Heroscape: Age of Annihilation is here! Back it on Haslab!

[Sherman Davies]

My personal opinion regarding the Flying text is that it serves as a useful tool in promoting design discipline and elegance. I think replacing it with a symbol only creates the temptation to fill that card space with powers that may not best serve the design.

[Grungebob]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

But I understand that for some designers they like that the text room it takes up is an inherent "cost" for a fairly powerful ability as it restricts how much else can be included on the same card.

The answer to this is just practice restraint. Try to capture the essence of the hero in the least number of text based powers regardless of the use of symbols.

[Grishnakh]

Honestly guys, I don’t buy that argument. There’s no reason to “fill” the space on a card with text just because you use a flying icon. In fact I’ve found that the less text on a card makes the card easier to play and be understood. All that extra text, from a design point of view, just clutters up the card with a sea of grey. The best cards really have the smallest amount of text on them. Therefore, my feelings are that an icon is so easily recognized that you know at a glance what the characters power is. I think what it comes down to is, are you a traditionalist and feel like you must make your custom cards exactly match the established precedent Hasbro established? Or are you willing to expand on what the original designers accomplished to make the card easier to be understood in a gaming situation. Look, at the end of the day it is personal choice here. Personally, I’m just a gamer who likes to tinker and push the boundaries a bit more than most.

As a side note if the Marvel cards had somehow spelled out in text what the Super Strength power does would you still feel like you’d have to include it on your cards? Similar to the Flying text? There’s a reason the designers at Hasbro created a Super Strength Icon.

Regardless, the whole point of this, to stay on track here, is simply this: is Hasbro going to take advantage of this new release to tame some of the wording on their cards? At the very least please, please, please get rid of the “roll the 20 sided die” verbiage.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Grungebob

...just practice restraint. Try to capture the essence of the hero in the least number of text based powers regardless of the use of symbols.

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by Grungebob

The answer to this is just practice restraint. Try to capture the essence of the hero in the least number of text based powers regardless of the use of symbols.

Agreed. You shouldn’t have to unnecessarily handicap yourself in order to prize elegance in design. It’s a complete non sequitur for whether flying should be a symbol or not, but that is how a lot of folks process it.

[ProtoFury]

I'm definitely curious as to the nature of the new cards in general, and what form they may take/what streamlining of the original game materials we may see in 2.0 -- for instance, I've seen basically everyone say that the basic game stuff should be tossed. And I'd have no problem with that. It would mean we'd be seeing some fairly large changes to the cards in general though, which makes me curious how much more will be tweaked and modernized.

Symbols in place of common powers would work for me, and while I think there isn't *not* something to that "inherent cost" argument, agreed that restraint is the best route.

But also... OOH, those new ruins are *very much* something I want in my collection, like right now, like asap, like STAT.


And modular overgrowth pieces? YES PLEASE.

[Grishnakh]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Agreed. You shouldn’t have to unnecessarily handicap yourself in order to prize elegance in design. It’s a complete non sequitur for whether flying should be a symbol or not, but that is how a lot of folks process it.

I agree as well. Exactly what I was attempting to say, just not as briefly as Grunge did. However - Doesn’t this all depend on what type of character you are designing? If it’s an original design that you want to fit into the original game then I’d agree with this. But, if you are attempting to capture the essence of a Star Wars character, or a Marvel or DC superhero, all with an incredibly long list of powers, I think you do need to attempt to streamline a “set” of skills that capture the character you are trying to represent. Therefore in this case I believe symbols representing powers do need to be considered. We’re kinda comparing apples to oranges here between old/new Scape and representations of characters from other sources though.

Back to my main question, are the designers of this new version of Scape going to attempt to streamline and cleanup the “legalese” worded powers on the new cards, especially since it seems it will he marketed towards gamers and not the 8+ market?

[Anitar]

Originally Posted by ProtoFury

I'm definitely curious as to the nature of the new cards in general, and what form they may take/what streamlining of the original game materials we may see in 2.0 -- for instance, I've seen basically everyone say that the basic game stuff should be tossed.

Personally, I like having the Basic side around-- not because I can be bothered to play the Basic game, but because it's got that collector info and an uncluttered view of the figures.


(I'm led to believe that the Basic game's existence makes HS more enticing to younger would-be players, so that's also something worth considering. Even if the sets are a lot more expensive this time.)

[Grungebob]

Originally Posted by Grishnakh

However - Doesn’t this all depend on what type of character you are designing? If it’s an original design that you want to fit into the original game then I’d agree with this. But, if you are attempting to capture the essence of a Star Wars character, or a Marvel or DC superhero, all with an incredibly long list of powers, I think you do need to attempt to streamline a “set” of skills that capture the character you are trying to represent.

Well, this is pretty much how the Marvel set was approached. Let’s say you were doing a Star Wars Jedi. There are a set of Jedi powers that are common to all Jedi such as Force Leap, or Force Throw, or Light Saber Deflect. But as you read the canon, each Jedi had their own unique fighting style. You only need to capture the essence not the literalness. Mace Windu knows Shatter Points, Kit Fisto can make a water based force blast, Darth Vader uses Force Choke a lot, but young Anakin’s fighting style relied more on heavy downward cleaves. This is in addition to the set of common Jedi symbols and stats and synergies that reflect their various threat levels.

[Grishnakh]

We’ll, I had a wonderful reply but the site knocked me off and I lost it. But be assured it was wonderful and very insightful! Lol. Maybe another time.

[foofoofun]

I mean no ability needs a symbol unless you’re designing a unit that needs the space for other abilities. And if you’re looking to save space I think just having the “key word” saves a lot more space and doesn’t require as much guesswork on the part of new players as to what their unit does. If you want a unit to have flying but you want to save space just put the word flying on there with no description.

Frankly I think the super strength symbol is bad design that’s mitigated by it being an ability that realistically might not come up for players. Having unique symbols to represent abilities just wastes the time of new players who have to look up what their unit does without the luxury of having any words to put into a search bar. It’s forcing people to read hieroglyphics just to figure out what their game piece does.

I’ll admit it makes cards look cooler, but I don’t think it’s worth sacrificing legibility just to make cards look cooler.

[Yodaking]

Originally Posted by ProtoFury

But also... OOH, those new ruins are *very much* something I want in my collection, like right now, like asap, like STAT.

And modular overgrowth pieces? YES PLEASE.

Did this get posted on this site somewhere today? I missed it and did not join the Discord.

*edit* I found the thread where all the updates are posted.




I actually hope that is not the actual scale, looking at the Kyrie. Could have trouble finding room to store all this new terrain if we're getting this many different items in such large sizes. Guessing this is just the concept art submitted from which the final designs were chosen. I wonder how many different plants/ruins they ended up going to production with?