Game is pretty hard, any tips?

[tiamats4esgares]

I can beat the first floor just fine, and the first boss, but get owned in the 2nd floor. Once was the second boss, another time an elite, another time a dragon that hatched from an egg in an event beat me.

This is just normal difficulty lol. I'm good at Slay the Spire and played DOTA Underlords a decent amount but just can't grasp this game quite yet.

[tiamats4esgares]

And also, what's the point of alliances? Do you get bonuses for having multiples of same alliance?

[Doug]

Hello!

The community is making a compilation of tips and tricks and here are some of them from other players >>

- Upgrading a unit fully heals it. Often it makes sense to let a unit you're planning to upgrade tank damage when you're approaching a banner

- Don't overdraft on cards. Before you choose a card think if it actually makes your deck better as a whole, otherwise take the gold!

- Defensive cards are (usually) obligatory. You want to have a good amount of defensive cards in any deck. Don't over-draft on offensive ones.

- Micro-manage targeting. There are several ways how to micro-manage both ally and enemy targeting. Initial positioning, slides, taunts and importantly: the manual target/move (shortcut A).

- Don't go to shops with little gold, be sure to path for a shop if you have a lot. Visiting a shop with 30 gold is a waste of opportunity cost, meeting the boss with 300 gold is just slimming your chances at a win.

- Multiple instances of an Alliance effect stack.

- Units that are on the bench heal much more after a battle than units that participated in the battle.

- Since you usually want your hero deployed rather than benched (especially early game), major damage to your hero can be harder to heal than major damage to another unit.

- Take the time to read what enemies do. Some of them (Like the Boss Lilith) will punish you if you don't

We will be adding more tips with time, and if you happen to have a good one please feel free to share it.

Cheers!
-Doug

[Aalnius]

- Multiple instances of an Alliance effect stack.
So there no benefit for getting multiple units of an alliance vs getting a spread. Seems pointless to have alliances then as their own thing rather then just an ability on the unit.

[Doug]

Originally posted by Aalnius:

- Multiple instances of an Alliance effect stack.
So there no benefit for getting multiple units of an alliance vs getting a spread. Seems pointless to have alliances then as their own thing rather then just an ability on the unit.

The benefit is that they stack directly and can be immediately usable, rather than waiting to get multiple instances of the same before having an effect. Both ways can work depending on the game. We decided to go with the former since there is more things going on with the addition of cards, relics, runes, etc.

[Lådan :3]

What i do is look for cards that can give you exponential payout later in the game, rather than looking for cards that are strong early on.

Those are mostly cards that synergise with alliances, with alliances such as the one that gives you might every time you get a shield, and then another one that does damage to something whenever you gain might, these won't do too much early on, but as you get cards that help you activate these bonuses many times over and over, you suddenly snowball out of control.

And don't be afraid to take chances early, if your run was going to fail against an early elite you probably wouldn't have survived later on regardless, so take many elite fights and get as many rewards as possible.

Something that i struggled with at first as well was that i was tunnelvisioning on making my units surive at all costs, but you don't need them to be alive at the end to win, as long as you can activate the wincondition you're building for it doesn't matter if some of your meatshields fall, they all revive at the end of battle anyway.

And honestly, as cheesy as it sounds, just have fun, no build will ever work if you're forcing it for the sake of winning, but finding those few key synergies that you have fun playing makes it a lot easier to get through a run without overthinking it.

Most of this advice is pretty vague but hey, it's a roguelite, as you've played STS before you know how important it can be to find those cards that really work with eachother.

Good luck figuring things out, it gets much easier for you much faster than you'd expect!

[Shawnster P]

Originally posted by Aalnius:

- Multiple instances of an Alliance effect stack.
So there no benefit for getting multiple units of an alliance vs getting a spread. Seems pointless to have alliances then as their own thing rather then just an ability on the unit.

I've got both hero's on level 9 difficulty. There is definitely a benefit for getting multiple of many (but not all) of the alliances. Like it when your units get 30 mana when you play a shield card? That's due to stacking. Same with the decay alliance, and the one that gives strength when you get shield. Most are VERY effective when stacked.

[Ice-Nine]

I just beat the game on Normal difficulty with the Nightshade and zero additional cards. I didn't pick up a single card throughout all three floors. I just removed cards until I had only Shields and Daggers for a 7-card deck.

[Can'tTouchThis]

I can't even beat the first floor, first attempt i misunderstood a spell and gave the enemies shields and buffs... 2nd attempt my team destroyed everything but the boss room was way too powerful and i lost, very close though. Seems like the game is extremely rng based (which is kind of expected).
Definitely one of the most appealing games in the whole card game genre it seems atm, would definitely like to see even more units etc added. Maybe giving people a rng based choice on starting units would be decent too instead of starting with draugr every time.

[Doug]

Originally posted by 40-1Can'tTouchThis:

I can't even beat the first floor, first attempt i misunderstood a spell and gave the enemies shields and buffs... 2nd attempt my team destroyed everything but the boss room was way too powerful and i lost, very close though. Seems like the game is extremely rng based (which is kind of expected).
Definitely one of the most appealing games in the whole card game genre it seems atm, would definitely like to see even more units etc added. Maybe giving people a rng based choice on starting units would be decent too instead of starting with draugr every time.

Thank you for the complement! Really appreciated! We will keep improving and bringing more content for you all!

Having the option of a random unit, instead of a draugr is a great idea!

Thanks!

[Losse]

- Micro-manage targeting. There are several ways how to micro-manage both ally and enemy targeting. Initial positioning, slides, taunts and importantly: the manual target/move (shortcut A).

So I just press A, select a unit, then select where i want it to move or what i want it to attack?