The difficulty issue is ruining this game.

[Vitamin D]

It's a shame, but I can't really get over the difficulty curve. You either need to play perfectly, exploit a bug or synergy and then have enough luck on the run to have the opportunity and knowledge to do it. The game does such a poor job with player agency and choice that I don't really want to play anymore. I don't mind losing through poor decision making, but it's just too easy to put yourself into an unwinnable situation.

Some suggestions to the make the game enjoyable for mere mortals at card games:

1.) There should be easier difficulty levels in the form of powered up heroes. In fact, the way the game seems to randomly generate a set of 3 is really, really underwhelming. It'd be really easy to set up 'Easy-mode' heroes so players who are bad at card games can experience the game. As it stands, I'd wager more than half the player base hasn't even seen the second half of the game. I'd be very curious to see the stats of the player base on averages.

2.) The lack of agency in runs is somewhat stunning. A few paths and the same decisions on every path. It's SO dull. It's become so bland that I know when I'm going to lose a fight BEFORE i get to that point because I know the game has not offered me enough opportunities to get strong enough - Please enable it so that certain shops can be found earlier in runs.

*EDIT* 2.5 -> Another issue here is just how much your path is chosen FOR you. There are some things that are so mandatory to do that you don't really get to truly pick your path. There is no freedom of build or player expression - this is especially relevant in the early game, IMO. Giving players higher starting gold (like, 50 or 100) would substantially decrease dependency on skill-based multi-kill combos for gold generation, give player agency back in map choice, and make the game easier in the RIGHT way.

3.) The game should alert you when playing a card will result in game over by your hero being killed. Infact, the game should just put a death flag over ANY unit that will die if an action isn't taken.

4.) The game would likely just simply be better if you completely removed the "injury" system altogether. Players who are at a high level already know that when they're cards become injured they've likely already lost the run and players who don't understand the mechanic are simply playing into unwinnable scenarios.

*EDIT:* 8/17/23
Surprised to find this still on the front page; I wanted to update this with the updates from the beta branch and all the changes made since the initial post: It's obvious to me that the beta branch is the superior experience of the game and should be made the main version of the game as soon as possible. They've made the gap in player skill more approachable with money generation. The game is universally easier due to your ability to scale harder into mid and late game; they've eliminated some of the most oppressive enemies in the game that can 'ruin' a run; The ability to reclaim an ally from a failed run is a smart way to address repetitive design. Some of the core failings of the game remain in my opinion, the path options are very limited, Some of the subsystems of the game are obfuscated and explained poorly, A lot of the upgrades are not universally 'good' and can pigeonhole builds or eliminate themselves as an option, leading to even more bland runs ... All things said and done though? This is a substantial improvement upon what they've built so far, and props for that.

[Ccstewy]

Agreed. There's fun difficulty, and there's tedious difficulty. A lot of this game is fun difficulty, but it's those other few bits that really drag down the potential of this game. So many runs are just "If I don't get x before the first boss, this run is dead in the water" and then, surprisingly, the run dies at the boss before I actually have the chance to get my feet on the ground

[swolblu]

I agree with (3) and (4) so much. There have been so many times I've lost because I didn't realize my leader was in danger. And usually if the injury mechanic comes into play you've already lost that run because the game didn't give you enough scaling and/or synergies.

[Azure]

Injury is fine if there were small battles between each bosses. But because there are none if one of your main card is injured then you're most likely doomed.

imo, the difficulty is fine but the game is relied on RNG too much. There is literally nothing you can do if you just roll bad or even mediocre.

[mumbles_cares]

They could definitely get rid of most of the Charms and make some that are actually helpful. Get rid of the "It's kinda a good card, but mostly a bad card" crap, since as everyone has stated above: Your opportunities to pick up new Cards + lame Charms are so few and far between that a Risk/Reward kind of Card is just pointless. Basically everything that was unlockable, I unlocked the first day I purchased this game. Ever since then, I've been beating my head into a wall, doing the exact same run over and over again. Hoping to just get SUPER Lucky enough to be offered Cards and Allies that synergize with each other. Sadly, it rarely happens.

[Deadman]

1) No it's not the difficulty of the game that's the issue. Hard is good.
2) A total reliance on random is crappy. Players need something for continued effort. The ability to edit/edit out heroes, charms, and followers in tiny ways. Say for every 5 bosses remove an unwanted ally/charm for the next 5 games. For every 10 bosses defeated add a point of health, speed, or damage to a hero character. But of course no more than one time ever. In the current iteration of the game I can tell about how long the run is going to be by the stats on the starting hero, as they are quite limited.
3) An alert? It's called look before you do it.
4) An Inn would be nice to add to the trail. A spot to heal injured allies and add a point of health to all for the next fight only.

[ClayXros (Plain Cereal)]

Yeah, this game has the same problem TBOI has, but magnified x3. Almost total dependence on lucky draws, very little skill expression past the midgame (especially if you got a bad hero roll). Late game is either a steamroller or brick wall.

I get and appreciate the feel of building and playing JUST right to overcome a stacked deck...but when I get 3 fights and a boss in a row, multiple runs in a row, where the ONLY playable options are hard countered? Starting to feel like this is just a bash your skull game.

[Telzen]

Plenty of videos on youtube of people winning run after run after run. RNG only decides how many mistakes you can make, not whether winning is possible or not.

[Argile]

I don't understand people complaining about RNG in a card game. If you don't like RNG, then maybe a card game rogue-lite isn't for you?

What makes RNG fun is you have to make do with the cards you are dealt and can't just memorize a bosses attack pattern like in dark souls or something.

[Aegix Drakan]

Originally posted by Argile:

I don't understand people complaining about RNG in a card game. If you don't like RNG, then maybe a card game rogue-lite isn't for you?

What makes RNG fun is you have to make do with the cards you are dealt and can't just memorize a bosses attack pattern like in dark souls or something.

Because people hate losing, and love to blame it on just "I got unlucky, game is slot machine" instead of learning what mistakes they're making and actually improve.

[ClayXros (Plain Cereal)]

Originally posted by Argile:

I don't understand people complaining about RNG in a card game. If you don't like RNG, then maybe a card game rogue-lite isn't for you?

What makes RNG fun is you have to make do with the cards you are dealt and can't just memorize a bosses attack pattern like in dark souls or something.

RNG is great to challenge someone, but if there's too much then the skill of the player becomes irrelevant. And a video game is supposed to, at least somewhat, value skill expression. If the outcome of a run of a game is almost exclusively up to chance (like this game), then you may as well play a cute-themed pachinko machine. TBOI, Slay the Spire, even Darkest Dungeon respect skill just a bit more.

[Argile]

Originally posted by ClayXros (Plain Cereal):

If the outcome of a run of a game is almost exclusively up to chance (like this game), then you may as well play a cute-themed pachinko machine. TBOI, Slay the Spire, even Darkest Dungeon respect skill just a bit more.

There is a slot machine rogue-lite called "Luck be a landlord", and its great. You can have player skill even in an RNG game, as witnessed by players on Youtube who have win streaks of 30 or more in this game. Were those guys getting lucky every single time?

Games of chance like poker are even played competitively. Again, it sounds like you just don't like RNG. That's fine, but that's not a flaw of the game.

[MerlinCross]

Originally posted by Argile:

Originally posted by ClayXros (Plain Cereal):

If the outcome of a run of a game is almost exclusively up to chance (like this game), then you may as well play a cute-themed pachinko machine. TBOI, Slay the Spire, even Darkest Dungeon respect skill just a bit more.

There is a slot machine rogue-lite called "Luck be a landlord", and its great. You can have player skill even in an RNG game, as witnessed by players on Youtube who have win streaks of 30 or more in this game. Were those guys getting lucky every single time?

Games of chance like poker are even played competitively. Again, it sounds like you just don't like RNG. That's fine, but that's not a flaw of the game.

On the one hand, yes. If the RNG is that high as you seem to make it, than yes it's them getting lucky.

As for Poker, there is a element of luck to it but at the same time there's a social aspect unless you're playing vs a machine.

The difference is how much skill there is in managing the risks vs the rewards and this game there doesn't seem to be a lot of ways of lowering that risk other than "Do the right build".

[mynameisbuck3131]

To your 3rd point- The last thing this game needs is an indicator warning you that your run will end if you make a disastrous move. At that point the game morphs into a puzzle game where you try to avoid the game over indicator. It’s not all that different than reloading a save.

To your fourth point- I’m not sure what you mean by “high level” players. Maybe those who have reached the highest difficulties. For me at least, I had injured units many times on the first two tiers of difficulty. Those units have yet to be a part
of the reason I lost a run. In fact I can’t remember ever losing a single battle in which an injured unit participated. They always recovered. In the late game, particularly the last two or three battle, I could potentially see an injured unit causing some roadblocks to victory, but in that case the player probably shouldn’t lost the unit in the last battle in the first place.

[Sticks]

Originally posted by ecronley001:

The last thing this game needs is an indicator warning you that your run will end if you make a disastrous move. At that point the game morphs into a puzzle game where you try to avoid the game over indicator. It’s not all that different than reloading a save.

And the game is somehow improved by it being a puzzle game where you try and avoid the game over indicator while also having to flawlessly keep track of a hundred constantly changing UI elements? Pants on head retarded. Showing the player what will happen in the next turn in an easily recognizable way doesn't detract from the game at all. On the contrary its having almost every run of mine end in one turn because of a simple oversight that could've been easily avoided if I didn't have 100 other things to look at that's detracting from my enjoyment of this game.

[MisterFister]

I don't know man. I completed a run under 6 hours of playing this game.

I think the difficulty is fine. If it becomes too easy you're just gonna get bored.

Some cards do need tweaking, though.