Leviafin (Redcroft Campaign) needs some adjustments

[Vekta]

No matter which of the four playstyles I try to use against this boss, nothing is capable of countering the sheer amount of damage and board clear it has.

Its 4 frost shards, cyclone blasts and frost burns are capable of completely nullifying any kind of minion presence and almost all of its minions have the shivershade deathrattle (deal frost dmg to a random enemy) which means that even if I manage to clear his board and actually survive for more than 4 turns, every time I do so he gets a free 3/6/9/12 dmg whenever I clear any of his minions.

The whole admiral brass board situation is ridiculous as well, I somehow have to conjure up 6 dmg to take down the tentacle whilst he gets a free 4 dmg after the 2nd turn? In another circumstance this would be a nice challenge, but as the boss' deck is currently designed (not to mention its trinkets which are all hilariously broken) it's just simply unfair and punishing to the player.

I'm all for high difficulty and working out how to counter an opponent (I didn't have to redo any battle in the campaign prior to this one) but this boss is simply unbalanced considering the cards Redcroft has available.

[eagle3y3]

You have to create different decks in order to handle different bosses. Go shop, meld, change specs. I was frustrated as well until I changed my deck that did pretty well against most matchups.

[Buster Scruggs]

To be fair though, hes far tougher than the thorns guy so he should be the last boss in that zone.

[Dlanor]

Leviafin is a little stronger than it should be but I think this is exaggerating it a lot. It's a major boss, if it doesn't make you lose once and tweak the deck to counter it then the whole deck builder part of the game is sort of pointless.

[Vekta]

In response to eagle3y3 and Bliss, I clearly stated in the main post that I had tried to use all four of the playstyles (i.e decks) that the game offers and found that none of them have any chance against how the Leviafin deck composition works, no matter how much I adjusted them.

It simply batters anything I try, in huge part thanks to its ability to kill one of my cards *every* turn (two if that shark guy is played) which can murder a deck's synergy and potential if it kills enough of the high mana cards, as well as the fact its frost power is buffed AND it has an extra mana on top of that. It's just ludicrous to me how unbalanced it all is.

Nothing appears to counter the style it employs, and it just made me believe the whole fight is close to pure RNG on if you draw the cards you need (and they don't get eaten) and he doesn't draw a board killer every turn.

[khamsun]

Yes, there's little strategy to the fight and it's very luck-dependent.

[JonesyLax91]

I beat him with a bomb deck that had about 5 minions in it (bomb pirates and one barrel mutt) so he didn’t keep eating my cards.

The other cards were all damage, draw, armor, created units, or did something bomb-like. I ended up with about 20 bombs in the enemy deck and the board was clear most of the match trading kills and scratch damage.

[Xn]

cleared him on my 5th try without needing to alter my deck (not to brag; just for reference). but i agree in general, the four losing tries felt really bad and luck dependent. someone correct me on this but it seems that some enemies (leviathan included) don't abide by the general rule of needing a 30 card deck and can never run dry; if true that's BS as well.

[Unembellished Genius]

Just fought this guy for the first time and yea hes kinda op. In the Roguelite mode you only have 1 shot at him and then your run is over which makes it even harder. If Im being honest though I dont mind it too much because the game is really fun and I like going through runs.

[Zeroo]

I dont get how people are saying that this game is hard, as some who doesn't play many deckbuilder it seriously too easy so up to 2nd roguelike stage with lvl 3 gizmo on 1st try easily beat levinfin and also 1st try hard pirate boss with toxic girl. how do i post screenshot?

[Zeroo]

just uploaded screenshot on profile. hope it will get more difficult on further stages.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/Stephanie9199735804/screenshots/

[RaozSpaz]

1st off Id like to state I actually agree with the original post. Leviafin is WAY overtuned. Although RNG can play a decent margin into whether or not you win a match against him, the likelihood of beating him with most decks is still drastically reduced and that right there is the core problem.

Taking the 4 core decks to the first campaign as an example. In order to be properly balanced, all 4 of them should be able to beat Leviafin at least somewhat regularly. Leviafin [at least from what I can tell as I havent beaten him] seems to be the mid boss of the chapter. The fact so many are struggling with him is a pretty big alert that something is wrong.

Mass Pirate - Can't mass minions enough to use BB and even if it does tends to just kill himself by doing so due to ice minions explosions.
Blood Boil - Can't actually keep minions on board long enough to make use of its abilities.
Bombs - Probably the most likely one to be able to beat Leviafin due to its lack of reliance on minions and ability to kill Leviafin without needing to directly attack him.
Cannons - Similar to blood boil, cannot keep minions on the board to be able to make use of its abilities, especially its BB.z

The fact that Acolades force players to use certain decks is bad enough, but those are technically just additional awards so aren't really all that problematic. But when a boss forces players to play a very particular play style, that begins to greatly take away from the enjoyment of said players [unless said player is already using said play style].

Referencing other 'rogue' games, there is no inherently wrong play style in those games. Cause thats are balanced around that fact [with increasing difficulty as you get further into their respective runs]. Leviafin is the opposite of this fact.

[ZexxCrine]

Originally posted by RaozSpaz:

The fact that Acolades force players to use certain decks is bad enough, but those are technically just additional awards so aren't really all that problematic. But when a boss forces players to play a very particular play style, that begins to greatly take away from the enjoyment of said players [unless said player is already using said play style].

Referencing other 'rogue' games, there is no inherently wrong play style in those games. Cause thats are balanced around that fact [with increasing difficulty as you get further into their respective runs]. Leviafin is the opposite of this fact.

this is the only part of your post I disagree with on a fundamental level. the story mode is not a roguelike its a story mode. having to change up your deck to meet requirements due to the faults of your deck is par for the course in a story focused collectible card game. think the yugioh tagforce games or the pokemon card game for gba, or other such similar CCG adventure games that have strangely disappeared from the gaming space. the story mode is clearly inspired by such titles. could laviafin use some tuning? possibly. but expecting the player to vary up strategy to meet certain challenges while giving the player the tools to do so is not unreasonable nor unexpected.

[PokerusFreak]

Leviafin being able to constantly board wipe, do retaliatory damage if you board wipe HIM, and simultaneously and passively mill your deck is just problematic. Its poorly balanced, no matter what deck type youre facing him with.

I wouldnt mind if he was doing one or the other, constant board wipe or milling your deck. There is a reason mill is never something you allow to passively accumulate in card games, it needs to be something you actively work for (both player and AI). The only safe place for your cards is in your hand, which is exactly where you dont want them to be in a card game since they can do nothing there.

I finally beat him, after he killed me from the grave, using a deck specifically made to face him. Its a ♥♥♥♥ deck, full of board wipe and control spells (give me armor, destroy minions) and cards that produce more cards so my milled deck was less impactful. Its a deck that literally would not function in any other scenario, does not follow any of the 4 major deck archetypes the game pushes you towards, and was deleted immediately after I beat him since I will never fight him again ever.
The rest of the game is enjoyable, even when its hard. That battle isnt just hard though: its tedious. In a game solely focused on playing cards, an entire boss battle being centered around not being allowed to play cards is just silly.

At the end of the day, its not about whether you CAN beat it. Of course you can, all you have to do is bang your head against the wall and build specifically to face him. The fact that his battle needs to be described as banging your head against the wall and relies so heavily on luck though is a big issue, balance wise and enjoyment wise.
He's not fun hard: hes tedious hard, and there is a BIG difference

[eagle3y3]

Originally posted by Vekta:

In response to eagle3y3 and Bliss, I clearly stated in the main post that I had tried to use all four of the playstyles (i.e decks) that the game offers and found that none of them have any chance against how the Leviafin deck composition works, no matter how much I adjusted them.

It simply batters anything I try, in huge part thanks to its ability to kill one of my cards *every* turn (two if that shark guy is played) which can murder a deck's synergy and potential if it kills enough of the high mana cards, as well as the fact its frost power is buffed AND it has an extra mana on top of that. It's just ludicrous to me how unbalanced it all is.

Nothing appears to counter the style it employs, and it just made me believe the whole fight is close to pure RNG on if you draw the cards you need (and they don't get eaten) and he doesn't draw a board killer every turn.

Yeh the constant board wipes is definitely insane at first. I admit you do have to rely on rng a lot more than other battles. In order to mitigate I did a death, stack armor, bomb hybird type of deck and it handled leviafin pretty well. By the way I'm only referring to Redcroft pirate for anyone that is reading. Haven't tried other characters yet.

[RaozSpaz]

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

this is the only part of your post I disagree with on a fundamental level. the story mode is not a roguelike its a story mode. having to change up your deck to meet requirements due to the faults of your deck is par for the course in a story focused collectible card game. think the yugioh tagforce games or the pokemon card game for gba, or other such similar CCG adventure games that have strangely disappeared from the gaming space. the story mode is clearly inspired by such titles. could laviafin use some tuning? possibly. but expecting the player to vary up strategy to meet certain challenges while giving the player the tools to do so is not unreasonable nor unexpected.

Yes. But the flaw in your response is trying to compare this game to other major card games. Other major card games have WAY more options for any one particular setup that are available to you. And even then, most decks can still beat most decks. There are obviously exceptions as there always is but in the case of cross blitz, the options available to the player are far more restrictive due to the fact that you have far less cards available to you.

And yes. The story mode isn't 'rogue' in the slightest. You are completely correct here. But if the balance in whats considered an optimum situation, where the player has many more cards available, can switch decks freely, and always has max hp, is this bad. It places the balance baseline at a concerning level. And when a lot of your players are coming into the game starting in the story mode. Having them run into this boss is a quick way to lose players. Yes. Some players are either gonna get lucky or just have the right deck build when they fight him in the first place and go right through him. But the amount of decks he counters is the problem.

NOTHING, in a game like this should counter so many different builds on an inherent level. If you ran into this type of boss on the roguelike mode it would almost certainly be a run ender. And that isn't an enjoyable play experience. Losing to your own skill is one thing. Losing because there was no way to prevent it from happening is a whole different story.

EDIT: I wanted to add this after I read the comment immediately following your response. In a game where you are only given 30 [more like 29] cards. Having something that mills you every turn almost entirely regardless of the situation and having your drawn card auto delete if you're at max hand size is a big no no. Do other enemies do this as well. Yes, but its far more manageable against them because they dont do EVERYTHING ELSE that Leviafin does. He has total control over all aspects of the game at all times. And most of that happens without him even playing a single card.