I've noticed over my last few gaming sections that as the players are digging through the cards to see who's going to play what against whom, that the Mars Base is never being chosen as the environment. It's not that it's never been chosen. We've played there a couple of times, but now that the players are familiar with each of the environments, the Mars Base is being left in the box every time. I think the reason is that while the other three environments will usually harm the heroes, there are a few cards that help them. The Mars Base deck only seems to have hurting cards, no helping ones, which isn't as much fun to play with.
Maybe extra attention should go into future environment decks to make sure that they've got at least one or two not-completely-lethal cards in them, so that players will want to choose them once in a while.
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm
WMB is usually me and my friends' most dreaded environment, since it does have a lot of really bad situations for the heroes. Since one of us almost always plays Ra and uses his "Imbued Fire" card, turning all damage into fire damage, having "Oxygen Leak" show up and decrease all fire damage by 3 really hurts us. And "Pervasive Red Dust" is just never good. But I don't dislike WMB. We just see it as a more challenging environment.
I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
Agreed, this environment can be so very, very wrong. Admittedly, I've only played it twice, the first time was against Baron Blade, who ended up owning us, but the second time was against Warlord Voss and we kicked his butt. I've actually had a worse experience with Atlantis (two kraken at once is not happy fun times).
The concepts behind each of the environments was to emulate the feel of a fight in that location. As a result, the Wagner Mars Base is the most potentially dangerous, what with the whole "potentially getting sucked out into space" hazard. Both Insula Primalis and the Ruins of Atlantis hold many of their own dangers as well, while Megalopolis is more hindering than damaging, as a result of all of the innocent bystanders and potential property damage.
"Your goodness must have some edge to it — else it is none."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ra can be really good on mars though thanks to his card that makes him immune to fire damage, which is always nice to have out when Fire in the Biosphere comes up, and doubly nice if you know FitB is coming.
That said, I agree mars is the hardest environment, I don't know if it's the least fun though. However, it's probably the least fun if you're playing Zero, Bunker, or Wraith as it's just way too difficult for you. But Visionary doesn't care about Red dust, (no equipment in her deck), and for Legacy, Ra, Tempest, Fanatic, Tachyon and Haka its only really a minor setback. As these characters either 1. dont have much equipmenet in their deck, 2. dont rely on their equipment all that much, or 3. both. Getting 1 equipment card back when its destroyed is A-OK for tachyon, Ra, and Legacy anyway, so its little more than a 1-turn annoyance for them. Haka often has so many cards it doesn't matter, and if not he can always fall back on Crush instead of using his weapons. Tempest's equipment isnt that necessary to his play (I like gene bound shackles, but I'm not gonna cry if I lose it, especially if I get it back right away).
Poor Bunker: Losing all his equipment means he can't attack unless he plays another peice of equipment. Add to the fact that the only thing he's got that's NOT equipment (or 1 shot) is Ammo Drop and Modes. that doesn't make for a hugely productive turn for our friend bunker, especially if you've been going for the Turret Mode/ Flak Cannon/ Grenade Launcher DOOM setup that is oh so effective with Bunker, it just doesnt work on Mars.
Poor Wraith: Like bunker she suffers from the "loosing all my equipment means I cant actually deal any damage" scenario. Fortunately Wraith can get her stuff back quickly if she has Impromptu invention. And then it will probably all get destroyed again. But she still suffers comparibly less than Bunker, IMO, so that I think she's kinda playable on mars, but she certainly doesnt shine as much as usual. On a plus side, those grappling hooks turn out to be REALLY handy when dealing with those hard-to-reach base-self-destruct mechanisms.
Poor Zero: Hey! I can still do damage without any equipment! Unfortunately it would only be to himself. So that's not very useful. He probably has it the worst when Red Dust comes up (I dunno, toss up between him and bunker...) , but if he's got Isothermic Transducer and/or Coolant Blast in play, he's actually really nice to have around when fire in the biosphere comes up. Still, it can take him several turns to get rolling again, which is just brutal for an already slow-to-start character to get hit with the reset button all the time.
All 3 of these characters do kinda okay against Voss on Mars, because Voss has no equip destruction of his own. Blade, Omnitron, and Dawn all have equipment destruction in their decks, so you effectively have to deal with a reset probably almost twice as often, which is super hard. Wraith is probably still viable. I'd not suggest Bunker or Zero if you had the option. Pick your characters smart, and Mars Base can be plenty of fun.
"He robbed from the rich and he-
gave to the poor.
Stood up to the Man and he-
gave him what for.
Our love for him now,
aint hard to explain,
the hero of Canton,
the man they call "Jayne""
Understood. My feedback was just that if you make an environment that should be deadly, and it turns out to be so deadly that people never choose it to play, then maybe your design goals missed the mark. I'm sure you want all the environments to be fun first and foremost.
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm
We have taken a lot of our feedback into account in designing the expansion, not just with environments, but with everything. We're very pleased with the new environments and think they add a lot to the game. I think you'll be pleased.
I think that while Insula Primalis is by far my favorite environment (can't help but love dinosaurs!) WMB is probably my second favorite. I like WMB because it's hard; it forces the team to work together and gives the game a sense of urgency. One of the things I like about SOTM is that even when playing optimally, the heroes sometimes lose.
To each their own I guess. :)
"Crime doesn't keep the Sabbath"
I'd say that one of the new environments is definitely my favorite so far.
See the way my body's glowing? Yeah, a lot of people can't do that.
It's worth mentioning that an early Oxygen Leak (while there are few or no cards in the Environment trash) effectively negates Fire In the Biosphere 's damage. Meteor Storm is also potentially very hero-friendly - you can choose when to dispose of it, and it can easily buy you turns of no-damage time to build up your hands and in-play cards, especially if Visionary and/or Wraith are doing their jobs and messing with the villain deck. Villainous Weaponry is a bit mean, but they're also easy wimps compared to other Environment deck targets (5 HP versus 10-15) and boy, do they help feed Haka's Savage Mana when he Rampages.
OTOH, Pervasive Red Dust really is disproportionately rough for three heroes, and that discourages using any of them (or future gadgeteers) on Mars. If you want to tone it down so it shafts them less, change it so equipment is destroyed at the start of the environment turn (giving you a turn to deal with it) and change the destruction clause to end of environment turn with a discard cost of two cards rather than one card from each player (so that it still has a meaningful cost to everyone, but can be popped before it takes full effect). The two-card requirement may still catch people off guard now and then, but usually it'll be stopped before it ruins the techno-heroes' life.
Mars and Megalopolis strike me as being relatively slow fights. Atlantis is the opposite - everything plays faster. Insula Primalis is a bloodbath, hard on everyone's HP.