Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Shadowrun Crossfire => Topic started by: silentninjadesu on <01-06-15/1456:00>
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My group very rarely wins! We often can get through an abort round, but have played dozens of times and have actually won only once or twice. What are other people's experiences here? Are we bad at Crossfire? Are we doing something wrong? Do people have strategies? Is the game just stupid hard? Do you enjoy the difficulty level?
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at first me and my friend only won 20-30% of the time, but once you start to get a little karma under your belt the missions tend to go a little better. I would say our success rate goes up about 1% per karma gained
It's by no stretch an easy game, but its usually close, and that's what makes it so fun for me. No fun in a game you always win!
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at first me and my friend only won 20-30% of the time, but once you start to get a little karma under your belt the missions tend to go a little better. I would say our success rate goes up about 1% per karma gained
It's by no stretch an easy game, but its usually close, and that's what makes it so fun for me. No fun in a game you always win!
Yeah, sure, but it's no fun to lose all the time either. As I mentioned earlier, we aren't even winning 2 times out of 10.
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I played probably a dozen or more games, have won once and successfully aborted 4 times... the rest of the times got brutalized.
Honestly looking forward to getting some karma and upgrades going and getting some more wins. But the people I play with, we tend to have fun even when we lose as we try and concoct more and more desperate plans to salvage the run.
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First 20 games I played, I won 3 and had one or two successful abort rounds. The next 5 games consisted of 4 wins and a successful abort round. All using the standard Crossfire mission, and all but two of them with no Karma upgrads (I was testing things out.)
Some of it was certainly randomness, but I think a good chunk of it was just getting used to playing the game - getting better at target prioritization, figuring out when to burn through cards to prevent the Crossfire level from increasing vs. keeping cards in hand to reduce deck size and maximize cycling, seeing when to buy different Black Market cards, etc.
Edited to add - yes, I do enjoy the difficulty, but I also knew before I bought the game that it could be extremely hard starting out.
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Failed Ambulators once, succeeded at it once. Succeeded at the Portals mission 5 of 6 times. Crossfire is 3 of 4 successes. So, 75%. Everyone is fairly open about what they have, so there's probably more clear communication than some groups.
(Ignoring non-standard runs, like I have one group that likes to add a single cost 2 or 3 color appropriate card to each character)
I agree that having 5-10 karma makes a tremendous difference.
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our group's record right now is 8 losses, 4 aborts, and 2 wins.
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The game just escalates way too quickly. It really seems that a single bad draw can completely annihilate your chances of getting a win.
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The game just escalates way too quickly. It really seems that a single bad draw can completely annihilate your chances of getting a win.
Nothing quite like getting an early vampire or flipping GOD right off the bat. Flipped god 3 games in a row once...
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The game just escalates way too quickly. It really seems that a single bad draw can completely annihilate your chances of getting a win.
Yup, a game can go from smooth sailing to giant clusterfuck in a couple of draws... but to me that's part of what makes it fun. Sure it can be pretty brutal when both the Crossfire and Obstacle decks work against you, but trying to formulate strategies and working together to try and overcome these odds can be a lot of fun.
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The game just escalates way too quickly. It really seems that a single bad draw can completely annihilate your chances of getting a win.
Yup, a game can go from smooth sailing to giant clusterfuck in a couple of draws... but to me that's part of what makes it fun. Sure it can be pretty brutal when both the Crossfire and Obstacle decks work against you, but trying to formulate strategies and working together to try and overcome these odds can be a lot of fun.
Not me. A game being that fickle does not make a fun time for me. I'll still play it on occasion if others are, but I don't particularly enjoy it. I WANT to enjoy it, but I just don't enjoy beating my head against the wall repeatedly hoping the next time won't hurt.
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The game just escalates way too quickly. It really seems that a single bad draw can completely annihilate your chances of getting a win.
Yup, a game can go from smooth sailing to giant clusterfuck in a couple of draws... but to me that's part of what makes it fun. Sure it can be pretty brutal when both the Crossfire and Obstacle decks work against you, but trying to formulate strategies and working together to try and overcome these odds can be a lot of fun.
Not me. A game being that fickle does not make a fun time for me. I'll still play it on occasion if others are, but I don't particularly enjoy it. I WANT to enjoy it, but I just don't enjoy beating my head against the wall repeatedly hoping the next time won't hurt.
Had that reaction at first as well... like a lot of games it depends on the group dynamic and mindset, and not everyone is going to enjoy any particular game and that's fine... we all have different tastes and things we want to get out of playing.
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My group likes the random aspect - it makes things just crazy and weird. We play a pretty black trenchcoat serious game of Shadowrun, so when we play Crossfire we try to come up with some sort of narrative for all these crazy events and stuff. Like, why would an Aztlan-affiliated mercenary be paired up with the Ancients and a random ghost? Who knows, but that's half the fun! It's a nice diversion from our otherwise super-serious gameplay.
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Some general tactics, mostly obvious:
1) Focus fire. When new obstacles are revealed, formulate a plan of attack that involves everyone working together.
2) All about the Nuyen. Learn to love those 8-11 nuyen obstacles, they give you the cards to solve the next problem. Know when someone is just shy the amount they need to solve a problem (Covering Fire, Doc Wagon, any of the 9 costs, etc).
3) Assist! Those assist cards have a serious advantage in that you can use them a round faster to prevent damage or clear a crossfire.
4) Martyr. If one person gets staggered, even every round, you can use healing cards to get around it and eventually recover. If more than one person staggers at once, the end is nigh. The Street Sam has salvaged multiple games by whipping (or strikering) things over so that the rest of the team can stay alive until they're whittled down. You just need 1 heal per round to pull it off, Crossfire willing. (Disclaimer: Don't overdo it. It's just one tool in the kit)
5) Don't Hold Back. Conserving cards and nuyen for a plan down the road can have great dividends, but the crossfire deck can also screw up everything. At the start of each round get a feel for what the table can take out, then execute. Do anything to keep the crossfire number down. It sucks to start the next scene with hardly any cards, but it sucks more to have a higher crossfire number and take an extra round of damage.
But, really, at the start of each round / notable change in game have a brief discussion and stick to a plan. If everyone willy nilly picks away at what's in front of them, your crossfire # will climb, obstacles will rack up damage and possibly even start healing back.
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My table went 0 for 2.
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I just want to know why I keep being the one beaten around constantly and using up the Covering Fire and DocWagon cards. :o
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I just want to know why I keep being the one beaten around constantly and using up the Covering Fire and DocWagon cards. :o
Because Mungo likes it rough?
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I have 2 groups that play this game and, in total, I've been part of 4 Wins and 3 Aborts. It's all in the luck of the draw in my experience. We went 1 and 2 this evening, but we absolutely molly-whopped the last job and finished with only 3 points of damage. It was extremely lucky.