Try a daily climb for the first time and actually made it through. That was fun to complete a climb just to see what happens! I got a card that reduced everyone’s attack to 1, needless to say I really liked that card and it gave me 5 of them for the cost of cutting my HP in half.
The defect feels too easy to me. Won every time I’ve played it without too much trouble. The Hunter took me the longest before I figured out how to do the poison or shiv heavy. Much harder to do a draw/energy deck with him.
Enjoyable game but I kinda like the replay with Monster Sayers due to more classes with different play styles.
Yeah, the Apparition event can be very very good.
You, sir, do not have experience with all the relic/card combinations under the sun ;)
I like how Slay the Spire isn’t overly concerned with balance. I feel like I play single-player games in order to make interesting decisions under uncertainty as a I go along, and to have an interesting story to recall at the end. I feel like have the potential for game-changing random stuff happen furthers both goals. More importantly, you can get game-changing combinations of random stuff which makes things more interesting, more memorable and very content-efficient.
This obviously works very well in a rogue-like, but I’d like to see how it would go in a space 4x. Discover crazy technologies from vanished empires and combine them in game-breaking ways. I guess it would have to be not only a single-player but an asymmetric game?
After watching France win their World Cup game (yeah!), and listening to crowds of people screaming / cheering / honking / driving the wrong way down a one way street - I decided to finish my run of Slay the Spire I had going. I finally beat Ascension level 6 while having a large hand. I managed to get my best placement on the leaderboard with a score of 1259 and a place of 3838.
Here are my cards…
With my 2 offerings I was able to get some nice chains going. I also had a relic that gave me another energy and card when an enemy died, so that helped vs multiple enemies. I had a buncg of Shrug it Off, True Grit and an Armament to help on defense. I love getting an upgraded Armament to help upgrade my other cards during the battle.
I had another relic that gave me random cards when a card was exhausted.That gave my a Demon Form and the card that doubles strength.
I also had some nice damage cards, so with the strength I was going some damage at the end. It took me a lot of tries to beat Ascension Level 6.
Nice work @robc04! I have yet to bet the “you no longer heal fully after bosses” ascension (6?).
Shockwave is so good! Love that card. Totally agree about the “draw a random card when exhausting a card” relic, that one is super strong.
Did they change the starting deck card count? I’ve noticed my last few standard runs my deck is always 10 cards with each class now, with a few less Defense and Strike cards?
I don’t know, but that is probably what you get for playing the beta branch, Scott :)
LOL probably.
I’m finding the game suddenly a little harder than before. I assumed the smaller deck size would make it easier, but for some reason I’m (in the beta branch) having a lot of really tough runs on Standard. I don’t know what they are changing, but it’s been fun to see new cards (with the prototype art!) because some of these (like Mayhem) are freaking amazing. I can never afford them when I find them in shops though.
I very rarely buy cards in shops. Only if it’s something fairly core to my theme. One time I got an Electrodynamics on sale when it was the one card I super badly needed though, that was awesome.
So with the forum effect and all, I gave the game another try. And it is fun. But my original thoughts remain valid for me. It is very luck dependant. If you get certain cards and certain items you’re unstoppable. If you don’t, you’re finished. I took out a boss in 3 rounds by getting over 100 poison on it. Still haven’t made it past the early 3rd round though.
Looking forward to another game after work tonight.
I was thinking it seemed more difficult too playing ascension. I had a run of games where I lost much sooner then I had been. I’m not playing on the beta branch though.
And steam weekend sale item. $10.07 matches it’s historical low.
Games like this are about mitigating randomness. Yes there is some luck, but the point is to build your hand in such a way that you maximize your chances for success. There’s also more than one path to victory, so it isn’t a case of you get this item or you fail, but more a case of: oh, I got this…how can I build around it.
I beat the game with Silent first (after 2-3 unlocks). I must have gotten lucky with some artifact. I had no idea what I was doing.
Ironclad I never beat. I kept dying. I looked up guides. I found a pure offense one. I died a lot.
Then Therlun offered to watch me play and taught me all the secrets and I won! I learned some cards are trash, that the point is synergy with what cards you already have. I kept wanting to get Armament and the temporary strength buff for example, and he told me they are mediocre cards.
It feels like the enemies are just hitting harder. I’m finding more and more my runs end in death to common enemies as I just don’t have the defense to out block more than 2-6 damage a round, and I get worn down because I’m also not dealing enough damage per round. It’s been pretty strange the last few days, but nothing I can put my finger on for sure.
Mediocre maybe, but I had a great run with two upgraded 0 cost +4 str for one turn cards, and the cards that double your strength (upgraded, they don’t exhaust). I was rocking in the 30’s for strength at one point pretty reliably every fight. It was awesome.
What is the reasoning behind armament being mediocre? Once upgraded it seems like a cheap way to have upgraded cards in a battle and allows you to use fires for healing vs. upgrading.
Wondering this as well, but it’s also hard to spend an upgrade on it (even though doing so is amazing). I will admit I’ve had runs with a mostly upgraded deck and then it’s no better than a basic defense, but worse because it’s as good as it will ever be. That’s probably not a super common situation to be in with Armament though.
Kind of hoping @wisefool shares the wisdom he learned. Maybe let us know all the secrets you learned?
Yes, I found the upgrade every card very useful. but it’s about opportunity cost.
So the most important lesson i learned is 80% of the time you want to take no damage at all. This is easiest to do in map 1. Map 2 gets tougher. So you really want those good defense cards (the 30 block, the block that discards, the block that exhausts. Barricade is a good upgrade too because energy cost 2 is much better than the 3.). When upgraded, the block that exhausts (true grit?) lets you choose which card to exhaust which is very useful - it can remove curses, burns, and any remaining crappy cards you have (strikes).
So I guess it’s an opportunity cost thing, do you use the armament in the hope that you get to upgrade the cards you want to use? Or are you just running armaments on the shitty strikes/defends and other middling cards?
Like you guys said about maximizing odds in your favor I think it’s got to do stacking the deck - so you get the cards you want, and upgrade those. Minimize risks.
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For an interesting game try the relic with randomized costs. I picked one up early and it changes the game a lot! (there’s a custom game that lets you do this) - just pick all the power 2, 3 cards like bludgeon and weaken and the AOE debuffs, etc etc. Card draws become very valuable for example.
edit: ok, Therlun said:
" 5 armor isn’t enough late game, and the upgrades shouldn’t matter that much, because your key cards should be upgraded already."