Are you supposed to be able to fight Gambler Narhan without the DLC? (and some tangentially related musings)

[Apolloncrash]

So, for context, I recently started playing again after a bit of a hiatus, deciding
to start a fresh save now that the story content is finished, so I can experience it naturally as intended, instead of awkwardly just playing the scenes in the archive (probably not in the intended order to boot). A decision largely made off the back of my observation that my archive contains scenes I've never seen, which seem to be from an ending I have been given credit for, which I feel I shouldn't have; presumably because I beat the Azar fight before what I assume is a follow-up fight against the Program Master was implemented.

I also decided to install a few mods, something I'd been meaning to do since workshop support was added, but never got around to. Nothing that effects gameplay, just some neat stat tracking and QoL improvements and one of the voice acting mods (as an aside does anybody know why there are two separate VO mods uploaded by the same guy that both seemingly add voice acting to the female investigators? What's the difference? Google translating the mod descriptions is no help.)

Since then I've been experiencing a variety of bugs and anomalies that I don't know whether to attribute to the newer update(s?) (as I've seen a few other people imply is/are buggy), or to mods.

Which brings us to the title. In the runs I've done since I started playing again, I ran into Gambler Narhan a singular time. After I won the fight however, I couldn't move at all, neither with WASD, nor the mouse. I also couldn't open the map, though I could interact with menus and my inventory like normal. After I tried everything else I quit to the main menu expecting the run was just bricked, but was surprised to see the run in progress was there to be resumed, despite the quit to menu option telling me my progress wouldn't be saved, which is what I expected; you need to use the books at camps to save/quit mid-run, right? Isn't that what they're for? Oh, it also wiped all data from my run history mod for some reason.

So did the game ♥♥♥♥ itself because I was accessing DLC content that wasn't installed, or was that just coincidental and Gambler Narhan is just base game content unlike all the other casino themed stuff?

Also, speaking of the DLCs, I have some questions about them. How do they work exactly? The skins are self explanatory, but what about the Lucy rare/draw skills? Are they tied to the Lucy skins in any way or does installing the DLC just add them all to their respective pools? How about the Accelerate replacements? What determines which you start a run with? What about the equipment? Is the content balanced? Looking through the encyclopaedia some seem well designed, but others seem miserable e.g All In gives me the privilege of jumping through hoops to get 2K gold (tops) as if I wouldn't gladly pay 2k for a Mysterious Skill Book in most situations if I was given the opportunity? It seems backwards... am I just stupid?

Anyway, for anyone still with me, I guess I'll end this rambling wall of text with my favourite weird bug I've experienced thus far. I'd landed the final blow on the king and he slumped over like normal, but then he stood back up and attacked me again! It didn't matter because the fight hadn't been remotely close and everything worked as expected from there, but it took me by surprise in the moment.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3364468060

[Velorien]

I can't comment on High Roller since I don't have it yet (really hoping they fix the bugs first), but I have the other one. New Lucy skills are added directly to her pools. Replacement Lucy starting skills are offered through a menu at the start of the run. Additionally, a replacement Lucy skill has its own upgraded version that you can get via the fountain just like Accelerate+.

The skins don't affect gameplay in any way except for the bonus visual effects.

I found the Summer Twilight DLC items to be fairly well-balanced. There were no must-picks, though some of the higher-rarity character-specific items were particularly good. The boss had her own distinctive mechanics, which I guess is the thing that makes Chrono Ark bosses fun, but felt like the reward wasn't worth the difficulty.

[Apolloncrash]

Thanks for clearing that up. Is character specific equipment a thing? As in it only drops when you have a certain character on your team? If so, is that just a DLC thing or has it always worked like that and I've somehow never noticed?

[Velorien]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Apolloncrash:

Thanks for clearing that up. Is character specific equipment a thing? As in it only drops when you have a certain character on your team? If so, is that just a DLC thing or has it always worked like that and I've somehow never noticed?

It's character-specific in the sense that it's clearly made to synergise with a specific character's cards/ability (e.g. an Azar-themed item that rewards you for playing lots of cheap cards).

[Gral Tanuki]

Also got to fight Gambler Narhan without any DLC or mods whatsoever, though I lost the fight xd