There's gotta be a different way...

[Iltisman]

... to play this game.

I understand that absorbing four rune stones is 100% in line with the official rules as a way to win this game. However, it's important to emphasize that it is just ONE way to win. This was the case in the early days of MB: Ragnarök on BGA. Often, players attempted to win by another means: defeating their opponent's Divinity.

I was recently reminded of this when I heard an unbelievable story: there was a game where a player won by DELIBERATELY finishing off the opponent's Divinity, not as an accidental result of fighting over the last rune stone like children squabbling over the last serving of grandma's meatballs. Nor was it because one player was desperately trying to besiege a three-guard Freyr stronghold while the other was consuming rune stones like Jabba the Hutt on movie night. It was a genuine battle, not just heroes and monsters racing to the finish line in a Norse mythology setting. of "HEAT: Pedal for the metal"

I'm sharing this with a touch of humor, but one thing is clear to me: Ragnarök was more satisfying in the early days. Nowadays, most matches end with a bitter aftertaste. So, I return to my initial statement. Perhaps we could discuss this here, and I would welcome a lot of input. Everyone can continue playing as described above, but maybe we could consider some "alternative rules" that players could opt into occasionally to add a different twist to the game. For instance:

- No unit may pick up rune stones.
- No unit may end their turn with a rune stone in possession.
- Only one unit per player may carry a rune stone at any time.
- Or another method to make rune stones less central without completely removing them from the game.

Looking forward to the discussion!

[OTO]

I understand your concern, but I'm not sure I agree.

First, I won one of my last two games by killing. And if I look back at the hundred or so games I played here, I think at least 1/3 of them were ended by killings. (That would be true for the IRL games, both Pantheon and Ragnarok) So, it would take a larger view of the games to verify this hunch.
I remember, when Ragnarok arrived, that some people in France were writing long post about the game being too easy to win by force - exactly the opposite of what you're writing. Once more people learned to play, things got better.

Second, I think the game is still balanced mostly because of the draft. Most of the time, you can counter draft your opponent, or have a clear idea of his/her strategy. Someone getting the cats and Mimir, for instance, is gonna go for the stones. Someone with heavy hitter, watch out for your god. But you know that. The thing is, the average level here is going up. Most player don't do beginners mistake and expose their god - I don't win no more by killing a god that went to far alone on the 12th round. And because of that, the stones are played more, because it's becoming harder to kill a god. It's not the game, it's the skill of the players that's changing.

Third, I'm not a big fan of changing the rules of a game. If you make winning by runes harder, some unit will be useless, some will be even more powerful. For instance, Fafnir will be even more a game changer than he is, and the Goats are gonna be left to rot. A change so radical will have consequence on the entire game, and modify it deeply. Even the gods will be chosen and played differently. You won't find your game back, you'll find another game altogether (that may be good, but not MBR as we know it).

Last, I think there is a few change that could help but I don't know how.
* make sure the random draft is balanced (sometime, there is only one 5 pt unit, or 1 guard. It makes for interesting games but unbalanced if both players are roughgly the same level)
* let 1st player choose his/her side of the board. This way, we'll avoid the few games where Mimir steal 3 stones during the first turns and win the game all by himself. It's only possible on 2 boards settings out of 8, but it still boring.
* add more units from the extensions.

Hope this will help a bit.
Many excuses to the readers, English is not my native language (and I'm too old and grumpy to use AI)

[Viiii83]

I am agree with that going for the killing makes much more fun games than the runes one, but this is thankful to the tension of not "leaving holes" that propiciate a rune victory in the way.

Some ideas that could work without changing rules (which I don't think it is a good idea in this game) are:
- Complete draft but no Gem Collectors allowed, win with runes still happening, but in a slower way, and so the military way can have more chance of happening.
- Of course, NO FREYR

Experience will be better of course if those dozens, or hundreds already of bugs would fixed... recalling Mitergos!!

[Iltisman]

Thank you, @OTO and @Viiii83 for expressing your opinions on this matter. I would, of course, encourage others to do the same. However, your post, OTO, prompted me to reflect on this issue and the reasons why I have turned my back on this game (at least for the time being). I ceased to enjoy the game for the reasons stated in my initial post. Nevertheless, this game is always dependent on how we shape it or allow it to be shaped. Certainly, the more important issue is that this game, the community, and the players have evolved, and I feel as though I have not in the recent past. The race for the rune stones can only occur if one permits it; for instance, due to poor drafting or gameplay, or if one's draft and gameplay do not reflect those of the opponent.

[federik21]

That reminds me of a tournament where we used omphalus as tiebreaker, the "optmimal" way to play was taking gods as hostages, intentionally avoiding killing them. Some of those games took forever and weren't even fun.

The problem with this game is that after almost 10 years, there's still just a single game mode, and it will be the same even after Isfet.
As gameplay was tuned with just this scenario in mind, changing some rules or introducing new scenarios may break a lot of units.

Monolith doesn't care about keeping their game fresh by nerfing / rebalancing / reworking units to avoid the staling meta, they just "introduce" new units, hoping they will somehow "fix" the game (ie. in isftet there's so much movement forcing to contrast to the fortressing meta).
So, if you are going to sacrifice an entire kallax (and your patience) in their extenuating kickstarter campaigns, you may have a good game system (hopefully), but playing ragnarok without expansions is almodt playing a "broken" game once you understand the better units.

I keep coming here back time by time, but it is always the same game: gem collectors, guarding troop's spam (even without freyr, angrim is just too good of a jarl for troops with guard), hoarding the stones and trying to absorb first, bugs and rules applied so arbitrary by the modder.