How do I actually get good at this game

[T W I T C H Y]

Hello friends

I just recently finished the first stages after Urban Nightmare, and have gotten to the areas featuring good old Dawn Office, Love Town and I got to say

I am getting my ass handed to me very often now

I am clearly not playing the game the way I SHOULD because I can barely scrape by in these fights.

Does anyone have any PRO TIPS they could share? I wish to become better.

[CarThief]

Well, lets see...

-If one path is too hard, try another! Did you do Stray Dogs, Carnival, Molar Office, Gaze Office, Full-Stop Office or the likes, yet? This also lets you accuire useful cards to use against the enemies you're currently having difficulty with.
(Speaking of paths... The rightmost two paths are pretty brutal...)

-The optimal way to win a fight would be to focus-fire on one enemy and to stagger, then kill them. A dead enemy can't harm you, after all. It can be pretty essential in long fights with just one floor.

-Staggered enemies take x2 damage (typically), so consider that your moment to finish them off (or defend by intercepting attacks aimed at a staggered librarian).

-Be careful not to clash with any attack you're unable to beat, or use block dice to weaken their damage output even if you lose said clash.

-Did you know evasion dice stay in effect against consecutive attacks? A single 3-6 evasion roll is gonna defeat all of an enemy's 1-3>1-3>1-3 attack rolls, for example.
On that note, regardless of who wins the clash, if block/evasion dice clash against another, both those dice are always used up.

-If you're fighting Full-Stop Office, you might notice that winning a melee vs ranged clash lets the melee-attacker use that same strike again, just like how evasion is re-usable upon clash-win.
(Oh, and on clash-ties, both dice are cancelled out and don't do anything.)

-Keep in mind that filling your emotion bar and getting a level-up also refreshes your Light completely. You may want to go all-out on light use and trigger a level-up. (You only get emotion from winning/losing clashes or killing enemies though, perhaps staggering them also gives emotion coins.)

-You also get +1 light for causing a enemy to stagger.

-If you have a Key Page with two speed dice, you can essentially play a 3-cost card, and then a 0-cost card that regenerates one light to essentially reduce the light cost to 2. You'll notice Olga may do this a lot with Dangerous Decision followed by Hold Up.
(Love this tactic, my deck typically has no 1-cost cards, instead, its all powerful 3-cost and sometimes 2-cost cards, and about 3 0-cost cards that restore light.)

-Keep an eye out for what synergies/decks the enemies are using, you'll notice Olga isn't as badly off from Dangerous Decision, or how Geon Mi has a deck oriented with Brawl-friendly cards to copy. Copying some of these tactics (especially once you get their pages) can help a lot.

-Typically you'll want to get good pages with +1 speed dice.

-Just be careful to not use pages who are weak to the enemy's main damagetype early-game (so avoid using Walter vs a group that specializes in blunt damage). Maybe, initially, make a group out of your best pages to deal with the damage type disadvantadges.

-At your progress level, maybe you'll benefit from using Full-Stop Office's pages?

Uh, well that was a mouthful, but perhaps it helps?

[T W I T C H Y]

Originally posted by CarThief:

{ Lots of Words }

Ya, this does actually help

I think my biggest issue is that I dont actually build any of my decks, I simply use what Key Pages give me. Seems like I should instead be doing literally anything else and building them based on certain types of damage output (bleed, burn, pierce, blunt, speed etc)

Ill give it a go, thanks

[taotieh7]

watching videos also helps
you can see how their decks are built and what decision would they make in certain situation

here's a way to defeat Love Town with easy pages if you're interested in it
video link

[Alpha Chad]

im not the greatest librarian around by a long shot, but honestly, CarThief gave some really good advice, try seeing how the invitations utilise their builds and go from there. My personal favourite page (other than one you probably havent seen yet) is walter, who has honestly carried me through the toughest fights.

I basically used Snek's guide on decks and went from there, trying to make archetypes

[CarThief]

Yeah, pretty important to keep your decks up-to-date, even if you don't make attempts to use abnormality effect synergies with key pages/cards, a good deck is one of the most important aspects.

Lately, it seems to have fully shifted to going full DPS, killing the enemy faster then they kill you (one late invitation even brutally shows this by having ALL enemies gang up on a librarian).
At your progress level, a good ol' Brawl deck could do wonders, too: x2 Loosen Up or Hold Up, x1 Scratch That, x3 Dangerous Decision, x3 Brawl. It's a good early clash-winning/DPS deck. Works best on pages with 2 speed dice, like Geon Mi's.

Speaking of DPS... Some enemies might be particularly durable against some damagetypes, so you might want to avoid using/bringing those. A certain boss (besides Love Town) comes to mind because he's very resistant to Blunt. Same goes for if you want to stagger a enemy, but their stagger resistance gets in the way, so keep an eye out for that.

And if Love Town is being troublesome, there's some key tricks to the battle.
-DO always clash the cards that would get a power boost if they go one-sided, or plan to have a defensive dice or two ready for them.
-DON'T ever clash with cards that get a power boost from it, and try to avoid using defensive dice that risk going unused if the librarian is a target of such a card.
-When facing the boss, you may want to reduce the HP of the minions as much as possible, but not kill them, as the boss revives dead minions if you lose. Then, with your second team, wipe out the minions and focus on the boss. That worked for me back in the day, anyway.
-Definitely bring a lot of DPS to stagger the boss when it charges it's "triangle" attack, Key Pages with 2 or more speed slots help a lot with this.

That reminds me... Lately the system has been changed so units with low speed rolls must wait until higher-speed units have taken action (with the exception of ranged which always goes before melee), so keep that in mind if you're using and holding back some defensive dice for additional attacks.

Edit: Oh, and if you find yourself in a hopeless situation, it is possible to just press ESC, exit game, and no books go lost. So, that's one way to pull out of a bad situation if you truly can't afford to lose the book(s).

[Grim Xzag]

Alt-F4 to keep your books used for a reception

[spessman]

you could use gun-bookcases to clear first round fight then use it to damage the stuff on next round then finish with whatever stuff you mainly use as a next team

[T W I T C H Y]

Originally posted by CarThief:

Yeah, pretty important to keep your decks up-to-date, even if you don't make attempts to use abnormality effect synergies with key pages/cards, a good deck is one of the most important aspects.

Lately, it seems to have fully shifted to going full DPS, killing the enemy faster then they kill you (one late invitation even brutally shows this by having ALL enemies gang up on a librarian).
At your progress level, a good ol' Brawl deck could do wonders, too: x2 Loosen Up or Hold Up, x1 Scratch That, x3 Dangerous Decision, x3 Brawl. It's a good early clash-winning/DPS deck. Works best on pages with 2 speed dice, like Geon Mi's.

Speaking of DPS... Some enemies might be particularly durable against some damagetypes, so you might want to avoid using/bringing those. A certain boss (besides Love Town) comes to mind because he's very resistant to Blunt. Same goes for if you want to stagger a enemy, but their stagger resistance gets in the way, so keep an eye out for that.

And if Love Town is being troublesome, there's some key tricks to the battle.
-DO always clash the cards that would get a power boost if they go one-sided, or plan to have a defensive dice or two ready for them.
-DON'T ever clash with cards that get a power boost from it, and try to avoid using defensive dice that risk going unused if the librarian is a target of such a card.
-When facing the boss, you may want to reduce the HP of the minions as much as possible, but not kill them, as the boss revives dead minions if you lose. Then, with your second team, wipe out the minions and focus on the boss. That worked for me back in the day, anyway.
-Definitely bring a lot of DPS to stagger the boss when it charges it's "triangle" attack, Key Pages with 2 or more speed slots help a lot with this.

That reminds me... Lately the system has been changed so units with low speed rolls must wait until higher-speed units have taken action (with the exception of ranged which always goes before melee), so keep that in mind if you're using and holding back some defensive dice for additional attacks.

Edit: Oh, and if you find yourself in a hopeless situation, it is possible to just press ESC, exit game, and no books go lost. So, that's one way to pull out of a bad situation if you truly can't afford to lose the book(s).

I want to ask about this brawl combo

Ive tried it as you say and it seems im either dumb, or unlucky

Ill pull my brawl cards maybe once every three turns, and left with mostly daring decision.

I asusme I shouldnt use these as it will empty my deck and possibly leave me in a bad spot, but this has happened more often than not now.

Do you have any ideas? Ive moved on to the Reception of The Officer Right After [/spoiler] Dawn Whos Name I Forgot [/spoiler] and can manage the first part of the fight ((((((mostly)))))) fine, but the second im usually very low already and just get my ass beat

[CarThief]

Yeah, Brawl decks can be a bit RNG-reliant... Ah well, if the hand looks bad, i ussually use Dangerous Decision anyway, atleast if you clash with that you'll often level-up and get your light refilled for the potential Scratch That/DD card that is drawn next.
You could deal with the problem somewhat by accuiring Sayo's page (found in the invitation right after the Carnival, requiring the Carnival's book), her card-drawing passive helps deal with that.

I wouldn't rely on Brawl decks too much though, lately. Back then i had like, 1 brawl deck and 2-3 regular decks for a floor.
So maybe going for 3 regular decks and 1 brawl deck on Sayo would work, or you could try a Bleed/slash deck for Sayo, that also works well against bosses who attack a lot.
(Bleed decks work even better for Hod's floor if you get a certain abnormality effect!)

My regular deck at the time consisted of stuff like: Loosen Up x2, Wedge Office 2-cost spead that draws x1-x2, Wrath of Torment from Love Town x1-x2, Collission x3, and various loose odds and ends.
If you haven't yet, i'd suggest persisting against Wedge Office and getting their combat pages even if it means losing a book, they got some really good combat pages like the abovementioned Collission.

And my action plan for Wedge Office ussually is...
1> Try to prioritize killing Oscar, Phillip and the twins, ussually in that order, sometimes picking off a weakened/staggered enemy out of order. Kill them ASAP to keep health high.
2> Avoid clashing with Collission perhaps, so they cannot regain light.
3> Boss starts out with Feather Shield in it's defensive phase, it's best to not attack during this 2-turn period (as you get Burn from doing so) and just let him do some wimpy hits, unless the boss has cycled back to defence mode but is weak (as it cycles from defence to offence to all-out and repeat).
4> Boss should in turn 3 or so go on the offence. Now you should clash with his strikes to minimize damage and start dealing damage. If he uses powerful single strikes, try to avoid clashing or use block dice. Ideally spread damage around so no-one dies early, allowing you to do more damage. (I found Collission was a really good counter to his Searing Sword.)

Also be sure to check his resistances, he should be pretty blunt-resistant, so unless he's staggered, consider using other damagetypes instead of blunt. With some luck, you could defeat him as early as during his offensive phase, potentially before he goes all-out, even.

It's a tough encounter though, if you're having trouble, Love Town might be easier, or clear the other receptions for more cards, perhaps. And of course you'll want to use your "A-team" for this, a team that ideally has purple/orange key pages with two speed dice and few to no weaknesses.

[Heinz]

wp

[BrownianMotion]

Generally 2 dice pages > 1 dice page, since you get to play more pages.However in order to fully benefit from them, you will have to manage your hand in the form of light and cards. If you are constantly running into dead hands, then you have a problem. Either your deck composition does not have enough light and card regen, or perhaps you are not managing your hand properly. My rule of thumb is 4 +- 1 cards that regen light and/or hand, 2 high cost 3+ light cards, rest fill with 2 light high dmg or high roll cards, i.e. sunset blade (high dmg but low rolls so should be kept for one-sided atks), execute, TWtPP (both high dice roll cards meant to negate dmg when clashing), etc.

Another tip is on the art of clashing. When should you clash your offensive page with the enemy and when not to. Due to the game mechanics where the higher rolled attack dice will completely negate an opponents attack dice upon clashing, it is beneficial to clash when your page has a good clash win probability; otherwise you should seek to maximize your damage output by doing one-sided attack.

Basically, if you know you are going to lose that clash with high certainty, why waste your attack dice getting negated, just let the enemy hit you while you hit the enemy back.On the other hand, if you know you can negate the enemy dice due to your higher dice range. Seek to clash with the enemy and negate their dmg.

As for blocking and evading. Blocking is more consistent since the block will be subtracted from the attack roll, thus there is no way to fully negate it. And it provides value even if the dice range is low. Evade on the other hand is more useful when you have a high certainty that it will win, this is because the evade dice gets retained. On the other hand, if you have a low chance of winning the evade clash, it gets negated completely.

In Urban Plague, you will probably farm up good pages like salvador, oscar , sayo, and meow in preparation for Urban Nightmare.

[Big Cheese Gaming]

to be fair love town kinda kicked everybody's ass when it came out, don't feel too bad about it,i would recommend you to experiment with key pages and look for builds to see how and why the builds works,what is the strong point in it and that will make you :

1 see what card is really good,

2 have ideas for builds

3 locate the problems in your decks ( me for exemple i had a huge problem with Oscar's page,it was utterly useless because either the attacks were too costy or it had good attacks but i ran out of cards in like 5 turns,making it just a punching bag,sometimes).


Explore the buffs/debuffs/status and look for yourself what is worth using (for exemple bleed is more effective against enemies that attacks with a lot of dices,burn does less damage but it's constant Dot,ect)

Just don't worry about it too much,because a certain abno fight will make you "learn" by force how to get good in either builds or tactics.


Also don't be afraid of using key pages that are from a chapter before (olga for exemple is really good at your level still(and beyond).