*Spoilers* I really dislike Colbjorn’s Questline.

[Voidfarer]

I’m almost at the end and suddenly there’s a roadblock. I realize the only way to get the gold token is to Platinum all four companions. I already had two of them, so it was just Estrella and Colbjorn. Little did I know what a grinding mess I was about to get into.

I try the Magician because it’s the shortest quest with a companion and has stores. As soon as I flip over “Estrella’s Unusual Contact” I realize this is going to be hellish. I completed the traps only to realize I didn’t have the artefact. I had no way to know I’d need this beforehand. So, I add “Empire’s Burden” and start over.

“Unusual Contact” is the first card on the field. I go through the traps again, I obviously don’t have the artefact because this is the first card. I thought I’d be able to go back, as with “The Peasant King.’ Nope. The card goes dark. I quit again, and I’m forced to watch the unskippable forfeit screen and the unskippable failure animation.

Here’s my issue with this section. You can’t get the gold token for the ending without getting Platinum companions. Their quests are sequential, but you have no idea what you’ll need until you get to the quest. Once you find out what the card requires, you often need to build you deck around that particular card. Then you have to hope you don’t accidentally land on that card before you get the item. If you land on the encounter, you have to finish it or at least load into combat before you forfeit and then you have to watch the unskippable failure cutscene again.

I don’t know what the intention was, but this feels needlessly frustrating. I had been using Endless Mode to grind for tokens and shards, but I haven’t seen companion cards in Endless. Because there’s no longer a “normal” mode, it’s difficult to decide which adventure will best help you get the companion token.

That brings us to Colbjorn, who is everything above but worse (in my opinion).

His was the last companion quest because I found that I never had a blessing when I came to his card.

Then the Trial. As mentioned above, I had to build my entire deck around this one card. Even with Gambler’s Ring, Gambler’s Mask, Tiger’s Eye, and Weave of the Protector I barely got out of that encounter. I realize this is a Brimstone encounter and it's meant to be difficult, but the real difficulty came from hoping RNG would give me all the items before I hit the Trial card.

Back to The Magician just to learn what the next encounter requires. The Colbjorn encounter was the one before last. I need a blessing to get the token. So I forfeit, build the deck around blessings, and go back in. No surprise that the Colbjorn card is last again. Finally turn in that quest and get the token.

Now we start up The Magician for the third time in a row. The Colbjorn card is last again. Thankfully, fighting the Brimstone Tyrant can be completed on the first try.

Now I get the sword card and I just have this sense of dread. Kill 50 Northerners with a weapon that deals less damage than the Villager’s Axe. Somehow, I already know the next part. This weapon is not part of your supplies. Before you can start grinding Northerner kills you need to obtain the weapon.

That means more grinding. More deckbuilding around a specific card. More playing the same handful of Northern adventures and Northerner encounters over and over just so we can finally get the Platinum Colbjorn, allowing us to get the Gold token at the end of the rainbow.

I think what I dislike most is the grinding and senseless time wasting of the companion quests. Unless you look at the Wiki, you won't know what a companion card will require. If you’re already at the end of the adventure, I don’t know what you’re supposed to do except play through The Magician to find out what’s required, forfeit, start up a new adventure with a deck made for that particular card, and then hope you land on encounters in the right order.

I’ve liked everything so far, but I struggle to understand the place and intention of inventory quests when resource allocation and encounter order are (at least somewhat) random. It means if you’re only playing an adventure for one particular token and the RNG screws you over you have to: forfeit screen, failure cutscene, tap through the deckbuilder, opening cutscene, tap through the opening dialogue, then finally try again and hope you get lucky.

For those reasons, Colbjorn’s quest feels like a test of the player’s patience more than anything.

[Nibbie]

There are many ways of making most of these tokens easier. For example, it sounds like you keep using The Magician, which is fine for quickly seeing what you need for an encounter but mediocre for actually doing them. I usually use either The Chariot, which reveals every encounter before you step on it, allowing you to more consistently complete encounters that require a specific item or resource, like your Unusual Contact; or High Priestess, which gives you free blessings for both combat and gambits, for tokens that rely on those two things. High Priestess is fairly short for replaying if needed, and also comes with free weapon searching if you need that specifically. If you want more encounter consistency, you can also run Forgotten Dreams. Another option if you have the DLC is The Mapmaker challenge, as its large map allows can allow you to encounters cards twice, and it comes with free gain encounters and map reveal encounters.

Quite a lot of tokens in the game need specific requirements to complete, and I find that thinking of the best ways to complete them, from which challenge to run, to the right balance of equipment and resources I need, can be enjoyable, and some of the methods above can aleviate the encounter order rng that will inevitably sometimes occur.

Some of your annoyance also likely comes with the fact that you are having to do all of these quests all at once, and likely doing very little else. I actually didn't know you had to platinum everyone for the gold, because I had already done them all by that point. I took their encounters with me as I moved along the challenges, going back to more suitable challenges for the encounters that needed them. While they often ended up a "wasted" card, it rarely hurt me much, and kept it from becoming more of a chore, like Hubie's quest is for me at the moment. What I've been doing for that, is unless I really want everything focused on just that token, I take a couple shards along as well, gives me something to go for even if my main objective ends up flubbing.

[TheAdhesiveDuck]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

There are many ways of making most of these tokens easier. For example, it sounds like you keep using The Magician, which is fine for quickly seeing what you need for an encounter but mediocre for actually doing them. I usually use either The Chariot, which reveals every encounter before you step on it, allowing you to more consistently complete encounters that require a specific item or resource, like your Unusual Contact; or High Priestess, which gives you free blessings for both combat and gambits, for tokens that rely on those two things. High Priestess is fairly short for replaying if needed, and also comes with free weapon searching if you need that specifically. If you want more encounter consistency, you can also run Forgotten Dreams. Another option if you have the DLC is The Mapmaker challenge, as its large map allows can allow you to encounters cards twice, and it comes with free gain encounters and map reveal encounters.

Quite a lot of tokens in the game need specific requirements to complete, and I find that thinking of the best ways to complete them, from which challenge to run, to the right balance of equipment and resources I need, can be enjoyable, and some of the methods above can aleviate the encounter order rng that will inevitably sometimes occur.

Some of your annoyance also likely comes with the fact that you are having to do all of these quests all at once, and likely doing very little else. I actually didn't know you had to platinum everyone for the gold, because I had already done them all by that point. I took their encounters with me as I moved along the challenges, going back to more suitable challenges for the encounters that needed them. While they often ended up a "wasted" card, it rarely hurt me much, and kept it from becoming more of a chore, like Hubie's quest is for me at the moment. What I've been doing for that, is unless I really want everything focused on just that token, I take a couple shards along as well, gives me something to go for even if my main objective ends up flubbing.

That is actually really great advice thanks. I love farming the tokens - and I didn't think to utilise those scenarios like that. Should make it easier going forwards.