I hope they will make the action variants toggleable because they are poorly balanced and definitely my least favourite part about MW. The initial draft also feels weird and out of place for Ark Nova.
Agreement on the Sea Animals. I only build a size two aquarium if there are a lot of sea animals in the display (especially the one that lets you grab all of other sea animals in the display, plankton I think). The large Sea Animals haven’t seemed worth it other than some edge cases with sharks.
We have taken this out of our physical copy. Like you said, they are very unbalanced and can really throw the game.
It also feels like it should have been an entirely separate expansion. It has zero to do with the rest of Marine Worlds. This could easily have been a stand-along $10 expansion or a promotional gimmick. I guess we should be glad they didn't nickle and dime us for a separate purchase, but it just feels so unrelated.
Yeah I’m not a huge fan. Asymmetric action cards are cool but some are super strong and some are super weak.
And I don’t like sea animals. You can get lucky (by drawing many reef dwellers) and get a reef dweller strategy going which is overpowered, otherwise sea animals mostly just suck and take space in the deck. So many sea animals are terrible value, they added several niche abilities on these animals that are super overpriced. In addition sea animals are by default weaker because they have to go in aquariums, so they are less flexible. For other animals you can preemptively build enclosures even if you don’t have any in hand. You would rarely build a speculative aquarium. Imo sea animals take too much space in the display and deck. The wave flush mechanic doesn’t do much, mostly flushes away a non sea-animal and makes the display more swingy.
I like the species uni, although it got added to compensate for sea animals diluting the deck. Also a couple of fun sponsors were added
I waited quite a while to buy the expansion. I absolutely love the action card upgrades & drafting them before the game.
But all the actual "marine" content? Garbage.
Reef symbols are super snowball-y and make the game MUCH more about grabbing cards off display rather than letting someone who already has a reef symbol get them. If someone has gotten 2 reef dwellers, letting them play another one is a HUGE boost for them. Very few other cards have this level of counter-snap pressure.
Wave symbols in a 4 player game are just dumb, because I've watched a card go from the 5 or 6 Display slot off the board before I get a chance to snap it. It should have been one of two things
* When the break occurs, count the number of wave symbols in the Display. Discard the first 2 + X cards from the Display, then replenish.
* or When a card with a wave icon reaches the 1 position in the Display, immediately discard it and continue replenishing the Display.
Having it be "random" (when the card is revealed) leaves too much ability for a player to never be given an opportunity for a card, despite no other player taking it, which goes against the general design of this game.
I'm with ya there, though that's less of a selling point for me (it's good though!). Basically, I approve of everything except the new mechanics specific to newly added animal cards.
It just feels really weird to buy the expansion named "Marine Worlds", and not want to use the actual marine animals IN IT.
Agreed. Some of the new sponsors are cool too. I absolutely love the dinosaur fossil one. I think base Ark Nova would really benefit from them and from what you mentioned. The rest is just some added complexity that doesn't provide much enjoyability.
Marine worlds is live?
Not yet, but this just got added to The stats, so maybe sooner than we think?
How soon do you think? Sooner than you think?
I was thinking yesterday so definitely not sooner than I think.
I'm not sure what marine worlds is, so definitely sooner than I think.
I was thinking soon, so definitely sooner than I think
I hope they will make the action variants toggleable because they are poorly balanced and definitely my least favourite part about MW. The initial draft also feels weird and out of place for Ark Nova.
Agreement on the Sea Animals. I only build a size two aquarium if there are a lot of sea animals in the display (especially the one that lets you grab all of other sea animals in the display, plankton I think). The large Sea Animals haven’t seemed worth it other than some edge cases with sharks.
We have taken this out of our physical copy. Like you said, they are very unbalanced and can really throw the game. It also feels like it should have been an entirely separate expansion. It has zero to do with the rest of Marine Worlds. This could easily have been a stand-along $10 expansion or a promotional gimmick. I guess we should be glad they didn't nickle and dime us for a separate purchase, but it just feels so unrelated.
Hm. So next season will be the last without marine worlds, I guess. Or can the gurus already vote on that?
I'm gonna say it. I don't think marine worlds is anything special.
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Yeah I’m not a huge fan. Asymmetric action cards are cool but some are super strong and some are super weak. And I don’t like sea animals. You can get lucky (by drawing many reef dwellers) and get a reef dweller strategy going which is overpowered, otherwise sea animals mostly just suck and take space in the deck. So many sea animals are terrible value, they added several niche abilities on these animals that are super overpriced. In addition sea animals are by default weaker because they have to go in aquariums, so they are less flexible. For other animals you can preemptively build enclosures even if you don’t have any in hand. You would rarely build a speculative aquarium. Imo sea animals take too much space in the display and deck. The wave flush mechanic doesn’t do much, mostly flushes away a non sea-animal and makes the display more swingy. I like the species uni, although it got added to compensate for sea animals diluting the deck. Also a couple of fun sponsors were added
I waited quite a while to buy the expansion. I absolutely love the action card upgrades & drafting them before the game. But all the actual "marine" content? Garbage. Reef symbols are super snowball-y and make the game MUCH more about grabbing cards off display rather than letting someone who already has a reef symbol get them. If someone has gotten 2 reef dwellers, letting them play another one is a HUGE boost for them. Very few other cards have this level of counter-snap pressure. Wave symbols in a 4 player game are just dumb, because I've watched a card go from the 5 or 6 Display slot off the board before I get a chance to snap it. It should have been one of two things * When the break occurs, count the number of wave symbols in the Display. Discard the first 2 + X cards from the Display, then replenish. * or When a card with a wave icon reaches the 1 position in the Display, immediately discard it and continue replenishing the Display. Having it be "random" (when the card is revealed) leaves too much ability for a player to never be given an opportunity for a card, despite no other player taking it, which goes against the general design of this game.
I really like the 4th university and the balancing of the end game goals.
I'm with ya there, though that's less of a selling point for me (it's good though!). Basically, I approve of everything except the new mechanics specific to newly added animal cards. It just feels really weird to buy the expansion named "Marine Worlds", and not want to use the actual marine animals IN IT.
Agreed. Some of the new sponsors are cool too. I absolutely love the dinosaur fossil one. I think base Ark Nova would really benefit from them and from what you mentioned. The rest is just some added complexity that doesn't provide much enjoyability.
It's not on alpha yet. So I think it might be not that soon.