Progessing makes the game harder

[Danielbar]

Unlocking new cards just makes the game harder as you go. You start the game with a selection of 100-ish cards and you finish the game with 240. Meaning that you have 140new cards to cycle through before getting the ones you want.

Right now, i feel like i never get the cards i want or need and all my runs suck. keep getting spammed with things i dont care about and my build just gets underwhelming

[pi73r]

skill issue imo, it's totally possible to constantly do good by recycling and combining cards constantly. There are 3 dmg types and 2 structure types, it's not really hard to hit the card that will be useful
Also the cards you unlock are usually way stronger than the ones you start with (like upgrading to gold makes little sense until you unlock some of the better gold cards).

[houthi and the blowfish]

Agreed. Not a skill issue. unless "getting good RNG" is a skill issue. Good RNG in this instance is complimentary cards. If your starting towers/garrisons are only holy crusaders or that bomb tower, RIP to you! There's no making a best situation when there's clearly better outcomes than others. Trading up for a purple that only benefits garrisons when you're towers pretty much dooms your run.

[Halfshell]

Haven't tried it but this is kinda a problem in any game with meta progression. The pool gets diluted and whatever options you have, like rerolls and banishment, just don't make up for the difference. Sure a few things are better in the larger pool, but most things are just simply too niche. Games like this need an exclusion feature.

Like I see this ones cardbased, what if you only got to select 2 decks? And thats your entire pool to draw from? Then you simply unlock new decks, maybe there are ways to draw from outside your pool but not much. And maybe ways to add on a 3rd deck.

Basically like, take the physical boardgame design solution for having too many cards.

[pi73r]

Again, I can pretty much constantly win and get the stuff I want despite having unlocked almost all promotions cards and getting most challenges already. It's a matter of setting up a good card flow. It's like in some board games my friends were crying that it's luck when I'm sitting there with 95% winrate. Sure you can get extremely unlucky once in a while but in general you can regularly do very good runs.

[Schattensang]

I would argue, that a lot of the cards you unlock are very important. You only really start with a bunch of green and blue cards. The few purple cards are only that impressive, and the yellow cards you start with are only towers and garrisons. So there is very little incentive to even go above blue, because you can only have 6 buildings. So you need the other unlocks to even get above blue.

My issue would more be, that at the start you are so very limited with the strategy you can follow. For example at the start Hellfire is just completely unviable. It's so hard to get the damage up, and the tower and garrison aren't really that good, when compared to holy or unholy.

[pi73r]

That's what I meant, going gold made no sense at all past early with starting cards.
All the strong blue/purple card unlocks are so strong, the damage boosting cards alone make the game too easy actually. The turrets you unlock are also goated and some of the new ones seem better at blue rarity than basic ones at gold.

[b00marrows]

This is an issue with meta progression, even going back to isaac, diluting the item pools with useless crap is an issue of "roguelikes"

Factually and mathematically, every extra card you unlock is an extra *potential* step in the way of reaching what you need. If anything just widening the RNG gap.

What compounds this is you can have a run ruined by said unlock system.
To explain:
As you run the game, combining 2 of the same card and tier seems to guarantee you get the same card upgraded as a option from the result, which is great.

BUT and here's the kicker;
If you don't have the next tier of that item unlocked, you will be given a random result of the combination. This often guts semi decent runs.

Its pretty clear early access testing was a bunch of people like pi73r who are a combination of lucky and already had everything unlocked. Arguably ignorant of the issue under theiur own nose.

This flaw is terrible for early experience and nearly nothing is explained well in the tutorial, not even the stone mechanics.
Also some of the employee abilities are written out terribly.

I'm not going to submit a bloody google doc report about this. ♥♥♥♥ that effort.

[pi73r]

xDD
So first we discuss that unlocking stuff makes it harder and then you say early game is harder (so you basically totally agree with me but decided to say some bs about me xD)

But to argue some more

pi73r who are a combination of lucky and already had everything unlocke

1. Just good at gaming instead of lucky
2. It literally takes no more than 7-8h max to unlock 80% of stuff

[b00marrows]

Originally posted by pi73r:

xDD
So first we discuss that unlocking stuff makes it harder and then you say early game is harder (so you basically totally agree with me but decided to say some bs about me xD)

But to argue some more

pi73r who are a combination of lucky and already had everything unlocke

1. Just good at gaming instead of lucky
2. It literally takes no more than 7-8h max to unlock 80% of stuff

There are 2 forms of unlocks. Progression and purchased, both have potential negative RNG impact.
Your ignorance of reality of deafening, please do not respond to me.

[pi73r]

And I unlocked most of both of em, they are mostly superior cards compared to basic ones.
Your attempt to blame it on everything else but your poor skills is amusing xD

[Danielbar]

Imagine thinking that rerolling and getting a card in 240 is skills :/

[pi73r]

Originally posted by Danielbar:

Imagine thinking that rerolling and getting a card in 240 is skills :/

Apparently it is since so many complain about game being hard

[Danielbar]

I'm not complaining about the game being hard i'm complaining about some parts of the game that feel clunky and unrewarding.

There are tasks which are "play an entire run on Unholy SMG" or "Sunder". You start the game with 6 structures but unlock a lot more later on. To get that task you have to restart your run until you get one of the two over and over.

[Schattensang]

Most of the card unlocks are either straight upgrades, like being able to make the purple version of the blue damage card you had, or mostly just better cards in general.

Of course rerolling cards is just RNG, but you also can get cards the give you a bigger pool to choose from when you upgrade or reroll, so those make it a lot easier.

The hardest thing always is just the start of the run. But if you got over Greed, you are pretty much in for smooth sailing.

Originally posted by Danielbar:

I'm not complaining about the game being hard i'm complaining about some parts of the game that feel clunky and unrewarding.

There are tasks which are "play an entire run on Unholy SMG" or "Sunder". You start the game with 6 structures but unlock a lot more later on. To get that task you have to restart your run until you get one of the two over and over.

Well, annoying RNG achievements are always in this kind of game. But those are usually just for the completionists.

[pi73r]

Originally posted by Danielbar:

I'm not complaining about the game being hard i'm complaining about some parts of the game that feel clunky and unrewarding.

There are tasks which are "play an entire run on Unholy SMG" or "Sunder". You start the game with 6 structures but unlock a lot more later on. To get that task you have to restart your run until you get one of the two over and over.

Idk, i dont really have any problems going 6 of the same turret with almost everything unlocked. In fact I'd say it's too easy to get those considering how it's the most optimal strategy.