Is Every Run Winnable?

[speedingdeath]

Hi there,

As per the title, I'm curious of the opinion of experienced players around how possible it is to win every run.

I've enjoyed many roguelikes, and managed to achieve win streaks in a few, such as Binding of Isaac and Hades. In both of these games, there is of course RNG, but with enough skill, just about all runs are winnable, and we see this in the runs popularised by some streamers.

Now with Monster Train, being around Covenant 9, I had a string of losses with Melting/Umbra, because my starting cards, and those awarded after the first fight, didn't include options that resulted in winnable runs.

Now, I'm sure every path for Flicker has a possible win in it, but sometimes, in some particular runs, depending on what cards are given and champion paths are available, there are just no good decisions - if you have no reform or burnout extension cards, the burnout Flicker will die before he fights the boss. If you have no good creatures to resurrect, the reform Flicker will be reforming morsels, which can leave you without good units when the boss arrives - in fact, even in a run where I purged all but 2 good morsel cards, and had a massive array of copied multistrikers with 4 abilities due to events, I still randomly resurrected only morsels just by bad luck. Harvest Flicker is consistently mediocre, often getting me far in the run, but always failing to do enough damage by himself to stem the tide of big mobs before the boss, so he requires both all-in morsel feeding, and a second lucky break on a powerful carry to do damage.

Considering the number of runs where there was ostensibly no decision I could have made that would have allowed me to win, save for making an unusual choice and then getting lucky later, it raises the question of whether or not all runs even can be won? Even with perfect information about future draws, is it always possible to choose your cards and play them in a way that guarantees victory?

As a reasonably experienced Magic player, I'm well aware of the delusion that many players have of how skill influences their ability to win, but in reality, even that game is incredibly variable, and even the best players sometimes go 0-5. But that game has 2 human players, so someone has to lose. But this is a PvE game, so perhaps just being better will allow one to always see the best line?

My guess is no. I believe the randomness means unwinnable runs are possible, and so win streaks are bound above by one's luck.

[Pu239]

At Covenant 25? I don't know if one could get good enough to win every single run without exception. Your examples of having no decision that would allow you to win were the result of choices, though.

Taking Burnout Flicker without getting a burnout increasing card or reform card in the starting 5 random cards is choosing an avoidable risk. I wouldn't take reform Flicker if I intended to use morsels. Though zombie morsels are more resistant to sweep and spikes and don't use up one of your draws.

[techmage]

Neither this nor slay the spire are always winnable.

[GAIN CITY]

at least 70% of runs can be won at coven 20-24 currently. i'd argue at high ascesions in slay the spire, less than 50% of runs are winnables. coven 25 will probably lower that slightly, but the final boss tends not to be the hard part of the game.

[Misguided]

It would be interesting to post codes for “unwinnable” runs as a community challenge.

[RockType]

The game is very new, and none of us are experts. However, given how much information you can have about the cards in your tribes, your future-paths, random effect results, and of course, what enemies you will face and what abilities you'll have to fight, I think that there is a really high skillcap for making "optimal plays". Combined that with the limited card-pool, and I would argue that it is possible to reach a point of making every run winnable with enough skill, in the lower covenants. High covenants, of course, will be designed to be very, very difficult to beat, which will require more luck with your drafts, as the pool of viable builds gets narrower.

Moving down from the celestial world of theoretical perfect runs to the world of flesh and bone, however, misplays and human-error are way, way more common.

[speedingdeath]

Originally posted by Pu239:

At Covenant 25? I don't know if one could get good enough to win every single run without exception. Your examples of having no decision that would allow you to win were the result of choices, though.

Taking Burnout Flicker without getting a burnout increasing card or reform card in the starting 5 random cards is choosing an avoidable risk. I wouldn't take reform Flicker if I intended to use morsels. Though zombie morsels are more resistant to sweep and spikes and don't use up one of your draws.

Hi, yeah those examples were not of my 'choices', rather, they were things I knew I *could not* choose because they would automatically lose. The remaining false-choice was then the only line of play, which then still lost for other reasons.

It's difficult to say where in my decision tree did I mess up; I did take some challenges that I could have left, but then would I have had enough money to upgrade sufficiently for the final boss? Certainly I've lost runs because of my misplays, but as it stands, I also have plenty of losses where if there was a line to victory, is appears I would still have been playing for a possible lucky win, rather than a guaranteed one.

[Gentlest Giant]

I would tentatively say that yes, all seeds at covenant 25 are perfectly winnable.
This is until I receive proof of something otherwise, such as a great player trying a particular seed 10.000 times, all losing.
I mean, to claim that something is literally unwinnable is a pretty extreme statement that requires extraordinary proof.
Besides, it's a far better attitude to assume that you are the factor at fault when analyzing failure.

Edit: Thinking further; What would a 100% losing seed look like? You would have to get card options from a very limited set of cards that in combination with each other, and in multiples of itself, do not end up being very useful, and the first cavern events has to be on the worse end for the context of that card pool.

Maybe the seed would fail to provide an answer to a particular problem,such as the sweep boss at the second ring, as that is fairly early and the starter decks by themselves are pretty bad against it.

At any rate, these seeds are probably of such extreme rarity that I would not expect to see any of them in 1000 hours of play.

[speedingdeath]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

I would tentatively say that yes, all seeds at covenant 25 are perfectly winnable.
This is until I receive proof of something otherwise, such as a great player trying a particular seed 10.000 times, all losing.
I mean, to claim that something is literally unwinnable is a pretty extreme statement that requires extraordinary proof.
Besides, it's a far better attitude to assume that you are the factor at fault when analyzing failure.

Okay, well it's good to hear that someone believes they are all winnable.

But are you implying that each seed *has at least 1 winnable path, whether winning requires future knowledge or not*, or that each seed *has a path that wins, and this can be determined even without knowing what is coming in the future*.

If you're suggesting the first case, well, that's also somewhat disappointing, since you still lose to not guessing the right decision in the beginning.

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by speedingdeath:

But are you implying that each seed *has at least 1 winnable path, whether winning requires future knowledge or not*, or that each seed *has a path that wins, and this can be determined even without knowing what is coming in the future*.

I'm assuming that the player has perfect knowledge of the seed by some magical means. I mean, that's the only way to actually determine if it's unwinnable or not. You have to retry it, and that by definition means you gain knowledge. Might as well go for the natural conclusion that you know the entire seed.

[speedingdeath]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

I would tentatively say that yes, all seeds at covenant 25 are perfectly winnable.
This is until I receive proof of something otherwise, such as a great player trying a particular seed 10.000 times, all losing.
I mean, to claim that something is literally unwinnable is a pretty extreme statement that requires extraordinary proof.
Besides, it's a far better attitude to assume that you are the factor at fault when analyzing failure.

Edit: Thinking further; What would a 100% losing seed look like? You would have to get card options from a very limited set of cards that in combination with each other, and in multiples of itself, do not end up being very useful, and the first cavern events has to be on the worse end for the context of that card pool.

Maybe the seed would fail to provide an answer to a particular problem,such as the sweep boss at the second ring, as that is fairly early and the starter decks by themselves are pretty bad against it.

I see you added more in your edit; yeah I don't think it takes much to end up in a situation where the combination of card options and dice rolls fall against you. It does seem like you're arguing for a definition of 'winnable' being 'winnable with perfect knowledge', which I suppose is different to 'winnable if rolled in a streak, never seen before'

On your point of "it's a far better attitude to assume that you are the factor at fault when analyzing failure", yeah I agree in principle, and that's actually why I'm asking this question; if the game is destined to screw you with RNG, then I can accept a loss rate as baked into the game, and not agonize over what small mistakes I might have made. If I'm the reason why I get losses, then I can theoretically learn what not to do.

[Weekend Player]

I don't think so. At cov 20+, if you dont get a solid unit before the second boss you are automatically dead with some decks.

[Rianith]

Only a beginner, and having fun cracking Cov 6 at the moment,
but it seems to me that the random five cards you are given at the start make a huge difference.
Far more than initial encounters in STS.
If I get five duffers, then getting to the endgame is an almighty struggle,
but getting five cards I can use means I can plan possible victory.
I can only imagine this randomness can screw you even more at higher levels...

[Apollo]

na game super unbalanced not designed for end game at all. very disappointed had potential.

[Lotion]

The game would be a puzzle game if every time you played you could win. It still feels like an accomplishment to win at Cov 25 because it is hard and most victories are a like a battle. There are plenty of puzzle games on steam that let you win everytime Eric, some people like a challenge and aren't crying for "balance".

[Weekend Player]

Originally posted by Lotion:

The game would be a puzzle game if every time you played you could win. It still feels like an accomplishment to win at Cov 25 because it is hard and most victories are a like a battle. There are plenty of puzzle games on steam that let you win everytime Eric, some people like a challenge and aren't crying for "balance".

Wow, how insightful. If somebody points out a design flaw they are crying. The big boy thing to do is spend their time playing endless runs that are unbeatable by design until they luck out with the perfect seed. Such an "accomplishment".