Dying A Lot

[Germanic Tigress]

Is it normal? Also the story keeps progressing despite that I have literally only been able to clear the first caelipo caves area. Like the game is really beating me up and it's always out of the blue like a trap that's obscured behind a wall in the middle of combat or just outright getting overwhelmed. Maybe I'm not playing the game right and I know I definitely am not good at this sort of 2d game generally. Usually I'm better at arpg's but this is really beating me up. I think part of it has to do with the keyboard movement while I'm used to mouse movement for this genre. I just am trying not to get frustrated since I love literally everything else about the game, the music, the style, the story thus far, the narration. I don't have a problem with the combat exactly, I just suck. It also feels a little unresponsive sometimes like ability usage not queuing up when I press the button or john refusing to block sometimes for a brief moment unless I'm holding completely still.

[Germanic Tigress]

Literally can't beat the double bosses. Never have enough dodge charges. If I focus on dodging I die from attrition and not being able to damage them enough. Also they're immune to stun so mark's ability is next to useless. Just get piledrived to death if I actually fight since you can't do micro movements to dodge it seems. Like you have to be nowhere near the model to actually not get hit. Also dodging doesn't give iframes apparently?

[Kozhan]

You have enough charges to dodge as Mark, if you stay close to them and move as they attack, you don't even need to dodge.
You said you are not good on this kind of games, so it's you the problem, not that you lack of charges or something, just try until you do it. Or improve the level of the family and the upgrades on Ben and Margaret.

[Germanic Tigress]

I'm just having a rough time. I just get hit too much by everything. I just don't get how you're supposed to dodge everything or get an attack in on some enemies. Like ogres with the club seem almost impossible to fight in melee. The only way I've managed is to run behind them as they're winding up to hit them once or twice, but even that just isn't enough most of the time because I'll still get hit once, and if I don't have a regen passive of some kind I'm now out of 30-45 health...

[Kozhan]

And that's how you need to play the game. Even if you have 1 HP left, you regen to a certain threshold (i don't know if it's 15% or how much). The big goblins, ogres or whetever, you fight 'em like that, 1 or 2 hits and back, use you skills too, they are far more powerful than you might think, and use the traps in your advantage too.

[alpasy]

I have this advice for you. Melee characters in this game are very dependent on upgrade levels (health/dodge + DPS, don't forget DPS! dead enemies can't damage you). If you have less upgrades than "needed" by a dungeon level, your melee guys will just slowly bleed on your run, since it's very hard to evade all enemy attacks perfectly. It's especially evident between the acts (different cellar doors).

For the game to be less frustrating in these times, just choose Linda (archer). With a little practice (and stamina-skill investment) Linda can kite her enemies almost forever, staying out of range from enemy attacks. The bosses are still hard (depends on a boss), but you can farm gold for much needed upgrades so your other melee guys will be stronger, and suddenly you'll discover that they can kill stuff very efficiently too, even facetank bosses. Usually i needed a couple of runs with Linda to meet the boss and get enough upgrades for future progress. Story and random events during your runs will ensure that they won't feel like grinding.

In the end, if you reach max upgrades, the game becomes just too easy even on hard difficulty (so don't max them before the final boss or you could be dissapointed a bit).

Also i found Joey (the hammer guy) to be easier than other melee characters, since his range is enormous melee-wise. Lucy could be a good ranged alternative, but she's tricky because she can't kite like Linda does, and her mirror spell drains mana too much.

P.S. You are supposed to evade attacks of big ogres with a club. Depending on direction of your evade and timing it's totally doable. I doubt you can block their attack with a John's shield, since that drains stamina — and the more stamina needed for more damage blocked — and their attack hit very hard, so i think it will still damage you even if you are full on stamina. Just evade it right into his club when he's about to swing, even John's got one evade charge. Usually it's all that's needed.

[Germanic Tigress]

Originally posted by alpasy:

I have this advice for you. Melee characters in this game are very dependent on upgrade levels (health/dodge + DPS, don't forget DPS! dead enemies can't damage you). If you have less upgrades than "needed" by a dungeon level, your melee guys will just slowly bleed on your run, since it's very hard to evade all enemy attacks perfectly. It's especially evident between the acts (different cellar doors).

For the game to be less frustrating in these times, just choose Linda (archer). With a little practice (and stamina-skill investment) Linda can kite her enemies almost forever, staying out of range from enemy attacks. The bosses are still hard (depends on a boss), but you can farm gold for much needed upgrades so your other melee guys will be stronger, and suddenly you'll discover that they can kill stuff very efficiently too, even facetank bosses. Usually i needed a couple of runs with Linda to meet the boss and get enough upgrades for future progress. Story and random events during your runs will ensure that they won't feel like grinding.

In the end, if you reach max upgrades, the game becomes just too easy even on hard difficulty (so don't max them before the final boss or you could be dissapointed a bit).

Also i found Joey (the hammer guy) to be easier than other melee characters, since his range is enormous melee-wise. Lucy could be a good ranged alternative, but she's tricky because she can't kite like Linda does, and her mirror spell drains mana too much.

P.S. You are supposed to evade attacks of big ogres with a club. Depending on direction of your evade and timing it's totally doable. I doubt you can block their attack with a John's shield, since that drains stamina — and the more stamina needed for more damage blocked — and their attack hit very hard, so i think it will still damage you even if you are full on stamina. Just evade it right into his club when he's about to swing, even John's got one evade charge. Usually it's all that's needed.

While I'm fine with playing Linda periodically, I don't want to use her as a crutch, especially since I've had terrible luck bossing with her for some reason and have also just found her rather bland thus far due to never truly being in real danger against most enemies thus far. I'm willing to play her a bit obviously as is the game mechanic, but I just don't enjoy ranged much in most games, so I'm trying to limit the playtime of her. Maybe using her to learn enemy movements/abilities as first time runs just because she is so safe generally.

Also I do evade the attacks of the ogres like that, but a single dodge point is nowhere near enough to kill the ogre. Usually on John it's going to take a good 7+ swings with where I am right now, granted I can block a single hit if I mess up the run behind motion. The key is to not get greedy and to run behind after a single attack to ensure having enough time. Or at least it seems that way.

Kevin feels good to boss with and terrible to clear with for the record. If I played coop, he'd be amazing for consistently killing the boss and taking out single big enemies. Really struggle to get past a floor or two with him though since I always end up getting hit a little too much and healing items just do not seem to ever drop for him like they do Mark and John.

[Kozhan]

You should play with all to unlock family traits, it will make things easier.

[Germanic Tigress]

Originally posted by Kozhan:

You should play with all to unlock family traits, it will make things easier.

I have been, just not that far in yet. From what I've seen the early game grind is the part where the game loses the most players and has the most issues, so I'm willing to stick it out and do my best to git gud. Thanks for the tips.

[alpasy]

You could use her just to get those couple of upgrade levels your melee guys are missing to not die all the time, and go back to them. Especially considering that this game is meant to be played by all the heroes simultaneously (one after another) — all of them got several useful group skills, and you get corruption when you play the same hero over and over again. Also they finally added personal quests, although i didn't see those myself yet.

Linda is objectively bad at the very first Spider boss only, since he fills the floor with slowing webs, spawns 2 ranged spiders (bad for her aoe-skill) and jumps on you constantly (so you have to move all the time). I didn't have much boss problems with her afterwards.

But the choice is yours, of course. I just wanted to say that dying a lot is kinda normal here, it just means you lack certain level of workshop upgrades most likely.

[alpasy]

Kevin is a blast at clearing floors as well, you just need to always keep moving so his attack bonus doesn't wear off. And, yes, he needs good dodge % and DPS to not just die on mobs.

With ogres you are supposed to evade their swing attack, get back to hitting them, and then evade again when they swing again and so on. It gets easier, when your DPS is higher, so you usually kill them after just 1 evade. But it's possible to evade-hit-evade-hit and so on.

[Scaring The Crow]

Yes its normal. Eventually you will unlock Mark and Joey and with them the levels should be super easy.

[KongFury81]

you die a LOT in the begining, by the time you beat the spider boss you should feel relative easy, until the last map and you die a lot again ....

[Germanic Tigress]

Originally posted by alpasy:

You could use her just to get those couple of upgrade levels your melee guys are missing to not die all the time, and go back to them. Especially considering that this game is meant to be played by all the heroes simultaneously (one after another) — all of them got several useful group skills, and you get corruption when you play the same hero over and over again. Also they finally added personal quests, although i didn't see those myself yet.

Linda is objectively bad at the very first Spider boss only, since he fills the floor with slowing webs, spawns 2 ranged spiders (bad for her aoe-skill) and jumps on you constantly (so you have to move all the time). I didn't have much boss problems with her afterwards.

But the choice is yours, of course. I just wanted to say that dying a lot is kinda normal here, it just means you lack certain level of workshop upgrades most likely. :ninja:

Still dying on everyone including linda in the desert. The stupid boss dashes too often to dodge out of the way after half health. Really wish there was an easy mode for this game since I'm losing interest in the gameplay. I just want the story at this point. It's endearing but I suck too much at 2d games to complete this. It's just going to be a long grind til I oneshot everything, far from fun. Really getting frustrated now. Already tired of grinding and despite focusing gold income and xp just doesn't feel good. I know I suck at roguelikes but I feel like I'm being screwed by both rng and my lack of ability to play roguelikes. Also zero iframes on dodge feels retardedly terrible and nonsensical.

[Kozhan]

You always have enough dashes to dodge every boss attack, except with John that only has 1 (and still you should be able to dodge most of the bosses attacks or just block them). So yes, it seems that the main problem here is that you're not good enough (and please, don't take it bad, not every game is for everyone, i usually suck at online FPS and i'm ok with that). I guess you need to grind so you can faceroll them or just improve by playing.
Remember to use your Rage, with Linda especially you attack that fast that you usually melt enemies before they can do anything. Remember too as i said on another post too that once you are low HP, it regens to a certain threshold, so you should just keep running in circles.

[BeEr_MaStEr]

Friend it's a RPG -Roguelike game. You can’t just go in and go through everything at once. It all depends on the leveling, and not only damage, hp, etc., but also a decrease in the cooldown of skills and so on. You also need to play all the characters equally to unlock family traits. The game has difficulty only at the beginning, you can fully pump all the skills on NG, and then on NG + continue to pump to the maximum without any problems at all.