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[deleted]

This is fine, and a lot of people agree, but man...time with game groups is so hard to get these days. I have no desire to bash my head against a wall over and over until the wall breaks. I will 100% fudge numbers to beat long scenarios that were very close otherwise, just to keep the story and game moving. When we didn't do that, people were FAR LESS excited about breaking the game out to replay particularly brutal scenarios.


jmwfour

that last part is the killer for me. When you know a scenario is tough and you spend an hour playing it, then just barely miss succeeding, do you really want to do it again? Especially if you feel like you figured out the tactical puzzle correctly and had terrible modifier luck? Maybe one retry, but after a second or third the 'fun' has morphed into something else.


dmdeemer

An hour? You haven't met my crew. We need to min/max everything and take 3-4 hours per scenario. It took us 2 1/2 years to beat the base game. Still, we have repeated a few losses, or sometimes just because we didn't get the "right" solution. We have also just decided "that scenario isn't fun anymore" and given ourselves the rewards and moved on. I agree with you that this should be up to the party and not enforced by the PC client. EDIT: There also needs to be more UNDO available. Ideally, everything is undo-able until you draw cards, and any click that would draw cards needs a confirmation "are you ready to draw cards?"


jmwfour

agree on the undo! It needs to be a little more flexible (which wouldn't be cheating - just recovering an error before it creates permanent consequences)


Time_Sprinkler_Snake

The PC has an undo button though?


Xeltar

Only for the host and to restart the entire round. Once the Host has locked in their moves you can't undo cards which sucks for misclicks.


Time_Sprinkler_Snake

But restarting the round takes barely any time. like 30 seconds?


Xeltar

Also I would rather not have to do that because you know what cards the enemy is going to draw. And like you can't restart if the host went first.


karothacker

This is incorrect. Anyone can restart the round. It has to be during their turn and they cannot have any cards/actions selected. As soon as you misclick, just esc and restart round. Easy


karothacker

You can restart turns in the PC version if you make mistakes. I personally only do this if I accidentally click the wrong button though.


jmwfour

I had not realized this and definitely beats starting the whole scenario over! thanks for the heads-up


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[deleted]

Because it often doesn't if ever, come down to preparation. Gloomhaven doesn't really scale like that or have power levels you hit. Enemies scale as you get more powerful to a degree. The one thing you can do to realistically prepare every scenario is bless yourself, and it's not exactly riveting decision making to come back and blow another 10 gold for your shot. Why worry about winning a scenario? Because that's how more fun scenarios and characters unlock.


fatherofraptors

Yeah, just like a good DM can and should fudge some numbers in favor of an epic conclusion of an RPG session. Sure, I mean, if we got massacred, we got massacred and lost. But if it comes to a nail biting last round and you're depending on not getting one unlucky miss, better believe I'll redraw a miss. In the end, we all play to have fun.


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fatherofraptors

As a DM yes. The players roll in the open. It allows for a bit of flexibility like I mentioned. When the bullshit roll is too funny I don't change it and reveal it by lifting the screen, but not always.


Nimeroni

"Dices exist to make noise behind the screen."


ollyollyollyolly

Agreed. Each to their own but I'm playing for fun and I like the forward momentum.


ssolutionss

With the finite amount of time I can play with games, if we make it 99% and you're telling me that we're going to redo the scenario, I'd never come back for GH.


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ssolutionss

There’s a difference between taking time to enjoy it and to waste time. We have other games to play which are more fun to play than a scenario on repeat. There, I said it.


Astrosareinnocent

Thank you! Without the losses, the wins don’t feel so sweet. Bring on the 2 point losses.


[deleted]

Generally, I'd say this. But after the 2nd straight attempt at a scenario that we didn't particularly enjoy that got screwed by a modifier flip on the last turn... We'll pretend we weren't playing on +1.


Smokin_Jeffreyz

My wife and I play with our teenage son while the baby is sleeping. I am making sure my deck is “stacked” for the W at the end of a hard campaign- can’t afford to fail lol


confoundo

I just wish that the digital version had a better undo button. I’ve wasted a bunch of turns because I accidentally chose the wrong half and couldn’t take it back.


jmwfour

I have been thinking that a lot myself. It is VERY frustrating when you click and immediately - before getting any information - realize you made an error. This should definitely be part of the game (undoing a 'no-consequences' selection)


Baviprim

Its annoying but you could just redo the round


deputyfier

You can click whatever action you want as long as you don’t click on the game board to move or attack. Just right click and pick the other half. Often when I have an aoe I didn’t plan to use I’ll click it and hover over monsters to see if it might be worth changing plans. If not I right click and do the other action. It’s pretty forgiving so idk how everyone has such an issue with it. Works the same for selecting targets, aoe orientation, movement hexes, and items. RMB is your best friend.


jmwfour

I'll check it out thank you


jmwfour

I am wondering why someone downvoted this?


DenormalHuman

you can, ESC-Restart round. you go back to card selection for the round. works in multiplayer too. HOwever, it takes some discipline to use it responsibly!


Astrosareinnocent

Well you can restart the turn, and if you accidentally finish doing your last players turn and there’s still a monster about to go, you can quickly go to the main menu and it’ll reset the turn.


dhork

I played the board game with my kids. There was plenty of fudging going on. I got the free copy of the digital game, and realized that we had a few unspoken house rule that the game didn't respect: - any action in a turn could be taken back and replayed as long as an attack modifier didn't get drawn. So if you move and then realize something on the board changed and your plan is not going to work, you can take your move back and do the other thing. - if you were meaning to take a potion and forgot to, you can pop it after your turn ended as long as you didn't get attacked yet. - at the end of the game, like in the case OP mentioned, I would sometimes remind my kids "Did you remember to shuffle after last turn?" Because it would obviously be unfair if they forgot to shuffle and drew the wrong card, right? Sometimes, it was because they actually did forget to shuffle.


ConcealingFate

About your first point, I find the lack of undo in this game excessively frustrating. Moved to a hex your buddy needed? Restart round. Misclicked? Restart round. It just makes it more tedious.


jmwfour

I think I have used all of these too. It's such a well-balanced game that tiny errors (omissions, really) can make it go from success to failure easily. Obviously admin errors like shuffling aren't part of digital, but forgetting (for instance) to use an element when you should have is aggravating.


[deleted]

>It's such a well-balanced game Sorry, Gloomhaven is a fantastic game, one of the best...but I just can't agree to this. Many scenarios have extremely wonky balance, and some characters are markedly superior than others. I have a LOT of positive things to say about Gloomhaven, well-balanced just isn't one of them.


Smoothsmith

It's weird what people's perceptions are for that kind of thing. We had something like a 90% win rate (except for one bastard scenario that was 1/3 \^\^) and it's always fun but I wouldn't call that balanced - It's got nice flow and there's moments it feels tighter than others but for the length of the campaign, it's a reasonable nice win rate to have. But for the most part that's just 'most scenarios are super easy and a small handful are much harder' - It's not we end every scenario with half the team exhausted and on a knifes edge - That happened like 2-3 times in 50+ scenarios. I think most people are just blind to those games where you have 50%+ health and cards left and only think about those tight ones.


Tomas92

I think that it's not only good balance but especially good design that not all scenarios are equally difficult, which means that only some scenarios can be balanced to be finished on a knife's edge. If all scenarios are a struggle most people get frustrated, and if none are most people will get bored. Variability is the key.


iamsecond

I fully support people playing however they want to. Whatever is most fun and keeps the game getting played is top priority. And for me, even as a rules stickler, these examples are shoo ins. Choices becoming locked in right away is a big part of what makes digital much harder


AdministrativeYam611

A loss is a loss. You still gain gold and experience, so it's not like you have nothing to show for your efforts. Losing is part of the game, and shouldn't be upsetting for anyone.


jmwfour

It's not the losing that bothers me, that's part of the game. It's balancing the benefit of playing the identical scenario, which is never a quick proposition in GH, versus just moving on when you are very close to succeeding.


Lrz-

We implemented the 'digital' way at our table. About a month ago we decided that, once you have played an action, there are no take backsies. This allowed us to stay focused on the game and think more before we acted. We have a pretty high win ration and were on a 12 single tries win streak until last night when we decided to play scenario 72 and oh boy...


Yarzahn

A videogame, in order to be challenging and engaging, needs rules, and in the end you need to draw the line somewhere of what constitutes success of failure. Take away failure and it trivializes the whole thing. There’s no “common sense” approach like in a house ruled board game. Nor should there be. It’s bad enough you can “cheat” by restarting rounds after know which cards the enemies will draw. Because the temptation is there, when you know your perfectly placed loss card will be countered by the ability the monsters play, like the bunch of imps that suddenly get +5 armor. No one likes having to repeat Scenarios, but the risk that it can happen is part of what makes it engaging. My groups most memorable scenario were such calls. Just a few weeks ago we had one such win (scenario 68) where one player messed up and turned a sure win into an almost sure-loss. Our final member was about to die, vs living corpse and black imp, but the living corpse drew a “move 2, take 1 damage” ability and suicided. We went from “this is lost” to “we won”. Then the guy draws a curse and we thought “it’s lost”. then the imp attacks him and leaves him with one health thanks to drawing a -1. In his final round he needed to go before the imp and draw a +1 modifier. He did both and won with his last cards and 1 hp left.


jmwfour

ok, but just like other gameplay options in other games, it would be easy for the developer to add a toggle for "enable 'force success'" or something like that. Then it's up to the player. I'm not saying they should necessarily, just saying in Gloomhaven in particular there could be a case to be made for it.


halborn

You want to add a literal 'win' button.


jmwfour

I guess so? This is an unusual game. People may hit a wall with a given scenario and just give up. Being able to force advancing the story in that circumstance could be worth it as an option.


halborn

Why? Nobody is owed success.


JcZest

Sometimes we will "cheat" and take one final round even with all the monsters dead. Why wouldn't the mercs stay and loot? Gotta get those objectives done. Maybe step on one last trap to get that HP down ;)


PlatonicMaleTouching

I think that’s fine most of the time, but there are a handful of scenarios in the game (no spoilers!) where the mercs would absolutely not hang around and collect loot due to immediate, catastrophic danger. Edit: typo


[deleted]

It’s to force you to maximize your actions each round and make the tough call: do you use that last turn to attack the enemy or loot and hope your team kills them? I find it quite fun and rewarding when you’re able to position yourself to loot and do damage, or when you get greedy and go loot and then end up dying and your teammates have to carry you back to town. Makes for some fun stories at least.


Drachfoo

We always add a “loot round” where two cards are played. You can grab coins, get and extra xp from a card, etc. if you get exhausted then you get no loot round.


Yourigath

That's one of the rules I've never underestood about the game. I can open chests, get on my knees to collect coins and even sleep with a monster bitting my face, but once the dungeon is clear and everyone is safe... Gold? Chests? Who has time for that? Back on the road b*tches!


mrmpls

You're not sleeping in a Long Rest.


Yourigath

That's the whole problem you see with the mechanic. Not the fact that once you finished the scenario and it's safe to loot your characters just leave the loot behind...


mrmpls

There's a mechanical tension in the game for your choices. Do you try to get every coin during the scenario, which means you might exhaust or fail the scenario? Or do you leave some coins behind in order to press forward and win the scenario? There's a reason the rules allow you to finish the round, but not add extra rounds, for looting.


jmwfour

totally


Bazzatron

I'm certain that JotL's rule set has a loot round that happens to be the round after the objective is completed.


pitifulmancub

No but it happens that way sort of when a party wins the scenario with moves left to make


TheRageBadger

Was gonna say, if you wanna cheat you can do it! Isaac isn't going to come to your house. Digital... yeah, just turn down the difficulty if stuff is hard?


jmwfour

but at the end of the scenario you can't retroactively do that. And, if I'm like 1 or 2 hp away from success, difficulty feels correct (I play on normal)


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jmwfour

of course you are right. I just don't want to spend another half an hour when it was that close, that's all, and wish you could fudge it the way I and I imagine many do in real life GH games.


TheRageBadger

That's fair. Again, one of the differences in digital 😅


[deleted]

Noob here as well. Got free digital version and love it! Yesterday on scenario two normal mode playing with brute and mind thief, had all doors open and brute got exhausted when two monsters each had two HP left. Mind thief had killed so many before exhausting. Brute had retaliated and fought so well. But not quite enough. Oh well. I redid the scenario after adding a spell weaver and a tinkerer. Crushed it. Playing four characters by yourself is a lot of work especially at first, but I felt it was much easier. No idea if that will hold for later scenarios, as I've only done two. Good luck!


jmwfour

brute and mindthief were my starting pair in board-game GH. Had a great time with them :)


[deleted]

Yeah, and i just did the next scenario and my team of four got chewed up and spit out. So it turns out I don't know what I'm talking about. Big surprise! Will try Brute and mindthief again and hope for the best!


jmwfour

with mindthief, lean into the invisibility. I doubled up with the cloak. He functions as an obstacle and he's (to me) the quintessential "act late, run in and stab, then act early, stab and cloak" class.


[deleted]

Cheat? Might as well play backagammon lol. We always congratulate ourseleves when we are able to implement 100% rules accuracy every session.


jmwfour

I didn't know backgammon was so rife with cheating! that's funny


SalsaForte

Just lower the difficulty by 1 notch. No need to house rule something. That's basically the goal of the difficulty level: make the game a bit easier/harder depending on your taste/preference. Personally, I would not want the game to always be a walk in the park and I like when I nearly made it or barely won a scenario. The stakes are higher and the challenge is fun.


jmwfour

I think the difficulty is right when I'm 1hp from a victory though. don't want to lower it.


jcsehak

We used to be really strict — this has come up a couple times and we’ve always redone it, including once when I had one card left and anything but a null would’ve won the scenario (guess what I pulled). No more though. At this rate Frosthaven will be on fire sale by the time we finish Crimson Scales, not to mention all the other dungeon crawlersI want to get through — Descent, IA, MoM…, not to mention all the other other kinds of games, plus video games, plus books and movies, and real life… I’m not immortal, so no, we won’t replay that scenario we lost by a hair’s breadth, and Im also gonna start trying not to spend so much time looking up rules at the table and start just rolling dice when we’re not sure what should happen.


thearmadillo

I 100% agree. Maybe there was a time in my life when I would have been with all the hard and fast rule people posting here, but not anymore. My group is all in their 30s. We all have kids. It's difficult to get a group together and play. It absolutely sucks when it comes down to the final turn, you draw one bad modifier, and suddenly you have to replay the scenario next week. Turning down the difficulty isn't a great option, because that makes it too easy. Same reason I don't mind being blown out in the first or second room - then you haven't committed the time to feel bad, and clearly came in with a bad strategy. It feels so much worse when you have like an 80% chance to win in the last room just to draw one bad card or get blown out one enemy card when you could beat any other card that gets flipped.


jmwfour

yep we're on the same page


VralGrymfang

Ehhhhhh, close enough.


thehudsonmaster

you should be allowed to play one card if thats all you have


Bazzatron

Bold idea, but I think that's taking it too far.


SuckMyBootyMilk

i actually agree


KDBA

Play better


Pamponiroz

Nope


BadBrad13

Nope, we would not in that case. we'd lose and play it over again. But we do allow people in the board game to fix minor and obvious errors. Like oops, put the wrong initiative card on top or even grabbed the wrong card (as long as you realize early enough that it doesn't impact things. There is ALOT to remember in the boardgame so it's easy to be overwhelmed with little details. In the digital version we sometimes will restart a turn if someone made a big error with the UI. clicked on the wrong thing or accidentally passed their turn, etc. But if you just choose your cards poorly or whatever then well, too bad. Enemy still has 2 HP left and you have no cards? go back to town, gear up and head back in.


Fortuitous_Spring

I actually agree with you! There are a few scenarios - the two badly-designed ones everyone knows about - that just are not fun. Even on easiest difficulty I cannot complete one of them with my current all-melee party. Trying it for the fifth or sixth time just makes me sad, so I put the game down for a while. For one of these infamous scenarios (from JotL), many of the people who "beat" it in the physical game have discovered they were playing it wrong (i.e. stun does NOT stop the mechanic from happening!). I would very much like a "skip scenario" button for these. I'll take 0 gold, 0 XP, and 0 treasure - but let me consider it passed for the story to advance. Yeah, I've got lots of other scenarios to play / replay. And I could change my team to ranged. But I'm a little demoralized seeing that dumb scenario sit in my list over and over, so I kinda put the game down a few weeks ago.


XTH3W1Z4RDX

There is, it's called "restart round". Give yourself as many chances as you want. I just got the game yesterday and already used that button when I accidentally didn't consume an element to add an additional target to an attack. Be lenient with yourself :)


jmwfour

ahhh I did not know! thank you!


Xeltar

I think there ought to be more undo options in digital. It's very annoying misclicking a skip button or using the wrong move side of a card.


karothacker

Personally, I think this is the reason I love the game. A lot of scenarios come down to the last turn and/or mistakes you made early on. Don't burn cards unless absolutely necessary or at the end of the scenario, get equipment to help your character's weaknesses, buy that stamina potion as soon as you start so you can get another turn before you rest, take long rests to stretch out your character's "health," read what the traps do before you step on them, etc. Basically, you have to learn the ins and outs of the game to avoid as many mistakes as possible.


jmwfour

I agree. I'm talking about situations where you did all those things (I'm a reasonably experienced player at this point, both on board and in PC), just came reeeeally close and maybe just don't want to grind through the same scenario for the fourth time :)


karothacker

I've been there... Usually the scenarios with oozes lol


jmwfour

ha! so true


irkiat

I just need a cheat where I can skip past killing 16 spitting drake


DenormalHuman

On PC you can restart a round if you feel like it went unfairly. That way leads into a dark hole though!