thing. A great portion of villains rely on their activation to even push a mechanic of their own. Being able to consistently shut that down trivializes a lot of games and it feels like it makes things too easy. The thing I agree is that the Expert side of Formidable Foe is just dumb. I usually ignore the Steady minions part, but I am consistent in that the villain should be Steady and often use just Formidable Foe for that purpose. The acceleration icon, as you said, is a rather meh addition, which seems kinda weird.
And while I find Steady villains to be a good sport, I understand the pushback. I think a good way to go around this is to introduce an alternative form of nerf, which can replace the Steady on Formidable Foe. Instead of Steady, imagine Formidable Foe has this kind of ability: When you stun/confuse a villain, you may pay one resource of any kind. If you don't, the villain gains Steady for the status card just placed. If you happen to place 2 cards with one ability (which is bonkers to begin with), you need to pay 2 resources. Otherwise they keep the card and do not become stunned/confused, and you treat them as having Steady. That keeps stun/confuse-rich heroes viable, while nerfing that aspect of their kit at least a bit.
I knew I wasn't the only one!
@@DescryGamingMC the mid-game slump has probably been the biggest negative about Marvel Champions and a consensus among reviewers that it's a bad thing. The fact that you know for sure that you are going to win with an almost 100% certainty and you are just playing out a few more rounds is not that good of a thing for a coop game. I get that some people like winning, but let's be real - knowing your decisions don't matter during what's supposed to be the culmination of the game is not exactly enticing.
This is the reason why I have been experimenting with ways to buff the second phase of the game. Such as giving the villain Osborn Tech attachment, or putting an Environment from AoA in play with the villain triggering its special every time they activate. Them regaining tempo is absolutely crucial for an interesting gameplay.
@@martintomov7576 cool ideas, please share more details.
The problem I have with Formidable Foe is most with True Solo. Stun and Confuse are indeed very powerful, but I think it's the necessary kind of power. In solo games, there are not a lot of ways to set up so that you can flip to Alter Ego or to not need to flip to Alter Ego. This makes Stun/Confuse a big part of solo play, whereas in multiplayer you can just take turns flipping without having to do any special setup. Weakening the statuses takes a lot of the color out of the ways that you can handle this problem. You CAN handle it, but it's a lot less interesting to do so, to the point where I far prefer to just play Heroic and see more activations and tempo plays from the villain, rather than use Formidable Foe.
You ended on the right track, but I think it's best to avoid punishing the player for playing a certain way (like Total Annihilation lets the villain play around chump blocking, but does not feel it PUNISHES you for chump blocking either) my idea would be two copies of an Attachment with Surge that gives the enemy Steady and gets discarded when Stun or Confuse triggers.
I think Standard 2 is pretty cool but I actually think Heroic mode is equally underrated. It's super fun for any villain that isn't already super hard on Expert mode, and I highly recommend experimenting with playing Heroic but NOT Expert for an intermediate difficulty, it's really fun for a lot of villains, there's a lot of cool stuff they do if you aren't able to consistently handle their threats faster than they throw them out, IMO it's frequently more interesting than just "balancing" Stun/Confuse/Chump blocking/Villain activation values the way Standard 2 does. Heroic also solves the midgame slump because villains hit so hard that it's difficult to set up too much and trivialize late game, you're better off trying to push tempo whenever you can, you usually win almost immediately when you are set up and clear all villain threats.
Is it irony that I’m trying to watch and play but my son keeps waking up?
How old is your son? My little one is 5.
I have a 4 and 2 year old!
The older one likes to play with me! Which means he looks at the posters and cards to try and match them! Haha
I don’t own the Hood, so I haven’t tried this yet. If you had to choose, do you like Standard 2/no expert or Standard 1/Expert 1?
Standard 1 / expert 1. Villain level 3 is a big one and the expert cards are still challenging and scale well with the villain
You actually convinced me. I am getting frustrated by some Villains' difficulty on expert, but I remember when playing Standard, a long time ago, that Stage I of the Villain felt too much like a few free turns for setting up, and getting a shot at obliterating stage II in a turn or two. Standard 2 might actually be a good compromise to that, I will definitely try it again. It felt horrible with the Hood at the time, but heh, time to give it a new spin!
Awesome, took me a few games to get the feel of standard 2.
100% agree with your take on Formidable Foe. In order to feel like you can meaningfully interact with it they'd have to make status effects more available but doing so would trivialize every villain that didn't have steady and bring an insane amount of powercreep into the game. They could have experimented with a heavy discard cost (take 5 damage, deal 3 encounter cards etc)
💯 agree with you.
I don't think I need super comebacks from villains late game for the price of more messy/random early game. I would definitely love to see new Standard/Expert sets with difficulty somewhere between Expert 1 and Standard 2.
Not ready to jump into the pool, huh? Ok I see you I see you 😉
This was super interesting! Did it change my mind? Well it depends on what we’re changing it from. Did I think Standard 2 was bad? Not necessarily, but largely because I’ve pretty much written it off from early on. Like you said about me, I’m really happy with the level of difficulty on Expert. For how much time I have to play the game it fits me well. And I am one of those people who gets more enjoyment out of building and playing decks than I do overcoming a difficult challenge, so I’m not necessarily looking for more hurdles.
But what I really enjoyed about this and hadn’t considered before was what you said about the late game. Allowing the villain to still compete in rounds 5 and on is a really great point, and for that my mind was changed to think Standard 2 is better than I ever gave it credit for.
Where my concern still somewhat lies is the fact that they can still get those cards in rounds 1-4, making early startup potentially frustrating.
The other big thing about it is of course the environment. I like my stuns and my confuses and I really don’t like how that just negates many hero cards. And I know you can choose to play without it, but then we’re in house rule territory and not everyone is comfortable with that. I’m generally not super comfortable with it myself, but I’d probably be willing to set it aside for this.
All that to say even though I’m not really looking for the game to get harder for my personal playstyle and enjoyment, I really appreciate the work you put into this, and I think you made some great points, so I’ll definitely be getting it back out. I’ll play at least the next 5 games in Standard 2.
On another note: sorry if this is weird but I just feel like I have to say it, there’s been a fair few random shots at Villain Theory in the last few videos. Not sure what that’s about but as a big fan of both of you so it’s just a little off putting I suppose is how I wanna say it. You’re both good dudes and good creators and hopefully we can all have a great time on TH-cam!
Thanks for sharing this Josh. Villain theory is a great guy, I will be more careful how I bring him up.
@@DescryGamingMC no worries, I just feel like the big brother of the CC’s lol (because of my age not any status or anything)
But don’t bury the lead here, this was a very good argument and I’m actually looking forward to trying out S2 in the near future 👍👍
I play Standard II, Expert I sometimes, but I don't like that environment card at all! I'll remove that card from my Standard I games from now on.
Weill, I’ll give standard 2 a try I guess.
:)