Gloomhaven - roguelike dungeon-crawling adaptation of the board game

[Grunker]

Pro tip: running a party with Cthulhu + Musical Notes with a mate and it is just wacky fun. Constantly 10 curses in the enemy deck (cap), watching them kill themselves to Baneful Hex, doing 0 damage. It rocks :D

It even has double synergy, because Musical Notes' song that forces Disadvantages on *all* enemies effectively doubles their chances to draw curses.

 

[LESS T_T]

$4 solo challenge DLC is coming:

SOLO SCENARIOS: MERCENARY CHALLENGES DLC RELEASES SEPTEMBER 22
The second Gloomhaven DLC will be exquisitely difficult.

Black Barrow. Haunting my dreams, shadowing my days.
Deep within, I fear what lies below - what we faced. Yet, here I am again, alone.
I'm the Brute, I kill what people fear.
I’ll kill my fear too.

FACE YOUR EXPECTED DOOM IN THIS NEW DLC

Lo and behold, mercenaries!
Here is a quick summary of what you can expect from this DLC:
A considerably harder experience than the base game.
You’ll definitely have to git gud this time.

• 17 new delightfully brutal scenarios, each tailored to a specific base game Mercenary.
• 17 new items, usable only by one specific Mercenary.
• Items & scenarios reworked and rebalanced by Isaac Childres himself to better fit the digital version.
• New unique enemies and challenges.

To be able to spectate or play the Solo Scenarios: Mercenary Challenges content in multiplayer co-op, every player has to own the DLC.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

• You can only gain access to the DLC missions at Level 5 in the Story Campaign.
• When a mercenary reaches Level 5, they are able to undertake their own Solo mission.
  Alternatively, you can gain access to the DLC unique rewards in the Guildmaster Mode when completing the 2nd Story mission for each mercenary.
• You only gain access to the items if you complete the missions, these items cannot be sold or bought by other characters.
  The mercenary has to attempt the missions on their own and if they are successful, they are awarded their specific Solo item. This item cannot be sold or bought by other characters, and any later mercenaries of the same class must also complete this mission to unlock it.
• You can play these missions online in a Multiplayer game, but your co-op companions will be in spectator mode, watching you hopelessly try to survive.
• You can also play these missions offline. Then, to import the fruit of your hard labor to any game, it will be automatic if you’re the host, and if you are not the host and join a game, the host has the option to import any Gold, XP and Item you gained in the Solo Scenarios.

Note - DLC enabled save games cannot be reverted to non-DLC games.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Which mercenaries have their own solo scenario in this new DLC?
Each of the 17 mercenaries of the base game have access to their own tailored scenario.
This does not apply to the Jaws of the Lion DLC mercenaries.

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How long is the DLC going to be at launch?
You can expect about 20+ hours to finish the 17 new missions.

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How much will the DLC cost?
The Solo Scenarios: Mercenary Challenges DLC for Gloomhaven will cost 3.99$ / 3.99€.

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Can we expect further updates / DLCs after that?
Although we cannot share anything at this point, we will keep supporting the game after the release of the Solo Scenarios: Mercenary Challenges DLC.

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How many languages will be supported on this DLC?
All the languages of the base game will be supported: English, German, French and Spanish.

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On which platforms will this DLC be released?
The DLC will be available on Steam and GoG for Windows & MacOS.

 

[Sacibengala]

I'll probably pass on this one. This is starting to look like a superfluous influx of DLC's. But we'll see.

 

[Galdred]

Is it the same as the solo challenges of the base game?
Some were pretty good. The rewards went from useless to "how was my class supposed to work without that?"

 

[Lacrymas]

I'll probably pass on this one. This is starting to look like a superfluous influx of DLC's. But we'll see.

Considering Gloomhaven is one of the best RPGs to have come out in the last 15 years, not only am I glad to support the devs with 4 Euro we are also getting ~20 hours of content for that. It's more than reasonable, imo.

 

[Sacibengala]

I'll probably pass on this one. This is starting to look like a superfluous influx of DLC's. But we'll see.

Considering Gloomhaven is one of the best RPGs to have come out in the last 15 years, not only am I glad to support the devs with 4 Euro we are also getting ~20 hours of content for that. It's more than reasonable, imo.

Yeah. Maybe I'm just overreacting. I'll wait for release to see what this is about. If it's good I'll get it.

 

[Yosharian]

I'll probably pass on this one. This is starting to look like a superfluous influx of DLC's. But we'll see.

Considering Gloomhaven is one of the best RPGs to have come out in the last 15 years, not only am I glad to support the devs with 4 Euro we are also getting ~20 hours of content for that. It's more than reasonable, imo.

Justify this, I'm not seeing it myself. Looks like a glorified boardgame-game

 

[Lacrymas]

Justify this, I'm not seeing it myself. Looks like a glorified boardgame-game

Have you played it?

 

[Yosharian]

Have you played it?

Dude if I owned the game I wouldn't be asking you to explain why I should buy it.

I've watched gameplay videos and stuff. It's described as a tactical dungeon crawler? Not sure why it qualifies as one of the best RPGs to have come out in the last 15 years.

 

[Sacibengala]

It's described as a tactical dungeon crawler?

I don't consider it a dungeoncrawler, to be honest. It's only combat and the movement is very limited within the combat. Dungeoncrawl for me is actually exploring a dungeon, which is not the case in this game. This is a combat game, at least it's the way I see it.

 

[Lacrymas]

Dude if I owned the game I wouldn't be asking you to explain why I should buy it.

I've watched gameplay videos and stuff. It's described as a tactical dungeon crawler? Not sure why it qualifies as one of the best RPGs to have come out in the last 15 years.

RPGs are tactical dungeon crawlers at heart. You should play it because it requires some thought to do missions successfully, which is enough on its own tbh, but it also comes with 17 different characters (21 with Jaws of the Lion) that actually play differently. There are more differences between two characters in Gloomhaven than between the entire Pillars of Eternity class system put together. The battle system itself is genius and sidesteps a lot of RPG design pitfalls. The fact looting and moving are part of the action economy and not simply free actions like in D&D completely changes the way the game plays. At one point, you just have to play it for yourself to see how different (in a good way) it is.

 

[Galdred]

It's described as a tactical dungeon crawler?

I don't consider it a dungeoncrawler, to be honest. It's only combat and the movement is very limited within the combat. Dungeoncrawl for me is actually exploring a dungeon, which is not the case in this game. This is a combat game, at least it's the way I see it.

It is really a mix of dungeon crawling and euro style card driven engine.
The resulting layers of abstraction makes its categorization as a dungeon crawler but trivial.
There was also a never-ending debate in the boardgame community about whether the game qualifies as a dungeon crawler or not.
The feel is indeed very different from descent, warhammer quest, or any traditional dungeon crawler.

 

[Yosharian]

Hmm I see, so the story aspects are minimal at best presumably?

 

[Lacrymas]

It depends on what you mean by "story". There are events that happen and you have to choose what to do. There's also the main story too, but otherwise yeah, it isn't a story-driven game. There's just enough to get you going and continue pushing you forward.

 

[Grunker]

I love this dev team. They get 0 likes on their social media content and probably sell less copies than they should, but dammit if they don't get Gloomhaven as well as anyone

 

[whydoibother]

I love this dev team. They get 0 likes on their social media content and probably sell less copies than they should, but dammit if they don't get Gloomhaven as well as anyone

Speaking of difficulty, what's my mission success rate supposed to be as a new player starting out? Seems like I fail missions (death or retreat) about as often as I win them, and that can't be right.

 

[pakoito]

I love this dev team. They get 0 likes on their social media content and probably sell less copies than they should, but dammit if they don't get Gloomhaven as well as anyone

Speaking of difficulty, what's my mission success rate supposed to be as a new player starting out? Seems like I fail missions (death or retreat) about as often as I win them, and that can't be right.

Sounds about right. Until you have a build going at level 5 and up you need to rely on map knowledge, which you get for the second attempt.

 

[Lacrymas]

Gloomhaven is one of the toughest RPGs I've ever played, sooooo.

 

[Mig]

Will be free on Epic games from the 22nd till the 29th

 

[Grunker]

I love this dev team. They get 0 likes on their social media content and probably sell less copies than they should, but dammit if they don't get Gloomhaven as well as anyone

Speaking of difficulty, what's my mission success rate supposed to be as a new player starting out? Seems like I fail missions (death or retreat) about as often as I win them, and that can't be right.

I'm playing on Hard (so just a single step up in difficulty) with a Gloomhaven veteran friend (we both played a lot), and we fail most missions once. I usually play all games on the highest difficulty. I could never do that with Gloomhaven unless I just followed a guide 1:1.

Game is hard as shit.

 

[Parabalus]

I would also say digital is harder than tabletop, especially if you start with a 4p party while playing solo - just lots of stuff to keep track of.

The AI also doesn't make mistakes, whereas at a table making mistakes to your benefit on enemy turns can easily happen.

 

[DemonKing]

I would also say digital is harder than tabletop, especially if you start with a 4p party while playing solo - just lots of stuff to keep track of.

Haven't played digital yet but our tabletop game we have players constantly doing less than optimal things because they're trying to complete their secret quests to the extent they'll actively go against seemingly reasonable suggestions or requests made by other players that conflict with their own objectives.

 

[Grunker]

I would also say digital is harder than tabletop, especially if you start with a 4p party while playing solo - just lots of stuff to keep track of.

Haven't played digital yet but our tabletop game we have players constantly doing less than optimal things because they're trying to complete their secret quests to the extent they'll actively go against seemingly reasonable suggestions or requests made by other players that conflict with their own objectives.

That happens constantly in my 4-player multiplayer campaign too (digital).

I've found that the best ways to play Gloomhaven are:

- 2 players controlling 2 characters each for the optimal gameplaying experience. The full four characters, two characters are challenging but managable to control and you've got the multiplayer component without the chaos.

- 4 players controlling 1 character each for the best social experience. This is just fun. You pop open af few beers, get a video call with your buds on your second monitor and just have good fun. But time between turns are gonna be a while, and mistakes or similar fuckery are going to be constant.

- 1 player controlling 3 characters for the best solo experience. 2 characters are too few for the game to shine how it was meant to, and 4 are too many to control unless you're really good at the game. 3 is the sweet spot.

 

[LESS T_T]

$4 solo challenge DLC is coming:

Out now.

 

[whydoibother]

- 2 players controlling 2 characters each for the optimal gameplaying experience. The full four characters, two characters are challenging but managable to control and you've got the multiplayer component without the chaos.

After our current Rimworld game ends, I'll try to talk my guy into this setup. He played tabletop a few times, so he's got the basics.