There is nothing inherently wrong with a difficult quest is there? We've known since the core set that this is a game where you learn to lose .

There is nothing inherently wrong with a difficult quest is there? We've known since the core set that this is a game where you learn to lose .

That's what I thought when reading that, too. I don't think "too hard" and "bad design" are synonyms... Carn Dum is a good example in my opinion. I do believe this is the hardest quest yet released, but I don't see anything wrong with the design of it.

This is the second quest to ever receive an "8" difficulty rating (highest rating they have ever assigned), with Shadow and Flame being the only other one. The difficulty ratings they give out have often been almost nonsensical, but at least we know they were aiming to make this one as hard as possible. So I don't think we should expect quests of this challenge level to be the new trend.

Glaurung-we're all waiting to hear from you!

I think it's a great quest, but I haven't tried a bunch of different decks so maybe it does demand a certain type. Seastan not withstanding.

Glaurung-we're all waiting to hear from you!

I think it's a great quest, but I haven't tried a bunch of different decks so maybe it does demand a certain type. Seastan not withstanding.

Indeed. Glaurung would absolutely ​LOVE​ the Nightmare version of this quest!

There is nothing inherently wrong with a difficult quest is there? We've known since the core set that this is a game where you learn to lose .

That's what I thought when reading that, too. I don't think "too hard" and "bad design" are synonyms... Carn Dum is a good example in my opinion. I do believe this is the hardest quest yet released, but I don't see anything wrong with the design of it.

This is the second quest to ever receive an "8" difficulty rating (highest rating they have ever assigned), with Shadow and Flame being the only other one. The difficulty ratings they give out have often been almost nonsensical, but at least we know they were aiming to make this one as hard as possible. So I don't think we should expect quests of this challenge level to be the new trend.

Rocka just explained very detailed why this quest is badly designed. Although he forgot to mention that sorcery card that surges (mostly in another sorcery card )and that treachery (Daechanar's will) that means in 95 percent of the cases "game over".

This quest is hard because it is unfair. Some folks who spent their whole time with deck building and who like to use broken cards (and who have two core sets, that is) might find this one charming, but guys like me who like to use the whole card pool and perhaps some of the new cards not so. I share Rocka's concern that quests like this might become standard. I fear that this game is indeed going to die if we get two or three of these in a row.

I have no problem to loose, but if I loose constantly due to one single attack that I had to defend without Burning Brand after 10 minutes of play, I feel frustrated and angry. What the encounter cards lacks IMO is an option to choose between two evil things. Example: "Switch Thaurdir to his game over side or discard three cards/kill an ally/raise your threat/don't touch your girlfriend for three days"). It's also hilarious that we always had Amarthiul at our side, but in this brutal scenario he suddenly chose to disappear.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a difficult quest is there? We've known since the core set that this is a game where you learn to lose .

Very fair statement. There is a big difference between difficult and completely impossible unless you are using a specific type of deck however!

There is also a big difference between losses that are halfway through a game and just conceding like 2 to 3 turns in constantly because its already unbeatable at that point.

As a thought experiment then, what would a quest look like that is equal in difficulty to Carn Dum and yet fair/well-designed?

There is nothing inherently wrong with a difficult quest is there? We've known since the core set that this is a game where you learn to lose .

That's what I thought when reading that, too. I don't think "too hard" and "bad design" are synonyms... Carn Dum is a good example in my opinion. I do believe this is the hardest quest yet released, but I don't see anything wrong with the design of it.

This is the second quest to ever receive an "8" difficulty rating (highest rating they have ever assigned), with Shadow and Flame being the only other one. The difficulty ratings they give out have often been almost nonsensical, but at least we know they were aiming to make this one as hard as possible. So I don't think we should expect quests of this challenge level to be the new trend.

Rocka just explained very detailed why this quest is badly designed. Although he forgot to mention that sorcery card that surges (mostly in another sorcery card )and that treachery (Daechanar's will) that means in 95 percent of the cases "game over".

This quest is hard because it is unfair. Some folks who spent their whole time with deck building and who like to use broken cards (and who have two core sets, that is) might find this one charming, but guys like me who like to use the whole card pool and perhaps some of the new cards not so. I share Rocka's concern that quests like this might become standard. I fear that this game is indeed going to die if we get two or three of these in a row.

I have no problem to loose, but if I loose constantly due to one single attack that I had to defend without Burning Brand after 10 minutes of play, I feel frustrated and angry. What the encounter cards lacks IMO is an option to choose between two evil things. Example: "Switch Thaurdir to his game over side or discard three cards/kill an ally/raise your threat/don't touch your girlfriend for three days"). It's also hilarious that we always had Amarthiul at our side, but in this brutal scenario he suddenly chose to disappear.

Yeah if there is another quest this hard within the next few quests we get I will have to seriously reconsider this game and I play nightmare quests from time to time...

Everyone seems to be well aware of the fact that we are not really getting much powercreep with our player cards anymore (except perhaps ents but that bandwagon is slowing down and I think people are realizing how detrimental the turn of waiting can be in so many quests) and instead they are filling in gaps in certain traits and expanding our abilities and cardpool and even deck types (Erestor deck, victory display deck, dunedain keep enemies engaged decks are all new in this cycle) outwards so we can pull off new and fun combos and do things we haven't been able to do before (victory display manipulation, erestors game changing ability, valour, attaching a card to your threat dial, attaching player cards to quest cards, player side quests etc) but the encounter decks and quests are still getting more powerful...

When we now get "hard" quests they are twice as hard as the quests we used to get that were "hard" but the "great" player cards we now get are mostly great because they are strange and new not because they are necessarily powerful. Many instead have a nuanced power you need to build around or use correctly (door is closed etc) which is actually really cool but if we are going to get quests like carn dum I'd honestly rather some player cards that are more powerful and less nuanced to help us out.

I nearly had my first success ... it was a bad decision I made that cost me the game

I tries a Loragorn, Treebeard Merry (tac) ent deck, and on first attempt I needed just one more progress token on stage two, in order to reach 15 and attack Thaurdir (I had an attack strength of 20 or something, so he would be dead meat)

With threat at 47 I draw the enemy that either draws another card or I discard one ally, I could discard with ease, and here is my mistake, I did not, I draw another and is the enemy with 8 threat, doom 1 and surge ... I draw his surge and it is another copy of the same enemy, and then a location of 3 ... thus I place only 1 progress on the 2 quest card instead the 2 tokens I needed (cause it ended up that threat in staging area came 7 more than I thought, and out of fear this might happened I quested with more than needed but not that more) , thus I could not attack Thaurdir to kill him and at the end of the refresh phase I was threated out ... if I had discarded an ally (warden of healing would be) then I would have won ...

Had a great time anyway, very tense, I will change my deck a bit and try again

As a thought experiment then, what would a quest look like that is equal in difficulty to Carn Dum and yet fair/well-designed?

Hmmm this is hard as I have yet to beat Carn Dum and think that I potentially never will with the decks I use (or at least not till I make myself sit down and play 20+ games in a row till I squeak out a win) but have beaten pretty much everything else to date so its hard to compare. Instead I will list some quests that I think are quite difficult but are designed far better than Carn Dum and usually allow you to at least get part way into the quest before you get annihilated.

-Ruins of Belegost is just amazing, won't say much on this one as most people don't even have it yet anyway

-Battle of Five Armies is hard but more about strategy and where to quest and when and can be overcome with a variety of decks so long as they are fairly powerful and you are clever in the way you approach it

-Nin-In-Eilph which many people really hate I actually don't mind and although it is pretty **** hard it also requires quite a bit of strategy and thinking like battle of five armies and just has great art and theme and whatnot. You also have time to prepare for the big bad boss rather than having him in your face round 1 being a total ******. You do need to quest hard and fast though.

-Nightmare Stewards Fear is just fantastic and quite difficult but also manageable and very replayable.

-To Catch an Orc which also gets quite a bit of hate at times and was actually a quest I really disliked when we first got it is also quite hard but still a brilliant quest. Once you get the hang of it and know what you need to do and when/how etc it is not quite so difficult. DO NOT let stage 2 run out of time counters at any point no matter what.

Haven't played Ruins, but want to.

Battle of Five Armies is on the short list for all time best quest.

Nin-In-Eilph was not hard. It was just drudgery. It was monotonous and tedious. It was probably my least favorite quest to date. I'm not sure I will ever play it again, and I love to replay stuff.

Nightmare Steward's Fear is insane. It is so hard, but in a way that draws you in.

To Catch an Orc was okay, not great.

For me, I played from day one and I basically smashed any quest I wanted, then I basically started doing crazy combo decks instead and now I prefer to play easy quests or easy mode because you can win with Dwalin decks and so forth. The harder a quest is the less variety you can play with.

Then I played Morgul Vale and it kicked my butt so hard I still cringe. I never net deck or use forums to "solve" quests. I always want to do it myself. I know other people found the quest pretty easy, but for me it was like the quest had been perfectly designed to counter my style of play, not even sure how. Like others complained about Dul Guldur, but I beat that first try and found it pretty easy. People complained about Into Ithilien, but I played it once, then built a deck to beat it, and that deck I built has like a 90% win rate against the quest (it uses the twins, which I know you like).

But Morgul Vale was still crushing me after like 30 decks and a hundred tries. It was so freaking frustrating. When I finally did beat it I found out from an official ruling that I had been cheating. I even wrote into Caleb to lobby my case and he told me he appreciated the passion but my wins were invalid. I had to go back and try again. Eventually I mastered the quest, but it took forever. Today, that is still one of my favorites. (If you are curious I was trying to win by moving damage from a bodyguard to final boss using infighting, but Caleb said the damage was still reduced to 1. The deck that finally beat it is a mono green Grima trap deck. Now with Damrod the quest is chump)

I beat Can Dum first try. I have beat it with 3 different decks since then and I don't even think it is that hard. I am not saying that to brag. I am merely suggesting that perhaps this is more a case of personal style than "bad design". The designers just happened to counter your style. Don't worry. Keep at it. After you Crack the code you may find that this quest becomes one of your favorites. (I beat it with a Hama feint recycle combo deck, never broke a sweat. I beat it with purple secrecy timely aid, good tale, sneak attack deck, Seastan runs something very similar, and I beat it with a Dain dwarf OP deck, one hit kill erebor battle master, Gimli ally is unstoppable).

Would love to see that brothers deck you use against into ithilien!

If you are curious I was trying to win by moving damage from a bodyguard to final boss using infighting, but Caleb said the damage was still reduced to 1.

To be honest, I'd count all those as wins. That you outsmarted the designers and forced them to make a new rule up to cover their oversight is not your fault at all.

Yeah, I agree. The closest example would be moving resources not being equal to adding resources, so then moving damage is not equal to dealing damage (as per designer, the difference between moving and adding is that as the result of adding, there is more resources than there was before, while moving resources keeps total amount of them the same, which means moving damage doesn't changes the total amount of damage on the board, hence moving damage doesn't equals to dealing damage).

I have no problem with the rule "any effect that causes damage tokens to be gained by a character or enemy counts as 'dealing damage'", but it's a rule that has to be explicitly written down. Indeed, I think this is a good rule, because having a distinction between gaining damage tokens and receiving damage is unappealing to me.

But the designers have, because when the matter was resources, they made quite a distinction between Gaining and Adding resources. All I'm doing is projecting the same judgement they did, but on damages.

I find this very hard, I haven't won it yet, played maybe half a dozen times or so. But I haven't given up on it yet. Maybe it will go down in the annals of "what were they thinking?" but maybe not.

Though I havent yet mustered a win (and like PsychoRocka I play 2 handed and refuse to specifically deckbuild. I also use 1 core set only), I have seemed to make some gains, so I am hopeful this can be a quest that can be figured out. It does take some luck. Not seeing the Treachery cards is very helpful. Getting mass treachery is rough.

I hesitate still to call this a bad quest, but the one thing that concerns me mostly is the mass shadow cards, many of which are sort of "damned if you do, damned if you don't". As was alluded to earlier, if you chump block, you can pay dearly for that. But if you block with a hero you can pay dearly for that too, even a strong defender hero can go down fairly easily to a strong enemy with +1 attack/ally you control. And Amarthiel is sort of a joke on this quest, which is a shame, since I think he's a really good hero most of the time. Like if they wanted to design a quest specifically to convince you that 3 def/ 3 Hp is not a good idea... it would be this quest.

As a thought experiment then, what would a quest look like that is equal in difficulty to Carn Dum and yet fair/well-designed?

1) Thaurdir swiches after getting four shadow cards instead of three or

2) Remove that -10 threat leavel reducement

3) No surge effects on sorcery cards

4) Change the card text of Daechanar's Will by adding an alternative or at least remove the shadow effect

5) Give the players a bonus, like in the scenarios before. Like some attachment that gives a hero + 1 or 2 DEF

I really like the idea of this quest and the mechanics it is using. I love that this quest keeps you busy right until the end. However, I think that the designers wanted to put too many different things into this quest. This quest could be awesome and potentially one of the best so far, but some of the design decions are simply awful. By "bad quest design" I don't mean that this quest is bad because of its mechanics, but because of it's unplayability for most of the decks.

Btw, did they give up the easy mode?

As a thought experiment then, what would a quest look like that is equal in difficulty to Carn Dum and yet fair/well-designed?

Hmmm this is hard as I have yet to beat Carn Dum and think that I potentially never will with the decks I use (or at least not till I make myself sit down and play 20+ games in a row till I squeak out a win) but have beaten pretty much everything else to date so its hard to compare. Instead I will list some quests that I think are quite difficult but are designed far better than Carn Dum and usually allow you to at least get part way into the quest before you get annihilated.

-Ruins of Belegost is just amazing, won't say much on this one as most people don't even have it yet anyway

-Battle of Five Armies is hard but more about strategy and where to quest and when and can be overcome with a variety of decks so long as they are fairly powerful and you are clever in the way you approach it

-Nin-In-Eilph which many people really hate I actually don't mind and although it is pretty **** hard it also requires quite a bit of strategy and thinking like battle of five armies and just has great art and theme and whatnot. You also have time to prepare for the big bad boss rather than having him in your face round 1 being a total ******. You do need to quest hard and fast though.

-Nightmare Stewards Fear is just fantastic and quite difficult but also manageable and very replayable.

-To Catch an Orc which also gets quite a bit of hate at times and was actually a quest I really disliked when we first got it is also quite hard but still a brilliant quest. Once you get the hang of it and know what you need to do and when/how etc it is not quite so difficult. DO NOT let stage 2 run out of time counters at any point no matter what.

I love all those quests you've mentioned, but I think it's hard for me to figure out how you classify a quest as difficult vs. unfair. I've heard many people complain about the progress removal in Nin-In-Eilph being unfair, or the location lock of Steward's Fear being unfair. But to me this is the design of the quest and the whole point is to overcome it.

When I think of an unfair quest, I think of something like Return to Mirkwood. It's clear to me that it wasn't properly playtested in solo. The core design of the quest is built on bouncing Gollum around so that the massive downside of watching him is spread out over the players. Escape from Dol Guldur is another example. No thought for scalability whatsoever. Dealing with 1 captive and 3 objectives as a solo player is objectively unfair because 4 players have the same setup.

Carn Dum doesn't have these elements. It's very tough, but not unfair. Whatever is causing you to lose over and over is part of the design intention and must be overcome. There are at least 10+ different solo archetypes to play with that can handle the quest. For two-handed play, it's possible to build decks that are anywhere from completely useless to game-breaking, so just take your pick in power level and go from there.

It you feel that the quest is still too demanding in what decks you can use, or it you really want to stick to a strong theme with your decks and avoid the power cards, then there is an officially supported easier mode of play for such circumstances. The developers have gone to the extra effort to indicate what cards you should remove from the quest to make it easier. There is no shame in easy mode, especially for a quest like this.

You guys don't have to convince me on the rules. I think moving damage is not dealing damage just like moving resouces. I am just saying that Caleb made an official ruling against me.

I ressurected the thread called Ranger Danger where I posted the decklist that smashes into Ithilien. I guess that list is actually tweaked for Drudan Forest (which at the time I thought was the more difficult quest... oops). The more I played the deck though, the more I realized it was really a highly focused and specialized deck that only worked against a few quests like Into Ithilien, but it smashes that quest pretty hard.

finally beat it! Not sure how many attempts, at least a dozen. Did it with usual Rohan deck paired with Gondor. So it's sort of a personal victory, but I won't be giving advice on this quest any time soon I don't think. Had some luck, and completed 6 side quests! (Gather Info x2, Scout Ahead, Double Back, Orc Ambush, Power of Agmar) Woot!

West-Road traveller to get out of Battle was helpful though, and doing all those side-quests did allow us to get the best stuff. Also I used The Long Defeat. Nice card, I was pleased.

The Long Defeat and various side quests are the best!

As a thought experiment then, what would a quest look like that is equal in difficulty to Carn Dum and yet fair/well-designed?

Hmmm this is hard as I have yet to beat Carn Dum and think that I potentially never will with the decks I use (or at least not till I make myself sit down and play 20+ games in a row till I squeak out a win) but have beaten pretty much everything else to date so its hard to compare. Instead I will list some quests that I think are quite difficult but are designed far better than Carn Dum and usually allow you to at least get part way into the quest before you get annihilated.

-Ruins of Belegost is just amazing, won't say much on this one as most people don't even have it yet anyway

-Battle of Five Armies is hard but more about strategy and where to quest and when and can be overcome with a variety of decks so long as they are fairly powerful and you are clever in the way you approach it

-Nin-In-Eilph which many people really hate I actually don't mind and although it is pretty **** hard it also requires quite a bit of strategy and thinking like battle of five armies and just has great art and theme and whatnot. You also have time to prepare for the big bad boss rather than having him in your face round 1 being a total ******. You do need to quest hard and fast though.

-Nightmare Stewards Fear is just fantastic and quite difficult but also manageable and very replayable.

-To Catch an Orc which also gets quite a bit of hate at times and was actually a quest I really disliked when we first got it is also quite hard but still a brilliant quest. Once you get the hang of it and know what you need to do and when/how etc it is not quite so difficult. DO NOT let stage 2 run out of time counters at any point no matter what.

I love all those quests you've mentioned, but I think it's hard for me to figure out how you classify a quest as difficult vs. unfair. I've heard many people complain about the progress removal in Nin-In-Eilph being unfair, or the location lock of Steward's Fear being unfair. But to me this is the design of the quest and the whole point is to overcome it.

When I think of an unfair quest, I think of something like Return to Mirkwood. It's clear to me that it wasn't properly playtested in solo. The core design of the quest is built on bouncing Gollum around so that the massive downside of watching him is spread out over the players. Escape from Dol Guldur is another example. No thought for scalability whatsoever. Dealing with 1 captive and 3 objectives as a solo player is objectively unfair because 4 players have the same setup.

Carn Dum doesn't have these elements. It's very tough, but not unfair. Whatever is causing you to lose over and over is part of the design intention and must be overcome. There are at least 10+ different solo archetypes to play with that can handle the quest. For two-handed play, it's possible to build decks that are anywhere from completely useless to game-breaking, so just take your pick in power level and go from there.

It you feel that the quest is still too demanding in what decks you can use, or it you really want to stick to a strong theme with your decks and avoid the power cards, then there is an officially supported easier mode of play for such circumstances. The developers have gone to the extra effort to indicate what cards you should remove from the quest to make it easier. There is no shame in easy mode, especially for a quest like this.

Emphasis is mine. I am surprised to hear you say this. I played a couple of my top-tier decks against it and got utterly smashed. I will probably play again at some point, but I honestly don't have the same motivation to keep trying that I did with Into Ithilien. I definitely believe that there is a finely tuned deck that can fair pretty well against this quest (just like there was one for Into Ithilien). I feel like 10+ solo archetypes is an exaggeration, but I don't count your "first turn remove all encounter cards from the game" decks since I would never play them (no offense intended, they just only hold interest for me as hypothetical concepts).

Do you really mean 10 legitimate solo archetypes or was that hyperbole? If you did, would you care to enumerate them? I am very curious to hear your opinion on which decks you think can even somewhat consistently handle this quest. Perhaps I've been unlucky in my play-throughs so far. One game I had a hero death on turn 1 because of surging Sorceries (two Heavy Curses into a Terror of the North) and an immediate attack by Thaurdir (with predictably awful shadow effects). I understand that there are things that I can do to mitigate this, but even as someone who plays nightmare quests this feels a bit extreme. Maybe it is just fatigue with the game, but whereas the losses against Into Ithilien made me want to design a deck to beat it, losses against this quest just make me want to take a break for a while.

I wondered why I was so frustrated with this scenario, but less with Dol Guldur at the time. I think it is because With Dol Guldur I knew after a dozen tries that it was impossible. Do Guldur is like the big Hill Troll who is standing right in front of you and swinging its club at your head. You know you're gonna be smashed no matter what you do. Dol Guldur never pretended that it was anything else than a solo killer.

Carn Dum OTOH gives you the impression that it is beatable. There is only one card that is outright unfair, all the other cards are mean, but not in a sense that you cannot master them. But the fact that every card is a bit harder than usual and that there are almost no cards that can give you a break usually let your games end in a desaster. So Carn Dum is looking more like an unusual big Orc, someone who looks dangerous, but who you think you can beat somehow. You hit at him, he hits back, you hurt him and push him into a corner. But then this Orc suddenly jumps at you with the grace of en elf and fires with various weapons and in a blink of an eye your whole party is dead. And that's what's frustrating.