Covenant 10 is utterly annoying and not fun at all

[Ace×Aomine]

Hello, well, i've played a lot Monster Train, right now i'm on covenant 15. I'm almost sure my thread won't change much but... I would like to share my frustration about the Covenant 10 " The (player) units are dazzed one turn upon entering the 3rd floor ( below the pyre)"
It's very complicated to work with the Remnant, as they disappear... And it makes the game much much much more difficult. It's just my own opinion, not something based on stats or anything else.

[SpaceCat]

It annoys me too. Just an unfun mechanic.

[Ace×Aomine]

For instance, if you choose the invasion things, you can't defend your third level. The only clan who can defend is the Awoken with the 2 damage 2 heal AoE, only if you draw it. Come on just remove this ...

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by Ace×Aomine:

For instance, if you choose the invasion things, you can't defend your third level. The only clan who can defend is the Awoken with the 2 damage 2 heal AoE, only if you draw it. Come on just remove this ...

Are you sure that that is the only AOE effect that can be instantly triggered in the game?

[Ace×Aomine]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

Originally posted by Ace×Aomine:

For instance, if you choose the invasion things, you can't defend your third level. The only clan who can defend is the Awoken with the 2 damage 2 heal AoE, only if you draw it. Come on just remove this ...

Are you sure that that is the only AOE effect that can be instantly triggered in the game?

I mean at the first stage. There are a few others spells too but you see my point, it's annoying

[.//slayer]

I don't find it annoying at all. It takes some getting used to, but adds an interesting extra layer of complexity that I haven't seen in other deckbuilders before. And as you progress through covenants, this barely remains an issue at all.

For instance, if you choose the invasion things, you can't defend your third level.

On the first stage, any unit with spikes or any cheap spell will do the job, and the payoff is worth a bit of Pyre damage in any scenario.

[Baldr]

Yes some of those mechanics are a pain. And does not equatte to challenge, just to AI having an exagerated advantage.
I cant win on lvl 6 with hellborne and the smelters. any other combination is fine. But hellborne is to squishy in the begining.

[Keith]

Yes it is frustrating for builds that want to setup on the top floor every time, and it gets worse once you reach 20 and beyond. If they had put in a bit more effort, I'm sure they could make the game just as challenging without resorting to using frustration mechanics.

[Kiru]

Honestly, the covenants past 1 are all very artificial, 10 isn't a difference there. Wait for mutators we can use freely (or randomly). No need to play high covenants, that restrict strategies more than covenant 1 does.

That said, I've not found the game to get much harder between 1 and 10. What wins 1 probably wins 10 as well. Daze at the top floor can be annoying (money spawn), but as long as you consider it a possibility it's not really doing much. Kinda like everything really. It adds up, yeah, but you also get a little better every run, so it works out. Covenant 25 seems to be different, but who knows, maybe it works better than I thought? Will take a while, as I random my runs.

[.//slayer]

Honestly, the covenants past 1 are all very artificial, 10 isn't a difference there. Wait for mutators we can use freely (or randomly). No need to play high covenants, that restrict strategies more than covenant 1 does.

It's like we're playing different games. You say "restrict", I say "make you try other options and think outside of the box". Every new covenant (I'm at 21 atm) makes me play with more care, trying various options in my head before I play any single card. At covenants pre-10, I used to stuff my deck with 40+ cards every run. Now each and every card is carefully weighted, and I spend up to several minutes thinking about which reward to take.

It's been an exhilarating experience that pushed me forward as a player. I would never complain about challenges such as MT offers.

What would you consider a "fun" challenge anyway? Every difficulty increase funnels the player towards a particular playstyle and limits their options in a certain way, no matter what. If enemies have higher attack, that means you won't be able to rely on vulnerable, high-damage units. If enemies are tanky, you'll probably sacrifice utility units in favour of extra damage dealers. If your deck is bloated with curses, your best option would be to increase drawing power. The entire point of challenges is to overcome the limits placed on you.

This is why I love the idea behind the daze on the top floor - it's not just a statistical increase, it's a change that forces you to view the game differently and takes you out of your comfort zone. "Boring" is when a boss becomes fatter while everything else remains the same.

[Zeel Ara]

You're going to hate Cov 25 :D

[Lorska]

Let's be real here, making 40+ card decks is awful no matter what difficulty you're on. The only reason it worked is because it's too easy at the start.

MT starts out extremely easy and some covenant effects might not be fun but they balance stuff better:
- enemies having better stats
- higher shop costs

Things that are not fun:
- deadweights (this is an awful mechanic that just got taken from StS. And it was less egregious there because of draw combos and being able to fish for specific cards. Here it just adds unnatural "feelsbad" inconsistency you can't really play around. Not matter how consistent you make your deck, sometimes you just draw your deadweights)
- daze (I would argue this is less awful than the above simply because you can "just" take the damage, skip it or get luck with cards to help with it. The main issue here comes from that it affects different clans and builds way too differently. You shouldn't hinder build variety through ascension, you should instead require refinement of strategy. There is no strategy for this effect here, it only effects certain minion based strategies unlike pretty much every other ascension effect)

The way to add an interesting difficulty curve is adding a general increase in challenge, that take new approaches, but affecting all strategies at the same time.
GOOD examples:
- new/improved boss abilities
- new/improved unit abilities
- challenges having harder or more mutators
- adding an additional random enemy type to battles

BAD examples:
- damage shield instead of increased health
- debuffs/buffs get reduced twice as quickly

You can have specific problems for certain comps, as seen with gorge and harvest enemies, but that's not where a general difficult increase should come from. Adaptability should be the focus. Saying FU because you are trying this kind of strategy simply for trying is a bit much.

[Kiru]

Originally posted by .//slayer:

Honestly, the covenants past 1 are all very artificial, 10 isn't a difference there. Wait for mutators we can use freely (or randomly). No need to play high covenants, that restrict strategies more than covenant 1 does.

It's like we're playing different games. You say "restrict", I say "make you try other options and think outside of the box". Every new covenant (I'm at 21 atm) makes me play with more care, trying various options in my head before I play any single card. At covenants pre-10, I used to stuff my deck with 40+ cards every run. Now each and every card is carefully weighted, and I spend up to several minutes thinking about which reward to take.

Honestly, that's on you. I'm not saying it's impossible to play "bad" early, but it's not a very hard game to figure out. Removal of cards being one of the most important things in the game is something I learned before I even went past covenant 1.
I know what works and what doesn't. That hasn't changed going through the ranks. The only thing that changes is, that some "less good" rng is now losing and no longer worth pursuing.

Simple example is a largestone. On rank 1 you get much easier by without having an early one. That gets a lot more questionable as the ranks increase. 95% of the runs die within 5 minutes. I hope they do something about that, no matter how.
-You can stabilize by making specific things not random (i.e. magic and unit shops)
-You can increase the amount of rewards based on how far you are. (i.e. twice as many things by round 4, three times as much by 7) This'd make it more worthwhile to go past 3 without having anything, provided your stuff isn't so bad you can't even do that.
edit: By that I don't mean challenge rewards, but the amount of "things" on each side.
-You could bring in specific logic, that helps starting runs to not be so awful there's literally no hope and you know it
-Or, and this is by far the hardest, balance cards. One of the biggest issues is how many many cards are useless without specific other things or specific upgrades. If the game designers would make every single card at least okay without any other card, you'd achieve a better balance as well. This is why purple is liked so much. It can go with anything and is useful enough. Something other colors just don't really have. Champions also all feel rather questionable and weak, other than purple's, mostly having only 1 option that's actually adequate. Not super awesome, just adequate. Meanwhile purple's carries the living crap out of runs a lot of times.

Regardless, runs shouldn't die within 5 minutes all the time. With how steep the enemy scaling is, and how rewards don't actually get much better, the small as heck chance to actually win a run starting off badly is just not going to be motivating.