by Annowme
stormzbowler wrote:
Annowme wrote:
Tough thing with Gloomhaven are the spoilers. My mini-session reports thus far have been vague, but still highlight the action that took place without giving much plot away.
This is another aspect that I'm struggling with too. If I'm not totally embarrassed by what I write, I would share it here on BGG too. Then do I just use spoiler tags or try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. It's a tough call.
I've written a few reports that I've not posted to the Sessions page but shares on BGG all the same. Here are my two examples for context (technically four "mini-session" reports):
After a solid hour of punching and sorting, Gloomhaven was humming and ready to go. Anastasia and I played the first mission in the campaign, "Black Barrow," which (spoiler free) involves picking up a job from a high-class lady to go and retrieve some stolen documents from a known bandit. He has been traced to the Black Barrow, a shallow anteroom complex of an old crypt north of town.
First, we needed to create a party and associated characters. I let Anastasia field the party name, which she dubbed 'Dandelion Junction' (deeply intimidating for a mercenary troupe, I know). I created Bart Sprocket, Tinkerer, and Anastasia whipped up Audraia Filidee, Spellweaver. Bart bought an Iron Helmet and Minor Healing Potion and Audraia bought Leather Armor.
Our first play was a bit shaky, though I was generally firm on the rules. Spellweaver is a hard class to start playing without appreciating the gravity of the exhaustion mechanic in the game (which is brutal and brilliant!), as most Speallweaver cards are massively OP and thus are all lost after using them. Anastasia managed to use her back-pocket ability to recover all of her lost cards, but she did so early enough in the scenario that she still ended up exhausted in the last room. However, it was only on the last turn of the game, as Bart was able to immolate the remaining enemies and complete the scenario successfully.
We then took Gloomhaven with us to our friends' house around the corner. Sam and Eee are consistent gaming partners with us and Sam has been as excited as I was for this game, if not more. Sam created Ambrosia, the Scoundrel, and Eee created Fezzik, the Brute ("You ARE the Brute Squad..."). We had two choices to progress:
[o]1. Barrow Lair (#2), which is mission two in the primary story line (basically, Bandit thief dude from mission one flees into a deeper part of the crypts, where we find him doing all sorts of creepy necromantic stuff).
2. Sulphur Mine (#65), which was a random side scenario unlocked by a treasure chest tile during Black Barrow (#1).[/o]
We opted to progress the storyline from the first mission's conclusion. I'll spoiler the specific content but provide a general synopsis which is (hopefully) spoiler-free. (and will follow this format in future weekly posts).
Overall, Fezzik was excellent at cracking skulls and debilitating enemies. Bart saved all of his biggest tricks for the end of the round, whereupon he brought some serious and conniving pain to many a target. Audraia managed her card economy far better this round than the previous mission, and played very skillfully. Finally, Ambrosia won MVP for landing an absurdly powerful rolling combo of effects onto the goal target for the mission, which single-handedly provided enough breathing room for the rest of us to finish the job before becoming exhausted.
[o]Our City Event included ripping off tavern patrons while the lights went out, courtesy of Ambrosia being a Scoundrel. The Road Event included a Bandit "toll" which we refused to pay. We decapitated the rogue leader and got through it, but we all started the scenario with three damage each! On top of that, the scenario effect was to add three curse cards to each of our modifier decks. Fezzik drew two right off the bat and his awesome attacks were wasted. Eee was PISSED. Audraia and Bart also whiffed on big attacks, and Ambrosia did, too. Curse cards are ROUGH.
The main room spawned the Bandit Commander Boss and two Elite Archers, all standing behind three sarcophogi. Boss Effect 1 is that he jumps to the door of one of the four perma-locked rooms and opens it up, unleashing beefy Living Corpses from within--slow, shambling, and strong. Boss Effect 2 summons an elite Living Bones. Thankfully, effect two never came up, though the Bandit Commander popped two side chambers and let loose five zombies. The second room featured a treasure tile, and my battle goal was to loot any treasure tile found on the map. As a result, Bart layeth the smacketh down, but always made progress moving towards that treasure. Fezzik wanted it for himself, and tried to keep Bart from getting it. Ambrosia went invisible with Smoke Bomb and combo'd several other effects to make a big attack (sixteen!) on the Bandit Commander. We waited with painful, bated breath as Sam flipped six modifier cards over due to rolling modifiers. We were certain he was going to whiff on a curse and waste the massive wombo combo. He flipped them slower and slower. Everyone stood up and leaned over his deck. He flipped the last card... +1! He landed sixteen damage out of forty HP on the boss, which was incredible. However, Ambrosia was quickly exhausted the next turn, but Sam chose a long rest to ensure that the Scoundrel could remain an invisible meat shield for another turn, blocking the corpses.
I was so close to the treasure chest, but Audraia unleashed a big attack then moved EIGHT spaces and took the chest out from underneath Bart's next turn. I was irate. I couldn't believe it. Everyone burst into laughter. Anastasia was beside herself. We wrapped up the mission and won after Fezzik delivered the killing blow to the Bandit Commander and we polished off the remaining corpses. We revealed our battle goals... mine failed because I could not loot the chest... and Anastasia failed because she DID loot the chest! What?! She said she wanted to be a "real""selfish" mercenary. Incredible. I loved it, despite being shafted. Eee didn't get her goal, but Sam did. In the end, we all decided we loved it. [/o]
Gut reaction? After playing twice and sifting through the rules and components quite a bit, I'm enamored. The combat is so good. The choices are agonizing and critical. The story is already interesting and the unique fantasy setting is original and engaging. The worldbuilding with events, stickers, and global effects is really, really excellent. I said it before, and I agree with it all the more--this game smacks of a a solid board game which implements an MMO feel in terms of scope. It's quite impressive.
Eee and Anastasia said that despite Gloomhaven being akin to a video game or D&D (both of which they don't care for), they really had a fun time once they understood how their characters worked. All of us are enamored with the legacy and worldbuilding. We're playing again this Thursday. We can't wait.
First, we needed to create a party and associated characters. I let Anastasia field the party name, which she dubbed 'Dandelion Junction' (deeply intimidating for a mercenary troupe, I know). I created Bart Sprocket, Tinkerer, and Anastasia whipped up Audraia Filidee, Spellweaver. Bart bought an Iron Helmet and Minor Healing Potion and Audraia bought Leather Armor.
Our first play was a bit shaky, though I was generally firm on the rules. Spellweaver is a hard class to start playing without appreciating the gravity of the exhaustion mechanic in the game (which is brutal and brilliant!), as most Speallweaver cards are massively OP and thus are all lost after using them. Anastasia managed to use her back-pocket ability to recover all of her lost cards, but she did so early enough in the scenario that she still ended up exhausted in the last room. However, it was only on the last turn of the game, as Bart was able to immolate the remaining enemies and complete the scenario successfully.
We then took Gloomhaven with us to our friends' house around the corner. Sam and Eee are consistent gaming partners with us and Sam has been as excited as I was for this game, if not more. Sam created Ambrosia, the Scoundrel, and Eee created Fezzik, the Brute ("You ARE the Brute Squad..."). We had two choices to progress:
[o]1. Barrow Lair (#2), which is mission two in the primary story line (basically, Bandit thief dude from mission one flees into a deeper part of the crypts, where we find him doing all sorts of creepy necromantic stuff).
2. Sulphur Mine (#65), which was a random side scenario unlocked by a treasure chest tile during Black Barrow (#1).[/o]
We opted to progress the storyline from the first mission's conclusion. I'll spoiler the specific content but provide a general synopsis which is (hopefully) spoiler-free. (and will follow this format in future weekly posts).
Overall, Fezzik was excellent at cracking skulls and debilitating enemies. Bart saved all of his biggest tricks for the end of the round, whereupon he brought some serious and conniving pain to many a target. Audraia managed her card economy far better this round than the previous mission, and played very skillfully. Finally, Ambrosia won MVP for landing an absurdly powerful rolling combo of effects onto the goal target for the mission, which single-handedly provided enough breathing room for the rest of us to finish the job before becoming exhausted.
[o]Our City Event included ripping off tavern patrons while the lights went out, courtesy of Ambrosia being a Scoundrel. The Road Event included a Bandit "toll" which we refused to pay. We decapitated the rogue leader and got through it, but we all started the scenario with three damage each! On top of that, the scenario effect was to add three curse cards to each of our modifier decks. Fezzik drew two right off the bat and his awesome attacks were wasted. Eee was PISSED. Audraia and Bart also whiffed on big attacks, and Ambrosia did, too. Curse cards are ROUGH.
The main room spawned the Bandit Commander Boss and two Elite Archers, all standing behind three sarcophogi. Boss Effect 1 is that he jumps to the door of one of the four perma-locked rooms and opens it up, unleashing beefy Living Corpses from within--slow, shambling, and strong. Boss Effect 2 summons an elite Living Bones. Thankfully, effect two never came up, though the Bandit Commander popped two side chambers and let loose five zombies. The second room featured a treasure tile, and my battle goal was to loot any treasure tile found on the map. As a result, Bart layeth the smacketh down, but always made progress moving towards that treasure. Fezzik wanted it for himself, and tried to keep Bart from getting it. Ambrosia went invisible with Smoke Bomb and combo'd several other effects to make a big attack (sixteen!) on the Bandit Commander. We waited with painful, bated breath as Sam flipped six modifier cards over due to rolling modifiers. We were certain he was going to whiff on a curse and waste the massive wombo combo. He flipped them slower and slower. Everyone stood up and leaned over his deck. He flipped the last card... +1! He landed sixteen damage out of forty HP on the boss, which was incredible. However, Ambrosia was quickly exhausted the next turn, but Sam chose a long rest to ensure that the Scoundrel could remain an invisible meat shield for another turn, blocking the corpses.
I was so close to the treasure chest, but Audraia unleashed a big attack then moved EIGHT spaces and took the chest out from underneath Bart's next turn. I was irate. I couldn't believe it. Everyone burst into laughter. Anastasia was beside herself. We wrapped up the mission and won after Fezzik delivered the killing blow to the Bandit Commander and we polished off the remaining corpses. We revealed our battle goals... mine failed because I could not loot the chest... and Anastasia failed because she DID loot the chest! What?! She said she wanted to be a "real""selfish" mercenary. Incredible. I loved it, despite being shafted. Eee didn't get her goal, but Sam did. In the end, we all decided we loved it. [/o]
Gut reaction? After playing twice and sifting through the rules and components quite a bit, I'm enamored. The combat is so good. The choices are agonizing and critical. The story is already interesting and the unique fantasy setting is original and engaging. The worldbuilding with events, stickers, and global effects is really, really excellent. I said it before, and I agree with it all the more--this game smacks of a a solid board game which implements an MMO feel in terms of scope. It's quite impressive.
Eee and Anastasia said that despite Gloomhaven being akin to a video game or D&D (both of which they don't care for), they really had a fun time once they understood how their characters worked. All of us are enamored with the legacy and worldbuilding. We're playing again this Thursday. We can't wait.
:arrowE: On Thursday, Sam, Eee, Anastasia, and I picked up our campaign with our party of illustrious adventurers, Dandelion Junction, and opted to follow the next core-storyline mission rather than dabble in the two side scenarios we unlocked over the last two sessions.
Sam --> Ambrosia the Scoundrel
Eee --> Fezzik the Brute
Anastasia --> Audraia Filidee the Spellweaver
Jim --> Bart Sprocket the Tinkerer
Per the initial campaign introduction (which is not a spoiler), our party was sent to go retrieve some documents which were stolen from an NPC who hands out the first mission. This resulted in a tussle with some bandits. Following through with more story content, we found ourselves outside of the city to “take care of a problem.” In a sort of endless-waves-of-bad-guys setting, our team really coalesced to pull of some great cooperation, while still clearly seeing the expertly-integrated greed and self-interest of each character’s private goals causing some tension and interesting moments. Of special note was the amazing tag-team play wherein Audraia incinerated the front line of attackers in order for Fezzik to bum rush the back targets with a big attack, all the while stiff-arming another dude onto a mine I just planted earlier in the round, resulting in a rather impressive explosion and lots of carnage. Slinking behind us was Ambrosia, who went full aggro-mode after dashing with invisibility up behind the biggest elite target in the room and filling its internal organs with daggers. The conclusion of this mission led to a very troubling moral dilemma, and just like that, the plot twists in the storyline hooked us for all we were worth. Several new locations opened up and we saw the first major storyline branch set up before us. It was clear that going one way would lead to drastically different outcomes and progression than going the other.
:arrowE: I then tried out the game solitaire on Sunday afternoon by taking the path which Dandelion Junction would have voted on as a group (Ambrosia is effectively an evil wench, so she would have been the minority vote and overruled, anyway!). Opting to go the less morally-ambiguous route, I chose the next scenario and set it up. I also created the two remaining starting classes and whipped up their characters:
Jim --> Craig Hart the Cragheart
Jim --> Scabbers the Mindthief
Doors were kicked down, tables were flipped, traps were sprung, and many undead baddies were eliminated. Craig Hart the Cragheart has a lot of damage-dealing tricks up his rocky sleeves, and he layeth the proverbial smacketh down time and again, while Scabbers did all sorts of funky stuff to propel the party forward. The last room featured another plot twist and a pair of mini-bosses who were really tough. Scabbers was exhausted in the last round, leaving Craig to go toe-to-toe with the end content. Through some crafty maneuvers, he was able to punch both bosses very hard… over and over again. Despite landing some huge hits on Craig, the bosses perished and a whole crap-ton of new content was stickered on the map. These two characters made for a very interesting duo.
:arrowE: Later that night, my sisters came over after evening worship and were curious about the game. My older sister, Becky, is typically up for playing anything. She is less inclined to enjoy cooperative games, so she was mildly hesitant about Gloomhaven, but once I explained that the cooperation is thematically and mechanically more a relationship of convenience than “we’re a team!” loyalty, her interest was piqued. My younger sister, Ann, is very much a light gamer. In fact, she is not really a “gamer” at all, and normally just comes over to hang out while we play. Sushi Go Party! is the extent of her interest (and hey, I’ll play that a dozen times in a row and be happy…). Anastasia told me earlier in the day that there was no way I would get Ann to play. However, I mentioned to Ann that Gloomhaven is very much akin to some of her beloved childhood computer games like Heroes of Might & Magic III and Diablo II. She immediately came over to take a look. After I explained to she and Becky the basics of the game, including some of the unique card interactions of their classes, she was really interested. We setup one of the follow-up paths from my solitaire session earlier that day.
Jim --> Bart Sprocket the Tinkerer
Anastasia --> Audraia Filidee the Spellweaver
Becky --> Scabbers the Mindthief
Ann --> Craig Hart the Cragheart
Right off the bat, Ann kept sniggling at the deliberate pun I inserted into the Cragheart character. She loved it. I loved it. I also knew that she would enjoy that little quip and help her get into the game a bit more. The first room was LOUSY with enemies--like… holy crap there was a ton of bad stuff in this room. We all plotted out our best opening moves and got our cards ready, then flipped over the monster initiative and got rushed by the first wave of beasties before we had a chance to react. Bart almost got killed right off the bat due to his fast cards (in a tie for targeting, monsters go for the lowest initiative), so I had to ditch a card from my hand immediately. Craig took a few hits, too, but Bart did his best to heal on the fly and steady the line. Audraia was unfazed and just blew crap up. Scabbers beefed up her future attacks but otherwise didn’t do much. Craig was next and smacked the enemies into the ground, killing four of them in a single blow. That loosened up the tension a bit, and we were able to progress down the corridor. There were some spectral enemies who were annoyingly-difficult to hit (by design, obviously) and loved to spam status effects on our party. Ugh. We found that ultimately, Scabbers had very limited movement and it made it difficult for Becky to play her character up in the action. We had a lot of speculation as to best practices here, and we’re still talking about it today via text.
Bottom-line: after a lot of conservative-but-efficient progression through the first two rooms, Audraia kicked down the door to the last room and found… a massive pile of elite enemies, including new ones we had not yet seen. She almost died instantly, save for pinging her leather armor to grant disadvantage to enemy attacks and losing a card to absorb the hit. It seemed dire, but we all deliberately saved our massive damage cards for this room, and proceeded to go to town. Bart sent flamethrowers and bombs blasting, Audraia filled the room with crackling electricity from wall to wall, Scabbers employed telekinetic prompting to force the elites to punch each other to death, and Craig just did all sorts of crazy jumps and hulk smashes into the ground to more or less obliterate everything. Audraia and Craig were just about exhausted at the end of the round, but Scabbers was able to loot the chest in the back corner after stepping on a stun trap and losing a turn. Craig landed the (over)killing blow on the final elite and we won the scenario AND all got our secret battle goals completed for some progress towards better modifier cards.
Ann loved it. Becky loved it. Anastasia loved it. I loved it. Ann and Becky just leaned back and stared at it all. Comments like “this is the most ambitious and incredible game I’ve ever played,” “this is a whole world in a box,” “this is so easy to play, but so deep,” and “the game is hack and slash, but the cards are such a difficult puzzle” all floated over the table. This is such a heavy game for Ann, but she was standing up at one point, excitedly shouting about what to do and shaking her fist at the enemies blocking Anastasia’s path. She and Becky both said they want to keep their characters and continue playing in the future. The campaign structure totally accommodates that, which is sweet.
At its heart, Gloomhaven is a perfect hybrid game. The actions via your player cards really are a puzzle, and a hard one, at that. So much decision space rests on how you play those cards and how you use them to react to stimuli and threats on the board. There is a slightly abstracted mana system which works really well, and the overall flow of the game is precise and elegant. All the while, the massive storyline, plot arcs, monster attacks, boss fights, choose-your-own-adventure events, and overall dungeon-slashing grid smack of a more thematic experience. It’s just fabulous. I’ve not play Desent 2E or Mage Knight, but I’d say this is something between those two (based on my understanding of them and their critiques), yet something much more. It’s crazy ambitious, and but for a few issues (which are really component-related, not game-related) it more than exceeds my expectations for the dungeon crawler/cardboard MMO I never knew I wanted, but now want to play more than anything…
…and we haven’t even unlocked one of the fourteen new classes yet!
Sam --> Ambrosia the Scoundrel
Eee --> Fezzik the Brute
Anastasia --> Audraia Filidee the Spellweaver
Jim --> Bart Sprocket the Tinkerer
Per the initial campaign introduction (which is not a spoiler), our party was sent to go retrieve some documents which were stolen from an NPC who hands out the first mission. This resulted in a tussle with some bandits. Following through with more story content, we found ourselves outside of the city to “take care of a problem.” In a sort of endless-waves-of-bad-guys setting, our team really coalesced to pull of some great cooperation, while still clearly seeing the expertly-integrated greed and self-interest of each character’s private goals causing some tension and interesting moments. Of special note was the amazing tag-team play wherein Audraia incinerated the front line of attackers in order for Fezzik to bum rush the back targets with a big attack, all the while stiff-arming another dude onto a mine I just planted earlier in the round, resulting in a rather impressive explosion and lots of carnage. Slinking behind us was Ambrosia, who went full aggro-mode after dashing with invisibility up behind the biggest elite target in the room and filling its internal organs with daggers. The conclusion of this mission led to a very troubling moral dilemma, and just like that, the plot twists in the storyline hooked us for all we were worth. Several new locations opened up and we saw the first major storyline branch set up before us. It was clear that going one way would lead to drastically different outcomes and progression than going the other.
:arrowE: I then tried out the game solitaire on Sunday afternoon by taking the path which Dandelion Junction would have voted on as a group (Ambrosia is effectively an evil wench, so she would have been the minority vote and overruled, anyway!). Opting to go the less morally-ambiguous route, I chose the next scenario and set it up. I also created the two remaining starting classes and whipped up their characters:
Jim --> Craig Hart the Cragheart
Jim --> Scabbers the Mindthief
Doors were kicked down, tables were flipped, traps were sprung, and many undead baddies were eliminated. Craig Hart the Cragheart has a lot of damage-dealing tricks up his rocky sleeves, and he layeth the proverbial smacketh down time and again, while Scabbers did all sorts of funky stuff to propel the party forward. The last room featured another plot twist and a pair of mini-bosses who were really tough. Scabbers was exhausted in the last round, leaving Craig to go toe-to-toe with the end content. Through some crafty maneuvers, he was able to punch both bosses very hard… over and over again. Despite landing some huge hits on Craig, the bosses perished and a whole crap-ton of new content was stickered on the map. These two characters made for a very interesting duo.
:arrowE: Later that night, my sisters came over after evening worship and were curious about the game. My older sister, Becky, is typically up for playing anything. She is less inclined to enjoy cooperative games, so she was mildly hesitant about Gloomhaven, but once I explained that the cooperation is thematically and mechanically more a relationship of convenience than “we’re a team!” loyalty, her interest was piqued. My younger sister, Ann, is very much a light gamer. In fact, she is not really a “gamer” at all, and normally just comes over to hang out while we play. Sushi Go Party! is the extent of her interest (and hey, I’ll play that a dozen times in a row and be happy…). Anastasia told me earlier in the day that there was no way I would get Ann to play. However, I mentioned to Ann that Gloomhaven is very much akin to some of her beloved childhood computer games like Heroes of Might & Magic III and Diablo II. She immediately came over to take a look. After I explained to she and Becky the basics of the game, including some of the unique card interactions of their classes, she was really interested. We setup one of the follow-up paths from my solitaire session earlier that day.
Jim --> Bart Sprocket the Tinkerer
Anastasia --> Audraia Filidee the Spellweaver
Becky --> Scabbers the Mindthief
Ann --> Craig Hart the Cragheart
Right off the bat, Ann kept sniggling at the deliberate pun I inserted into the Cragheart character. She loved it. I loved it. I also knew that she would enjoy that little quip and help her get into the game a bit more. The first room was LOUSY with enemies--like… holy crap there was a ton of bad stuff in this room. We all plotted out our best opening moves and got our cards ready, then flipped over the monster initiative and got rushed by the first wave of beasties before we had a chance to react. Bart almost got killed right off the bat due to his fast cards (in a tie for targeting, monsters go for the lowest initiative), so I had to ditch a card from my hand immediately. Craig took a few hits, too, but Bart did his best to heal on the fly and steady the line. Audraia was unfazed and just blew crap up. Scabbers beefed up her future attacks but otherwise didn’t do much. Craig was next and smacked the enemies into the ground, killing four of them in a single blow. That loosened up the tension a bit, and we were able to progress down the corridor. There were some spectral enemies who were annoyingly-difficult to hit (by design, obviously) and loved to spam status effects on our party. Ugh. We found that ultimately, Scabbers had very limited movement and it made it difficult for Becky to play her character up in the action. We had a lot of speculation as to best practices here, and we’re still talking about it today via text.
Bottom-line: after a lot of conservative-but-efficient progression through the first two rooms, Audraia kicked down the door to the last room and found… a massive pile of elite enemies, including new ones we had not yet seen. She almost died instantly, save for pinging her leather armor to grant disadvantage to enemy attacks and losing a card to absorb the hit. It seemed dire, but we all deliberately saved our massive damage cards for this room, and proceeded to go to town. Bart sent flamethrowers and bombs blasting, Audraia filled the room with crackling electricity from wall to wall, Scabbers employed telekinetic prompting to force the elites to punch each other to death, and Craig just did all sorts of crazy jumps and hulk smashes into the ground to more or less obliterate everything. Audraia and Craig were just about exhausted at the end of the round, but Scabbers was able to loot the chest in the back corner after stepping on a stun trap and losing a turn. Craig landed the (over)killing blow on the final elite and we won the scenario AND all got our secret battle goals completed for some progress towards better modifier cards.
Ann loved it. Becky loved it. Anastasia loved it. I loved it. Ann and Becky just leaned back and stared at it all. Comments like “this is the most ambitious and incredible game I’ve ever played,” “this is a whole world in a box,” “this is so easy to play, but so deep,” and “the game is hack and slash, but the cards are such a difficult puzzle” all floated over the table. This is such a heavy game for Ann, but she was standing up at one point, excitedly shouting about what to do and shaking her fist at the enemies blocking Anastasia’s path. She and Becky both said they want to keep their characters and continue playing in the future. The campaign structure totally accommodates that, which is sweet.
At its heart, Gloomhaven is a perfect hybrid game. The actions via your player cards really are a puzzle, and a hard one, at that. So much decision space rests on how you play those cards and how you use them to react to stimuli and threats on the board. There is a slightly abstracted mana system which works really well, and the overall flow of the game is precise and elegant. All the while, the massive storyline, plot arcs, monster attacks, boss fights, choose-your-own-adventure events, and overall dungeon-slashing grid smack of a more thematic experience. It’s just fabulous. I’ve not play Desent 2E or Mage Knight, but I’d say this is something between those two (based on my understanding of them and their critiques), yet something much more. It’s crazy ambitious, and but for a few issues (which are really component-related, not game-related) it more than exceeds my expectations for the dungeon crawler/cardboard MMO I never knew I wanted, but now want to play more than anything…
…and we haven’t even unlocked one of the fourteen new classes yet!
So in the first, I included some direct spoilers in tags, while in the second I kept it more vague so I could just lay it out there without being tedious. Both approaches have their merits.