Difficulty Level - too hard or too easy?

[a.zasadny]

We are incredibly curious about your reception of the game, especially its difficulty level. If you can, share your thoughts with us. Is the game challenging enough? Or maybe it's too easy?

[Skonax]

I think I'll leave some feedback about difficulty. Currently, I feel like the game is unbalanced right now. First point is that when the game spawns maps, they have to put hard or elite battles right before good loot, but those battles are what cost me the run when I enter them. As an example, I got an elite battle where when one enemy dies, the others revive to full health and gain shield and strength, and on each of the first 3 turns, they hit for 3 damage 3 times each. Considering that the creatures already start with low amounts of health (no more than 20 health each), enemies on normal difficulty shouldn't be hitting for that much on ever the hardest battles.

Next, gaining new cards shouldn't cost any resources for the first card taken, period. Why do the berries have to be spent on card rewards to begin with, considering the game is supposed to be a deck builder. I can understand the first character making the first card earned first, but for all other characters, I shouldn't be spending 5ish berries to take the first card offered if its good or a passive ability on a character, etc. and have to rely on finding a merchant for better cards for gold if I ever find one. (On later characters, I was stuck keeping the same starting deck for 3 battles in a row either because I didn't have the berries to afford any cards, or some of the cards were too weak.)

Third, I think someone else mentioned the card balance of things. Currently, most of the cards that I found aren't great since they are usually gain energy, attack for less energy, draw cards, or apply shields most of the time. For the few that are broken, if they get upgraded, they can carry the run by themselves with no problems, especially if you find a 0-cost draw card to draw your entire deck in one turn.

Finally, when we start the run, we should be able to view the entire map up front to decide which paths to go down. Since we can only do 10 or 12 battles total each run (and the last battle forces us to battle the boss), we should be told where everything is on the maps such as merchants, etc. so we can decide what paths are worth visiting, rather the needing to finish 1-2 battles just to see more of the map. I should mention too that the first 2 easy battles you gain should cost any time since it already uses 2 of the 10-12 days we start out with, meaning they we really only can do 8 or 10 more battles before the boss. (This might be better in the feedback if possible.)

[Lordo]

So, the golem elite boss is a joke right? No way someone tested him and thought... Hmmm will be really cool to fight a guy that simply power up with EVERY damage it takes while having 200 life. Dude really? I'll be skiping every elite battle in case my run brick because of him in especific.

[IcyPhoenix]

shield slam build is overpowered you can one shot everything and have 999999999 armor, this is pretty standard problem with most card games that don't balance around it.

I wrote like two paragraphs of balance issues, but honestly I just think this game was never play tested its so boring theres hardly any unique cards or cards with different utility its all basically the samething "attack + draw, attack + activate, activate", the replay value is super diminished cause of that.

[Star]

Okay, I've unlocked all the current content now and beaten eclipse 2 on 3 different characters, so here's my current thoughts.

I would say that the difficulty is about right, but that only 3 difficulty levels is too few. Eclipse is very easy, but the jump to eclipse 1 is massive, with the jump to eclipse 2 being pretty large as well. If I were you I'd go with a more standard ascension mechanic where "some enemies are tougher and hit harder", "lower gold and mystberry income", and "Only 10 days to eclipse" are each split out into their own eclipse level. Then the same for eclipse 2's two changes. Could even split out the bosses/elites and standard enemies, but that might just be padding out the difficulty levels.

On higher difficulty levels the only boss that has given me trouble is Umbra. If I can make it to the end, the summoner boss just seems easy. That could be a function of my play-style though. Could be interesting if you made the bosses generally a bit harder, but telegraphed which boss we had to fight in advance somehow. Building towards a boss is always fun in these games.

My next thought is that either Maya Bloomberry's bonus is too good or every other character is too weak, she's the only character I find it easy to beat eclipse 2 on. Starting with 20 mystberries is probably about as good as the bonuses granted by Randy the Reckless and Philip Phillips even if those character didn't have a downside to go with their upside. It represents 4 extra mystberries a round (8 with prowler), which means you can get your build going during a time where the other characters are slowly struggling to get any econ at all. Personally I'd probably fix this by starting every character with 5 mystberries before the first battle (that it takes multiple battles to get anything going on most characters on the harder difficulties just isn't much fun), but could also fix this by toning down the nerfs to other characters or starting Maya Bloomberry with only like, 10 or something. Arcana Default getting free cards is similarly easier than the others, but as the starter character I think that makes a bit more sense.

Currently a variety of strength activation based builds (iceling activation strength build being probably the strongest of them), and glarexus shield build seem to be tuned about right. Large hand size builds seems weak, as is any build that relies around attacking without strength. Ultimately hard to solve without designing cards/mystlings that don't play well with strength but help out other builds, and that's probably not an easy ask.

[broccoli]

Overall, I think the difficulty is good. I like that the base difficulty is beatable without an incredible amount of optimizing, and if you want the game to be harder, then you can make it so.

I agree with the previous poster that Strength build seems very strong atm and that large hand and vulnerability builds seem weak. That said, I'd rather see those builds buffed rather than Strength builds nerfed. I've only gotten a few trainers unlocked, but I've rarely felt any reason to pick anyone other than DeFault. It just doesn't feel that much like a deck builder when I can't buy add cards because they cost too much.

Also, as mentioned above. Terok is horrible. He's wiped me every time I've tried. Not fun at all, and worse than any of the end-game bosses.

Edit: Oh, one quick note. I saw ChristopherOdd's video about this game, and I saw the Challenge for Glarexus was to deal 50 damage in a single attack. That's crazy hard compared to Prowler and Fale that you can just slowly build over time. I picked him as a starting Mystling just so I wouldn't have to do it. I'd love to see that changed or possibly have an "or" Like "Deal 50 damage in a single hit or 500 damage total" or something like that.

[Kathrin Baka]

I feel like the elite battles in the run itself are sometimes too hard and the standard battles can be too easy after a certain point. There should be 2 more difficultys inbetween for the monster encounters.

The one Endboss which summons Ghost Mystlings is badly balanced since you cant win, unless you have the hook charakter or damage the back line first rune. If you have this it is super easy, if you don´t it is impossible to beat.

The difficulty for the runs are fine and manageable. It just needs like harder difficultys for the runs. Like difficulty 4 - 6 and each one having unique problems not just scaling up the damage monsters do.

The different tamers also increase or decrease the difficulty but I feel like 2 don´t really have a way of handling atm like the one that looses berrys per round feels impossible to pull off, same goes for the level up a rando and cant heal it. So at the moment I only have 2 tamers left to beat Stage 3.

[King Of Hell]

i beat first difficulty on my 1st run, 2nd on my 2nd run, but couldnt do 3rd that fast, after playing around with several builds there definitely are some broken ones and some subpar ones, overall i guess its ok, problem is lack of content imo, feels like there's not enough choice, most cards are samey, i'd love to see maybe double the character and monster amount and more interesting cards and bonuses overall, maybe another difficulty level too or 2. i unlocked everything in under 5 hours which seems a bit too fast

[Lame2Lame (Serpens)]

I find myself avoiding knock out and faint blessings, cause really they mostly seem pointless.

By the time you knock something out, you are either: A) out of energy or B) about to win anyways. The only attractive options to me are the one when you defeat 3 mistlings you gain 1 perma power and the extra mistberry one.

The faint mistling blessings would be useful if all mistlings autorevived and full healed after each battle, which would enable some facewalling strategies, otherwise it will just be relegated to a last ditch during the final boss fight.

Also the cards that attack or activate with mistling x times then faint mistling after, I would put them in super niche last ditch never pick tier. (They would legit be very useful if mistlings autorevived after each battle tho).

At this point I beat the summoner last boss on the first difficulty, also almost beat Umbra (I was only 1 action short of beating Umbra...).

I did not manage to beat the 200 hp golem elite yet in my few tries, also didnt meet other elite except golem yet at this point.

Also, Prowler not being able to evolve makes me a bit sad... didnt unlock any others yet.

Edit: I would not really say that the game is either too hard or too easy, honestly it just seems unbalanced at this point, some things should be harder and some things easier.

Edit: Basic attack should cost 1 energy, since attack and draw and attack and activate also costs 2 energy when you get them.

These points are only my personal opinion, no need to be upset if you disagree with me.

[Tolls]

Once i got the hang of it, i think it could use more difficultys . With that being said, i feel after you beat a run it should keep going. Right it fairly easy to beat almost every time. I have not done the hardest difficult yet.

[Polyurethane]

I've beaten all 3 difficulties only 4 hours into the game. Personally I think this game is in a very rough spot and needs quite a bit of balance.

Many of the elite and boss fights are conventionally too hard for most parties, but there are enough broken combos in the game that they can still be beaten. Take out the broken combos, and I don't think anything could really compete with difficulty 3.

Fights go 1 of two ways - you're either struggling to keep your life from dropping too quickly, or you're folding the enemies into origami. Bosses are similar - you either stomp the boss in one or two turns, or they overwhelm you with ridiculous damage (like 14x10) after a couple of turns.

Things that you should be very wary of when it comes to balance:

- 0 cost cards, especially ones that don't exhaust and let you draw.
- Energy Production
- Anything that doubles a scaling bonus (doubling a flat bonus is usually fine)
- Anything that doubles multiple times.
- Infinite combos.
- Abilities that remove drawbacks.

Right now, the game is rife with all of these (especially the 0 cost cards) and I think there's going to be a very long slow reckoning over early access over what kind of game this really wants to be. The result is in the higher difficulties you're either going to lose slowly because you picked wrong, or cut through the content likes it's butter. The challenging middle ground of fun in a game with compound scaling is razor thin, but then again some people don't really want a challenge.

IMHO;
- Anything that draws cards for free, produces energy, or doubles a bonus should exhaust.
- Infinite Combos should be nerfed or changed so they aren't possible. If they are really rare and hard to reproduce it might not need to be changed.
- I would limit the amount of double scaling bonuses in your game severely. For your game, I would limit them only to cards, and even then, only one card per effect.
- For abilities that remove drawbacks, avoid removing drawbacks that create infinite resources.

E.G. only losing half your strength seems fine, but if you're also doubling it at the end of the turn then you've completely eliminated the drawback and can now scale your strength infinitely. There are so many strength producing things in the game that you don't even need to double your strength for it to get out of hand really quickly.

[FedosFF]

Overall difficulty seems OK. You can not just jump into toughest enemies one after another on any difficulty. And you can complete the run on any difficulty with like any build that makes sense. I'd say there is some risk/reward problems with tier 2 and 3 fights on maximum difficulty.
Tier 2 problem is mostly the snake (abyssomething), which is stealing you resources each turn and makes average tier2 fight to be less rewarding than tier1, because on max difficulty difference in rewards between tier1 and 2 are neglected in about 1-2 turns, and on average it takes much more, and your losses are rarely compensated even by map objectives they guarding.
Tier 3 on max difficulty is like a joke, they are harder to beat than the final bosses, so you never need to challenge them unless for the challenge itself, again risk-reward of tier 3 is below the threshold where you can attack it and increase your chances to win the run.

And those problems of "too much risk, too little reward" of higher tier fights is multiplied by interest mechanic on mystberries, Because 1 mystberry from the start turns into 6,2 mystberries before the final fight (even without a bird, with her its 38 mystberries from 1). So you are forced to stay as weak is you can to survive, to be the best prepared for the final fight.

As the result - i strictly believe, that:
1) reward difference between t1-t2-t3 fights should be much-much higher than it is on max difficulty
2) t2 snake, stealing resources (abyssomething) probably should steal less (but could be OK if t2 fight will give you like 4-6 berries more then t1)
3) t3 fights on max difficulty shouldn't be as broken as they are
4) boss fights on max difficulty should be noticeably tougher (so you will be forced to take those high risk/high reward fights to win the run at the end)

[Taikei no Yuurei]

I feel like the hardest difficulty is too punishing on everyone but Maya. The fact that it takes 2 battles to even get enough to start considering getting your first blessing on everyone else is absolutely brutal. And if you do get a blessing after 'only' 2 battles, then you've just nuked your economy for the rest of the game while you were at it. This has a feedback loop effect, because if you don't get the blessings, you're not going to be able to take the fights that give good rewards, which in turn means you're going to fall even further behind economically, not to mention you're likely to be taking more damage as you go thanks to not having the power to close out fights a couple turns earlier. This damage in turn is compounded into bigger issues because then you have to pick between healing the damage and buying upgrades.

In short, the run can kind of be decided in how the first couple of fights go, and what sort of rewards you get out of them, at least on hard difficulty with everyone but Maya. She can still struggle in hard, but it is winnable, so I think that it is at a good point.

I feel like every character should start with 5 berries so that the owl-like mystling can contribute from the start, and you're guaranteed to be able to get a blessing or pick to save up to get a stronger economy going. I think that might be the little extra push they need at the start of the game (in hard mode) to transform it from grueling and seemingly impossible to hard but doable.

It's also possible I just haven't found the right combinations or figured out what sorts of things to prioritize, and that's where the wall is coming from.

I agree with others here that you might want to split up the difficulty so that there is something between normal and hard, because right now the jump is just too much.

The elite fights honestly feel on par with boss fights, particularly the solo golem guy, it is so insanely difficult to do enough damage to burn him down by turn 4 when he just wipes the field, much less sooner to prevent him killing or heavily wounding your back line mystlings. The one with 3 enemies is so much easier when you realize that killing the enemies with the end of turn mystling attacks/abilities means they loose the shield and strength before they can use it.

[tiamats4esgares]

I'll keep an eye on this game, but with only 3 difficulty levels, I won't be getting it yet. Wish more games had 20+ difficulty levels like Slay the Spire or Monster Train.

[Brauwan]

Totally depending n the luck you have getting your upgrades. I just won easy with my Glarexus totalling 178 753 power... (strengh x4 every turn).
Everyone can also adjust difficulty by the mystlings they choose at first.

[oro212]

I believe this game doesn't provide enough resources to make it enjoyable. This is the fundamental problem, but it's easily fixable. Building a deck is a crucial aspect of a game like this, and it should be fun and exciting. Currently, there's little you can do without relying on luck to build a winning deck. It's not impossible, just highly unlikely. The game should reward skill and strategy, not luck. Creating a good synergy should come from experience and knowledge, which is hard to develop with such limited resources.