Is there some way to get faster early game progression or nah?

[P4wn4g3]

I decided to give this game a chance and was pleasantly surprised by how fun it is, but now I'm 10 hours in and my guy feels exactly as strong as he was at the very beginning. I made it up to the third area boss within my first 5-10 plays and still haven't managed to match that even though I'm getting upgrades between every run. And now I'm finding myself bored doing the exact same runs over and over, which isn't really having a good impact on performance. These upgrades seem pretty awful, am I missing some god-tier upgrade? I have a few of the contractor unlocks, I think everything that costs less than 40, I have the base weapons unlocked, I have a bunch of the gifts unlocked, I have mirror upgrades unlocked up to the one that costs 30 keys, the better ones towards the bottom I can't afford many of but I've managed a few points. Idk at this point the game seems stale.

[Quyzbuk]

Git gud is the answer to both questions.

[P4wn4g3]

So, no then. The game is designed to be a boring grind.

[nullpo]

Originally posted by P4wn4g3:

So, no then. The game is designed to be a boring grind.

If you don't care about the story, yea. The game is designed you die, new story content spawn, repeat. If you only care about the combat not only hades, but I highly suggest you avoid all rogue like

[P4wn4g3]

I play a bunch of roguelite games, some don't really fall into the category but a lot of the ones I've played are at least good enough to hold my interest to the boss. I mean if I just had to go kill myself 30 times in a row to unlock everything that makes the game fun, well that's annoying but at least it's progression, but I haven't noticed anything good unlocking after I die here. The roguelite genre is really not where to put good story anyway. I don't think any roguelites I've played have a particularly strong story but that hardly matters if the game is fun and engaging. Besides, this story in this game isn't very good anyway.

Anyway you guys aren't exactly selling me on putting more time into this so whatever.

[kekkuli]

If you don't unlock new things after you die that probably means you're not getting far enough. So first answer to this topic is correct.

[The Queen Salis]

There IS a god mode if you want easier wins.
But the game really is about meeting people and progressing the story.
The third bossfight is really tricky.

You can meet one half of the duo if you consistently pick a harder room in Elysium. This gives you a way to train against him and learn his behaviours and ALSO slightly weakens him that run IF you win.

I'm assuming you've unlocked the trinket swapper already because it's crucial to actually tailoring your boons.
The friendly person in Asphodel has a very important trinket. It may aid you with the boss you're struggling against, but if the previous bosses aren't a problem, it's good to use other trinkets before that.

What you need for that bossfight is patience and strategy. As they both get more dangerous in their "second phase" after you sufficiently damage them, it's crucial for them to never be in the "second phase" at the same time. Get rid of one, then the other.
The pillars are there for you. Use them to hide.
You need to do a lot of running away. Accept that.
Try picking up boons from the drunk, but empower your cast with someone else (not with those with which all is fair, their casts won't help you here).

As you go through the first regions picking up boons think on how will they aid you in that particular fight.

[Orb]

Have you even unlocked stuff like the charms or new weapons or tried skills on the mirror? You can turn on god mode and rush through.

[The Queen Salis]

Also, if your runs seem "the same" maybe you should be doing something differently? Play around with the weapons and trinkets and switch playstyles.

Thanatos' trinket is a "high risk high reward" trinket that should make you play way more cautiously. Sisyphus has a lovely Tartarus trinket which you can then swap once you've sufficiently booned. Have you met Hermes? His trinket is quite amazing if you can pull off its effort.

[Quyzbuk]

Originally posted by P4wn4g3:

So, no then. The game is designed to be a boring grind.

The game is designed for you to learn from your mistakes and not make them again, if you haven't even cleared the game once yet (which is basically on tutorial mode until then), that's 100% on you. Don't go assuming that because you don't get your instant gratification dopamine that there's a problem with the design.

[P4wn4g3]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

The friendly person in Asphodel has a very important trinket. It may aid you with the boss you're struggling against, but if the previous bosses aren't a problem, it's good to use other trinkets before that.

Yeah I didn't have beer on me the one time I met that person, I guess I can try finding them again.

What you need for that bossfight is patience and strategy. As they both get more dangerous in their "second phase" after you sufficiently damage them, it's crucial for them to never be in the "second phase" at the same time. Get rid of one, then the other.
The pillars are there for you. Use them to hide.
You need to do a lot of running away. Accept that.
Try picking up boons from the drunk, but empower your cast with someone else (not with those with which all is fair, their casts won't help you here).

As you go through the first regious picking up boons think on how will they aid you in that particular fight.

Yeah ok... I am taking it you mean Dionysus, as far as the cast goes it feels very weak compared to anything else so I haven't found a good buff for it. Any suggestions? Also the F ability seems to only be of use in boss fights, are there ones to get and others to avoid?

Originally posted by Orb:

Have you even unlocked stuff like the charms or new weapons or tried skills on the mirror? You can turn on god mode and rush through.

Yeah 10 hours. God mode only provides a -20% damage reduction which isn't relevant to the damage you do. At least it doesn't change anything for me personally.

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Also, if your runs seem "the same" maybe you should be doing something differently? Play around with the weapons and trinkets and switch playstyles.

Thanatos' trinket is a "high risk high reward" trinket that should make you play way more cautiously. Sisyphus has a lovely Tartarus trinket which you can then swap once you've sufficiently booned. Have you met Hermes? His trinket is quite amazing if you can pull off its effort.

I only just met Thanatos, I'm not sure what triggers him but yeah I was trying to unlock that one. And I do like the Syphilis trinket. I've got the hermes one as well but I haven't noticed it doing anything, maybe you need to use it the whole run.

Originally posted by kekkuli:

If you don't unlock new things after you die that probably means you're not getting far enough. So first answer to this topic is correct.

Originally posted by Quyzbuk:

Originally posted by P4wn4g3:

So, no then. The game is designed to be a boring grind.

The game is designed for you to learn from your mistakes and not make them again, if you haven't even cleared the game once yet (which is basically on tutorial mode until then), that's 100% on you. Don't go assuming that because you don't get your instant gratification dopamine that there's a problem with the design.

The rest of you nerds should try not being toxic gamer tropes sometime.

[Nibbie]

Originally posted by P4wn4g3:

Originally posted by Orb:

Have you even unlocked stuff like the charms or new weapons or tried skills on the mirror? You can turn on god mode and rush through.

Yeah 10 hours. God mode only provides a -20% damage reduction which isn't relevant to the damage you do. At least it doesn't change anything for me personally.

I'm not sure you understand what god mode does at all based on this, so just in case; it gives you 20% *incoming* damage reduction, as in you take 20% less damage. Something I don't remember if it tells you as well is that the percentage increases every time you die, an extra 2% I think every death, so it can reduce the damage you take by more than half after a decent number of attempts. You can turn it on and off at any time and it doesn't affect achievements, the story, or anything else.

Most people take an average of 20-30 runs to win a run for the first time; I'm not sure how many runs you've done, but it typically takes some time to learn the game and power up. However once you start winning, you usually win pretty consistently, until you turn up the difficulty at least.

I also have no idea what you mean by the mirror upgrades seeming awful, several of them are clearly very impactful. Thick Skin literally doubles your starting health, Infernal Soul makes casting way more viable, Great Reflex is super useful at all times, Boiling Blood is a ton of free damage, Death Defiance is insanely strong, potentially restoring hundreds of health each activation. If you are making it to the third area consistently, you are getting a lot of darkness each run to spend on these upgrades to make each next run easier.

[kekkuli]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

Great Reflex is super useful at all times

Sure, but ruthless reflex is even better.

[The Queen Salis]

EVERYTHING other than the Cast of Dionysus is gold. There is a bonus for sticking your gems inside someone and boons that negate that remove that bonus. IMHO only one of them is worth that trade-off but you haven't met Her yet. (And Aphrodite's puny range for the Cast makes it a bad choice for optimising THIS bossfight, but can be useful in other circumstances).

Any Call that makes you Invincible is a good Call for bossfights, but the ones that don't usually substitute with high damage output so there are little bad choices there.

Read the instructions of each trinket carefully. Hermes' and Than's are similar but sort of opposite. If you have Hermes', it can greatly reward you, but you need to carry it all the way. Make sure to also level up your trinkets by using them early, so you're not pigeon holed later.

Learn about status effects. Even gods who don't give them to you right away usually have an upgrade that adds them to your skills later.

[admiral1018]

The fastest way to gain abilities is to complete the quests on the list of minor prophesies. Some of the rewards are things like 1000 Darkness or 30 keys. You can buy that from the House Contractor, and it's far more efficient than attempting to earn rewards in the dungeons early on.

[P4wn4g3]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

I also have no idea what you mean by the mirror upgrades seeming awful, several of them are clearly very impactful. Thick Skin literally doubles your starting health, Infernal Soul makes casting way more viable, Great Reflex is super useful at all times, Boiling Blood is a ton of free damage, Death Defiance is insanely strong, potentially restoring hundreds of health each activation. If you are making it to the third area consistently, you are getting a lot of darkness each run to spend on these upgrades to make each next run easier.

Yeah that was my understanding about god mode, maybe I was unclear. Thick skin is a recent unlock for me, Great Reflex is good sure, Death defiance I can only afford 1 of but I agree it's good as well. As far as the cast goes it seemed to suck so I've been ignoring it, maybe the skills you mentioned above make it worth using. I guess I can try.

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Learn about status effects. Even gods who don't give them to you right away usually have an upgrade that adds them to your skills later.

Is there more to them than what's listed on the cards? I'm not sure if there are elemental weaknesses, but so far I like Ares for hit and runs, Dionysus in a similar manner, Poseidon for basically any melee, Zeus for quick fire stuff, Athena for the deflection dash. I don't see any utility at all for Aphrodite since avoiding damage or killing enemies is vastly preferred over any form of damage reduction, and Hermes/Artemis I haven't found a great use for. I've had Artemis be good for repeatedly stacking damage/crit up on a specific attack, but that's about it.