by planetm
Having played (and lost) with four players I also think this variant needs some serious balancing for different player numbers. I guess 3 is the "game makes sense" player count, with about 9 actions per player and one colour of tokens each. I'm not sure if the two player game is meant to be played with two or four characters, I'd imagine 2 characters would make it relatively easy to beat.With 4 characters/players the actions per player drops to about 7 and two players must collect the same colour (thus picking up all 12 tokens of that colour between them, inevitably having to cover more of the board). It is obvious that the 4 player game is considerably more difficult than the three player one.
Perhaps we should let the fourth player collect any colour of tokens/snapshot, but even then the smaller number of actions will probably kill them off.
Perhaps this should be called the "three player coop variant"?
I'd be interested to hear the developers thoughts on this, they are experienced and must have noticed these issues. It's a shame, as it is a great coop experience otherwise and the cataclysms are brilliant when you're all hoping for the same outcome. There must be a better solution!