How are the reviews saying the game is too hard?

[trachy]

Am I missing something? Was there some patch that made the game super easy? Is there some super secret final ending that I haven't gotten yet? I've played the game for 6 hours, and gotten both the Sunbringer and Undefeated achievements. I still have most of the other achievements to go, but main story wise the game seemed too easy.

[TechnoIvan]

Well, I enjoy this game's difficulty. It definitely IS a hard one - and since you're finding it to be too easy, I assume you have quite a good amount of experience with card games, and strategy overall, and is able to assess and process information better than most of other players who tried it.

Game can be really unforgiving at times, and one tiny misstep can instantly end your run. Sometimes there are a lot of things and effects going on, where a player might miss out on the fact a unit had Aimless, or that he's about to hit into a 4teeth enemy, or that the target has smackback etc etc, or downright play poorly and ignore a big threat that's counting down and not being taken care of.

Thing is - or at least that's my belief, is that modern gamers have been pampered way too much, and this kind of game that doesn't care about your misplays and WILL punish and end your run for it will not be met as a learning experience, but they will rather blame it on design.

As frustrating as it can be, I'd rather settle with the learning experience that keeps you on the edge, rather than a game that spoonfeeds you with wins.

[Gorbash]

+bump

[Dlanor]

No patch has made the game easier (yet), but a patch with more options including ones making the game easier is coming eventually.

This whole issue is perspective. Slay The Spire has 20 Ascension difficulties on top of the base mode. Does that mean there are 20 "wrong" difficulties? No, they add difficulties because different people will like different styles and it makes sense to let the player fine tune their experience.

Imagine Slay The Spire comes out and only A10 exists. You're probably the type to think "so what, A10 is fair, even A20 is possible". Well if you actually look at the Steam achievements for Slay The Spire, only about 15% of players have ever beaten a run at A10. Only about 6% have beaten A20. Most people do not like games on the harder end of difficulty, they stay to the easier modes. You will see this pattern across pretty much every game.

Wildfrost is basically as if you bought that A10-only Slay The Spire as an A20-level player. It seems too easy for you so you just discard that the vast majority of people do not want to be forced to play at A10 difficulty. There is no such thing as someone wanting a "wrong" difficulty, both the people that wanted a lower difficulty and you wanting a potentially higher difficulty can both be right about your own preference. Hopefully the devs lower the base challenge but add even more purple bells for players like you that want a harder game.

[Maxx Saigen]

Originally posted by Totopo:

Hopefully the devs lower the base challenge but add even more purple bells for players like you that want a harder game.

Pretty much this. I think the difficulty is good as is, but I can understand people wanting easier options. They could try something like last spell does where they essentially add "Helpful bells" that make the game easier, or they could make certain things easier, and re-add the things they made easier as bells, so that way they don't alienate the people that like the current difficulty, but also appeal to the not as good players.

[RandomEnchanter]

Originally posted by Maxx Saigen:

Originally posted by Totopo:

Hopefully the devs lower the base challenge but add even more purple bells for players like you that want a harder game.

Pretty much this. I think the difficulty is good as is, but I can understand people wanting easier options. They could try something like last spell does where they essentially add "Helpful bells" that make the game easier, or they could make certain things easier, and re-add the things they made easier as bells, so that way they don't alienate the people that like the current difficulty, but also appeal to the not as good players.

from the looks of the dailies there are a large amount of modifier bells in place. as such im sure the devs are working on some such system to make the game harder or easier by allowing you to pick and choose which other bells you want to add once you have unlocked them.

Add in a rank modifier for the bells and you can effectively make an A10 or A20 system like STS. 'harmful bells' such as frenzy bell or death bell would add to the modifier indicating that you did a run with a harder difficulty while bells that add a 'beneficial' effect would take away (add a negative) modifier to the run.

[Zeel Ara]

People can't differentiate between difficult and punishing. The game can be brutally punishing, in that you can outright die from overlooking a single potential interaction or a single misclick. It is not incredibly difficult to figure out what the right plays are. But if you misplay you can from crushing the fight to dead in less than a second, off a single mistake.

I think that's the source of the complaints. It can feel bad to have an entire run cut off because you forgot to move your units before buffing, or a similarly dumb mistake. And some people will call that "too difficult", despite it not being a good description.

Personally I like it. But I understand where people are coming from. They just articulate it poorly.

[ᵀᴴᴱ Uʟₜiᴹₐᵀᴱ ᴰᴱᴳᴱᴺᴱᴿᴬᵀᴱ]

So many 100% winrate runners here.

The game can be really unfair and feels like some runs are impossible to win even if you make the best choices. That’s a designing problem, if every run are doable in a high RNG game, the game will be too easy.

I only have few hours in the game but I definitly understand the critisism. Scaling feels totaly broken

[MSCasuarius]

The issue seems to be that other similar games have really hit the sweet spot in their design and the changes to Wildfrost don't make it a worse game, but definitely a more frustrating/punishing experience. Which is more dependent on taste.

Changing from attrition based design to a binary conflict resolution, less agency, more RNG and harsher consequences makes for a more intense experience. But also more exhausting.

You make a mistake on one turn in Slay the Spire or Monster Train? You will have less health in future fights, so you will maybe have to forgo an increase in strength for some recovery. Or your new options put you right over the edge and now it is easy sailing and you continue with diminished compensation options.
You overlooked or forgot a random charm effect on an enemy you had seen and dealt with hundreds of times before? Run over.
And there is not really any downtime like in StS with the common fights, so full focus for the whole game.

I think for a better general experience just a slight curation of the RNG could be enough, for example limiting when certain charms can appear on enemies.

[crgmyster]

Originally posted by Ultima:

So many 100% winrate runners here.

The game can be really unfair and feels like some runs are impossible to win even if you make the best choices. That’s a designing problem, if every run are doable in a high RNG game, the game will be too easy.

I only have few hours in the game but I definitly understand the critisism. Scaling feels totaly broken

As a heads up, the win rate for a skilled player in this game actively trying to win is pretty close to 100%. Oftentimes it can feel like RNG is the reason you are losing in a game like this and RNG might actually make some runs more challenging than others. However, if you are ever in a position where RNG is deciding the fate of your run, there is a near certainty that you already made a critical error that put you in the position.

In summary, RNG can make some runs harder than others, but if a player is skilled they will win regardless.

[Firellius]

Originally posted by crgmyster:

As a heads up, the win rate for a skilled player in this game actively trying to win is pretty close to 100%. Oftentimes it can feel like RNG is the reason you are losing in a game like this and RNG might actually make some runs more challenging than others. However, if you are ever in a position where RNG is deciding the fate of your run, there is a near certainty that you already made a critical error that put you in the position.

You have not got enough hours in the game if that's your view of the game. This game can flat-out brick itself with RNG.

'But that's rare!'

Not nearly as rare as it should be, and it does mean that those 'close to 100% winrates' are the flipside of the coin. For every person getting a majority winnable runs, there will be someone getting a majority unwinnable runs.

[crgmyster]

Originally posted by Firellius:

You have not got enough hours in the game if that's your view of the game. This game can flat-out brick itself with RNG.

'But that's rare!'

Not nearly as rare as it should be, and it does mean that those 'close to 100% winrates' are the flipside of the coin. For every person getting a majority winnable runs, there will be someone getting a majority unwinnable runs.

I think we have more than enough information at this point to conclude that the win rate with perfect play (not you don't have to come close to this to win most runs) is extremely high. There are numerous people on the discord with 10+ win streaks. That is unlikely if the game really is a coin flip as you seem to think. To give an example, here is my win rate since starting a new account (it does take some time to learn the game before you can start winning most of your runs). I'm not even coming close to playing perfectly and both of my losses came due to serious misplays on my part. Is it possible a large number of people are just getting lucky? Sure, but its extraordinarily unlikely.

[Aegix Drakan]

Originally posted by MSCasuarius:

You make a mistake on one turn in Slay the Spire or Monster Train? You will have less health in future fights, so you will maybe have to forgo an increase in strength for some recovery.

I actually found that to be a problem in Slay The Spire.

Sometimes I'd manage to crawl my way to the second boss after almost an hour, only to realize "Oh. This run is over. It's BEEN over for the last 20 minutes, but the game has been letting me crawl forward with a non-workable deck regardless".

I prefer Wildfrost's approach of looking at your deck at around the 15 minute mark and if it's not one that has a chance of winning, it uppercuts you and tells you to start over. XD

It's brutal and punishes you very harshly, but it feels like there's a lot less wasted time compared to Slay The Spire.

[LROCK]

I wish instead of random boring or bad heroes it a set number leaders that support different strategies that you can pick from like the pets. The way it is with the 3 bells a lot of times it's better to just take the loss and re-roll than to invest time on a unplayable leader. You can make it with a bad leader but it becomes far more luck dependent. Also there are too many unplayable charms like bread charm/ weakness charms/ Chuckle Charm, etc.. Also strategies like sacrifice, trash/recycle and spice need an overhaul to be viable.

[MSCasuarius]

Originally posted by Aegix Drakan:

Originally posted by MSCasuarius:

You make a mistake on one turn in Slay the Spire or Monster Train? You will have less health in future fights, so you will maybe have to forgo an increase in strength for some recovery.

I actually found that to be a problem in Slay The Spire.

Sometimes I'd manage to crawl my way to the second boss after almost an hour, only to realize "Oh. This run is over. It's BEEN over for the last 20 minutes, but the game has been letting me crawl forward with a non-workable deck regardless".

I prefer Wildfrost's approach of looking at your deck at around the 15 minute mark and if it's not one that has a chance of winning, it uppercuts you and tells you to start over. XD

It's brutal and punishes you very harshly, but it feels like there's a lot less wasted time compared to Slay The Spire.

Yeah, that design has its up and downsides. A potential brutal death spiral on one side, with the run just becoming a slog with a foregone conclusion. But on the other side it gives a bit more flexibility in builds and approaches to encounters. Hard counters to decks can be more of a bump, than a death sentence. Even in the third act boss fights, power and spam builds can overcome their respective counters while leaning into their strategy.

Overall, Slay the Spire due to lower randomness is a game that I can play to just relax, turn my brain off and go through the motions with half hour runs. I don't think that Wildfrost has any intentions to be that, which is also enjoyable in its own way.

The aesthetics would probably imply the opposite, which I think should not be understated. It attracted a bunch of people that expected relaxed StS instead of a more intense, constant focus variant. If you break design conventions, you should advertise that properly and the perception based on its art should have been expected.

[ᵀᴴᴱ Uʟₜiᴹₐᵀᴱ ᴰᴱᴳᴱᴺᴱᴿᴬᵀᴱ]

"While active, add Aimeless to all enemies"
+
"While active, add 3 teeth to all allies"

If the rng is not with you, it’s basicly an auto loss, probably a garanted loss if your hero got Frenzy but no prob with game design.


Maybe adding pokemon status like sleep/paralysis and confusing just to get my salt a little bit spicy