The thought of grinding, in a board game, with friends is just mind-boggling -- If your group wants to get enough gold to buy some item, and is all okay with how that will affect the challenge, just pick up the damn card. Breaking the rules in pursuit of fun makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than breaking the fun in pursuit of the rules.
I think gloomhaven is more fun with infinite gold because that reduces the grinding... It also reduces the distraction and drama of chasing loot tokens vs trying to win the scenario. And means you can respec equipment without more grinding. It's still a long game and plenty of challenge (plus you can scale the difficulty if it's too easy).
Yeah, one big house rule we had in Gloomhaven is to declare it a "win" after a third or fourth time because there's balance to be achieved between enjoying the game and being bullied by the game. :) We played scenario 72 four times with different characters and it was Impossible, we just gave up and said "you know, we wasted four sessions and even more hours on this, let's just move on..." We didn't do this for boss fights, and for every scenario we "won" this way we denied ourselves the rewards unless those rewards were important, such as new locations...
Why not just replay difficult scenarios on a lower scenario level? The gold and experience scales. My group never had to deal with losing multiple times when we dropped the scenario level... that was just enough to get the win and wasn't too essy.
@@dlm89538 we do that now as soon as we realise it's "one of those..." ;) But back then when we were a little bit greener we simply kept trying and trying so to tell you the truth we didn't even consider playing it for 5th time regardless of the difficulty. :) We're much smarter now fortunately. ;)
After a three hour play session, when it was down to the last attack modifier flip to decide if we win or the last character exhausts, and my friend flipped a +1 for the exact health remaining on the last monster... You better believe I managed to "forget" the Shield 1 that monster had that turn.
@@RageBadgerGaming I distinctly remember replaying scenario 72 of Gloomhaven 3 times before I finally completed it and it honestly turned me off for a couple of months. I decided that no matter what happened in the future I was never going to repeat a scenario more than once whether I had to cheat or not because at a certain point it's lost its fun factor for a given scenario within the same campaign. I don't mind playing the scenario again for a different campaign, but not stalling out on one repeatedly. Nope, they can keep that approach to themselves lol. Honestly, doing stuff that just purposely breaks the game just because you can, in my opinion, isn't really playing the game; it's just being a douche cuz you can lol. That's not the intent of the designer, nor should it be the intent of a gamer. That same logic is why I don't play video games online much; too many hackers and cheaters and poor sports out there ruining the intended experience for others.
Me and a buddy did the exact same thing with loot Island. We had it down to the moves, so much so that within 30 seconds we would have the gold looted, forfeit and repeat. I had 3k ish gold.
If you had fun doing it. Congrats. But you could have easily just written down 100 gold and played a new scenario too. Kind of like not do it and say you did.
This reminds me of how my brother plays Minecraft. He builds a base in creative and fills chest with the rarest loot and then sets the game to survival.
Imao one gets quickly the feeling of how the scenario will most probably end up (like "maaaan, there is not any chance to win the game anymore, I won'T continue if it's already lost like that!"). So, IF I decide to fight the game to the bitter end, IN THIS CASE it is my great reward, that I can keep the gold and ExP. Everytime. On the other hand, if I decide to stop playing the scenario in the middle of the gameplay, I save time in real life but don't grant me the reward. But honestly, just go for it as you feel comfortbale with it. That's only the way I handle this "exploit". :)
Reminds me when the digital version of Gloomhaven came out, and people started creating characters, donating to the temple, then deleting that character and repeating the process to max out the Temple's prosperity track. You could technically do that in the physical game as well, but the rest of the group would probably think you're insane if you tried it. (Then when permanent enhancements became an option, some people took it one step further and would create characters, spend all the starting money on enhancements, then recreate that character as many times as it took to get a bunch of free enhancements. Crazy)
I mean, if someone is willing to spend countless hours grinding for money, I don't see it as a problem. Grinding to far over level yourself in RPGs is a time honored tradition. Me? I only have time for one session a week I don't have time for all that.
Scenario 72... I'm getting flashbacks at the mention. Honestly I could see using this exploit sparingly, like there is this thing we want to do back in town that costs a bit more gold than we have, want to take an F on this scenario and run it again to get what we need?
Personally, I like the "You got something for the 2-4 hours you just spent and tried to really understand this room's mechanics and realize you died just short of the last mechanic"... before trying again. It gives me and my regular group a "something" at least so it's not a complete meh. That said, I have a life. To borrow the South Park joke, if you want to spend your actual time farming gold/xp at 1 per forever... ummm... okay... that's on you. Dude, it's your game, get down with your bad self I guess. On the flipside, there is a limit to my/our physical reality. An excellent example, at least for my group and our current team, is Scenario 9. We just don't have what it takes for ranged attacks for the switches at the end (Boneshaper, Bannerspear, Blinkblade). Yes, we could configure for the final room but you still have to GET there... Anyway, my point is on the second (third?) run we simply looted like gods, failed out, and took our lumps. For my value, the headdesk just isn't worth it. If it is for someone else... 'eh? There's house rules all over the place and it's not an online multiplayer game with any kind of real market. I can understand asking for a rules clarification though (if for no other reason than using an extreme to clarify normal rule usage). However, if you want to break your game... just do it. I don't. However, I do appreciate the spirit of the rule in general. Those couple of hours wasn't a complete waste, and I appreciate that.
I think a good idea for a video. What are good team ups. Like how would Demolitionist and Craigheart work. In FrostHeaven you mentioned Drifter+Deathwalker combo for fun. That's something cool
The first time I read through the rule book I saw this and simply thought it was an interesting take on farming as well as a way to keep the initial characters more-or-less leveled together. There is nearly a 0% chance I’ll ever play Frosthaven at a player count higher than two. By myself I’m going to miss out on a lot of this excellent design. I’d rather not. Not being able to experience as much as I can would strike me as a waste.
Hey there! Not sure if anything covered in the video was about not experiencing parts of Frosthaven you may have missed but I do understand that playing at 2p does often yielder fewer classes played in Gloom. The campaign is longer in Frosthaven and you should be able to play most of the characters throughout the campaign :)
@@RageBadgerGaming I understand but I hate those situations where a new character enters at level 1 and has to hang around with level 8-9s. Maybe later scenarios address that. Haven’t made any meaningful progress since before the holidays. And the idea of just auto-leveling the bag’ o’ bugs doesn’t appeal. I do find it funny how you are confronted with 6 extremely non-standard asymmetric characters, given one page of analysis and then are told just pick your favorite. It’s enough to send a person to the internets for a deep dive.
Reminds me of Guild Wars- where people learned that “death leveling” was a thing. So they stayed in the tutorial and got to level 20 (the max) by exploiting the mechanics to show up post-tutorial with full rank. It only goes to show that tabletop games have elevated to the levels of video games, where you have now attracted “speed runners” to come in and break the game. It’s fun for a minute- but it doesn’t include the “honor rule” of, yeah, we CAN do that… but should we? I think this is why they chose to break things up, like Forgotten Circles, so you couldn’t (without a lot of effort) spoil things for yourself. And if you choose to, fine. But are you in it to “break the game” or are you there to “experience the game”. I’m the latter… but occasionally I’m like “I could manipulate this”. I played Scenario 1 and got a Banner Spear mastery because I “read the room”.
You can absolutely get masteries in the first scenario, I've seen it happen in more than one occasion, including the Banner Spear. That's not breaking the game, that's just proficient play :)
@@woj_kal To add more clarity scenario 0 is short enough that many masteries will be incredibly easy to tackle so while allowed one wouldnt recommend doing their masteries in it.
They have piles of money because they grind, i have piles of money because I'm awful at frosthaven. I would be prouder of this if the money was helping.
There is this fragile balance in games. The desire to experience everything within the known limited time you will ultimately play it - and playing it as it was intended (RAW) to experience the ups and downs. People cheat and shortcut because they want to maximise time : enjoyment ratio in a short period of time. But it burns up the games appeal quicker. And it’s really hard to get it back once you’ve crossed the line.
I've seen several people admit various house rules/cheats over time basically born out of frustration or dissatisfaction and most of them seem at least ok, and some were just one-off things. I do think that a group considering an exploit like this as "valid" has a greater chance of yielding boredom than fun though.
You keep xp and gold as a way for struggling groups to catch up, so they're not exploiting a broken system for profit, they're losing. It's like entering a marathon and 'discovering' that you can still complete it by strolling along at a leisurely pace and staying overnight at hotels along the way. Yeah the marathon is *completed*, but you came last.
Really appreciate your videos on here. I've watched quite a few. Ultimately, I agree with your take on this. It's a board game, you cannot write rules to prevent all the weird real life interactions from 'cheating'. It's up to each party to determine how they want to play. To steelman the exploiter's side though... I totally understand why they would want to find a loop hole in the given ruleset. It gives us gamers a little ego boost when we think we've outsmarted the game gods (devs and team).
The ego boost is fine and all but it's ego boost vs having a playable game. It was considered and determined to not be important enough to cover because "Who would bother doing that?" rather than a slip that wasn't covered. And yeah, some bases weren't covered but this was discussed. Was kinda funny though.
I think the intent isn't supposed to be endless farming of the same scenario. You're right, it's supposed to make you feel a little better if you lose. But this is just a game, and anyone could make up their own fun. I personally wouldn't do this.
The worst thing about Gloomhaven/Frosthaven is that there are zero consequences for failing a scenario. Being able to keep the gold and xp that you gained during a failed scenario is a horrible idea. Frankly, it's a little goofy that you can immediately retry a failed scenario, but I understand it, because frequently the only way to advance the campaign is to beat specific core scenarios. Failing a scenario and then "rebooting" to try to beat it is okay, but keeping the gold and xp earned in the failure is a wide open invitation to exploit the system and "break" the game. Not sure what Isaac and the good folks at Cephalofair were thinking when they decided to go with this rule. Our group simply ignores this rule. The only time you get to keep anything from a scenario is if you beat it.
I heartily disagree. Whether players won or lost, they still expended some of their finite mortal lives to play the scenario and the compensation reflects that. Players do face the consequences of failure in that they don't accomplish objectives and don't receive the mission rewards.
@@steveg7000 Playing the game itself is the "compensation". If you fail to beat a scenario (through party exhaustion and/or death) I don't see why the players should be entitled to keep anything. There are no consequences for an entire party becoming exhausted, or a character being reduced to 0 health. The objectives and mission rewards are still there for the taking when you finally do manage to beat the scenario (no matter how many tries it takes, even in scenarios that appear to be rather time sensitive). If you fail, you simply reboot the scenario and try again as if nothing happened. Fair enough. But if nothing happened, then why would you be able to keep xp and gold (allowing your characters to improve, and possibly level up despite repeatedly failing)? Permanent death IS an option, and using it adds quite a bit more challenge and tension to each scenario, but I don't think it's an option that MUST be used (although I'd be fine if it were). None of this is to say that if you and your group want to keep xp and gold after a scenario failure, per the rules, you shouldn't be able to do so. Once you buy it, it's your game. Shape it the way you want to give you the most enjoyment out of it. Some folks will get immense enjoyment from having unlimited gold and xp. But there's no arguing that the rule is very exploitable by those so inclined, and therefore a weak point in what is otherwise a rather clever and interesting design. I just can't wrap my head around the mentality that thinks someone should be rewarded (or "compensated") for failure. But then again, I'm so old that when I was a kid participation trophies didn't exist. So maybe it's a generational thing. Or maybe it's a philosophical difference, since I think compensation should be earned and not merely handed out just for showing up.
@@thetabletopsedge "Playing the game itself is the "compensation"." Nope! Life's too short to play for a couple of hours and not progress. Allowing the characters to continue to grow keeps them from being able to progress rather than be stuck in a rut of continued failure. And yes, failure is a valuable "experience" in and of itself.
I feel like there is a big difference between actually spending the time and doing it, then replaying it then just writing in infinite. Actually doing it is using an exploit, where as the other would be cheating. However strategic it may be I just don’t think it would be very fun and very time consuming as you said, but it’s honest. For example in gloom haven going invisible then blocking a doorway I feel was an exploit that gave you an advantage but wasn’t considered cheating. All in all fun video though.
I do thoroughly believe no one will actually set up and tear down their game a hundred times to do this just FYI, but doing it once to retry it I believe it. But it's still so very weird. to me. Glad you liked the video!
Rocking up to frosthaven after any scenario level 9 with enough gold to buy all the enhancements and crap you want doesn't sound like an exploit to me. It sounds like a funny haha thing you can do or acknowledge you can do. Why are we saying the people who did it are cheating and not functionally having a good laugh about how frosthaven's attempts to systematize a combat sim won't work not matter how many words you put in the rules? Diatribe on another subject: I never had more than 200 gold on me at any time in gloomhaven because I was so aggressively retiring my characters. Being able to afford a level 9 enhancement I want sounds fun. Side Note: I never bought a single enhancement in Gloomhaven except on the shadow assassin character. And I hated that character. Grinding until I have 600+ gold or whatever for a cool level 9 multi-attack enhancement is not something anyone has actually done. And anyone who says they have is lying or should play something other than haven games. 600 gold is 90+ loot grabs in frosthaven if you perfect getting gold every time RAW. Also side note: Having infinite money in frosthaven doesn't accomplish much. There is a very real hard cap to how much money you can even theoretically use. Having more than that doesn't do anything as far as I know. It's nothing like other games or TTRPG's where having infinite money changes how the game works.
@@RageBadgerGaming absolutely, I recently picked up eclipse at level 7 Whilst it was full to delete everything the first few missions I Quickly missed having to actually play the game
Love the meme at the end! I dislike that Frosthaven doesn’t give you an option to play around so much in casual mode and be able to reap any benefits whatsoever. For Gloomhaven, it was a prime way for us to play the game when we couldn’t get the full group together. I expect that we will keep gold and XP from our casual mode games as if we spent time playing a lost scenario. Since the game’s difficulty scales to your level, I don’t think this is too bad, and frankly we always wish we had more money for enhancement.
To combat the resource scarcity issue you mentioned (being able to trade gold for resources), I think we’ll adjust to only spend the gold on enhancements.
Playing in casual mode has always been a very optional thing so taking that stuff away makes sense. Unfortunately. I'd definitely point out that Gloom/Frost are very different in the campaign level for that reason, Gloom didn't have the aspect of time so Frosthaven should be approached differently.
Digital Speedrunning would actually involve intentionally exausting yourself to unlock lightning bolts, I guess no one said you couldn't but that is kinda against the idea of a personal quest...
Yeah, digital speedrunning has some wild stuff that clearly wouldn't happen in an actual board game multiplayer setup of Gloomhaven but it's neat to see sometimes lol
Agree with most of this. Why pay hundreds of dollars just to exploit it? Well there is another side. Since Frosthaven is indeed “time sensitive” we’re under pressure to try to collect as many resources as possible before “winter is coming”. First. I would never do this because, well, boring… but say that you pull “just” coin cards from the deck. Then perhaps your motivated to fail and replay the scenario, just to get better loot. Or at least stay in the scenario as long as possible just to pick up all the loot, (leave a simple enemy and go back and pick up all the stuff), virtually inflating the already long playtime. I’ve played the GH campaign multiple times, and JotL, all community campings. Looove the mechanics and story of Worldhaven, but the rules for loot was imo the worst part of GH and unfortunately due to the time sensitivity of Frost it’s now even worse.
I mean that's what the end part was about, but even then depriving yourself of the experience of playing Frosthaven because you want unlimited gold and now trivialize stuff because you spent 3k in enhancements is a strange thing.
@@RageBadgerGaming Still if some one just flips through maps and reads everything it's their game and they decide how they play. They just can't complain after that it sucked.
@@nikoheinonen7815 I mean they could, but it's definitely going to be a different experience shaped by that person. If it sucks, it is their own fault at that point lol. Sometimes my friends will try to follow recipes but sub out eggs or replace flour with gluten free flour and then blame the recipe but without using appropriate substitutes, how did they possibly expect the same results when they made their own changes on the fly? The recipes fine, the substitution sucked. Same thing applies here.
Call me a cheater: I started a Drifter, got a sword from Gloomhaven with my starting 30g, realized I should have followed Isaac advice for starting items, asked the group if I could reroll my equipment. Such a cheater, right? If I "cheat" gold where is the challenge?
There is a significant difference between "guys I may have screwed up my starting items, can I have a do-over" and exploiting a gold exploit and patting yourself on the back for it. House rules, group-fun is all fine, at the end of the video I literally discuss that there's moments where it's ok and won't ruin the experience.
I guess you’re more then entitled to you question, but I don’t see why the color of this tubers tech has anything to do with equality between genders? Nor a gold exploit in FH for that mater :)
![Frosthaven - What To Build First! [Construction and Crafting Guide]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CPOIDmRflhU/mqdefault.jpg)
Excuse me, are you telling me that playing scenario 1 for 300 hours isn't the ideal player experience?
:shockedpikachu:
Where is the fun on that?
The thought of grinding, in a board game, with friends is just mind-boggling -- If your group wants to get enough gold to buy some item, and is all okay with how that will affect the challenge, just pick up the damn card. Breaking the rules in pursuit of fun makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than breaking the fun in pursuit of the rules.
Very well said!
100%. If you want to cheat just cheat.
I think gloomhaven is more fun with infinite gold because that reduces the grinding... It also reduces the distraction and drama of chasing loot tokens vs trying to win the scenario. And means you can respec equipment without more grinding. It's still a long game and plenty of challenge (plus you can scale the difficulty if it's too easy).
Yeah, one big house rule we had in Gloomhaven is to declare it a "win" after a third or fourth time because there's balance to be achieved between enjoying the game and being bullied by the game. :) We played scenario 72 four times with different characters and it was Impossible, we just gave up and said "you know, we wasted four sessions and even more hours on this, let's just move on..."
We didn't do this for boss fights, and for every scenario we "won" this way we denied ourselves the rewards unless those rewards were important, such as new locations...
Yeah if you've failed a scenario 4 times. That sucks, can understand that :)
Why not just replay difficult scenarios on a lower scenario level? The gold and experience scales. My group never had to deal with losing multiple times when we dropped the scenario level... that was just enough to get the win and wasn't too essy.
@@dlm89538 we do that now as soon as we realise it's "one of those..." ;) But back then when we were a little bit greener we simply kept trying and trying so to tell you the truth we didn't even consider playing it for 5th time regardless of the difficulty. :) We're much smarter now fortunately. ;)
The only reason we won is because we had an Angry face and an Eclipse that could avoid being targeted pretty much at will. Plus some lucky draws.
I don't even like repeating scenarios when I legitimately lose them, so no thanks lol
lmao same
After a three hour play session, when it was down to the last attack modifier flip to decide if we win or the last character exhausts, and my friend flipped a +1 for the exact health remaining on the last monster... You better believe I managed to "forget" the Shield 1 that monster had that turn.
@@TymberJ you're damn right
@@RageBadgerGaming I distinctly remember replaying scenario 72 of Gloomhaven 3 times before I finally completed it and it honestly turned me off for a couple of months. I decided that no matter what happened in the future I was never going to repeat a scenario more than once whether I had to cheat or not because at a certain point it's lost its fun factor for a given scenario within the same campaign. I don't mind playing the scenario again for a different campaign, but not stalling out on one repeatedly. Nope, they can keep that approach to themselves lol. Honestly, doing stuff that just purposely breaks the game just because you can, in my opinion, isn't really playing the game; it's just being a douche cuz you can lol. That's not the intent of the designer, nor should it be the intent of a gamer. That same logic is why I don't play video games online much; too many hackers and cheaters and poor sports out there ruining the intended experience for others.
Me and a buddy did the exact same thing with loot Island. We had it down to the moves, so much so that within 30 seconds we would have the gold looted, forfeit and repeat. I had 3k ish gold.
not familiar with loot island but you seem to be doing it correctly
@@RageBadgerGaming It's the Gloomhaven scenario with all the vermlings
@@aiaegaming2952 oh lmao yes 🤣
If you had fun doing it. Congrats.
But you could have easily just written down 100 gold and played a new scenario too. Kind of like not do it and say you did.
I think that I played that scenario 4 - 5 times. Nothing to do on a Tuesday night and one of my team members is available? Let's scrooge mcduck
This reminds me of how my brother plays Minecraft. He builds a base in creative and fills chest with the rarest loot and then sets the game to survival.
lol well that'll certainly improve his odds of surviving...
Imao one gets quickly the feeling of how the scenario will most probably end up (like "maaaan, there is not any chance to win the game anymore, I won'T continue if it's already lost like that!"). So, IF I decide to fight the game to the bitter end, IN THIS CASE it is my great reward, that I can keep the gold and ExP. Everytime. On the other hand, if I decide to stop playing the scenario in the middle of the gameplay, I save time in real life but don't grant me the reward. But honestly, just go for it as you feel comfortbale with it. That's only the way I handle this "exploit". :)
Reminds me when the digital version of Gloomhaven came out, and people started creating characters, donating to the temple, then deleting that character and repeating the process to max out the Temple's prosperity track. You could technically do that in the physical game as well, but the rest of the group would probably think you're insane if you tried it.
(Then when permanent enhancements became an option, some people took it one step further and would create characters, spend all the starting money on enhancements, then recreate that character as many times as it took to get a bunch of free enhancements. Crazy)
geez what a slog lmao
If that’s fun for them - I say go for it
I mean, if someone is willing to spend countless hours grinding for money, I don't see it as a problem. Grinding to far over level yourself in RPGs is a time honored tradition. Me? I only have time for one session a week I don't have time for all that.
Yeah, I'm with you here lol
Scenario 72... I'm getting flashbacks at the mention. Honestly I could see using this exploit sparingly, like there is this thing we want to do back in town that costs a bit more gold than we have, want to take an F on this scenario and run it again to get what we need?
But keep in mind once you go back to Frosthaven, you do get a tick of Passage of Time.
@@RageBadgerGaming Sure but if I understand correctly we get 1 tick of time regardless of how many times we run that scenario.
What about the random item? Would you lose that item from the loot also? When resetting a scenario?
Random items are permanent.
Personally, I like the "You got something for the 2-4 hours you just spent and tried to really understand this room's mechanics and realize you died just short of the last mechanic"... before trying again. It gives me and my regular group a "something" at least so it's not a complete meh.
That said, I have a life. To borrow the South Park joke, if you want to spend your actual time farming gold/xp at 1 per forever... ummm... okay... that's on you. Dude, it's your game, get down with your bad self I guess.
On the flipside, there is a limit to my/our physical reality. An excellent example, at least for my group and our current team, is Scenario 9. We just don't have what it takes for ranged attacks for the switches at the end (Boneshaper, Bannerspear, Blinkblade). Yes, we could configure for the final room but you still have to GET there... Anyway, my point is on the second (third?) run we simply looted like gods, failed out, and took our lumps.
For my value, the headdesk just isn't worth it. If it is for someone else... 'eh? There's house rules all over the place and it's not an online multiplayer game with any kind of real market. I can understand asking for a rules clarification though (if for no other reason than using an extreme to clarify normal rule usage). However, if you want to break your game... just do it. I don't.
However, I do appreciate the spirit of the rule in general. Those couple of hours wasn't a complete waste, and I appreciate that.
I think a good idea for a video. What are good team ups. Like how would Demolitionist and Craigheart work.
In FrostHeaven you mentioned Drifter+Deathwalker combo for fun. That's something cool
The first time I read through the rule book I saw this and simply thought it was an interesting take on farming as well as a way to keep the initial characters more-or-less leveled together.
There is nearly a 0% chance I’ll ever play Frosthaven at a player count higher than two. By myself I’m going to miss out on a lot of this excellent design. I’d rather not. Not being able to experience as much as I can would strike me as a waste.
Hey there! Not sure if anything covered in the video was about not experiencing parts of Frosthaven you may have missed but I do understand that playing at 2p does often yielder fewer classes played in Gloom. The campaign is longer in Frosthaven and you should be able to play most of the characters throughout the campaign :)
@@RageBadgerGaming I understand but I hate those situations where a new character enters at level 1 and has to hang around with level 8-9s. Maybe later scenarios address that. Haven’t made any meaningful progress since before the holidays. And the idea of just auto-leveling the bag’ o’ bugs doesn’t appeal.
I do find it funny how you are confronted with 6 extremely non-standard asymmetric characters, given one page of analysis and then are told just pick your favorite. It’s enough to send a person to the internets for a deep dive.
Reminds me of Guild Wars- where people learned that “death leveling” was a thing.
So they stayed in the tutorial and got to level 20 (the max) by exploiting the mechanics to show up post-tutorial with full rank.
It only goes to show that tabletop games have elevated to the levels of video games, where you have now attracted “speed runners” to come in and break the game.
It’s fun for a minute- but it doesn’t include the “honor rule” of, yeah, we CAN do that… but should we?
I think this is why they chose to break things up, like Forgotten Circles, so you couldn’t (without a lot of effort) spoil things for yourself.
And if you choose to, fine. But are you in it to “break the game” or are you there to “experience the game”.
I’m the latter… but occasionally I’m like “I could manipulate this”.
I played Scenario 1 and got a Banner Spear mastery because I “read the room”.
You can absolutely get masteries in the first scenario, I've seen it happen in more than one occasion, including the Banner Spear. That's not breaking the game, that's just proficient play :)
Can anyone tell me. Is it allowed to achieve a mastery at scenario 0?
Technically yes, but you shouldn't. I don't count scenario 0 to be used for challenges, goals or masteries.
@@RageBadgerGaming we are gone start over campaign Friday. So I don't know is it that easy
@@woj_kal To add more clarity scenario 0 is short enough that many masteries will be incredibly easy to tackle so while allowed one wouldnt recommend doing their masteries in it.
They have piles of money because they grind, i have piles of money because I'm awful at frosthaven. I would be prouder of this if the money was helping.
There is this fragile balance in games. The desire to experience everything within the known limited time you will ultimately play it - and playing it as it was intended (RAW) to experience the ups and downs. People cheat and shortcut because they want to maximise time : enjoyment ratio in a short period of time. But it burns up the games appeal quicker. And it’s really hard to get it back once you’ve crossed the line.
I've seen several people admit various house rules/cheats over time basically born out of frustration or dissatisfaction and most of them seem at least ok, and some were just one-off things. I do think that a group considering an exploit like this as "valid" has a greater chance of yielding boredom than fun though.
You keep xp and gold as a way for struggling groups to catch up, so they're not exploiting a broken system for profit, they're losing. It's like entering a marathon and 'discovering' that you can still complete it by strolling along at a leisurely pace and staying overnight at hotels along the way. Yeah the marathon is *completed*, but you came last.
yeah I don't mind people using it as a "oops we failed, let's try again." at all. That makes the most sense!
Really appreciate your videos on here. I've watched quite a few.
Ultimately, I agree with your take on this. It's a board game, you cannot write rules to prevent all the weird real life interactions from 'cheating'. It's up to each party to determine how they want to play.
To steelman the exploiter's side though... I totally understand why they would want to find a loop hole in the given ruleset. It gives us gamers a little ego boost when we think we've outsmarted the game gods (devs and team).
The ego boost is fine and all but it's ego boost vs having a playable game. It was considered and determined to not be important enough to cover because "Who would bother doing that?" rather than a slip that wasn't covered.
And yeah, some bases weren't covered but this was discussed. Was kinda funny though.
I think the intent isn't supposed to be endless farming of the same scenario. You're right, it's supposed to make you feel a little better if you lose. But this is just a game, and anyone could make up their own fun. I personally wouldn't do this.
Spot on for the intent, definitely feels weird to do this in a board game, y'know? lol To each their own though I suppose!
Lmao you dragged them harder than I expected. 🤣
Hey, I have strong opinions lol
The worst thing about Gloomhaven/Frosthaven is that there are zero consequences for failing a scenario. Being able to keep the gold and xp that you gained during a failed scenario is a horrible idea. Frankly, it's a little goofy that you can immediately retry a failed scenario, but I understand it, because frequently the only way to advance the campaign is to beat specific core scenarios. Failing a scenario and then "rebooting" to try to beat it is okay, but keeping the gold and xp earned in the failure is a wide open invitation to exploit the system and "break" the game. Not sure what Isaac and the good folks at Cephalofair were thinking when they decided to go with this rule. Our group simply ignores this rule. The only time you get to keep anything from a scenario is if you beat it.
I heartily disagree. Whether players won or lost, they still expended some of their finite mortal lives to play the scenario and the compensation reflects that. Players do face the consequences of failure in that they don't accomplish objectives and don't receive the mission rewards.
@@steveg7000 Playing the game itself is the "compensation". If you fail to beat a scenario (through party exhaustion and/or death) I don't see why the players should be entitled to keep anything. There are no consequences for an entire party becoming exhausted, or a character being reduced to 0 health. The objectives and mission rewards are still there for the taking when you finally do manage to beat the scenario (no matter how many tries it takes, even in scenarios that appear to be rather time sensitive).
If you fail, you simply reboot the scenario and try again as if nothing happened. Fair enough. But if nothing happened, then why would you be able to keep xp and gold (allowing your characters to improve, and possibly level up despite repeatedly failing)? Permanent death IS an option, and using it adds quite a bit more challenge and tension to each scenario, but I don't think it's an option that MUST be used (although I'd be fine if it were).
None of this is to say that if you and your group want to keep xp and gold after a scenario failure, per the rules, you shouldn't be able to do so. Once you buy it, it's your game. Shape it the way you want to give you the most enjoyment out of it. Some folks will get immense enjoyment from having unlimited gold and xp. But there's no arguing that the rule is very exploitable by those so inclined, and therefore a weak point in what is otherwise a rather clever and interesting design.
I just can't wrap my head around the mentality that thinks someone should be rewarded (or "compensated") for failure. But then again, I'm so old that when I was a kid participation trophies didn't exist. So maybe it's a generational thing. Or maybe it's a philosophical difference, since I think compensation should be earned and not merely handed out just for showing up.
@@thetabletopsedge "Playing the game itself is the "compensation"." Nope! Life's too short to play for a couple of hours and not progress. Allowing the characters to continue to grow keeps them from being able to progress rather than be stuck in a rut of continued failure. And yes, failure is a valuable "experience" in and of itself.
I feel like there is a big difference between actually spending the time and doing it, then replaying it then just writing in infinite. Actually doing it is using an exploit, where as the other would be cheating. However strategic it may be I just don’t think it would be very fun and very time consuming as you said, but it’s honest.
For example in gloom haven going invisible then blocking a doorway I feel was an exploit that gave you an advantage but wasn’t considered cheating.
All in all fun video though.
I do thoroughly believe no one will actually set up and tear down their game a hundred times to do this just FYI, but doing it once to retry it I believe it. But it's still so very weird. to me.
Glad you liked the video!
I usually do the reverse. When I fail a scenario and retry immediately, I don't add any EXP or gold at all. I failed, so I don't deserve anything.
This!
Jesus, you do like to punish yourself
Rocking up to frosthaven after any scenario level 9 with enough gold to buy all the enhancements and crap you want doesn't sound like an exploit to me. It sounds like a funny haha thing you can do or acknowledge you can do. Why are we saying the people who did it are cheating and not functionally having a good laugh about how frosthaven's attempts to systematize a combat sim won't work not matter how many words you put in the rules?
Diatribe on another subject: I never had more than 200 gold on me at any time in gloomhaven because I was so aggressively retiring my characters. Being able to afford a level 9 enhancement I want sounds fun.
Side Note: I never bought a single enhancement in Gloomhaven except on the shadow assassin character. And I hated that character.
Grinding until I have 600+ gold or whatever for a cool level 9 multi-attack enhancement is not something anyone has actually done. And anyone who says they have is lying or should play something other than haven games. 600 gold is 90+ loot grabs in frosthaven if you perfect getting gold every time RAW.
Also side note: Having infinite money in frosthaven doesn't accomplish much. There is a very real hard cap to how much money you can even theoretically use. Having more than that doesn't do anything as far as I know. It's nothing like other games or TTRPG's where having infinite money changes how the game works.
I guess people miss breaking the game with eclipse or spears
Yeah but those things kinda ruin the fun, no?
@@RageBadgerGaming absolutely, I recently picked up eclipse at level 7
Whilst it was full to delete everything the first few missions I Quickly missed having to actually play the game
I don't think you should put the coin back in the loot deck, hence not getting infinite gold with this "hack". That's how I would play it anyway.
You restart the scenario with a fresh loot deck, it does, in theory, work. The debate is more "As-Written" vs "intent" w
Please post the Isaac event on Reddit, lol
Will do tonight!
Love the meme at the end!
I dislike that Frosthaven doesn’t give you an option to play around so much in casual mode and be able to reap any benefits whatsoever.
For Gloomhaven, it was a prime way for us to play the game when we couldn’t get the full group together. I expect that we will keep gold and XP from our casual mode games as if we spent time playing a lost scenario. Since the game’s difficulty scales to your level, I don’t think this is too bad, and frankly we always wish we had more money for enhancement.
To combat the resource scarcity issue you mentioned (being able to trade gold for resources), I think we’ll adjust to only spend the gold on enhancements.
Casual Mode doesn't have a real benefit. Just let time pass. Accept it. :)
Playing in casual mode has always been a very optional thing so taking that stuff away makes sense. Unfortunately.
I'd definitely point out that Gloom/Frost are very different in the campaign level for that reason, Gloom didn't have the aspect of time so Frosthaven should be approached differently.
Digital Speedrunning would actually involve intentionally exausting yourself to unlock lightning bolts, I guess no one said you couldn't but that is kinda against the idea of a personal quest...
Yeah, digital speedrunning has some wild stuff that clearly wouldn't happen in an actual board game multiplayer setup of Gloomhaven but it's neat to see sometimes lol
Doesn't time pass?
Not if you repeat a scenario that you just failed without returning to Frosthaven.
Or....stick with me here.... Start with more gold?
Just play on a harder difficulty lol. This whole "exploit" is dumb
Agree with most of this. Why pay hundreds of dollars just to exploit it?
Well there is another side. Since Frosthaven is indeed “time sensitive” we’re under pressure to try to collect as many resources as possible before “winter is coming”.
First. I would never do this because, well, boring… but say that you pull “just” coin cards from the deck. Then perhaps your motivated to fail and replay the scenario, just to get better loot. Or at least stay in the scenario as long as possible just to pick up all the loot, (leave a simple enemy and go back and pick up all the stuff), virtually inflating the already long playtime.
I’ve played the GH campaign multiple times, and JotL, all community campings. Looove the mechanics and story of Worldhaven, but the rules for loot was imo the worst part of GH and unfortunately due to the time sensitivity of Frost it’s now even worse.
Rule nr.1 have fun
No fun allowed.
😆 ha ha
If someone get joy out of playing some other way let them play that way. No it might no be as it's intended.
I mean that's what the end part was about, but even then depriving yourself of the experience of playing Frosthaven because you want unlimited gold and now trivialize stuff because you spent 3k in enhancements is a strange thing.
@@RageBadgerGaming Still if some one just flips through maps and reads everything it's their game and they decide how they play. They just can't complain after that it sucked.
@@nikoheinonen7815 I mean they could, but it's definitely going to be a different experience shaped by that person. If it sucks, it is their own fault at that point lol. Sometimes my friends will try to follow recipes but sub out eggs or replace flour with gluten free flour and then blame the recipe but without using appropriate substitutes, how did they possibly expect the same results when they made their own changes on the fly? The recipes fine, the substitution sucked. Same thing applies here.
Whats the point of even playing. Just mark that you did everything and found everything and sell the game on ebay. Save yourself a hundred hours.
I definitely don't get why one would do that for themselves lol
Call me a cheater: I started a Drifter, got a sword from Gloomhaven with my starting 30g, realized I should have followed Isaac advice for starting items, asked the group if I could reroll my equipment. Such a cheater, right? If I "cheat" gold where is the challenge?
There is a significant difference between "guys I may have screwed up my starting items, can I have a do-over" and exploiting a gold exploit and patting yourself on the back for it. House rules, group-fun is all fine, at the end of the video I literally discuss that there's moments where it's ok and won't ruin the experience.
Issues with feminism?? Pink keyboard, pink mic, and what not… 🤨
That pink keyboard looks dope af. Love it.
Not sure what the "whatnot" is, if you wanted to elaborate lol. Are you asking why I have a pink mic and keyboard?
I guess you’re more then entitled to you question, but I don’t see why the color of this tubers tech has anything to do with equality between genders?
Nor a gold exploit in FH for that mater :)