What's up with the sanity checks

[wirednight]

So I get sanity checks in Cthuhlu and in Arkham Horror. But in this game, everything seems to trigger a sanity check. Read a telegram... sanity check. Read a letter that says "sure you can do this"... sanity check. Read a book that any normal person would read... sanity check.

Sanity checks should be for when something Lovecraftian happens, not when you're doing something any normal person would do on any given day. It's even worse when you read a clue that says "go to the science lab" and have to do a sanity check... then you go there and... sanity check.

[Trazen4]

Not sure what you're talking about, there's sanity checks for reading disturbing information and not regular things. Are you actually paying attention to what's going on?
Not one of the san checks so far are what you've described.

[Skeithe079]

For me it was less the sanity checks and more the mythos meter running crazy when looking for a book in the library. Well now that i know what im looking for time to start over again.

[Trazen4]

Okay, there are some dumb san checks after all.
San check for a freaky-tentacled once-human? All and good.
Sanity check for looking at A RADIATOR IT TOPPLED? That's just silly.

[WilsonWolf]

Originally posted by Skeithe079:

For me it was less the sanity checks and more the mythos meter running crazy when looking for a book in the library. Well now that i know what im looking for time to start over again.

If you pay attention to what the students tell you, which get listed in your clue information in your journal, you don't have to guess in finding the book at all

[Spike_uk]

The shelf in the library had an item which reset the mythos clock.

[wirednight]

Originally posted by Spike_uk:

The shelf in the library had an item which reset the mythos clock.

That mythos clock fills up so quickly, that one item means nothing in the long run except maybe a single point of sanity saved, which drains just as quickly, I'll watch 60% mental capacity investigators drain to zero insanity in a single chapter repeatedly just from trying to explore.

[zcaalock]

this is mechanic from tabletop version of the game, if you have played board mansions of madness you feel like home

[wirednight]

Originally posted by zcaalock:

this is mechanic from tabletop version of the game, if you have played board mansions of madness you feel like home

I'm not worried about the sanity loss, that makes sense when you're facing some tentacled monstrosity or something.

But really, sanity loss for looking at used surgical equipment, sanity loss for looking at a broken radiator. Sanity loss for every combat you're in (if that was the case the entire military in the entire work wouldn't last a single fight). Sanity loss for searching a dead person.

Maybe the first time I searched a dead person, sure. But hell, that means every mortician, every doctor, every nurse, every paramedic, and every police officer in the world is insane.

There's also the thing of desensitzation. After a while of seeing the same thing over and over and over again it's no longer making you lose your sanity, it becomes normal. That's reflected in most games based on Lovecraft, but not this one.

[Nadyani]

Originally posted by wirednight:

Originally posted by zcaalock:

this is mechanic from tabletop version of the game, if you have played board mansions of madness you feel like home

I'm not worried about the sanity loss, that makes sense when you're facing some tentacled monstrosity or something.

But really, sanity loss for looking at used surgical equipment, sanity loss for looking at a broken radiator. Sanity loss for every combat you're in (if that was the case the entire military in the entire work wouldn't last a single fight). Sanity loss for searching a dead person.

Maybe the first time I searched a dead person, sure. But hell, that means every mortician, every doctor, every nurse, every paramedic, and every police officer in the world is insane.

There's also the thing of desensitzation. After a while of seeing the same thing over and over and over again it's no longer making you lose your sanity, it becomes normal. That's reflected in most games based on Lovecraft, but not this one.

Agreed. I'm to the point where I realize all of my party will have 3 swirly counters before the end of the third scenario. 80% sanity negs, 18% neutral, 2% sanity pos, in my experience.

It's just blase to me at this point.

[ScruffyTheD0g]

The constant fear of going insane is kind of a Arkham Horror/ mansions ..Fantasy flight thing.. also the game being hard is a FF thing

[wirednight]

Originally posted by ScruffyTheD0g:

The constant fear of going insane is kind of a Arkham Horror/ mansions ..Fantasy flight thing.. also the game being hard is a FF thing

Again you're missing the point. I get insanity in Lovecraft games, it what it is. But even in Arkham Horror/mansions, the sanity loss isn't this bad. In fact, it specifcally counters half of what makes you lose sanity in this game.

I mean lets take combat. Combat against horrors will cause sanity loss in any Arkham Horror game. Totally fine with that. But it has to be a horror. Here, mundane things cause you to lose sanity. Fight humans dressed funny... lose sanity. Touch a dead body... lose sanity. See a broken desk... lose sanity. Hear a broken record... lose sanity. Hear that someone stole your friends body... lose sanity. See bloody surgical tools on a surgical table in a hospital... lose sanity. See a broken desk... lose sanity.

I mean I get losing sanity against the horrors of Lovecraft. Hell yes I'm behind that 100%. But mundane things causing you to lose sanity, takes away the fear of losing sanity to the true horrors of Lovecraft, because right now everything causes sanity loss.

Besides the games not hard, it requires no thinking because you can't think. There's no real strategy to it, beat on things until your weapon breaks. You can't stop the sanity loss, because the few things that repair your sanity during missions are so rare that they might as well be non-existant, and don't get me started on the clock. Every combat round you advance the clock, and there's no way to stop it and no way to avoid combat to stop it, and once it reaches midnight... maybe once a combat... you guessed it... you lose sanity whether it says you're supposed to or not. And trhere is no strategy to the weapon breaking thing. Weapons break, you can't counter it, fix it, or do anything about it except not to use a weapon, which makes no sense, since combat is so common in this game. This goes doubly true if you picked an investigator that's not a combat monster because you've doubly gimped yourself.

It's not hard... it's too simple to be hard. There's just no way to use strategy or to think about it because it's practically doesn't exist in the game, and where it goes exist it may as well not exist due to how super rare and how little it does.

Hard requires you to have to counter and use strategy to stop things. This isn't hard, this is just silly.

[omegazeda]

My biggest issue and the only major issue with this game that i found, are the insane amount of sanity checks i get, every time i interact with some things. Gets kind of tiring flipping a coin half of the time, lol.

[Grunndor]

Has anybody had a character actually pass a sanity check??

[BagOfBones-21403]

Originally posted by Grunndor:

Has anybody had a character actually pass a sanity check??

Yeah,
But it's still a cointoss.
I've resorted to playing the musician investigator since he buffs the party to pass sanity checks more easily.
The other investigators looked interesting to me, but losing the game because I got too much sanity loss really took the fun out of it.

[Ashaaargh]

I lost a sanity check because... I saw a broken vase? Meanwhile, I'm losing sanity points irl because I cannot make my character walk up a set of stairs. Sigh.