Extremely Frustrating

[Tyrant]

This game has probably the most BS rng (and if it isn't rng it's a lack of available information in general, and im not talking player guides) I think I've ever come across in any game ever. It's worse than ToME with the nonsense it pulls.

I want to like the game, but my entire party getting bodied by a single wrestler infinitely No Selling and one shotting each unit with its Finisher, or Knight doing the same to a row while infinitely stacking a stat boost that can't be removed is just obscenely stupid. When the answer to your combat puzzle is chain spam this move that has an increasing cost that doesn't reset, leading to a hard limit of uses throughout a run, it's not really a puzzle, nor is it a good mechanic.

I get that the game isn't a button masher (although adding a 4x combat speed to a game you're supposed to play slowly, is an odd choice) but it isn't a game with a whole lot of choices either. When they all end up going the same route, choice is just an illusion. You'll solve the puzzle the way it's intended, using the specific counters, or you'll just die, and get almost nothing for your time investment.

[MrToffi]

I think part of the problem is that
-while yes, the enemy wrestlers have the same kit (moves, passives, etc.) as the player wrestler Zeke (same goes for enemy knights and Leon) you cannot exactly know what this kit entrails before you check beforehand and how is the player supposed to know that, for example, to get past No Sell, you have to deal 100% of Wrestlers max HP first or that Honor gives damage stacks only when damage to the knight is dealt by redirect, i.e. hitting the charater the knight is protecting at the moment if the player does not check and memorize the passives that those characters have in the first place
But then, TBC is that kind of game, where passives(or to be more precise, upgraded passives) is where the true usefulness of characters really starts to shine (off the top of my head I can point out the player Sherrif, Cleric, Jackal Priest, General, Banshee, to name a few), but then again, how is a player supposed to break out of a possible habit of not looking up passive effects if the previous games the player played did not have passive abilities that did have such an impact as this game

[Bard]

I'm admittedly puzzled what happened. Wrestler only No-Sells once, if it was happening infinitely then that's definitely a bug.

[Spear Deer]

I think there's a weird balance when you're learning the game. The fights can be tough, and so its easy to just bring a bunch of tanks/healers and stuff, which guarantees you survive most of the fights. The problem with that though is that you won't be able clear some of the fights the demand more damage. It sounds like you just couldn't do enough damage to Zeke and he hammered all your people into the ground with his finisher I guess? That can happen.

But really, it sounds like you're just pretty early on in the game. There are *a lot* of tools you can employ to overcome situations like that. A lot of the choices you could have made to succeed in that situation were probably strategic- bringing a more appropriate party, or changing your relic setup. If you're too early on in your progression to have a ton of options for relics/party members, then I can't stress enough how important it is to make use of Break skills and items. Unravel will, for the cost of like 10 particles, make No Sell irrelevant by just removing the buff. Similarly, a medical drone can basically outheal zeke, who spends half his turns not attacking, and the other half drop kicking people for paltry damage.

As someone with over 200 hours in the game, I can promise you that there are *many*, *many* choices to be made, and there are basically no pre-determined fights. Very, very occasionally I have run into a fight that was actually unwinnable, but it was because my team had no stamina, I was out of items, and I brought the wrong heroes. Barring that, there is almost always a way to get a bit more of an edge.

Even if you're going to mash A to speed through the combat, you can make teams that excel at that. If you don't feel like thinking, try setting up Wensho with fully skilled up counter and Leon's sword, or try making use of Javed's bulwark, which at higher levels will protect your team from almost anything, and occupies basically all of his turns.

Sorry you're frustrated, but I can just about promise you that you didn't lose to RNG, you lost to a lack of tool utilization. It might not be clear what tools you should be using to overcome problems you're running into, but the community is great, and were more than happy to help you figure out what you can do better next time.

[Spear Deer]

Originally posted by Tyrant:

And get almost nothing for your time investment.

Don't you keep all books and relics now also? So you get *plenty* for you investment. Books and relics are the most valuable resource.

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by Bard:

I'm admittedly puzzled what happened. Wrestler only No-Sells once, if it was happening infinitely then that's definitely a bug.

maybe it just felt like they were doing it infinitely because I never seemed to make any progress with any of the damage because it always showed up as Blocked unless it was the poison ticks? or some kind of interaction with the other party members but they were nearly insta wiped. I basically just sat there hitting them over and over and then it would eventually just instagib me with a finisher. Revive them and then it was rinse and repeat, get gibbed again. Then you have another problem that gets created by if you're using Plague Doctor. If they aren't alive to reapply the poison reduction that makes Plague heal you, your team will just die to Plague.

I've figured out the main problem with the Knight is due to the shenanigans of the Priestess. If I wipe her out before she can start buffing them, they won't go into their infinite healing loops.

It's still ridiculously bad headache of a mechanic though, and usually requires using Stasis.

Originally posted by Bardcore:

I think there's a weird balance when you're learning the game. The fights can be tough, and so its easy to just bring a bunch of tanks/healers and stuff, which guarantees you survive most of the fights. The problem with that though is that you won't be able clear some of the fights the demand more damage. It sounds like you just couldn't do enough damage to Zeke and he hammered all your people into the ground with his finisher I guess? That can happen.

But really, it sounds like you're just pretty early on in the game. There are *a lot* of tools you can employ to overcome situations like that. A lot of the choices you could have made to succeed in that situation were probably strategic- bringing a more appropriate party, or changing your relic setup. If you're too early on in your progression to have a ton of options for relics/party members, then I can't stress enough how important it is to make use of Break skills and items. Unravel will, for the cost of like 10 particles, make No Sell irrelevant by just removing the buff. Similarly, a medical drone can basically outheal zeke, who spends half his turns not attacking, and the other half drop kicking people for paltry damage.

As someone with over 200 hours in the game, I can promise you that there are *many*, *many* choices to be made, and there are basically no pre-determined fights. Very, very occasionally I have run into a fight that was actually unwinnable, but it was because my team had no stamina, I was out of items, and I brought the wrong heroes. Barring that, there is almost always a way to get a bit more of an edge.

Even if you're going to mash A to speed through the combat, you can make teams that excel at that. If you don't feel like thinking, try setting up Wensho with fully skilled up counter and Leon's sword, or try making use of Javed's bulwark, which at higher levels will protect your team from almost anything, and occupies basically all of his turns.

Sorry you're frustrated, but I can just about promise you that you didn't lose to RNG, you lost to a lack of tool utilization. It might not be clear what tools you should be using to overcome problems you're running into, but the community is great, and were more than happy to help you figure out what you can do better next time.

I'm primarily running a team consisting of Claire (it REALLY should be optional to have her slotted in the party, I get that she's extremely versatile, and I assume there for story reasons, but it also restricts team compositions)

Sentinel, Lizardman, Ranger, Medic, and the Plague Doctor. I beat the twins earlier this morning (was my third attempt I think) and after reaching the Rock Golem, the setup I spent all my time putting together is virtually useless. So the impression now is that the only real difficulty is due to forced diversity, you invest in something that works, only for it to be completely nullified and unusable by the next challenge. Really takes the feeling of progress away honestly. The team for the most part consistently stomps through everything living, and just wins the battle of attrition for robots. However doesn't matter since the boss is virtually immune to debuffs, does huge aoe damage that shuffles you (a design pattern) and then pulverizes anyone that dies. So no reason to use the team anymore. Now start from ground up and work out other combinations. Also means that all specialized town upgrades are worthless in comparison to general/basic ones until you have nothing else to go for.

I'm sure at 200 hours you have tons of options, but if you never make it to that point because you never feel like you're really progressing, then the options won't matter. I cleared the first three CH1 bosses by throwing absolute random garbage at them with no upgrades, wasn't until I couldn't make it more than 1-2 nodes beyond the checkpoint in the Hunt mission that I actually started looking at upgraded synergies and landed on the team I'm using now.

[Bard]

Well, No-Sell is likely getting reworked, it has some strange interactions and seems to cause a lot of frustrations in it's current state, so there's that anyway. The extreme danger fights are supposed to be hard, though, considering they are mostly optional. They are intended as an extra challenge if you're cruising through too easily. They're also there, partly, to give ideas on synergies between characters. Like combining the Knight and Plague Doctor, since they work together so well.

I will say, though, that as a general design principal, yeah you're supposed to be varying your team as you play through the game. It's intentional that not all combinations can overcome any challenge, even highly synergized teams are supposed to struggle overcoming certain hurdles. Progression is supposed to be wide rather than tall, diversifying your options and trying new things rather than picking a handful of characters and plowing through the game with them. Experimentation and overcoming different challenges with new characters and in different ways.

Act 2 is certainly a step up in difficulty, and you're not entirely expected to be able to go directly from finishing Act 1 story into Act 2. Endless runs give progressively more and more loot, which lets you spread your wings a little bit and try new things. There's also a handful of characters you can pick up in endless before trying to tackle Act 2.

[it is like; whatever]

To add to this; some fights are just way way way over tuned. Like; if you get a Cursed Mirror as a boss you may as well just abandon that run since there's so many bizarre interactions with that fight. Half the time he completely erases my team because I forgot to remove the Anubis guy from my team before the fight. Much of the 'difficulty' just feels frustrating after a while and not at all fun to engage with.

[aplethoraof]

Maybe I've just been playing too many turn-based games lately, but I haven't had that much trouble with most of the bosses - if I did, I just ended up grinding some skill-books to try out a new comp and upgrading buildings.

Right now, I'm running:
First Row:
Cain
Frozen Claire w/ Consecrate and Wail
Yukiko

Back Row:
Sovras
Elgeon
Lydia

Sovras and Lydia keep the team alive, Sovras also provides good damage.
Elgeon shields occasinally but is mostly around to supply frost bite

I make sure to have a couple spider eggs on the party.

Cain is OK, but honestly I might drop him for another DPS. Maybe Zeke.

Yukiko is invaluable - she just deals so much damage. She is good to take out choice targets - spam Kunai with her and execute whenever possible.

So far, I haven't run into much trouble with the group as long as I'm paying attention to what I'm doing.

[FearRedesigned]

I practically have Claire soloing the hard encounters. Armor mode is just OP af. Especially when combined with HP regen lol. I threw on a passive that also boosts her attack each time she uses a physical skill. Infinite go nowhere fights are a thing of the past with 9k attack eventually lol.

[Bard]

Originally posted by FearRedesigned:

I practically have Claire soloing the hard encounters. Armor mode is just OP af. Especially when combined with HP regen lol. I threw on a passive that also boosts her attack each time she uses a physical skill. Infinite go nowhere fights are a thing of the past with 9k attack eventually lol.

Some of the older Claire forms are getting a bit of a touch up in the Act 3 update.