Is DLC worth it?

[Nikola]

Im kinda bad at this game but it doesnt make a difference, i like playing Monster Train. The Game has DLC called the Last Divinity and from what i saw in reviews, the content of the DLC is really difficult and makes the base game harder and new clan is supposedly not so great. But all of the reviews are pretty old.

Does anything changed in the past years? Did they made the DLC more playable for low skill players? If i buy thDLC just to test that thing and expierence it on my own, is there a way to disable the DLC after buying it if i decide that its too hard for me?

I would be thankful for your responses <3

[Včelí medvídek]

I am not at all experienced and jsut recently booted the game, right with the DLC already.

But to my understanding what DLC does is allow you spend divine shard during run - it opens many options {like get free artifacts or combine two untis into one taking abilities of both) for increased difficulty and add new boss on top of it. But need to say at first you can still got through run with little or zero shards usage as you wish, making no impact if you dont use it at all.

And the second is the clan you dont need to use. I personally did not touched it yet,

So I would not be afraid to buy and explore it on your pace - can nto exactly say how much it is worth it though - on first hand I think the shards make game harder in general so if you already struggle...

[ShinryuEXE]

Originally posted by Nikola:

Im kinda bad at this game but it doesnt make a difference, i like playing Monster Train. The Game has DLC called the Last Divinity and from what i saw in reviews, the content of the DLC is really difficult and makes the base game harder and new clan is supposedly not so great. But all of the reviews are pretty old.

Does anything changed in the past years? Did they made the DLC more playable for low skill players? If i buy thDLC just to test that thing and expierence it on my own, is there a way to disable the DLC after buying it if i decide that its too hard for me?

I would be thankful for your responses <3

Take this with a grain of salt as I've put in a ton of hours into Monster Train and clearly love this game, but I don't agree with those reviews.

First off, the new clan, Wurmkin, is great. It's both strong and fun and brings new mechanics to the game. Easily my favorite clan.

As for the rest: Yes, I think the DLC is definitely worth it. The ability to fuse monsters alone is a really fun mechanic and greatly changes how you approach runs.
As for the difficulty, I wouldn't say it's inherently more difficult than the base game. It changes the balance of the game, but it doesn't 'unbalance' the game as some of those reviews state. Shard enhanced enemies are way stronger than their normal counterparts for sure, but you only encounter them if you're taking on Pact Shards, which you only ever get in exchange for something (Gold, Artifacts, special spell upgrades, unit fusions). So there are harder enemies yes, but they're balanced out by the player being stronger in return.
As for the people complaining about the new boss specifically: Again, I don't think it's that hard. It changes the way you need to build decks to succeed, as the fight has a far greater focus on wave clear than the other boss fights, but it's entirely possible and reasonable to beat that boss on every run you play.

As for turning it off if you don't like it: Yes, you can do exactly that. There's a slider on the top right of the start screen that lets you toggle it on or off. Also, like I said before, in each run you only encounter Shard Enhanced enemies if you are taking on Pact Shards, so if you want you can just elect to take zero shards and you'll never encounter any enhanced enemies or the new boss.

[Nikola]

Originally posted by ShinryuEXE:

Originally posted by Nikola:

Im kinda bad at this game but it doesnt make a difference, i like playing Monster Train. The Game has DLC called the Last Divinity and from what i saw in reviews, the content of the DLC is really difficult and makes the base game harder and new clan is supposedly not so great. But all of the reviews are pretty old.

Does anything changed in the past years? Did they made the DLC more playable for low skill players? If i buy thDLC just to test that thing and expierence it on my own, is there a way to disable the DLC after buying it if i decide that its too hard for me?

I would be thankful for your responses <3

Take this with a grain of salt as I've put in a ton of hours into Monster Train and clearly love this game, but I don't agree with those reviews.

First off, the new clan, Wurmkin, is great. It's both strong and fun and brings new mechanics to the game. Easily my favorite clan.

As for the rest: Yes, I think the DLC is definitely worth it. The ability to fuse monsters alone is a really fun mechanic and greatly changes how you approach runs.
As for the difficulty, I wouldn't say it's inherently more difficult than the base game. It changes the balance of the game, but it doesn't 'unbalance' the game as some of those reviews state. Shard enhanced enemies are way stronger than their normal counterparts for sure, but you only encounter them if you're taking on Pact Shards, which you only ever get in exchange for something (Gold, Artifacts, special spell upgrades, unit fusions). So there are harder enemies yes, but they're balanced out by the player being stronger in return.
As for the people complaining about the new boss specifically: Again, I don't think it's that hard. It changes the way you need to build decks to succeed, as the fight has a far greater focus on wave clear than the other boss fights, but it's entirely possible and reasonable to beat that boss on every run you play.

As for turning it off if you don't like it: Yes, you can do exactly that. There's a slider on the top right of the start screen that lets you toggle it on or off. Also, like I said before, in each run you only encounter Shard Enhanced enemies if you are taking on Pact Shards, so if you want you can just elect to take zero shards and you'll never encounter any enhanced enemies or the new boss.

Thank you for explaining this to me! I really wanted to just play the new clan and new cards, thats all. Im usually playing on covenant one since higher diofficulties are just overwhelming to me (cov 16 was where i gave up but maybe i need some tutorial or 2). Now i think its gonna be worth to give a shot to this DLC!

[fubarbarella♡]

I think you should feel comfortable first in vanilla winning diff. combos on covenant 10+.
Addicted and craving for a bit more twisted & hardcore, get the DLC.

[Happiness Officer]

Originally posted by ShinryuEXE:

...in each run you only encounter Shard Enhanced enemies if you are taking on Pact Shards

I'm 100% with ShinryuEXE on this one, but this bit is especially important. Any difficulty add is entirely at your discretion: The DLC itself doesn't just randomly make it harder in my experience.

Where the DLC often trips people up (myself included at the start) was that it is very easy to reach for events that give you pact shards... neat upgrades, free relics... And it takes some time to realise just how rough it can make things.

But if you want to start slow and just enjoy a new clan and extra cards on what is essentially the base game - you most certainly can! Good luck.

[SBA77]

It definitely is! The new clan is the best (as in the most fun) in the game and has one of the best champions (Spine Chief). That and the new pact shard mechanic, particularly the infusions really changes up the formula.

Also all the DLC stuff (the pact shards, the new boss, the new clan) only really kicks in on the first covenant rank. If you play covenant rank 0 that's playing vanilla basically, so you can use that to learn the ropes, find builds that you like and get any missing unlocks, though I'm assuming you have all the vanilla unlocks already. Really beating Rank 1 is the initially hurdle, and I don't think it's that difficult if you have enough experience to synthesize your builds (e.g. seeing how Shardtail Queen would go super well with Melting Remnant and their harvesters).

I myself started with DLC content as a complete noob with barely any cards unlocked (so had to deal with the godawful horn breaker prince Hellhorned/Awoken combo) and was really focused on unlocking the new clan. and I manged to do it. Admittedly I had to finally look up a build online to get over the hurdle but after I started exploring other clans not long after I can do it on my own.

[SBA77]

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

But to my understanding what DLC does is allow you spend divine shard during run - it opens many options {like get free artifacts or combine two untis into one taking abilities of both) for increased difficulty and add new boss on top of it. But need to say at first you can still got through run with little or zero shards usage as you wish, making no impact if you dont use it at all.

That's not quite how it works. You don't earn and spend pact shards like that, you get pact shards in exchange for very potent rewards such as 150 gold, artifact drafts, spell upgrades that are more powerful than shop ones, and the ability to give your units new abilities by fusing them together in exchange adding the spawning of upgraded enemies in some waves and the stat buffing of bosses and giving some major bosses new buffs and abilities at certain breakpoints.

[Gabriot]

It's one of the best dlc I have ever played.

[jim01q]

The base game is unplayable once you have the DLC. You notice all the stuff missing right from the get go.

Gab, long time, lol

[Hearts™]

DLC adds tons of cool stuff. Definitely worth the money.

[Nikola]

Originally posted by jim01q:

The base game is unplayable once you have the DLC. You notice all the stuff missing right from the get go.

Gab, long time, lol

Explain???

[SBA77]

Originally posted by Nikola:

Originally posted by jim01q:

The base game is unplayable once you have the DLC. You notice all the stuff missing right from the get go.

Gab, long time, lol

Explain???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqjcHYTQgQ

But in all seriousness, while I can't speak for that guy, I will say that the DLC falls into the category of "makes vanilla an inferior product" (which is one of the reasons I hate the practice of DLC in general) . It just adds so much cool stuff that makes the game better and adds more options and to the strategic to the depth.

[Včelí medvídek]

Originally posted by SBA77:

That's not quite how it works. You don't earn and spend pact shards like that, you get pact shards in exchange for very potent rewards such as 150 gold, artifact drafts, spell upgrades that are more powerful than shop ones, and the ability to give your units new abilities by fusing them together in exchange adding the spawning of upgraded enemies in some waves and the stat buffing of bosses and giving some major bosses new buffs and abilities at certain breakpoints.

I know this well..

but the tradeoff dont work well for me - every time i start spending shards (and it is jsut wording, I knwo ti is tradeoff) the difficulty is not countered the gain I get out of it. I never managed get too far even with just first yellow "shard difficulty". I like grab artifacts but the chance it give so advantatge worthy of enemy upgrades is slim and only once I managed do so good unit combination it was worthy.

[ShinryuEXE]

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

I know this well..

but the tradeoff dont work well for me - every time i start spending shards (and it is jsut wording, I knwo ti is tradeoff) the difficulty is not countered the gain I get out of it. I never managed get too far even with just first yellow "shard difficulty". I like grab artifacts but the chance it give so advantatge worthy of enemy upgrades is slim and only once I managed do so good unit combination it was worthy.

I mean, that is just a matter of experimenting and gaining more experience.
If you're finding that artifacts are often not getting you enough payoff for taking them (especially early in a run), then stop taking the early shard artifact nodes. Etc.

Mind you, you can take every shard offered in a run (and end with 270-300ish shards) and still succeed, so it's not so thin a margin that you really need to be super cautious about taking shards if you're playing well.

As far as unit fusions, there are tons of really good ones and they're well worth the 25 shard cost.Like,
- Welder Helper into Fledgling Imp
- Animus of Will into any attacker, especially a Sweep unit
- Draff into Paraffin Enforcer or Bounty Stalker
- First of Kin or Shardsoul Carver into Bogfly Chrysalis
- Self-infused Titan Sentry
- Glacial Seal into Siren of the Sea
- Self-infused Molten Encasement, or Entombed Explosive into Molten Encasement
- Entombed Explosive into Legion of Wax
etc. etc. etc.

In every clan combo there are lots of great fusions and lots of ways to build a winning deck.

[Včelí medvídek]

Originally posted by ShinryuEXE:

In every clan combo there are lots of great fusions and lots of ways to build a winning deck.

Btw do you have tip for some slightly advanced guide or smth like that?

I am now completing all clan combinations with Covenant 1 and no shards usage, My success in those game is now more favoring victory (but not 100%) but I will ahve all clans combos soon doen and would like elevate to next levels.