Borissimo

Yes.

It's a testament to the quality of the game that we have one person complaining the game is too easy and another complaining it's too hard in the same thread. I played a live 6-player game that took about a year to complete, and we never lost, although there were some close calls. I do think the designers nailed it with the turn count -- if the number of turns scaled with the number of players, then the resource advantage that a large party has compared to a small one would outweigh the extra challenge presented by the additional locations. Think of it this way: If Merisiel plays by herself, then when she needs to make a Charisma 6 check to close a location, at best she's rolling 2d6, which she'll fail a lot of the time. If she plays with Kyra, then Kyra can play a blessing as a well, making it a 3d6 to hit a 6 -- way more likely. Alone, Merisiel is going to lose time having to explore through the rest of the location because she can't close it. With Kyra, she's going to lose time because there are 10 extra cards to get through in the same amount of turns, but some of that time will be saved when she successfully makes checks she couldn't have reliably made alone. It doesn't balance out equally, of course, but adding extra turns for larger parties would tip things too far in the advantage of larger parties.

The only proper way to attempt this challenge is to obtain a Twitch stream, an 8-hour block of time, and a bottle of your favorite hard liquor. Then, commence.

You start with Merisiel and Kyra and can unlock base set characters for 2000 gold each and C-deck characters for 4000 gold each.

Are you playing with 6 characters? I'm a PACG veteran and A) I find 6 characters to be appropriately challenging on Normal, and B) when I did try playing on Heroic or Legendary with a 6-character party from the get-go, I got smoked. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that I'd be very surprised if anyone could win consistently on Legendary with a fresh 6-player party. Edit: Also, just in case it is not clear, you can play Heroic from the get-go any scenario you've already beaten on Normal, and you can play Legendary from the get-go any scenario you've already beaten on Heroic. So my advice would be, play through the game on Normal/Heroic with a 6-character party for the maximum challenge there, and then play Legendary from the get-go with any party you'd like.

A few days ago, I posted a video explaining the rules of the game. At the time, I figured this forum was the last place anybody would care about that video, since we were all so excited for the game to be released! However, I'm seeing a lot of posts now expressing confusion about the mechanics and the big picture, so I thought I'd share the link. I hope it helps! I've also started a video series doing a 6-character playthrough. This was something that, again, I didn't think anybody at these forums would care about (since I thought you'd all be playing the game!), but it seems like there might be some interest in seeing the thought process behind a full playthrough, so I thought I'd share. Merry gaming to all! Edit: Thank you all for your kind words! I'm glad that folks find this video helpful. In case the embedded link above isn't working, here's a hyperlink to the explanation video: linky link.

I think that the OP raises two separate questions that it's important to address separately: 1) Giving weapons that require proficiency to a character who doesn't have proficiency can cause a pain point. Can/should something be done to mitigate this? 2) Are Merisiel and Kyra a good pair of characters to provide to free players? To answer 1: I think the OP raises a good point here. I've had similar disappointments come up as well. That's not to say you shouldn't take a good Longbow if you find one early, but if you do that it should be a conscious choice (e.g., "This bow is so good, it's worth suffering another few scenarios until I get a power feat to use it properly"), not an unhappy accident. For the weapons that impose a difficulty penalty to the check, a red glow in deck building would be nice. To answer 2: I disagree with the OP on this one. Yes, it's a failing that the two starting characters both lack weapon proficiency, but this only matters for the first six scenarios, and after that it goes away if you want it to. Any pair of characters you pick will have failings, and on the balance, I think that Kyra and Merisiel are pretty much the best possible pair of characters to give new players. For the record, the decision was not made lightly by Obsidian, and they consulted with PACG's designers on it. To see what I mean, try to come up with an alternative pair and you'll quickly see problems. Valeros and Kyra? No ranged weapons. Harsk and Kyra? Harsk sucks at combat early on. Merisiel and Valeros? No spells of any kind. Out of the 7 base set characters, any 2 are going to have issues. Merisiel and Kyra are both self-sufficient, effective at combat, have good resilience (thanks to Kyra alone), and can cover a wide array of challenges. I admit that the lack of weapon proficiency is, at first, irritating, and the game could (and hopefully, later on, will) mitigate this problem, but I still think that Kyra + Merisiel is literally the nicest possible pair of characters we could have been given.

Holy thread full of misinformation, Batman! Let's clear some things up, guys. First: putting something in the box is not the same as banishing it. Thus, unused cards at the end of the scenario go back in the box; they are not banished. Second: nobody has mentioned the actual reason why it's critical for passing on boons to be an option. The culling of basics/elites is irrelevant to the digital version because the digital version handles box management in a completely different way -- one in which banishing basics/elites has no effect on what gets culled. The true reason why this feature is important is this: there is a wildcard power that causes the party to lose a blessing every time a character fails a check to acquire a boon. Without the ability to pass on boons, this wildcard is utterly ridiculous.

Whooooo! What a delightful surprise. Season pass purchased -- may the games begin!

Since Obsidian hasn't chimed in here with an official answer, I figured I'd lay down some speculation. I'd be nothing less than shocked if the way this worked was anything other than the "obvious," namely, that if you buy the season pass, you get all the stuff unlocked, end of story. No discounts for previously unlocked items, no price reduction, nothing special. That's just the way of it with season passes. Pay up and get a huge discount up front or risk losing money if you change your mind later. But honestly, it's not gonna be as bad as it sounds. Gold isn't a big deal (how many of us really care about those treasure chests?), so if you buy some things with gold as you try out the game, then get the season pass, you haven't lost any money whatsoever. If you buy a character or two with real money and then decide to get a season pass, then yes, you do lose the money you spent on the character, but that seems like a fair price to pay to try out an expensive game and see if it's worth 25 bucks. Think of it like renting the game in that case to try it out before you buy it.

I think that an account wipe was necessary for this game. Many players were gifted gold; others unlocked everything before the scenario rewards were heavily nerfed. If Obsidian allowed the accounts to stand, that would essentially constitute giving real money to some but not all beta testers, which I think we can all agree is wrong. If I got to keep my account, I'd have all the characters and enough gold to buy AD3, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Anyway, it's great that I lost all my progress because now I have an excuse to buy the season pass and get all of those sweet, sweet promos!

Come, now, there's no need to snark and condescend. I have both a day job and a YouTube channel. I can block off a day to do videos, but I can't do that if I don't know which day to block off at least somewhat in advance. Is it the end of the world? No. But it matters.

This isn't exactly correct. We are being asked to wait at least two more days, which is a world of difference. When something is slated to happen by date X "at the earliest," there is approximately a 0% chance that it will happen on date X. Let's say you're planning to block off a day to run a launch day stream or create a marathon of launch day videos. What day do you block off? April 28th? Obviously, that would be stupid. The answer is that you don't know what day. What's frustrating about the report is not (to me) that it pushes back the release date, but that it essentially regresses us to not having a release date at all. The other irksome aspect is that literally 1 day before the report was posted, Obsidian posted a "five more days" hype tweet. This is wildly incongruous and suggests that things aren't going according to plan. At the end of the day, I'm happy to wait as long as I need to wait and I'm still immensely grateful that Obsidian undertook this project and did such an amazing job. But, c'mon, you have to give me that this latest revelation is ample cause to be annoyed.

Aw, c'mon, Obsidian! Don't tweet "five more days!!!!" and then push back the date a day later! Clearly, some miscommunication happening in the marketing vs development spheres.

I, too, would love to know what time of day the download will be available, as I will wake up early if necessary to begin making videos.

The promo I'm most excited to see is Fire Sneeze. It adds another divine combat spell to the box and boy do the holy types need it! It'd also be cool if we got Ranzak. He's a playable character and technically a promo card, but I somehow doubt that is happening.

I like to play with a full 6-person group. The real fun of the game is watching your characters get stronger, and a 6-player team lets you do that with the largest number of characters at once! My dream team is the following: 1. Seelah Potentially getting 1 (later 2) free explorations per turn is just too good in 6-player game, where time is your biggest enemy. Scouting also increases your odds of catching the villain with his/her/its pants down, which is sometimes the easiest (or, if you're unlucky enough, only) way of beating a tough scenario or a bad draw. 2. Amiri When Seelah closes a location or scouts a monster at the end of her turn, her subsequent start-of-turn scouting is wasted. Amiri's ability to (with a power feat) move other characters at the end of her turn allows her to squeeze extra scouts / free explorations out of Seelah. Amiri is great in general, but I think it'd be a toss-up between Amiri and Valeros if not for Amiri's end-of-turn movement. 3. Merisiel Merisiel wasn't in my dream team for a while, but she adds too much value to a large party to pass up. If she encounters the villain, she can evade to keep him in the deck (or, after her role card, freeze him on top). This alone can make or break a scenario. Her evasion ability also makes her the only character who can comfortably use Ilsoari, one of the strongest allies in the game. Although she's a "lone wolf" type of character, it's actually very helpful to a 6-player party to have someone who can go just about anywhere and confidently kill anything that shows up. This saves the party's resources. Merisiel also adds a lot to the team simply by having a ludicrous number of item cards. While items suck early in the game, they eventually get very good, and having Merisiel in the party can spare other characters the burden of taking item card feats to prevent the loss of powerful items when they'd rather be taking allies, blessings, or spells. 4. Lini The first three characters in this list seem almost non-negotiable if your goal is to win with 6 players as consistently as possible. My last three picks are personal taste, starting with Lini. Lini's an "investment" character. She starts out, honestly, pretty abysmal. Getting a free d4 on every check only helps so much when you only have 2 combat spells, no weapon, and a d4 for strength (that you can upgrade to d10 by discarding a card, whoopee). Eventually, however, that free d4 becomes a d4 +2 (or +3 or +4), her spells all essentially auto-recharge, and she can auto-acquire and auto-close just about everything, adding a lot of power and flexibility to the team. She's also the best survivalist in the game, which is important because the survival skill is of disproportionate importance in the latter stages of the adventure. 5. Ezren Are Lem and Seoni better choices for the arcane caster spot? Probably. But I just can't help but love this cranky old guy. I love spells, and he's got the most of them. End of discussion. 6. Harsk Like Ezren, this cranky old bastard is here because I have a soft spot for him. Sajan, Kyra, and Lem would probably all serve as mechanically stronger choices. However, I love scouting, and I love firing arrows. Since I'm playing with some combat-weak characters (Lini to start, Ezren by the end), it helps to have extra d4's flying about to smooth out fights. If Harsk has extra arrows in his quiver, he can also spare Seelah and Amiri from expending resources to their own hero powers. Harsk's biggest weakness is that at the beginning and end of the adventure, he can't take down enemies without spending party resources, making him a tough character to explore multiple times with. But like I said, he's a personal choice to have in the party, not an objective one.

Whoa! Glad I finished up the game with my dream team party last night. I'm really gonna miss this game for the next two weeks! Thank you for providing the opportunity to test and comment on the game, and for doing such an amazing job responding to our feedback on the forums.

After taking another dream team through the game (suck it, Xanesha!), I checked out the forums to see if I'd encountered any bugs/suggestions not mentioned here. Here's what I got: Bug: When Ezren uses a War Razor +1, the difficulty of the combat check is increased by 4. However, the text of the War Razor +1 does not indicate that it requires weapon proficiency to avoid a penalty. Bug, of sorts: When you finish a scenario, change people's decks, and hit the continuation arrow, you get some gold for doing this. However, the next screen comes on before you can see how much gold you earned. You only get to find that out if someone's deck is incomplete; in that case, you get to see the gold amount because the screen doesn't fade to black. Bug, of sorts, similar to above: You get gold for killing a villain (I think?), but the screen always changes before you can see how much it was. Ideally, there'd be an in-game reference explaining what you get gold for and how much (I still don't know why I get gold for deck management or what that's based on), but at the very least, players should be able to see how much gold they're earning each time they earn any. UI conundrum: During a character's move step, there's no way to examine what has been scouted at other locations. Actually, I don't think you can ever "examine" a location the current player isn't at, but this is most critical in the move step. My latest game had Seelah Green, Harsk and You Shall Receive, Ezren Pound (with Augury), Lini Vamilli (with Augury), Merisiel Christmas with Ilsoari (who doesn't crash the game anymore, yay!), and Amiri Canapparel with a Spyglass. Literally every character could scout, and I lost a few scenarios because I forgot what I had scouted where and lost turns moving characters to the wrong locations. Now, to be fair, the physical game does not (to my knowledge) explicitly allow peeking at decks that have previously been scouted. Thus, it could be argued that the "examine" feature for the current location is already a luxury and that remembering what's been scouted at other locations contributes to the game's skill cap. However, it seems to me that this game is targeting a much wider audience than just the players of the physical game, and those players are going to be frustrated by the fact that the game gives them useful information but only lets them access it a subset of the useful time. I'd suggest finding a way to finagle the UI so that it allows players to "examine" locations the active character isn't at, ideally all of the time but at the very least during the movement phase. Opinion: The animation for Ezren's Expanded Spellbook ability is too slow. By contrast, the animation for the Garrison's closing effect is too fast. Memorizing the cards in the 0.5 seconds that they're shown on the screen is a minigame that's like harder than the entire rest of the game. I'd love to have the weapons/armor revealed, inspect them at my leisure, and then press a button to continue. Opinion: Seelah's +d6 ability should automatically discard/recharge the top card of the deck without needing to be dragged. I do understand the likely reason that this isn't automatic -- if it were, then because new information is revealed, an undo wouldn't be possible -- but that button isn't likely to be pressed by accident, and the pain of regretting it 0.2% of the time seems worth not dealing with the annoying drag of it 99.8% of the time. Opinion: Lini's Animal Trick should be automatic. I get that there are corner cases where you wouldn't want to use it, but again, that occasional annoyance doesn't seem worth the otherwise constant annoyance of pressing a button every single check. Opinion: There should be a way to cancel the end-of-turn button. I once hit End Turn with Ezren, and the game stopped to ask if I wanted to do an end-of-turn action. The reason for this was that I was holding Haste. This made me realize that, actually, I could have used Haste to move a character and ended the scenario that turn, but I couldn't undo the action to end the turn. This was a huge "feels bad" moment, because I had no choice but to confirm an action that I deeply regretted. I'd love to see a "back" button here, just like for canceling any other effect that doesn't reveal new information. It would give a minor advantage to characters that always get an end-of-turn prompt, but that doesn't seem like a big deal. Opinion: Harsk should be able to trigger the end of the turn by hitting his Scout button. It's weird that he always has to hit "end turn," and then hit Scout as an end of turn action. I realize this is a controversial suggestion because some players might hit Scout and then be shocked that their turn is over, but hey, our job as beta testers is to put forward all suggestions, not just the good ones, right? I've really been enjoying Build 3 and can't wait to see what's in store!

But this will only happen if you go WAY out of your way to make it happen. If you simply create a party and play straight through Story Mode, you'll only ever find one Flaming Mace. The digital implementation of the "box" takes nothing away from "normal" players.

"Better just take me to Sheriff Hemlock. Cheers!" Valeros never forgot the sting of that retort, never stopped looking for revenge, always biding his time until the perfect opportunity for vengeance came along ...

I sympathize with LunarWolf a lot here because this confused me for the longest me. Here's the breakdown that helped me finally understand it: 1) If you fail a check against a monster, you take damage equal to the amount that you were short 2) Most checks to defeat monsters are combat checks, but not all 3) Most monsters have "combat" as an option to defeat, but not all 4) If you attempt a non-combat check to defeat a monster, either by choice or by force, point (1) above still applies I had it in my head that "if I'm taking damage when I fail, then it's a combat check," and that's not right. Hopefully the above breakdown will help anyone who was confused like I was.

The 1d4/2d4 goblin boost scenario rule is the new Goblin Warchanter! Clearly, the goblins were pissed that they couldn't take over Sandpoint and are taking out their anger on this game.

Whoa, Pink, thanks for the heads up! So I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it's awesome that they liked my post. On the other, my post was written in Beta 2 and is now obsolete as of Beta 3. While playing in Beta 3 I noticed that the rewards for heroic and legendary are different: Heroic was bumped down to 150 from 200 Legendary was bumped down to 200 from 300 This is a pretty big downward change. It means that relative to Beta 2, the f2p player in Beta 3 loses 150 gold per scenario that they complete on all three difficulties. Multiply this by the 13 scenarios available at launch for a total loss of: 13 x 150 = 1950 Thus, a player who beats all of the launch content (where I take "beat" to mean "complete on all 3 difficulties") in Beta 3 will be a full base set character behind the corresponding player in Beta 2. In the system, f2p players will either need to grind story mode or play a LOT of Quest Mode to unlock everything. Is this a bad change? Obviously, it's an unhappy change for f2p players, but I don't know if it's a wrong one. I got into the closed beta right when Beta 2 started, and by the time Beta 3 came out, I had unlocked everything without really even trying. It would probably be bad news for Obsidian if all the f2p players unlocked all the characters and started hoarding gold for AD3 before AD3 even came out. Would anyone from Obsidian like to chime in on how to respond to this article? I was thinking of replying to the article myself, but f2p issues are a delicate matter and I don't want to cause Obsidian any bad press.

Okay, I just checked out the text of the Rat Swarm and confirmed that the way it works with the Woods is 100% correct. The last line of text of the card says something to the effect of "this monster is still considered defeated." Thus, if you roll 8-11, it should definitely NOT be banished by the forest's location effect. It's possible that the first time you encountered this issue it was the Rat Swarm as well, in which case there is no bug.