The game is trivially easy

[Muu]

That is to say:
- The game advertises itself as a roguelite
- The game expects you to lose multiple runs to reach the end, implying that harder difficulties are not 'casual gameplay, but you have to think'
- For a player starting out, who is about to invest at least an entire day to playing one run of the game, the most difficult option the player has (Matus, Harder/200% difficulty), the game is trivially easy and there is no option to make the game harder.

But I hear you say, 'what about the other elders? What about challenge mode?' I don't have access to those from the beginning and even afterwards I have not unlocked any of the elders, and the mastery/challenge mode remains mostly locked demanding I beat runs over and over again to get it higher.

There's a lot to love about this game but this is absolutely ridiculous. I'm sure once upon a time the game was more of a roguelite but there's so much now that there's no way you could ever call it that. In fact, in every single 'roguelite' game I've ever played, if you do somehow beat the game on the first run (which is odd, but not necessarily indicative of not being a roguelite, dicey dungeons is like this for example) you at least have the option to play another character by the end of it.

Seriously, where do I go from here. I just keep playing Matus in challenge mode? But if I'm making the game harder, that means I can't just skip through turns and go at it at a high speed, so I'm stuck playing slowly. Or do I just pick an easy difficulty and spam end turns to farm points? That doesn't seem right. I get that there's some variation so future playthroughs will be different + extra options I've now unlocked but that alone is hard to justify such a long run time.

I don't know. help

[kory]

The game starts out easy, sure, Is that unusual? Plenty of games do. The unlocks are a bit slow, but I enjoy the game enough to keep playing, do you? If you do, great, keep playing, if you don't what are you here for?

[Catman]

Matus harder is far from trivially easy, as most players can tell. However. This is a game that rewards strategic thinking a lot, so difficulty is highly subjective, and some players can win their first run (it's rare, however)

The game is designed to have roughly one and a half run to get the first new elder, as that's what usually happens. Hard mode gives more points so I think you should pretty close to the Shaman? Especially if you play after the last update which increases points.

There is also an option to unlock memories more quickly.

Challenge mode is where additional difficulty is. I'd suggest playing a few turns to unlock the shaman and maybe temporarily reduce the unlock point cost to reach that and then go from there with a Shaman Harder run

[DsnowMan]

Try to get the "village of ants" achievement for Matus on Harder (or challenge mode) while you wait to unlock other elders. NOT trivially easy.

[Muu]

To put it simply, if I have to do the same thing over and over, not because I lost and I'm trying to win and reach the ending, but because I won too hard and the game didn't want to reward me for winning, something's wrong.
So even if it's enjoyable, it stops being enjoyable once the reward for success is diminished and all I'm supposed to do is grind points.
I really shouldn't be at the point of doing weird achievement/challenge runs after just the first run when there's supposed to be more content, but going for the 10 pip population achievement does sound like the fastest way to play and probably more fun than just grinding. (I'm certain it's impossible on Harder difficulty though, not with what I have now / without RNG manipulation)

Rather than a toggle for 'give me more unlocks please' it'd make sense to automatically unlock up to the next milestone if you beat the game if you haven't reached it yet, since it would give more meaning to winning and prevent this grind.

Also I'm just saying, if there's been a major update and a new player is finding the game way too easy and not getting to experience all the game has to offer (such as pips dying, disasters, dealing with ailments and all of that) then you should double check that something didn't break the game's balance horribly. I definitely did not play perfectly (I didn't even research flower fields so that sucked when I realized hippies needed it) and I didn't get super good boons either (the one I got for the apocalypse didn't even do anything) so... If the game isn't broken, I guess I'm just a really good accountant?? I do like spreadsheets and I really do appreciate the prophecy/planning ahead mechanics the game has.

yeah, maybe I'll do a 10 pip run if I have time, though the game is pretty time consuming and I've gotta get work done. aa

[Catman]

I have a question: did you spend the memory points during the run, or wait for the end? Because winning at that difficulty should have given you enough points unless you reached the cap and did not spend any (I am thinking of moving that cap later on instead to avoid such issue, if that is the issue)

[Manxome]

Originally posted by Catman:

I have a question: did you spend the memory points during the run, or wait for the end? Because winning at that difficulty should have given you enough points unless you reached the cap and did not spend any (I am thinking of moving that cap later on instead to avoid such issue, if that is the issue)

If the cap is small enough that you can realistically exceed it from a single run's worth of points, I would say that is definitely too low. I think players definitely should not be required to spend points during a run just to avoid losing them.

And if you absolutely need to set that cap that low for some reason, then you at least need an extremely obvious warning when the player is in danger of losing points; one that even a new player couldn't possibly miss.

I think the fact that you even have to ask that question is already an indication that something has gone rather wrong.

[Catman]

It's to confirm a suspicion. As I said, I already want to move it, but having feedback is always welcome.

[Muu]

Originally posted by Catman:

I have a question: did you spend the memory points during the run, or wait for the end? Because winning at that difficulty should have given you enough points unless you reached the cap and did not spend any (I am thinking of moving that cap later on instead to avoid such issue, if that is the issue)

I spent it throughout the run, with a slight delay after reaching 'protests' since that seems like it'd just add unavoidable random events that I also would have to build something to cure. I did eventually buy it. (I never saw any though, because when you have a good run you just don't really get negative effects and don't see a large portion of the game, which is kind of the problem here)

There doesn't seem to be any way to spend memory points after finishing a game so I guess I'll start another game real quick to spend memory points, which it feels like I shouldn't have to do that and I should be able to access it from the menu before starting a run, but here we go...

Wait. I have to spend it DURING the run? I pressed the option that said to end the run after I 'won' rather than continue, so it dumpstered all my points that I got from winning? I'm loading up the game now to double-check.

[Muu]

Oh, okay. I have 109 points now, despite ending the run with 22 points (if I remember right). Where the hell did all these points come from?
I can purchase the next elder but it's really weird that I have to start up a run and then go into the menu just to access the memories and unlock more stuff, the memory tab isn't even on the side when I start a new run it's just in the menu.

I don't think it's a problem then, but the game should show that you got 80 memory points for winning. I had fast (but not the fast-er) end turn enabled but I don't think that should've affected it since all it seems to do is make pips run around faster.

I should probably pick the 'fast' game option next time so the game doesn't take so long.

(by the way, if not for the 80 bonus, I would've needed just over 40 more points to unlock the shaman and the diverging paths, or 20-ish if I unlocked the shaman and skipped a choice)

[Catman]

Picking fast is a good idea if you can handle it, as it can be a bit more tight (not exactly more difficult, but you have less turns to react... So it is less forgiving)

The game shows the points as the run ends, but the animation could be a bit more clear on that (the points rise after you get your score, but it could be more blingy!)

You can use memory points in the "current story" menu, as the "start run" is already pretty tight with space, but you can go to the current story menu by clicking back from that one and then go to memories! It's not perfect, but yeah the menu was subject to yesrs of iterations and some of it is a bit.... Legacy code I guess

[Catman]

Do note that you can see most of the elements even if you do not have a bad event, as omens use all the mechanics. Of course you would not see ALL events and some of the fun ones are only bad events, but they usually are fun as in "everybody is on fire" fun

[Muu]

That's true, I feel I've seen most or all of the effects (that aren't unlocked later), but it barely impacts gameplay. It's nice to get a feel of "this is what could happen if you weren't doing so well", but...
They're never enough to make you break out of having a well-managed stockpile and go into having a bad event or two and having to recover. You'd think that if I have only one herbalist and an omen vanishes the herbalist the moment an apocalypse event is coming up that it'd cause me problems, but it doesn't.

I mentioned somewhere "make it so on the hardest difficulty, if you have even 1% chance of a bad event, it becomes 100%, and all events are deadly" but maybe the problem is that omen just aren't strong enough on harder difficulties. I assume the only major difference with harder difficulties is how much threat the domains generate.

(I'm going to go play Shaman now with harder + faster so we'll see if my opinions change)

[Muu]

Wait, I think I get it now.

Is the whole game just balanced around playing Fast? Harder+Faster feels like what you'd expect from the hardest (non-custom) difficulty and offsets the long play duration.
It makes a lot more sense like this, because the faster play makes it more suitable for being a multi-run roguelike sort of game. I'm finally getting failed events / deaths / restarts, and while I can say "I had to restart because I didn't realize I needed to start near a stone resource for Shaman / in case you get the springs" that's kind of how the hardest (non-custom) difficulty should be.

If you can get the achievements for beating the hardest difficulties by just extending the playtime that seems a little silly, but it's not like it matters if other people want to play differently. I'll just keep playing on Fast.

[DsnowMan]

Originally posted by Muu:

Is the whole game just balanced around playing Fast? Harder+Faster feels like what you'd expect from the hardest (non-custom) difficulty and offsets the long play duration.

Good and bad news about this. The game was NOT balanced around Fast, when it first came out there was only Normal speed.

But, I agree with you, Harder-Fast is the best way to play this game for experienced strategy players. A tight game full of interesting choices, where if you miss one thing it CAN kill your run (although there are often ways to claw back).

[Muu]

Originally posted by DsnowMan:

Originally posted by Muu:

Is the whole game just balanced around playing Fast? Harder+Faster feels like what you'd expect from the hardest (non-custom) difficulty and offsets the long play duration.

Good and bad news about this. The game was NOT balanced around Fast, when it first came out there was only Normal speed.

But, I agree with you, Harder-Fast is the best way to play this game for experienced strategy players. A tight game full of interesting choices, where if you miss one thing it CAN kill your run (although there are often ways to claw back).

Good to hear. I just finished a run with Shaman on fast / harder and it delivers everything the game promised. The apocalypse felt like an apocalypse, all sorts of mechanics that I never saw before start to come up and I have to actually reset runs (usually right at the start because I have to work out new unexpected things like mountain springs or peace tents but sometimes mid-run) and by the end I'm left wondering if I've lost or not and making it by only a thin margin. I still made mistakes I could improve on but I'm happier that it isn't overly punishing, that can be saved for Challenge.

There are some problems with the game not being balanced around Fast (expecting you to have advanced tools by the first winter for example, or the fact you can try and go for Bakery as your winter strategy only to be suddenly told you aren't allowed to do that by the cows) but I've already complained about that elsewhere and it seems the dev is active and working on those sorts of issues.