What is wrong with the difficulty?

[Loquitran]

I would like to start by saying that I love this game, one of the best games released this year. But I have one issue, the difficulty.

I've been playing on the rogue-lite mode(forgot the name) and I can safely say that I have really good understanding about deckbuilders in general, saying this just to determine a baseline level.

It seems that some encounters are ultra hard albeit impossible depending on your luck(or opponent's luck), like for example the first battle of your run. If for example you play with the character that uses Kendo(also forgot the name,sorry), if you go too willy nilly with the "buy 1 card when your minion dies once per turn", you are basically cooked, since you'll deck out and die.

If the opponent gets the perfect cards, you are basically cooked since the opponent have a "fully" developed deck while you have only 11 cards.

Also certain enemy's decks feels a little too strong, like the elite boss with poison cards. If you don't have the exact answer for it, guess what? You are basically cooked.

I really enjoy the game, and I like a tough but beatable challenge. But some runs are basically unbeatable and provides 0 counter plays. Oh, I won a few runs so I know the game is beatable obviously, but on certain scenarios, there is no way to win.

I'm not even considering the meta-progression for beating the first fight for example, although is quite rare to lose it, it happened to me a couple of times.

Hopefully I'm not alone regarding balancing issues. I also feel like the game could provide more information(unless I completely missed it) regarding when you can or can't skip a card. I don't like to clutter my deck with cards I don't want. Sometimes I can skip the reward, sometimes it's mandatory. What are the requirements to skip a reward? Deck size?

On a side note, although I really enjoy this game, I'm not a fan of the "lose hp when out of cards" mechanic. This feels like a cheap way to lose. I understand that the cards are basically your crew and they "fainted" after the battle so they can't return, but still, it sucks to start drawing some cards early on and then lose to deck out.

Anyways, I wanted to be more specific about more stuff but this post is already too long.

[Dlanor]

First I just want to say it's not bad to share your opinion, but I want to give mine too because maybe some of this can be advice for you. I think you're way overestimating how hard this is. The game will only get easier as you buy upgrades and get better at it. It will never felt as hard as it did today for you again, because today you had to learn the game for the first time from a new save file. If anything I feel it's on the easier side in normal mode.

You had to choose to go willy nilly with the draw card that made you overdraw. Don't play that many of them unless you're playing them so they can do combat and die. You can't be mad at the game for not stopping you from making a bad play.

I don't think any of the regular enemies have fully developed decks, even the bosses look like they have some filler cards in there. The 1st boss has some plain 1/1s that don't even count as pirates.

If you have to fight the elite poison boss later in the run, you can find that out at the start of the run since the map shows you the fights. if you don't have any answers, it's because you didn't pick them up. Either avoid the poison fight or if it's unavoidable you should be putting your full focus into getting what you need to win it. Honestly I don't think you need anything specific though, the poison enemy seemed really slow to me.

I doubt there are unbeatable runs in normal mode or honestly even hard mode, this is something people say when they make mistakes they aren't realizing are mistakes. You think there's no way to win because you didn't win, not because you know for a fact there's no way to win.

You can skip cards in the 2nd half of the map after the miniboss, I think that's the only restriction.

If you didn't lose hp when out of cards, what are you expecting to happen? If both players are out of cards the game is infinite and nobody can ever lose. There has to be something to stop that.

[Uberipoo]

I just bought the game and started the story and I feel like like after just a couple of battles and before really have the chance to get a deck going you are thrown against enemies with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane combos that makes it really hard

I'm seriously considering refunding the game...

[Artol]

Nah this game isn't hard, why people want to play straight forward games with no difficulty at all? Please make the game even harder, that the point of a rogue lite.

[DrLaserStorm]

Def. too hard

[Unembellished Genius]

I just played the roguelite deck builder mode for the first time and won on my first run so it cant be that hard. Although the guy who wins on turn 10 absolutely made me sweat.

[Ryvaku]

It feels like the standard of all deckbuilder games. Luck of the draw and cards next in line.
So i feel no difference, but I still prefer faster gameplay and optimization so it doesn't take too long.

[Darigaaz]

Yeah its too hard right of the bat even for a Rogue lite. You shoudnt need that long to be able to progress at all as new player already in the first level

[Loquitran]

Originally posted by Artol:

Nah this game isn't hard, why people want to play straight forward games with no difficulty at all? Please make the game even harder, that the point of a rogue lite.

Who said anything about wanting a straight forward game? I think you are misunderstanding my opinion about the difficulty and wanting a simpler game.

Originally posted by Ryvaku:

It feels like the standard of all deckbuilder games. Luck of the draw and cards next in line.
So i feel no difference, but I still prefer faster gameplay and optimization so it doesn't take too long.

It kinda is the thing of the genre, heavy rng, which is totally fine by me. But let's compare with StS or Monster Train for example, even though Cross Blitz is totally different. On most deckbuilders you play against a monster who has a set of attacks that it will probably cycle between a specific pattern or from its attack list. It's predictable and there aren't usually any curve balls, unless is your first time facing a trickier enemy.

On Cross Blitz in the other hand, you face an enemy that is using a deck, with cards that you can also have. Which is pretty cool and I appreciate that. But, some of the stronger cards in the game may also be on the enemy's decks, like board wipe cards and stuff like that.

If you look at for example, Magic the Gathering or any other card games, if you are playing a serious game against another human being, you will play a "best of 3" or some format like that, to mitigate the randomness that may(and probably will) screw you or you opponent.

It sucks when you are down on your last cards on your deck, your enemy has a stall deck and it board wipes you(and him usually) and you don't have anything else you can do.

[letir]

Welcome to early access, where difficulty is wonky, balance is silly and nothing set in stone. Developers did fix some issues and brocken combos from demo, at least.

[Bloodshot]

I played through the first story line of the lion guy, and they only fight that was even a challenge was Mama Grubb. I'll admit she kicked my ass a couple of times. So, I was kind of thinking the opposite, that it was too easy. Could it be an issue with the other character that you can select at the beginning? I'm not sure, I just started playing like 1-2 hours ago, so I don't really know anything lol

[Loquitran]

Originally posted by Bloodshot:

I played through the first story line of the lion guy, and they only fight that was even a challenge was Mama Grubb. I'll admit she kicked my ass a couple of times. So, I was kind of thinking the opposite, that it was too easy. Could it be an issue with the other character that you can select at the beginning? I'm not sure, I just started playing like 1-2 hours ago, so I don't really know anything lol

I was talking about the rogue-lite mode, forgot the name. The story mode has a different approach to difficulty and the deckbuilding aspect in general.

I'm playing the story mode now with Violet, the second character, most battles are super easy and there are some really tough(and annoying) battles.

[Bloodshot]

Ah, gotcha, thanks for correcting me. I'll try that out, you've got me curious.

[OnlyHalfKorean]

This game is a rogueLITE. Meaning meta progression. Meaning the game is designed to cook you til you fry...in order for meta progression to have any purpose. This applies to both Fables and Tusk Tales.

It'll get easier the more you unlock.

[Loquitran]

Originally posted by OnlyHalfKorean:

This game is a rogueLITE. Meaning meta progression. Meaning the game is designed to cook you til you fry...in order for meta progression to have any purpose. This applies to both Fables and Tusk Tales.

It'll get easier the more you unlock.

I've played many rogueLITE deck builders, like for example StS and Monster train. And most of them are easily beatable on the normal difficulty(aka easy mode) without unlocking any stuff.

The only game of the genre that is extremely tough to beat without anything unlocked is Across the Obelisk, but that game sucks imo.

I may not included on my original message but, I've beaten the game with Admiral Brass on my second or third try, without any unlocks, since I was farming husks to unlock the characters.

Some characters have better cards early on than others, that may or may not have a lot of trouble on the first battles. Admiral Brass has the bucaneer, that is a super strong cost 1 card that can steam roll the game if you have the optimal set up for it.

[Trench]

I just purchased the game yesterday. I have a fair amount of experience with roguelite deckbuilders (sts/mt etc) and also more traditional ones (mtg etc).

I was mostly interested in the roguelite mode so I fired that one up. First impression it was fun (I didn't end up winning until my second run) but the issue I had was there are so many sources of damage that directly damage the player.

The elite poison deck for example, poison cards just do NOT feel good from a players perspective because there is no counterplay for them. The poison cards are basically ramping "next turn take 1 damage, take 2 damage, take 3 damage etc".

In a game like MTG or hearthstone... Cards like this are fine. Warlock is one of my favorite classes and has an ability to self damage itself for a bonus. But the thing is in those games you start from full health every battle.

While in this game you do heal somewhat after every battle (5hp for normal battles, 10hp for elite battles) I still felt like there was a fair amount of no counterplay for damage directly to my face(something tbh that hearthstone has struggled with on and off for years)

It feels like this game is trying to be somewhat in the middle of a game like sts (where you would be expected to take some damage from harder fights, but have a much higher health pool) and mtg/hearthstone where you have a much smaller health pool but start every fight(or game) at full health.

So the strategy I used to win my second run was to just boost my lower level cards as high as possible. I WANT to play the 5-6 cost cards, because those look the most fun. But if the game goes 6-8 turns, there is generally going to be SOME unavoidable damage. So that means I want to close out fights asap.

Btw I do understand there is some meta to get more health and unlock relic slots (with trinkets being one of the biggest "fun things" in the game it seems silly to lock them behind meta progression imo). I personally am not really a fan of meta so it could just be my own bias.

overall, I'm still having fun with it! And I know the game is still going to evolve and change. I was kind of on the fence about purchasing because I know all the content isn't in yet. But I did like the general "bones" of the game and enjoyed the demo so i wanted to support it.

All in all a good time and fun game and excited to see how it evolves.