by Tcaalaw
MrAlwaysSus wrote:
1Balancing. The problem with having characters from different realms fight each other is that they need to be balanced on the same scale. Thus, your favorite characters are nerfed or buffed respectively. In a fight without equalization, Ms. Marvel would obviously destroy Hamlet. But this is a game, and so they are more equal in the game than in "real" life.
To me, part of the fun of the game is imagining the narrative as to how these various characters competently fight each other.
Theme. I am heavily attracted or repelled from games by theme. Unmatched is ugly not because of lack of theme, as the characters are very thematic with abilities, but the mish-mash of different people from different universes is quite unattractive. It seems that this would be a boon to the game, as I previously stated, it is a great idea to have different heroes and villains battle each other, but it seems kind of random to me.
I'm semi-sympathetic to this, although the characters and their abilities/cards are so thematic that offsets the absence of an overall theme for many of the sets. (Some sets are obviously thematic -- e.g., Unmatched: Cobble & Fog.) I also enjoy setting up "themed" battles of characters from similar eras/genres/etc. -- e.g., Tesla and the Invisible Man vs. Houdini and Jekyll & Hyde.
Cards. I do not like this kind of battle-card-play. Card games should be small and fun, like Exploding Kittens or Bohnanza. The way that the cards are the only action mechanic feels like a gimmick, and I would prefer solid mechanics to gimmicks.
(A) I think Unmatched at the 1-vs.-1 level is very definition of "small and fun" to me -- set-up takes a minute or two at most, and the game plays in 15 to 20 minutes if both players have any prior experience with the system.
(B) I have no clue what "cards are the only action mechanic feels like a gimmick," even means -- is Pax Porfiriana a "gimmick" because the whole game depends on card play?
Modular Expansions. I don't like the fact every game is the base game. This is the same reason I don't like Dice Throne. I would an expansion format similar to Root, where each expansion is modifying the base game, rather than being it's own game.
Conversely, as an Advanced Squad Leader player, I can tell you that every time a new module gets released there are a bunch of people who whine and cry about having to purchase the ASL core module -- Beyond Valor: ASL Module 1 (the German/Russian module, which also contains all the basic system counters) -- if all they really want to play are US vs. Japanese battles or whatever. I mean, if making each Unmatched set a standalone game was adding substantially to the cost and clutter, I could see your point, but literally the only thing that gets duplicated between sets is the core rulebook, which is like 12 pages, so I doubt it adds more than $1 to the cost of a set, and you can just recycle it if you don't want to keep it around. 🤷♂️