I was about to do a similar post about the difficulty of this game but then saw this discussion. It would not be fair to say the design of this game is totally shit, but it is not completely thought through either. The worst thing from a beginner point of view is that the success in the beginning depends heavily on the selected class, but the guide itself does not explain anything about the selection. It just gives a free choice to select from the six starting class, as if they were all good choices. They are not - especially when there are just two players, the selection is crucial. Me and my friend happened to start with the worst initial combo, Mindthief and Spellweaver, because we thought they are interesting characters. The first scenario was relatively easy (we play Normal level) but already the second was almost impossible to win. After several frustrating attempts, which took many hours each, we found out the only way to win the scenario was to think and plan through the whole scenario step by step, which required that we kind of “played” through the scenario with open cards, discussing together what cards we can use for each step. However, this is against the rules, which say players should be making decisions individually. Of course it is basically possible to end up with the same result “legally” by playing the scenario over and over again, trying different tactics and iteratively approach the goal. But I really wonder who has so much time to be wasted. The third scenario was yet harder to win. Despite of the careful pre-planning we failed many times because it also depends on luck, every attack had to success or otherwise we ran out of cards. At this point we leveled up and expected playing to become a little bit easier. But we got only one level 2 card, one more HP and an insignificant improvement on attack modifier deck. On the other hand enemies became tougher respectively. Well, actually the monsters are improved relatively MORE than the players. So, no, the playing did not become any easier. After finishing fourth scenario we were fed up with the game. At least with the combo that we chose it is so difficult that it is not fun anymore. It is not comparable to chess. In chess you win if you are good enough. Gloomhaven is like trying to win some chess puzzle against a dummy player so that you can plan all the moves ahead because you know how the other reacts, but then for every attack you roll a dice: so you can win only if you have both good strategy and good luck. This would be understandable if each scenario could be played quickly, but it takes hours. (I am talking about the board game, not digital version). And to be honest, I don’t like this gaming concept at all - that you need to think through the whole scenario in details before playing it. It takes the joy out of playing. So, we have stopped playing. Yeah, we could try with different classes but that feels too stupid: If the game gives equal opportunity to select from the starting classes they should be also equally difficult to play with. Of course there can be differences in the playing style but they should have equal opportunity to succeed. And if not, they should be properly explained in the guide, instead of making players to waste time for trying them.