High Peak Castle help & Rant

[Nerdmigo]

I got to the High Peak Castle today,which was at least what i though, a pretty decent run.
Long story short: i went into the red door, and died in about 1 second with almost full health.
(I did video editing today at work with a lot of 3 second parts, they felt like an eternity against this)

So my quesiton? 1 second ? Really MotionTwin? Is that how its going down? :D
Just kidding...#salt

Actual questions:
Whats the difference between the blue, green and red doors?
Why did i die so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fast, i had a really good amount of upgrades and a good distribution... also the 30+ health mutation... any hints?
Should i avoid the red door? I know i need 2 keys for the HToK which i have reached twice in my 60 runs so far (i suck i know, dont bother)

Congrats to MotionTwin, its the only rogue-like i own, and it will absolutely stay that way, i hate the genre, but DeadCells is amazing. Still think the difficulty is a bit op.. but i again, i suck in those souls-like-difficulty games..

[Fel]

Each colour leads to a different elite "mini boss" room, each drop a single key and you only need 2 out of the 3 keys to progress (the third leads to a treasure room with a hard to reach blueprint on top of other things).

The red door is arguably the most dangerous of the three, with a double boss that hits incredibly hard and fast, so most people avoid it unless they want to reach the treasure room.

That said, all three of these mini bosses are really dangerous, and depending on your gear it might sometimes be less dangerous to go to the red door compared to the slasher (I never remember which door he is in).


The reason you die so fast is because the more stat scrolls you pick up, the stronger your enemies become as well, which isn't that much of a problem when you are good at avoiding taking hits (because it lets you vaporize your enemies much faster as well), but for newer players it can become an unsurmountable wall.

The "recommended" meta build is to get 8-7-13 in your stats, and preferably green gear.
That build makes your damage pretty low, but it also makes your enemies hit for the lowest portion of your health.
(they gain 8% attack and health per scroll, those stats are the tipping point before you earn less health than that).

It is usually good to play around with that build or something similar for a while as it lets you get more familiar with the enemies when they can't remove 3/4 of your health in a single hit (you are less stressed about having to dodge everything so it's easier to learn rather than die and be frustrated), and slowly transition to other builds that suit your style better when you are more used to each zone and each enemy.

[Nerdmigo]

Hey Fel, thanks for the help, i think i am doing reasonably well with doging, but i think i had less then 8-7-13 scrolls, just less in general.. distribution kind of similar ...i think 8-7-9 or something like that?

I am going to remember to avoid the red door... but.. its really kind of op because in the other stages there are those elite shrines, where you know you get an elite, and my gear and build up to that point was absolutely well enough for those.. but suddenly High Peak Castle comes along bam dead, run ruined and i dont know exactly why..

So i also understand MotionTwin because the game in itself has not much content, in fact.. its a bit tiny.. except for the gear.. so they needed to make it though.. seems logical to me.

[Fel]

Each zone has a "enemy level" stat on top of powering up with your scrolls, sepulcher is at 15-17, clock tower is at 16-18, but there is a sudden massive jump when you enter the castle at 22-24.

You could see it as having skipped a full zone or two, so the increase is significantly more noticeable than anything else prior to that.

I'm not sure it's to gate the content, but it definitely takes a while to get used to the castle.

My tip would be to remember that you have two powers on top of two weapons, so making full use of that is the way to safely clear the caslte (and the boss after it).

When you start to make more "power builds" (most of the stats in a single one like 20-4-5 or 3-2-25), both your weapons and powers of that colour will be strong enough to quickly destroy your enemies (at the cost of taking even more damage from any hit you don't avoid), so things like relying on traps to do the work or bombing everything become viable as well.

[Nerdmigo]

Sometimes i get to the High Peak Castle, sometimes i just die before the Black Bridge..
And its really good too, because as a developer your game doesnt need to be long.
Just make it hard!

[Spitfyre37]

Originally posted by retroChris:

i suck in those souls-like-difficulty games..

So flipping glad I'm not the only one struggling against this game. I've played 120 runs and I've made it to High Peak Castle... twice. And I still have yet to meet the Hand of the King. :( I like to think of myself as a fairly skilled player of games, (My qualification for that is that I've beaten NKG in Hollow Knight) but for whatever reason I cannot succeed in this game. Its a shame too, since the game itself looks awesome and feels great to control. I just suck really bad. I would really appreciate advice, if anyone has it.

[Fel]

As someone that sucked as well, I can say that for me it was mostly trying out all weapons and just having fun with it, along with trying out mods like 2, 4 or 10 times enemies and loot level that made me progress.

Those mods are pretty hard if you can't avoid taking hits, so you will be "forced" to learn not to dive mindlessly into enemy groups and learn how and when to use the various powers and weapons, but at the same time because the gear you get is higher level you will still have fun going on a rampage even in the first zone.
If you vary the things you are using (down to even what stat you are going to use as your "main"), you can continue to have fun without minding rarely reaching late zones.
Add in trying out the daily challenges (most of them are doable if you take a few runs to learn the layout and the boss is not a problem), and you will notice when you think to yourself "let's do a normal run trying to get far-ish for once" that you will be able to more reliably go further than you could previously.

It is all based on enjoying the base gameplay and being willing to try out a bit of everything, and it's not like you are missing that much content by not beating the castle and the hand of the king.

[Schaubbit]

Honestly, i enjoy the red door the most because the elites are in a pool of blood/water. If you use an ice attack with the water it will freeze them in place. Always avoid the blue door, thats where the slasher lives.... The slasher will stun lock and 3 hit you. Its pretty ridiculous. The green door is meh, just time your rolls right or use wolf traps.

[PhilkIced]

In my experience going full on one stat is way better than 8-7-13, I usually go like 25-5-5 and I'm currently trying to beat 2bc.

In 2 bc everything 2~3 shots you to death instantly no matter your hp and if you don't go full glass cannon you are going to take hits.

A dead enemy can't hit you, go full damage and kill them so fast they can't attack at all.

[Tofystedeth]

Originally posted by Schaubbit:

Honestly, i enjoy the red door the most because the elites are in a pool of blood/water. If you use an ice attack with the water it will freeze them in place. Always avoid the blue door, thats where the slasher lives.... The slasher will stun lock and 3 hit you. Its pretty ridiculous. The green door is meh, just time your rolls right or use wolf traps.

Wolf traps can trivialize all the elites in those rooms. If you have a way to reliably get crits, like assassin dagger, swift sword, oil + frost shards etc, you can trap them and then stab them in the back from perfect safety. I'm still doing normal mode, but they all died well before the trap wore off.