Are you supposed to lose the first mission several times?

[Darkreaver1980]

Hi there,

i tryd the very first campaign mission with the brute and spellweaver and lost both times. I did always run out of cards.

Is this like a rogue game where you need to lose several times and get stronger to have a chance? Im almost lvl 2 now cos i tryd that first mission 2 times

[FaceMcGee]

You're not supposed to but it's not uncommon. You're not going to gain character power to beat it, you're supposed to understand the mechanics better. eg do not burn cards early, it has a disproportionately negative impact on your longevity.

[GreaseFire]

Starting out is really challenging because you have no items, low health. your attack modifier deck sucks and so do your cards. Compensate by lowering the difficulty for a few missions until you start to upgrade your characters and you can buy items. You keep any gold and XP even after failed missions so there's no real penalty. I started doing guildmaster stuff with new characters after completing the campaign and it was a reminder how frustrating it was having such weak mercs.

[Quizzical]

Your problem right now is that you don't know how to play. Once you learn how to play and actually get good at the game, you'll be able to start a brand new game and beat the first mission with any arbitrary combination of mercenaries. But you're not there yet.

There's no shame in turning down the difficulty when you're first getting started. A lot of games have the difficulty tuned such that everyone will beat everything, even if you're terrible at the game. This game is not like that.

I've written a guide to help people who are new to the game learn how to play:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2751554000

[magritte]

The first two scenarios are quite difficult, and I strongly suggest using easy difficulty until you learn to play. To be honest, even after my group had completed the campaign once, mostly at normal difficulty (we switched from easy to normal about 1/3 through), when we started a new campaign we did not find the opening scenarios a breeze though we did manage to get through it on our first try.

But some basic hints: be very cautious about burning cards especially early in a scenario, and look carefully at what your opponents are doing each turn and try to minimize how often they can attack you.

Personally, I think the level scaling in the game is a bit off and it's harder at low levels and easier at high levels than it should be.

[KoboldUtopian]

Yeah, the first scenario is tough. Check out the several threads about it in this forum for some really good tips and discussion.

[Jazrian]

As others have said, no, you're not supposed to, but it is pretty common. The likely culprit is just not fully understanding the rules and mechanics, which is perfectly understandable. Having said that, you do get to keep the gold and XP you earn even if you fail (which can make the next run easier), but keep in mind that the encounters scale with the level of the party as well.

Most common mistake beginners do is burn cards way too early, both by using them for their utility/damage or by trying to avoid taking damage. The key thing to understand is that the more cards you burn, the less turns you'll have over a scenario.

Spellweaver can also be harder to use for someone new. Make sure you fully understand how she works in sustaining her hand.

[Big Mad Wolf]

Getting the DLC should help, the DLC start scenarios are easier, if I am not mistaken.

The second scenario in the base game is depends a lot on what cards the boss draws.

Also the chemistry of the used mercs can be detrimental. Tinkerer and Warrior do not work so well in combination from my experience.

Craigheart and Mindthief are probably the strongest/best starting mercs.

[Lobinho]

Originally posted by magritte:

The first two scenarios are quite difficult, and I strongly suggest using easy difficulty until you learn to play. To be honest, even after my group had completed the campaign once, mostly at normal difficulty (we switched from easy to normal about 1/3 through), when we started a new campaign we did not find the opening scenarios a breeze though we did manage to get through it on our first try.

But some basic hints: be very cautious about burning cards especially early in a scenario, and look carefully at what your opponents are doing each turn and try to minimize how often they can attack you.

Personally, I think the level scaling in the game is a bit off and it's harder at low levels and easier at high levels than it should be.

This is the right answer.

Years ago on the TT version, my playgroup managed to beat the first scenario on the third time, but once we learned the basics of the game and each character ropes, we managed to keep most scenarios under our thumb.

Try lowering the difficulty in the first 3 or 4 scenarios before beefing it up, OP.

[Thrawn_1986]

TLDR: because the rest doesn't matter really. I will just say in my opinion it's worth the effort to keep trying.

.....

I will agree with the prior statements that its understanding the game. I would like to also add that this is not a criticism. please do not be discouraged by it. It is a hazard of it being an adaption form a board game (though arguably the board game has a steep learning curve too).

The first scenario is balanced in the board game with an assumption that you understand the enemies and how they will behave. with the digital version you can jump into play without having read the rule book and understanding how enemies will act. In the board game moving the enemies yourself requires all that knowledge, which inherently helps when playing.

[wzy]

Originally posted by Big Mad Wolf:

Getting the DLC should help, the DLC start scenarios are easier, if I am not mistaken.

The second scenario in the base game is depends a lot on what cards the boss draws.

Also the chemistry of the used mercs can be detrimental. Tinkerer and Warrior do not work so well in combination from my experience.

Craigheart and Mindthief are probably the strongest/best starting mercs.

The DLC scenarios are even worse, actually, because the lazy cut rate developers in charge of this project could not be bothered to properly implement JotL.

"Roadside Ambush" is supposed to be a breezy, 20-30 minute romp that teaches you the basics, and in the tabletop version it served nicely as an introduction to the core ideas of the game. In digital, its a badly overtuned nightmare with enemies that have more HP than they should and are far too numerous.

The standard Vermling raider at level 1 is supposed to have 5/10 HP for normal/elite and in digital they have 7/12 instead. There are also double the amount of elites. It's just stupid.

[wzy]

My sincere advice to the OP is to ignore everyone else, especially people recommending that you don't burn cards.

Burn like crazy. Burn cards (usually) give you XP that is not lost when you are defeated. 2-3 attempts should net you enough level up and if you're diligent about picking up the gold you get to keep that too. A level 2 party in Gloomhaven will play the exact same scenario, same configuration of monsters, etc. as a level 1 party due to the idiotic scaling system so you can just face roll early on and actually make progress in the campaign while you learn the game.

[Big Mad Wolf]

Bit odd to tell them to throw all advice into the dumbster and only about yours.

However if someone already gets the feeling, that he won't make it. He should burn for exp and grab as much gold as possible before he drops. Otherwise mindlessly burning will just ensure his failure. And doing the same mission again and again might burn himself out 'mentally'.

[Reality]

If you are playing solo, try using 3 characthers instead of 2 for the first half of the game.
Once you get to the boss / spawner levels, just two can be easier though.(18 missions in at least)

Ive still not beaten Black Barrow 2P, but 3P makes it much more forgiving to have a characther or two use a burn card in the first room.

[Ked]

I could, and have done several times on this forum, play the 1st scenario blind and telling you the exact sequence of card to play and win every single time. The first scenario is one of the easiest to play, mostly due to the low power level of bandits. The other day i spedrun it and finished in less than 5 minutes because i wanted to kill some bandits for a personal quest. So no, it's not about the scenario inherently difficult. The game is.

There is some merit to the argument that at lower level the character are harder to play, due to less useful card and a polluted modifier deck and not enough money to buy some basic items. And since this is the first scenario, you are obviously low level.

The reason you are losing is because you havent fully understood the mechanics of the game or how to play properly.