Feedback

[K]

Just let me play the game and unlock things by just playing. Why do I have to do all these challenges and play characters and loadouts I have no interest in just to progress? What's the point of leveling if the exp grind is long and barely unlocks anything?

For example, I'm about to hit level 14 with Azar. I only played Lapis and Hazel to level 4 and never gone back to them. Why? Because I enjoy Azar's cards. But the grind is insane. I still don't have Loadout D. Why is it so punishing to unlock a character's loadout by just playing the character?

Loadouts also doesn't make sense now. Loadouts only dictates starting utility, not attack and defense. Why? For example, Azar's loadout B is anti-synergy with Blaze.

Mutations are not fun. The ability to customize difficulty is one thing, but the added RNG to a run is not good. For example, certain builds don't care about certain malus. Sap is not a downside if you don't generate block from spell. That's a free mutation. But then there are mutations that are so annoying and unfun like reducing Spell slots. Yes, we can choose, but if it is RNG, I'm just going to abandon the run and reroll again. Slay the Spire does this a lot better. Keep everyone consistent with each other, Ascension is not RNG-based and you don't get to choose. But in exchange, the malus don't have to be so aggressively negatively in order to challenge the player. They make encounters harder instead. And reaching and beating A20 consistently is an achievement. Meanwhile, I don't see the point of trying to beat Mutation Stage 6 because I don't see the "fun" of having to pick mutations that just make the game worse for myself. And I'm only doing mutations at all because otherwise the game is too easy. This customizable difficulty is not actually providing meaningful challenge. They don't inspire me to plan out a run and strategize. Just get the right components for the build I know is enough to win.

Spell balance. I only play Azar as I said, so I'll only talk Azar spells. The balance is just not there. Any taking damage/Wound synergy spells provide so much more value per dice it is almost a no-brainer to pick them. They also work together well. Radiant takes too much to build. And once you do, you're not getting enough in return. Roll 3 dice? Flame Surge roll 3 dices for the price of just one 3 dice. Shame it got nerfed, but the value for spell is insane when the same effect requires 10 stacks of a buff that takes multiple dices and spells and turns. Other effects like Banefire and Rupture just don't compare when Wound/self-harm spells do the same but faster and cheaper. Health cost is really manageable in this game. Which I find fun, and I don't want to see it nerfed, but the other archetypes really need some rework. Like Furnace is too critical to the entire Meteor-like archetype. Also I don't see the payoff of the Destroy Dice archetype. It is so much easier, faster and cheaper to get block elsewhere then using spells. Destroy Dice in many cases don't even synergize with each other.

Runes. Runes aren't common enough and too RNG to have any meaningful impact over multiple runs. Sure, one run you might somehow get the perfect rune for your build, but in most cases they show up on spells you don't need, or might even work against your build.

[srn347]

I'm afraid I don't really understand your position at all, in fact it's quite contradictory tbh. You take mutations to challenge yourself, but if you get actually challenging ones you just quit to reset them? Blaming rng when a lot of your runs are ended by yourself on floor 0 seems quite counterproductive (though I've certainly seen the same behavior in the slay the spire community). My recommendation is before you actually resort to blaming rng, ask yourself whether you can do anything at all to win the current run and try to do so. Don't resort to blaming the game until you've actually exhausted all avenues for counterplay.

[Final boss : kidney cancer]

I can't speak much about the progression system since I play Lapis and Azar about the same , with plenty of Hazel runs as well. I suppose there is a need to allow loadout unlocks without playing all wizards , but trying them all seriously should be encouraged still , so a balance has to be found.

It is true that Mana Purification (Azar B) is counter-intuitive now , it pushes you to get rid of Blaze as soon as possible. But it can potentially offer the most value of all signature spells when you roll big dice. Solarity (Azar D) is different but helps blood Azar a bunch to get specific dice values.

The entire point of the void mutations is to make the game more challenging , so only you can decide which levels make the game spicy enough and which are too punishing.
If you didn't notice , the update introduced mutator rerolls so that you won't be forced to pick those you really don't like , and can pick from different ones.
For the record , I find Shattered Spellbook (-1/-2 spell slots) very generous in points and very manageable.

While blood Azar remains as potent as ever , forcing a blood build on high mutation levels is seriously risky because of the increased health drain of fighting. As a result you'll have to heal at sanctuaries just to survive , instead of picking +maxhp , which may lead to an insufficient margin of hit points when the time comes to fight the act 3 boss. Healing spells can mitigate this however.

Radiant got some spells reworked because it was too easy to sustain a loop with countdown reduction , though I agree the payoff now is a bit low compared with the cost of setup. But more spells give bits of Radiant stacks.
Rupture builds can probably work fine if you can find synergistic spells (like Wildblaze Orb) , I haven't tried to go all in on Banefire however.
Countdown Azar gives some flexibility in spells , while Furnace is very good , so is Sacrifice.

I agree that Runes are too random in their current implementation. This may change in the future.

[K]

Originally posted by srn347:

I'm afraid I don't really understand your position at all, in fact it's quite contradictory tbh. You take mutations to challenge yourself, but if you get actually challenging ones you just quit to reset them? Blaming rng when a lot of your runs are ended by yourself on floor 0 seems quite counterproductive (though I've certainly seen the same behavior in the slay the spire community). My recommendation is before you actually resort to blaming rng, ask yourself whether you can do anything at all to win the current run and try to do so. Don't resort to blaming the game until you've actually exhausted all avenues for counterplay.

You misunderstood me. My problem with the RNG of mutations is that they are too varied in impact. If the mutations can be ignored by certain builds, then the run is not challenging. A fixed Ascension system is better because then there are minimal variance starting a run. Beating A20 is more meaningful because all the runs are mostly the same. You can't bypass the challenge by cherry-picking. It also means the devs can actually balance the game, to make sure each tier is as challenging as they should be. How are you going to balance a game already RNG-based with more RNG at the start of a run? Again, the fact that some mutations are ignorable means the one mechanism that is ensuring the difficulty of the tier is no longer there.

Deliberately picking mutations that are harder just because you want the challenge is counter-intuitive when these games are all about maximizing your wins and making the best decisions. It's one thing want to try a different build, maybe a less viable one. To picking mutations to give yourself more debuffs because the game isn't challenging enough.

Also, what's the point of Ascension if the game let you decide how hard it is? Isn't that the point of the tiers? Go down a tier or two if you can't handle higher yet. But progressing into a higher tier should be rewarding. Either you beat it or you don't. That is the challenge. Frankly that is the designers' responsibility, not the players. If you want to be able to customize difficulty to a certain extent within a tier, do what Hades do. No RNG.

I love how every time someone criticize a game's difficulty being unfun or badly designed. Someone has to default to thinking this is about not being able to beat the game or something.

[Ghostlight]

As of patch 4, 90% of the spells in the game are unplayable garbage, so unlocking is just making the gamer harder as you adding more crap to the possible spells you can see in a run. Nice work devs, how to break a game in a single boredom patch.

[Garou]

I agree with the point that Azar is the toughest mage to play. But even he can beat the game at the hardest difficulty with a bit of luck and careful planning.

This update definitely shook up established strategies and playstyles. It's very disruptive and that can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on each individual player.

However, on a personal note, this is the first time in my 100 hours that I felt genuinely challenged and required to learn new strategies and fail multiple times before being able to succeed.

[Moonbane]

Definitely feels much harder to progress, shards is VERY few now, compared to earlier game versions.
Only been playing on difficulty 1, dont see any reason to go higher at all. Still feeling quite tough.

at 15/18 milestones now. Getting close to unlocking all loadouts.

[Tim]

Just chiming in here to thank you all for the feedback, we're reading it all :)

For the Mutator system, there's a lot we can still do to improve it, and we're hoping to have time to take a pass on it for Update 5.

For unlocking things, we're also thinking about game-modes that allow players to disregard achievements and unlocks and play with everything if they so choose.

Spell balance is tough, Blood is potentially strong with enough setup. Its something we continually work on to improve, hopefully not nerfing things too much in the future and rather improve under-performing strategies instead.

Finally, since the original post, we have increased chance for Runes in spell drafts slightly and made Rune Drafts more common in Random Events for Act 2 and 3 specifically. Hopefully this is noticeably enough, or we might have to further tweak things.

again, thank you all for the discussion and the feedback :)