Ah, didn’t realize they just started out discarded not burned. That does help.
The first dungeon I’m talking about only lets you take 2 characters. I think you can add to squad after you complete/win it. But could be wrong in that.
When you’re starting a new campaign, the digital version walks you through choosing two new characters for your party, and then shows you how to get to the first mission. So it does look like it’s pushing you out the door with two mercenaries.
But you can add a third (and fourth) character to your party before you actually get started. On the “World Map” screen, just click the “+” icon on the empty slot under the existing party members, and you can select “New Mercenary” to add another.
Ooooh! Nice. I thought you had to complete the first mission before you could add a third or fourth character. Excellent!
I’m now have 35 quests completed (some more than once) in my new run, using the original TT rules for enhancements.
Gotta say, this is one game that does not turn into a slog after a time. Out of those all those missions, maybe 2-3 I would consider to be disappointments. Almost all are interesting and challenging, with quite a large bunch that I thought were brilliant.
By now, I have almost entirely reversed my initial meta-game angling. At first, I looked for ways to avoid retirements. Now, I prioritize retirements over all else, because of the way this increases the number of perks heroes start with. Not to mention, starting with enhancements bought by earlier characters of that class. As a result, I am currently recruting a Cragheart who starts with six perks and four enhancements.
Just loving both the meta-game and the tactical game.
I spent about 7 hours yesterday trying to slog thru the first mission. After 5 (I think) attempts and adding a 3rd character (scoundrel, cragheart, spellweaver) I eventually grabbed the chest on my second to last playthru before my last character collapsed. Then I went back thru and beat it.
Only one character was at level 2 after this but the other two were only a few points away. So today I figured I’d do the next main mission once just to bump my dudes up and grab some gold, but ended up completing it in one try. Now I’ve opened a few sidequests (beat one) and am starting to build the town up so I can get better stuff at the market hopefully.
The battles are a pretty good combo of puzzle (the same starting positions) and enough randomness that it doesn’t feel particularly puzzle-like to me. And I hate rpgs and wargames that are really just puzzles, so that’s a great thing.
But damn, that first mission is insane. I’m still not convinced that using dwindling cards as a timer is a good thing, but I can see where it would be tough to balance as a boardgame otherwise.
I’m at roughly the same point in my first playthrough, and I’m loving it, even though I’m not very good at it. It strikes me as being a real desert island discs-type game (if you were shipwrecked on an island which three games would you take) as there are almost infinite possibilities as regards unlocking characters and playing scenarios and guildmaster mode.
I’ve retired my Scoundrel and am within one mission each of retiring the Brute and the Spellweaver. Playing Spellweaver after Scoundrel was a real shock, as I had to relearn quite a bit, but I’m happy to retire her after only a few missions (Dagger Forest retirement goal) to unlock more goodies.
What character unlocks do you have, or are you on the brink of getting?
I’ve unlocked Sun and Music Note; on the verge of getting:
And I had assumed this would have been a character, but on closer inspection it appears to be a questline instead:
Leaning towards Sun + A.N. Other for my next pairing.
I like Sun a lot, but found mobility to be a negative. For me, Music Note is so much fun, very powerful in a larger party.
I expect that means you have already unlocked the class that this personal goal unlocks. There are two personal goals for each class, iirc, plus possibly other ways of unlocking them. It probably just unlocks a single side scenario.
I’ll hopefully find out today, but makes sense. I’m pretty sure there was a character unlock there earlier in the game, probably the Sun who I unlocked via prosperity or reputation.
FINALLY retired the Spellweaver, with an absolutely rancid 41% Winrate. I kind of don’t like unlocking that stat - all my guys were doing quite well until I started hitting all those quests where you need to get in, pick up a bunch of stuff, and get out again. My poor brain couldn’t quite cope with that, plus adding the new character and her moves. She was down at about 15% at one stage.
Also, the Colorless - screw that guy! On my fiirst attempt, I didn’t notice the immobilisation traps outside the entrance and my Spellweaver got bogged down having burned her only Jump card, while the Brute took the fight inside. He actually got the boss down to 8 health, but that was mostly luck.
Next time I went loaded for bear, and barely scratched the Colorless. He summoned 3 flame demons, all of whom healed him, he healed himself, turned invisible etc. When my guys exhausted, he was at full health again :(
Thinking of going Angry Face and Sun for my next combo (Brute retires after one more city quest). Anybody know if that would work, or if I should go Cragheart/Angry instead?
I’ve never tried Angry Face myself, but it has a reputation as a single-target ranged DPS machine so I think it should pair well with the Sun’s “ultra-tank with a side of single-target melee DPS”. So, probably yes.
There are several missions with unusual features that some classes have much better responses to than others. Temple of the Eclipse is definitely one of them.
If you think about it, Sun should be able to make good use of one of the local conditions. There’s another class that can do a lot with the other. And there’s even a third who—if they’re high enough level—can just waltz through like they own the place ;)
On the other hand, Spellweaver and Lightning Bolt are both kinda screwed…
Yeah some missions have weird special rules that really boost some classes and really screw others. The group I did temple of the eclipse with initially had a high level Elementalist and a lower level Nightshroud. It was a cakewalk.
Thanks guys,
Brute + Angry Face have been absolutely destroying all around them today, so swapping Sun for Brute will hopefully be good. Unfortunately Angry is already on the verge of retirement too, but I might just select him again.
@Tortilla I think I’ll bide my time until I find a good group to do it with, cheers.
Has anyone reached the ‘endgame’ in the digital version? I have some questions:
So I defeated the Big Bad, but didn’t get to the end of the Town Records questline. My last trip to Town Records resulted in a new location being revealed - Kill the Overseer in the Watcher Mountains. The next time I logged on, that location had disappeared from the map. So this has to be a bug, right? I saw somewhere that the Town Record quest is linked to Prosperity, so I guess I just haven’t managed to get it up high enough. Nothing new has come up since I retrieved the Codex, I think).
Also, I finished all the scenarios on the map. I had one left, which I was putting off because it fulfilled a retirement goal - 25 Icecrag Ascent. Finishing this I was supposedly given two choices, Kill the Drake, or Savvas Armory, which I had already done as part of the Voice questline. But Kill the Drake doesn’t appear on the map, and my Uncompleted Scenario list is empty, ie I have no scenarios left to do.
Just wondering if my game has totally bugged out.
And a follow-up question, if anyone knows :)
I don’t think it’s really a spoiler but…
I started a new campaign and the heroes I unlocked in the first campaign weren’t available for selection. Is this the way it’s meant to be? I was looking forward to starting some of them at level 1, as opposed to them already being level 6 or whatever when I unlocked them. Very disappointed to see only the usual starting 6, but I can’t find anywhere that says the unlocks should be available, it was just an assumption I made.
I believe in the board game you could always start a new party, but the world would still be as you left it, including Gloomhaven’s prosperity. This was more a limitation of the medium though: you couldn’t go removing a bunch of stickers and resealing a load of boxes. So I can see why they let you start completely afresh in the digital version. It’s a bit of a shame not to be able to play the campaign starting with everything unlocked once you’ve beaten it once; perhaps it will come in time if enough people request it.
When picking a perk, I suddenly worried what if my intuition was way off. What if I shouldn’t be picking Focus to remove -1 cards, because that makes it more likely I’ll draw that hated null? Maybe the power of the null is so overbearing that it’s better to keep normal filth around? For example, when a monster’s at one health left, a null is a completely wasted attack whereas a double does nothing special, and any other modifier on a 3-damage attack still finishes the thing off.
I wrote a basic simulation. First result: Those multiplier cards do show up 50% more often than additive cards in the starting attack modifier deck. E.g., in the long haul, you have a ~7.1% chance of drawing Null versus a ~4.7% chance of drawing -2.
The simulation measured time to kill using an even mix of 2 and 3 value attacks across a small range of health values for monsters. The Focus perk is good! The Power perk is good! It seems like a person can look at the perks for what they offer and that is what they deliver. (Especially with the rules update that rolling modifiers behave more nicely with advantage/disadvantage.) I didn’t have any thoughts to test on elements or rolling modifiers, so no results to report there.
When I play if the last perk is good (usually fortitude of some type on most character) I start with that then work on Focus then go with Dust. Leaving most characters with a very high number of positive rolls. This usually works out pretty good with Advantage/Disadvantage too usually netting me a juicy +2 or if I’ve removed my x0 or -2 early in the scenario then Disadvantage doesn’t matter as much.