More bone fragments/better skulls?

[Nargacuga]

Is there a better way to get bone fragments or better skulls that I might be missing? It feels like you basically need a unique skull at least by the time you reach the boss of the castle to have a chance of surviving, but almost every skull in a run is common, and breaking them down for fragments doesn't get you enough to upgrade another skull to unique in time.

I'd love it if there's something I'm missing, since this game's rather fun, but it doesn't feel great to have runs ended just because you didn't get sufficiently lucky.

[Abandon Reason]

normal or hard mode?

[Nargacuga]

Normal, I think? I'll be honest, I didn't know there were difficulty modes in this.

[PreorderHalfLife3]

Harpy commander gives you 25 fragments but it's a random event. Besides that it's just luck. You can also get 2 common skulls in the castle if you unlocked the NPC which yields another 10 bones. The head skeleton in the shop area tneds to have rare/unique skulls so utilising that can also help getting more fragments. Other than that try to focus more on synergising items and inscriptions. The twins are pretty hard if you don't at least have unique or good items to compensate.

[Pikakip]

General Recommendation, when it comes to door selection, ALWAYS prioritize skull rooms. Getting a Legendary Skull as quickly as possible will make a world of difference in the later areas, as the ability and utility upgrades between tiers tend to be pretty big. Until you get your 'sea legs' with the game, I'd recommend prioritizing one skull instead of splitting bones between skulls. Basic Little bone works fine as a secondary skull for a majority of the game(And he can even work pretty well as a primary skull with the right builds)

If you grab every bone door you see, you will almost always hit unique before the Sisters fight in the Castle, and if you're really lucky, you'll hit Legendary. Most runs won't hit Legendary until Act 3 or so. Regarding difficulty, Many of the rares can handle Chapter 2's boss, but much of the difficulty in fights in this game come from learning patterns and avoiding damage. If the increased damage from the upgraded skulls it what you feel is gatekeeping you currently, my genuine advice would be to try and play a few slower runs, where you practice dodging enemy attacks.

Even the best skulls in the game won't help you beyond a certain point if you don't practice making use of your I-frames. The later acts have much spongier enemies, and your fundamentals will matter a lot more. That's not to say legendaries don't make the early game easier, as they do tend to sweep chapters 1-2 In normal mode without issue.

Once you get to the point where you're pretty comfortable with windows of opportunity, you'll find that a lot of the skulls you may have deemed 'weaker' or more difficult to progress with, may be a lot stronger than you think.

Keep at it Skeleton! You'll find yourself getting farther, more consistently, the longer you play :)

[MadCrabPrime]

so the sisters are a intentional speed bump you either learn to adapt to sheer speed and slight telegraphs or die trying. Cause the bosses only get harder, and the dark mirror version of them makes the base one look adorable. So yeah as the guy above said.

[The Royal Pain]

Two approaches you can take: either just work on your reflexes and focus on building your items early, which is hard since gold can be scarce unless you specifically take the Carleon Medal and every Carleon piece you trip over as you go.
Or focus on skull rewards instead until you have a unique, which you can usually swing by the start of the castle if you have the upgrade to get bone fragments when you accept a skull reward. Even if you don't, if you settle on a skull early you can have a unique by the halfway point of the castle, easy, by focusing on picking skull rewards early on.

[Nargacuga]

Thanks for the info, everyone. Sounds like, really, I just need to git gud. Issue is, I'm not sure I actually care about this game enough to do so. I'll be honest, I don't generally play roguelites for difficulty, but rather to see the fun stuff the item combos can get up to.

I'll likely still poke at it, but it's a shame that there doesn't seem to be a way for me to have consistent fun here.

[The Royal Pain]

Originally posted by Nargacuga:

Thanks for the info, everyone. Sounds like, really, I just need to git gud. Issue is, I'm not sure I actually care about this game enough to do so. I'll be honest, I don't generally play roguelites for difficulty, but rather to see the fun stuff the item combos can get up to.

I'll likely still poke at it, but it's a shame that there doesn't seem to be a way for me to have consistent fun here.

Trust me, it was that way with me when I played in early access. Couldn't even beat the first adventurer, let alone Yggdrasil.

Fingers crossed you find that groove you can slip in and start getting it to click more with you. In the end, if you need to, you can toss on the novice mode during your pokes just to try it out. There's an achievement there for it for a reason, they want you to have the option if you need it out of the gate.

[Robin]

Originally posted by Nargacuga:

Thanks for the info, everyone. Sounds like, really, I just need to git gud. Issue is, I'm not sure I actually care about this game enough to do so. I'll be honest, I don't generally play roguelites for difficulty, but rather to see the fun stuff the item combos can get up to.

I'll likely still poke at it, but it's a shame that there doesn't seem to be a way for me to have consistent fun here.

I also think you might overvalue skulls and haven't quite figured out how to combine items well enough. Usually I aim for having a common skull for first end boss, rare for second, unique for third and legendary for fourth. I'd prioritize money rooms and item rooms early on since you get a lot more power from items at that stage than from skulls.
Try to get a couple of damage inscriptions going, usually you melt bosses on normal mode if you do it right and there's so many rolls for items (i.e. you get to see so many) that there's always something good you can make with your build. It's one of the things I like best about the game, you can always make stuff work if you know how.

There definitely is also a skill to learning how to dodge attacks, but it's not uncommon to have bosses die within 10-20 seconds if you build your skul right and it's very unlikely you won't get a good combo if you look out for all the possibilities that come up during a run

[Robin]

Oh and also, rooms get a better average rarity the further you go, so early on you mostly find common and rare skulls anyway, it's a fairly low percentage chance to find anything better, but later on in the game you'll find unique and legendary skulls more often (same with items). So early on trying to focus on Skulls is almost guaranteed to not give you anything good and you're missing out on gold/items in the meantime, leaving you way weaker than necessary