Trials of Fire

I noticed in the Journal that it gives a recommended level for each quest. When I fought the dragon I was level 7 and the recommended was 7-9 so maybe if I had explored a little more it would have gone easier. Not sure how / if scaling works in the game.

I’ve also been wondering about scaling, and if it is done, in relation to what?

Because from my perspective, levels seem to have less impact than the items you find. The really good items can give you three outstanding cards, while each level gives you just one, often modest upgrade.

This. It’s all about building your deck. Getting levels allows you only to replace the basic cards in your deck with slightly better ones. Your really good cards come from the equipment you find. Then your deck is refined by powering up equipment and dropping the dead weight cards from your deck. Which you do using the crafting materials you get.

So, I think it’s worthwhile to takes chances and visit as many locations as possible, especially early in a run. Sure you may end your run early but if you get good stuff, it can become far easier to complete.

This is the first time I’ve played this in about a year and they’ve done a great job of fleshing out the game and making it more interesting and challenging. Time just flies by when you’re playing. Great game and I hope they sell enough to keep expanding and supporting it.

I don’t think bosses scale at all, same with the various unique encounters ( I did the science on this one at the expense of a party). I’m not sure if regular enemy hp scales at all, but largely the game just throws more advanced enemies into encounters, which is certainly my preferred scaling technique.

Very much this. Some card(or equipment) upgrades are really impactful, so I try to get as many of those done as I can before ending a run. Before other bosses I tend to try to hold off as long as I can.

Sorry, where is this? I’m looking in the journal right now and don’t see it.

I also noticed there is no recommended level in the “normal” mode. But there was a recommendation right where you are looking there in the “water gem” separate mode.

Oh, OK. Thanks for the clarification!

I had beaten the red dragon in Water Gem quest before and was stuck on the Trial of Fire quest. Then just now I got the Sun Priest as the last boss in trial of fire. I won with my Warlord and Warrior dead, and my Hunter at 1 HP. Got an achievement for it too. The fun part about that win was that the Sun Priest was on his way to gank my hunter and end my quest, but the hunter had a Overwatch card so when the Sun Priest moved, my hunter got a shot off.

So I have 2 of 3 quests completed in order to unlock the last class. Anyone know what it is?

First game I played I tried to fight some kind of epic land wurm right after starting and that went poorly. Second game I beat the Red Dragon on Medium. I probably got lucky, but I had this legendary shield for the warrior that gave a card that makes armor gain double this turn, and a power that gives +1 damage per 4 armor, and the other two could give a bunch of armor, and I ended up with a turn where she hit a couple times for 12 each.

Never mind, I just completed my 3rd quest. I won’t spoil the class that opened. I think I have this mostly figured out now. Lots of defense helps. And a strong hunter. Way OP some battles.

I also unlocked that one today. I’ve now got all but 2 unlocked. The one that I’m never going to get unlocked is the ‘Discover 3 Landmarks’ one. I know that’s sites that have the 3 question marks on them, the problem is that I’ve just never seen one. They are apparently rarer than hen’s teeth.

Patch Notes: “We’ve also toned down the late game bosses slightly on Medium.”

well i finally beat that dragon bastard. though it was easily my best party synergy i’ve had going to date so i like to think i’d have beat him even before he got nerfed. that’s what i’ll tell myself anyway.

Holy cow I’ve played a lot of this game. I’m up to 35+ hours in the last 2 weeks. The only quest I haven’t completed is Cursed Sonata. I’ve only done Combat Run from the Challenge area. I keep trying to pace myself, but find myself firing up another quest.

Same here! And I triggered a line of text on cavern entrances but didn’t see how to use them, can I reset things so it pops up again? Also, I didn’t need the new “3 lives” or “flesh wound” modifiers, but if I want to try them out how do I enable them?

So, having had a couple of successful runs on easy, and having found the most recent one too easy, I’ve gone ahead and bumped it up to medium. The difference is substantial but I was managing quite well, even managed to knock out the Illusionist as an optional boss early on and walk away with a nice trove of gear. That got me through the first checkpoint easily but then I got greedy and bit off more than I could chew. That multi-tentacled critter in the sulfur flats is not to be trifled with, apparently. But, hey, I unlocked two more character classes for my trouble and learned a few things, so I’m not complaining.

Overall I’m really enjoying the game, though I wish the cards were a little more interesting on average. The class starter decks are really dull and it takes far too long to spice them up through level ups. I know it’s all about the gear cards but come on, you’re going to see those class cards a lot no matter how great your gear is.

But, it’s a fairly small quibble for a very well-built game. Looking forward to trying out the new classes.

On the bottom right of the “choose your quest” page, there is a little icon that opens up a whole bunch of gameplay modifiers.

I completed it, but it seemed much weaker than the others. Supposedly offers branching quests where you pick your next challenge. But it was never clear to me which one I was choosing or what difference it would make. Just two arrows on the map going to two different quest objective sites, always right close to each other. Maybe I was missing something?

Thanks!

I just tried the "boss run’’ quest for the first time. It was fun to see some bosses I hadn’t run into before. Managed to beat the amalgam but lost to the blue dragon.

When I hovered the mouse over the two arrows it had a tool tip about which quest the arrow was for. For me the only parts of the game that really matters is the battles and the stuff that directly supports it - getting new cards / equipment, upgrading, unlocking… The overland stuff and quests don’t really add much for me, but it doesn’t matter because the battles are so much fun! I’d be just as happy playing one battle after another with bosses thrown in, trying to see how far I could get.