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Gloomhaven (digital, based on the board game) came out of early access today and you should play it
- Thread starter Mukrab
- Start date
Just to setup the game feels like a entire day. I pity people playing the game without a organizer. So many chits and tokens...
Yes, fully playable solo.
It scales fine, every mission scales up or down depending on the size of the party.
The missions aren't generally very long but the game is pretty challenging so you'll need time to think about the best moves. You can quit at any time though and everything autosaves.
There is a campaign as well as a couple other modes.
Gloomhaven is a amazing, probably my favorite board game, but dont start with it, at least not with the big box. Try to get the stand alone (Gloomhaven-Jaws of the Lion) if you want to have some board game rpg campaign. Or check out Aeons End. It plays completely different, but is a lot of fun and a good coop game.
Also Polygon did a great review. They loved it it seems https://www.polygon.com/reviews/22723403/gloomhaven-digital-review-pc-steam-mac-gog-adaptation
The board game is fantastic. I went through the entire campaign and the expansion with a friend, and the fact that I still wouldn't mind trying this as well says something about how fun it can be.
If you're not used to heavier board games, probably not. But Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is supposed to be ideal for beginners. I haven't tried it myself, but it's a condensed and less expansive version of the full game.
If you're not used to heavier board games, probably not. But Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is supposed to be ideal for beginners. I haven't tried it myself, but it's a condensed and less expansive version of the full game.
It's based on a a co-op board game so you can play it like any turn based tactical RPG.
Gloomhaven kept dropping to really low prices a while back and even though I have no one to go through with it I kept almost pulling the trigger on it. Now that there's a game i'll add it to my wishlist ASAP.
I tried it out, and spent about 2 hours trying to clear the first scenario on the hard difficulty setting (and only managed to do it after levelling up and basicall cheesing through it).
And thats after dropping down to a party of 2, because the 3 character variant seemed even more absurd.
Is this supposed to be this hard, or am I just missing something? Because I'm generally okay at turn based strategy games, but this was incredibly brutal for the first mission in the game.
And thats after dropping down to a party of 2, because the 3 character variant seemed even more absurd.
Is this supposed to be this hard, or am I just missing something? Because I'm generally okay at turn based strategy games, but this was incredibly brutal for the first mission in the game.
It's definitely heavy but the Jaws of the Lion recommendations are accurate. The whole thing is kind of a Gloomhaven tutorial, with very gentle onboarding and learning curve. If you finishe JotL and like it, you're ready to move on to Gloomhaven. If not, you found out a lot cheaper than you would have buying Gloomhaven first.
It is literally the campaign from the board game.
There is a puzzle aspect to many of the scenarios in Gloomhaven, and beyond that, grasping the card system is something that is necessary and can take some time. A big part of the game is about using your cards wisely, as they are both a timer, your action pool and your health. Some missions are quite tricky, but when you've grasped the rules it's generally manageable.
It is absolutely supposed to be this hard, I failed the first mission multiple times. The card system has many complex systems behind it and managing your cards is almost a game in itself. Here are some tips that might help:
- Be careful to not burn cards unless you absolutely have to. Don't take rests unless you are running low on cards, take damage instead of burning a card whenever possible, use the strong abilities that burn a card only if you are approaching the end of the scenario.
- Customize your deck of cards to try and enable synergies between skills (for example a card that buffs ranged damage with a card that fires off a strong ranged attack) and try to further specialize your characters by selecting the appropriate cards. For example, select healing and defensive cards if you want your big unit to be more of a tank than a cannon.
- It is generally a good idea to avoid selecting two cards with low initiative in the same round. Only the first card counts for determining initiative so the second card can be a slow one without consequences.
I was saving for a physical copy of the game. How does this digital one hold up compared to that
Really subjective.
I personnaly bounced off the physical version because there was too much setup, upkeep and the like, which was frustrating for me ( even more so playing duo or solo, so most if not all of it was done by me ).
The digital version, for me, keep what I wanted about the game, it's gameplay, story etc.. but automate everything I didn't like... and allow me to play it with friends who lives far away making it more likely that I will play it with a group of 4. So really for me this is the best way of playing it.
I generally prefer to play board games to video games, but yeah, it's hard to deny that setup is horrible in Gloomhaven. Not having to deal with that and the constant upkeep is a strong argument for the digital version, provided that it's a good adaptation.
I'd probably still prefer to play the physical version, but that's more down to personal taste than anything else.
I'd probably still prefer to play the physical version, but that's more down to personal taste than anything else.
The timer aspect of the cards definitely threw me off at first. My initial plan was to go in with a tank and a healer and just slowly go through the map, but this just obviously doesn't work because you run out of cards way too fast. What eventually worked was using two damage dealers and using summons and abusing enemy pathing to minimize damage taken.
One other thing I initially missed was that some attacks burn the card on use, because the icon for that is pretty small.
This was one aspect I definitely missed at first. I only noticed you can customize your deck after I had leveled up a character. Not that you have a lot of choice at the start, but having access to a summon for my mage character was crucial to beating the first scenario.
I always play games on hard because in general normal modes are designed so that anyone can beat them without too much effort. Which evidently isn't the case here (looking at the Steam forums there's quite a lot of comments on the difficulty), so I'll probably just turn it down to normal. It's just surprising to see the first scenario be this hard, since you'd assume it would be an easy introduction to the game.
This is, haha, not the case with Gloomhaven. I've played the board game on hard because that's what it recommends when you do solo play, but it is absolutely a challenge, and I failed scenarios about 20% of the time with decent foreknowledge of the game and mechanics from having played it with friends.
If you have friends to regularly play the physical copy with, all of whom have a high tolerance for crunch, rules, setup, and finicky board game stuff, it is a superior experience. It takes up a lot of space and time (and even more time if you don't have space to keep it set up).
Otherwise, the digital game is preferable and arguably superior. I will say that starting with the digital version will probably cause you to not understand some of the underlying mechanics (like deck modifiers) because they're a little occluded. But people regularly fail to apply the rules properly when playing the physical game, which leads to bad habits. So...
This is actually something I was wondering about when playing: is the digital version by default already using a harder-than-default-tabletop difficulty when you're playing it solo (which would make digital normal equivalent to tabletop hard)?
Because while I've never played the tabletop version, I do remember people saying you should make it harder when playing solo.
I might be wrong but I think the biggest reason the game encourage you to play on higher difficulty when playing solo is simply because the game rules officially ask you to keep hidden information. For example you are not suppossed to say the exact initiative you will play during your turn, I think even your character objective is supposed to be hidden, which is obviously impossible when playing solo.
I know many people actually ignore it and would rather increase the difficulty if necessary rather than play with hidden info.
The digital version has the same content and all the same assets. It is a perfect copy. Still I would recommend the digital version. The boardgame takes a few hours when played with friends per scenario and you fail often. Digital one is much easier on your precious time.
Money, time, and space.
Once you start playing GH the boardgame, which is great, it kind of just takes over a spot in your house :).
Curious to see how much this accelerates playtime. The tabletop simulator mod is amazing, but still has a fair amount of crunching in managing the monster movement.
As far as I can tell, nope. You get to select difficulty at the start of the campaign/guildmaster mode, and I think you can adjust the difficulty whenever you want? So you don't have to play solo as Hard if you don't want to.
I've played the board game and the TTS mod, and this version is night and day. To the point where it's almost a problem for new players, I would guess, because they won't understand how some things resolve unless they're paying close attention. Everything happens v. fast.
Also, if someone is entirely new to Gloomhaven, I'd recommend playing Guildmaster mode first, at least for an hour or so. It's kind of built like a tutorial, with lots of bitesize scenarios that teach you mechanics for the starting classes.
This is a good point. Understanding the modifier decks and the enemies action decks is an important part of understanding the game, and I can only assume that this is a lot harder to pick up in the digital version.
Glad to hear re: speed/efficiency. The groups I would consider playing this have some experience with the tabletop game. I feel like it would be easier to explain alongside what the game is doing vs. whole doing a chunk of mental math.
Yeah, enemy actions just kind of happen here without much fanfare or explanation.
It obviously shows their initiative and action card, and you can mouse over their portrait to see these at any time (and you can hold Tab to see the move order for monsters of the same type), but new players might struggle to pick up on some of the quirks of how enemies target characters and choose their move paths. Granted that learning the "AI" for the board game is kind of annoying, it teaches you to pay close attention to what the enemies are doing and why.
I feel like that's the ideal audience, honestly. There is also a detailed combat log that breaks down any math or advantage/disadvantage stuff, which helps.
Edit: I should stress none of these things are problems the devs could have solved better than they have. It's just an inherently complicated game, and some of the learning curve is inevitably glossed over because the computer resolves everything.
The tutorials are good! I would fire those up and maybe play some of the Guildmaster mode before starting a campaign with friends.
Couple quick tips for complete newbies:
- Especially early on, you are more likely to exhaust from running out of cards in your hand than from taking damage. Every time you burn a card, remember that you're also burning every future opportunity to use that card too, so burning a card Round 1 means losing a handful of rounds near the end because you'll be resting more often (and therefore burning more often).
- That said, I always find the first room of each scenario to be the hardest; if burning a powerful ability prevents needing to burn cards for damage, it's worth it.
- Use your health as a resource! Burning cards negate ALL damage, but there's no need to do that if you have health to lose. As long as you have 1 health at the end of the scenario, you win. Use that.
- New characters start with 3 extra cards available in their decks (called "X" cards because they have no level at the bottom). Take a look at them and see if any are worth swapping out with some Level 1 cards.
- Bosses no longer share modifier decks with regular enemies (and with allied monsters). So you can't get around curse immunity by cursing their underlings, unfortunately.
Yeah, I went through em yesterday and goofing off with one friend in guildmaster with me playing brute so its straightforward-ish.
The best simple-ish dungeon crawler I have played is the Clank series. A deck building game where you are trying to sneak in and out of a dungeon with the dragon's treasure without getting scorched. Theres an incredibly excellent Clank Legacy as well, wherein it is a 10ish game campaign that permanently alters the board/game/rules as you complete quests. It is my favorite of the Legacy games I've played thru too.
Another tip:
Perks are one of the fastest ways to improve your character. You get one when leveling up.... but you can earn them much faster by ensuring you complete your scenario/battle goal (not your character/life goal). Completing those award one or two perk points and you need three to choose an actual perk to apply.
Many of these perks are quite fantastic at the deckbuilding aspect of your modifier deck. You can, for many characters, get rid of some or all of your negative damage modifier cards and add more positive modifier cards. Many class can even add cards to their modifier deck which allow you to draw multiple modifiers and add affects to them. As you apply these perks, your character will become more efficient in their action economy.
Perks are one of the fastest ways to improve your character. You get one when leveling up.... but you can earn them much faster by ensuring you complete your scenario/battle goal (not your character/life goal). Completing those award one or two perk points and you need three to choose an actual perk to apply.
Many of these perks are quite fantastic at the deckbuilding aspect of your modifier deck. You can, for many characters, get rid of some or all of your negative damage modifier cards and add more positive modifier cards. Many class can even add cards to their modifier deck which allow you to draw multiple modifiers and add affects to them. As you apply these perks, your character will become more efficient in their action economy.
I owned the physical game, but sold it after starting a campaign with a friend on Tabletop Simulator. The Gloomhaven mod worked really well, and had nice scripting, but we were waiting for this to come out since we bought in early in early access.
Tried the first mission in the app with the same friend last night, and we were both VERY impressed with it! This is an amazing conversion of one of the better boardgames out there. You should try it!
Special shoutout to whoever thought to add a scoreboard at the end of the mission, with a personal best tracker. Genius.
Double special shoutout to the UI designer! I don't often notice UI unless it's really bad, but this game's UI is super impressive. Lots of information, all easily accessible, it's super well thought out.
Tried the first mission in the app with the same friend last night, and we were both VERY impressed with it! This is an amazing conversion of one of the better boardgames out there. You should try it!
Special shoutout to whoever thought to add a scoreboard at the end of the mission, with a personal best tracker. Genius.
Double special shoutout to the UI designer! I don't often notice UI unless it's really bad, but this game's UI is super impressive. Lots of information, all easily accessible, it's super well thought out.
How is this game playing solo? Might be able to convince my partner to play but don't really have anyone else.