My friend just bought this game. Is it good or should I laugh at him for wasting his money? From what I can tell it's just advanced RPS
>>47735748
You should just be honest when you want to make threads about games you like.
It's very good, fantastic even. It's rock paper scissors in the same way Chess is rock paper scissors.
They're both non-random, and unlike RPS you have information that narrows down your opponents possible moves.
>>47736128
Well I've only played 2 games with him. I guess we only played with novice level characters so far so it just seems kinda whatever. Hopefully the more intermediate characters have more depth.
>>47736215
It's not about the characters, it's about you.
You have to think about the several dozeb different moves available, what's not available, balance out the probability of that person using that move, then choose to be unpredictable or to play the most optimal move.
That's without the shitton of optional rules like force gauge.
>>47736289
I think the fact they have so many options is what makes it so random-feeling though. you you COULD anticipate their dash behind and burst away so he can't cross me, but if he thinks I'm gonna do that he can just hit me with a big hit instead. That's why it seems like RPS-y still. I guess the game simulates real fighting games that I play a lot too, and there's definitely RPS moments in those games. I need to play it more to understand what most of the options are I guess.
>>47735748
Having just bought this game fairly recently myself, I enjoy the hell out of it. There are situations where it feels like RPS, but the feeling does definitely fade as you understand the interactions within the game, and the specific tactics preferred by your opponent.
>>47736128
Yeah I made the thread just because I'm not sure if I like it or not. I definitely need to try it more though.
>>47736215
So which characters did you play?
>>47737395
I played the wolf girl first game. She seemed alright, just that you technically getting stunned even if you went first in priority made her seem a lot worse because it's harder to move the wolf around where you want it.
2nd game I played that environmental trap dude, and had way more fun. Guarenteeing awesome turns with the plus priority or stun immunity was cool, while also being able to push enemy into lightning storm. Still lost though unfortunately.
I'm looking forward to trying more advanced characters just because I'm sure there's probably a better trap person than pendross.
>>47735748
This game is phenomenal.
>>47737730
While not in base Devastation, my favourite is Cadenza.
>>47739129
cadenza op pls nerf
>>47737730
If you like trap characters then look at Malandrax. Motherfucker is 'just as keikaku' incarnate.
BattleCON is my favorite board game of all time. Game's got legs for days. I would play it every day if I could.
>>47737730
Howling, Coordinated and Dual all let you move Jäger beyond the Unique Ability.
An important thing to note here is that the game gets deeper the more you play it, even with the most basic characters. As you get used to a character, you start noticing more and more interactions and strategies, not to mention that not only does every character differently, they each play differently against every opponent.
>>47740807
I hate how there's no true mirror match character.
Sagas doesn't really do it. I'm thinking about repurposing one of the blank sets for mirror matches.
How do you feel about balance? I haven't played much, but I feel like match ups tend to skew things in favor of one person too much.
>>47741438
Take this from someone who has actually participated in a mirror match: they're absolutely awful in BattleCON and should be avoided at all costs. The one mirror match I played, Rexan vs Rexan in a tournament setting, had us constantly clashing all the way out of our bases because both characters would evaluate the board position the same way. It was extremely dumb. I don't recommend it.
As for balance, while there are some matchups that are extremely skewed (Voco vs anyone with good movement, Kaitlyn or Adjenna vs anyone with bad movement) and a couple characters who stand out as above the crowd (Arec, Ottavia, arguably Seth) the vast majority of matchups are, in my opinion, winnable. It might be skewed slightly, but barring really bad matchups in my experience and opinion never worse than 60/40.
>>47741559
Yeah, now that they've nerfed Zaam and Luc who were ridiculously OP from the first box, I haven't found too many extremely unbalanced matches.
>>47741609
Yeah in the new War box there's not really any standout OP character any more. Some people do argue that Seth qualifies, though, because a good Seth player can be so goddamn safe with every attack. Seth can be played just like Ottavia and Arec where he can use selective opponent attack negation in the ante phase to cover weaknesses on his current attack pair and that strategy is just so incredibly strong that even on a mild-statted character like Seth people still have trouble with it.
I've been looking to get into this, but given that any information I can find on the catalogue of products is very haphazard I've steered clear since I can see, like, 3 editions of the same game which means I have absolutely no idea what to buy and the official site seems very out of date since products released in the middle of 2015 are still up for pre-order on their site.
>>47741813
What site are you talking about? The only pre-orders on the Level 99 store are Exceed products.
There's War of Indines, Devastation of Indines and Fate of Indines.
Fate is a low-priced introductory box with only 10 fighters for basic 1v1 matches.
War is the chronologically first entry in the line. 18 fighters, goes up to 2v2 Tag Team matches and adds Arenas to the mix.
Devastation is the biggest box with a whopping 30 fighters. It adds proper 2v2 Team matches, 2v1 and 3v1 boss matches, four scenario bosses and a solo/co-op game.
>>47742061
Well, War Extended claims it's available for pre-order and the expected release was last year according to this site. The same goes for Light and Shadow. Whereas, Strikers is just an empty page, so I have no idea what that's even about.
Then, as for the actual games themselves, what versions do I get? I've seen information on 3 different versions of War: War itself, War Extended and War Remastered. Which one is the right version to buy? Do I also buy Devastation Extended? Are L&S and Armory their own box and are they outdated (as in, does the stuff inside the box come with another box set anyway?) and are they even needed?
Whenever I buy games, I always jump really deep into them, so I wouldn't be satisfied with just getting Fates and nothing else, for example. I always want it all, but I don't want to make any unnecessary purchases.
My buddy did the Kickstarter for the last version of the game and now we've got literally everything for BattleCON. I think it's a fantastic game, and I wish I understood the mechanics a little better, because I think it'd be great for duplicating pretty much all your favorite fighters.
Like, all the Skullgirls would be perfect in BattleCON, I think.
>>47742194
Interesting. Yeah, they moved to a new site earlier this year and apparently have not updated the ancillary products.
The Extended editions are just more stuff to add to the base game. They really aren't necessary, although I do like Devastation Extended because it comes with two super low power promo characters that I like to use for tutorial matches with new players. Beyond that the two Extended editions add alternate art standups and character powers that are all honestly half-baked and imbalanced and I recommend nobody ever use. War Extended does also have some new arenas, though, if that's a thing you like.
Armory, Strikers, and Light and Shadow are all current and not outmoded in any way, but they all suck. I mean, okay, they aren't terrible, but lets' be honest you'll never use them. I know I haven't. Armory adds a customize-your-fighter game mode which, while cool in principle, doesn't hold nearly as much weight considering there are 58 characters in the game. Light and Shadow enables 2v1 and 3v1 fights by adding super-powered versions of characters for the single player to play as, but it still ends up being imbalanced and heavily weighted towards the 2/3. Strikers is another alternate game mode thing where you could call in other characters to help out, but again, eh. There's so goddamn much variety in the base boxes alone that these aren't necessary or even recommended unless you really want to go all the way into the deep end.
As for the versions of War, like I said above Extended is *not* a version of War it's a separate product, and I honestly doubt that you'd even be able to find a copy of the original War in stock anywhere even if you tried. War: Remastered is strictly better than the original War, is more balanced, has better art, and has more content on top of that. It's also by far the best single box to get into the game with, as it has some of the most grokkable and straight-forward characters in the game.
>>47742349
Bleh, I didn't make it clear enough.
War Extended and Devastation Extended aren't separate versions, they're tiny bonus addons. Their MSRP's show this best -- both have MSRP of $20 as compared to War's MSRP of $50 and Devastations' MSRP of $75. They contain alternate art versions of characters and some other extra assorted bonus stuff (Juto / Borneo promo characters in Devastation Extended and extra arenas and strikers in War Extended).
>>47742194
That seems to be an odd glitch. To me, War Extended shows up as regularly available for purchase. We are talking about store.level99games.com, right?
War Remastered is the current version of of War. The original War shouldn't even be available anymore.
War Extended and Devastation Extended are just for completionists. Most of the contents (Alternate Unique Abilities) can be used by simply looking them up on the Wiki.
L&S adds bases for EX and Almighty Duels and is again mostly unnecessary.
Armory adds stuff for customizing fighters and should only be bought if you really get into BattleCon.
I suggest starting with War. It has plenty of content to keep you busy for a while and isn't too expensive.
>>47736128
RPS is random. You're basically rolling 2d3.
>>47742446
>RPS is random.
That's what the amateurs want you to think, but professional RPS players know it's all about mindgames, psychology, and throwing skill. I bet you can't even name any opening gambits or famous late-game strategies. I bet you've never practiced the precise muscle control needed to look like you're throwing rock, but to finish throwing scissors.
>>47742349 >>47742403
OK, so let's see if I have this straight. The 3 "main" boxes are War, Devastation and Fates and those are really the only important ones. The Extendeds are expansions to the named box but, while they're nice to have, they're not required. Armory is for proper hardcore players if at all and Strikers and Light & Shadow are to be ignored and/or avoided.
Also, here a screencap of the War Extended page I'm looking at.
>>47742476
If you get Armory then you should probably get Strikers and Light and Shadow as well, because Armory's customization system does key into those two expansions letting you grab content from them when customizing.
But again, why play a custom fighter duel when you could play any of the 6612 different matchups available in the base 3 game boxes?
>>47742498
Honestly, I'll probably only end up buying the 3 main series along with their Extended expansions. Any idea if there will be a Fate Extended or anything new coming out? All I can see on their blog is this EXCEED thing. Is that replacing BattleCON?
...Man, Level 99 really aren't good at flow of information.
>>47742476
Yeah, the Strikers are somewhat fun in a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 way, as you can mix shit up by calling in a buddy for a different attack than your opponent might have thought you'd play, but they're wholly unnecessary too.
So, who's everyone's favorite fighters? I fuckin' love Lymn. I found the way her priority changes based upon distance to be really fun and easy to understand.
>>47742552
I haven't heard anything about a Fate: Extended. In actuality, Fate was going to be part of War: Extended but got spun off into its own box because there was enough content to justify it.
Exceed is a totally separate game. It's a lighter, less mind-game heavy version of BattleCON. It didn't fund anywhere near as heavy as BattleCON did, so I don't see it replacing BattleCON any time soon. Maybe if it had gone gangbusters that'd be a risk, but at the moment BattleCON is still their biggest game.
There are two new main BattleCON boxes coming soon (Trials and Wanderers), but info is light on these at the moment. Likely 2017 release for one of those. They've also stated that they're gonna start cutting down on the excess boxes because they cause so much confusion; you are not the only one by any stretch of the imagination to be confused.
>>47742552
Personally, I'd put the Extendeds at the very bottom of the list, because both together add less to the game than each of Armory, L&S and Strikers.
Exceed is mostly unrelated to BattleCon except for sharing a very broad "fighting card game" concept.
>>47742552
Also, if you have Tabletop Simulator, there is an extensive BattleCon collection in the workshop if you want to try the game first.
>>47742581
Rexan is my main man. He's a monster; play aggressive as fuck and keep the pressure on your opponent and watch them sweat blood. Trading is fine; you can hit me for 3 if I hit you for 3 and oh, by the way, you get another curse token. Constantly put your opponent into mix-ups, where they know if they don't spend their curse tokens you'll fuck them over but if they do spend their curse tokens you'll also fuck them over but with a different sharp implement.
My favorite moment is when you see someone finally convince themselves to ante three curse tokens at great pain just to reveal that I dashed that turn and they get them back. Watching the agony return to their face is glorious. If you pay close attention you can see the very moment when their heart breaks.
>>47735748
I just played a game as the insect girl. I liked her a lot even in 1v1, but she seems like she'd be amazing in 2v2.
I messed up by picking the ranged super over the melee one but that's because I didn't understand my opponent's character enough. He played the threat guy. I had one chance to dash away with 10 priority but his super has 11 so I just died. It was close too because he had 2 insects coming up so he would've been at 1 health next turn.
The biggest disappointment is them trying to force the Force Gauge for tournaments.
It's worse than basically all other finisher variants.
Dodge over Dash is acceptable, but since almost every character was balanced around Dash, it makes a lot of styles seem like shit...
>>47744436
The official reason I read is to raise the skill ceiling.
But even so, pretty much everyone keeps using the Special Action anyway.
As for the switch to Dodge, sure, some styles lose their Dash counter functionality, but since that is never their only function, it's not as bad as it may seem at first.
There are some slightly more worrisome interactions, like César's Threat Level 4.
My favorite to play as is Rukyuk Amberdeen from War. Just a fan of the keep away game with the versatile ammo powers.
On a side note I actually went to high school with Brad Talton, the game designer of the Indines stuff
Here's a question. For those of you that have more than one of these boxes, how do you organize everything?
Our little group has a shitload of baggies from penny sleeves (we're big on sleeving and also play Magic). So we bought a big card box, put each fighter and their expansion cards and tokens into individual baggies, and then sorted them by their "difficulty" level. I'll try and get a picture of it!
>>47744898
Yeah, pinning the enemy to the wall on the other side of the board is pretty damn fun.
You know you're playing Rukyuk right when your opponent groans in distress on the beat you Reload.
>>47744898
Was Brad always as fedorable as he is now?
>>47744936
I bought a 100 pack of 3.5" x 4.5" ziploc baggies, which are perfect sized for character kits (pic related). Then I made a to-go box with all the main bases, a board, health trackers, and a good chunk of characters and put that into the War box. Finally the rest of the characters and the arenas went into the Devastation box and the Armory and Strikers and assorted customization bits ended up in a M:tG fat pack box that I had laying around.
http://cdwplus.com/singlezips.html is where I got the baggies from.
>>47745004
Here's the to-go box. ~25 characters which I cycle through though there's a handful of beginner friendly characters I keep in the box at all times, one boss, all the bases (including the EX and Almighty bases for 2v1 and 3v1 play), a board, and four health trackers, all in the War box.
>>47745004
Yeah, those are pretty much exactly the size of penny sleeve baggies, it seems. We had hundreds of them. They make for great storage solutions for games; it's how we sorted Eclipse, for example, with some bigger bags for larger components.
>>47744947
He was three years above me, so we were only in school together one year before he graduated and I was not a close friend of his. But yea he pretty much was. One of his closest friends was dyslexic and required a laptop with software on it in class to translate stuff, but most of the time him and Brad just hung out and used the guys computer to make D&D maps and play around making lots of stuff on that RPGmaker software. His friends and him were definitely the stereotypical geek group in the school.
>>47744436
>>47744624
I didn't even know there WERE tournaments. I keep thinking that lvl99 are this really tiny indie company with obscure fringe games, but then I remember that their games are really, REALLY popular. I guess that's what I get for thinking I'm some kind of tabletop hipster.
>>47744624
I don't think it raises the skill ceiling, especially since everything is mirrored... "I get +2 Priority, me too!" Except in rare circumstances.
There are a ton of styles where I look at them and go "Other than Dash.. this is pointless..."
I guess they could be niche used against finishers.
Is there any way to get the promo content still? Or are some characters forever locked out for a newb like me?
>>47742470
>look like you're throwing rock, but to finish throwing scissors
Everything looks like you're throwing rock until you do it.
>>47745221
Just ask on their store? Or back their Trials kickstarter later this year. They're crazy generous about promos.
>>47745221
You can print and play them since their stats are on the wiki.
As for the actual cards, they're usually on sale in the store but not right now.
Real time, though:
Will they ever make Grasp not the worst base? I know it's thematic to fighting games where grabs normally suck, but jesus.
>>47745481
>implying grasp is bad
The speed is what really makes grasp good. I use grasp a lot on many different characters, although like all bases it has it's weaknesses and not every character uses it. I'd say it's middle of the road, below drive and shot but above strike and burst in terms of usage.
>>47745548
You should try out Fate, the ridiculous amount of stun guard will have you wondering why they ever made Grasp in the first place.
>>47745481
It's STILL a card game, just a big one. This means there still has to be some cards that are pure trash. It is the one immutable law of card games.
>>47735748
It looks like league of legends and rock paper scissors in a giant clusterfuck.
>>47745949
League of Legends?
>>47746064
It has a similar "throw anything in there" generic techno fantasy feel, and most of the character designs are passable at best. It doesn't feel like a cohesive world, despite their best attempts at pushing Indines as one.
On a side note, the guy who does art for the Extendeds is awful. He only got marginally better in Millennium Blades, but he has some sort of hatred of saturated colors.
>>47746370
It's better than the original art, at least.
Our storage solution.
>>47746654
How do you rank the characters, given that each box set doesn't have the same flights?
>>47746672
My guess is feelings.
>>47741658
What's a counter to Seth?
I just played a game with him, he was fantastically fun. About 2x as fun as Sagas.
>>47747569
The only real 'counter' to Seth is playing characters with deep and unpredictable attack pools. Jager would probably do quite well against him, for example. Luc. Hikaru. Lixis might also do quite well against him, if she can get the ball rolling on her UA.
Mostly, though, it's a matter of being more skilled than the Seth player. The more experienced the Seth player is at playing the game the better they're going to do, far more than any other character I find. The best way to learn to play Seth is to have played as the opposing character once before -- it's more important to know your opposition than to know himself. It's kind of an interesting premise, at least.
>>47747700
I was glued to their reference card throughout the match.
>>47746672
>>47747038
We have these card holders that came with it, and it lists their difficulty.
>>47748094
They're only decent at difficulty.
The flights don't make sense, they don't represent who's stronger or who's more complex necessarily
>>47748562
It's still a way to organize. We could do it by class, I suppose.
>>47748562
>who's more complex necessarily
That IS what they represent. Not well, but that's their purpose.
It doesn't really matter because after playing a few games with any character you'll get the hang of it.
>>47748562
Differences in strength would be a failure. See Voco, Ottavia and Arec.
The Flights represent how difficult a character is to play well and how difficult it is to play well against.
Brad did a quasi-official conversion for the War characters.
Cadenza is below Novice.
Luc, Hikaru and Kallistar are Novice.
Kehrolyn, Magdelina and Vanaah are Beginner.
Rukyuk, Heketch, Demitras and Hepzibah are Intermediate.
Lixis, Khadath and Zaamassal are Advanced.
Tatsumi, Seth and Cherri are Master.
Sagas is beyond Master.
The thing is, the actual difficulty/complexity depends on the player, so of course it's more of a suggestion than a universally valid ranking.
Personally, I took to Rukyuk like a fish to water, but Demitras just refuses to work for me.
He did the same kind of list for Fate as well.
>>47752907
I don't have Fate, so I didn't look it up.
Are there even any Novice level characters in Fate?
I heard that due to Backer choices, mainly difficult characters made it in.
>>47741813
First of all, buy through coolstuff, not the level 99 store. Never the level 99 store.
Second, get fate as a starting point
>>47752933
The idea that Fate is an introductory set is complete bullshit. Even the least complicated characters in it are still more complicated than the entire novice flight.
>>47752933
Jager and Alumis are novice characters, in my opinion. They're both easier to play than, say, Karin or Marmalee, and mechanically are very simple.
>>47754796
I wasn't going to buy through their store anyway, since I live across the pond. I was going to look at a few sites and Amazon was Plan B. I really hope I don't need to import it.
