It looks like you are not supposed to defeat the Corrupt Heart

[Flyboy Connor]

My big issue with the Corrupt Heart is that it takes very particular decks to defeat it. It seems to me that the joy of the game is in the deck-building: see what you can get and what different ways you can build a deck which wins the game for you. For the Corrupt Heart, however, only a very limited number of decks can defeat it, and your chances of building one are remote unless you aim specifically at building one particular optimized deck.

For instance, an Ironclad must rely on blocking, which means you need one Barricade, several Entrenches, lots of Body Slams, and only very small numbers of other cards (and if you have those other cards, they should be powers or Exhausts). In the fight against the Heart the Barricade must come out almost immediately.

That means that if you want to defeat the Heart, you cannot play the game using the mindset "let's see what I get to cobble together something that wins" but instead have to use the mindset "if I do not get the cards that I need specifically in the first Act, I better restart because I am never going to defeat the Heart without them."

In a game like this, it seems to me that "good play" should allow you to win 80% of the time. Until the Corrupt Heart was introduced, that was indeed the case. With the Corrupt Heart, the game becomes an exercise in "relying on the whims of the RNG." To me, that is not fun.

[Nakaruru]

引用自 jeron：

引用自 mtilsted：

And how exactly would you survive the 120 damage it give you, without block?

I am also very interested. Everybody here says "I did it with every character with random deck", and almost nobody shows proofs.

@Nakaruru above shows his IC run - and wow, I see there Barricarde, Entrench, Metallicize, and all that stuff.
Without heavy block or evasion Heart can't be defeated. Proove me wrong.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1587608886

decided to play another ascension 1 run after your comments, this is the result. No barricade, no entrench, no intangable from the event, even had a bad fight against the elite before the heart so I started at about half hp. corruption and feel no pains did the defensive work toward the end of the fight.

You say you need block or evasion for the fight and I kind of agree. But you have 50 floors to find some. Barricade + entrench is far from the only answer in the game.

[Zu]

Relevant sources of block that are not cards in this run since it's not obvious:

Did helix soak up a big attack for maximum value?
Did torii and clay ever give you more health than you lost from a multi-hit followed by a big one?

[Flyboy Connor]

I did defeat the Heart now with all three classes on Ascencion 0. The Ironclad took the most time: that was because I was looking for a typical block deck. The Silent I did with two or three tries with a surprising Shiv deck, which relied on Apparitions for defense. But the Defect was the most fun: I succeeded on that one with my first try, with a deck with virtually no defense in it. It relied completely on generating Lightning Orbs with Static Discharges. I got so many of those, combined with multiple Amplifies, that the Heart killed itself because with every hit it got hit back with something like 6 or 7 lightning bolts. That was a lucky break -- fun, but still lucky.

Still, it feels like there are two games here: one is where you simply try to defeat the Spire until the end of Act III, with whatever you get. The other is where you deliberately set out to defeat the Corrupt Heart, and accept that you lose if you do not manage to do that. In the second game, you will be on the lookout for cards like Caltrops, knowing full well that you just need it for the Xx12 attacks of the Heart.

There are multiple solutions for the dissatisfied feeling that you get when you do not manage to defeat the Corrupt Heart.

Solution I: At the end of Act III, after reaching the Heart, let the player choose between two doors: one door that leads out of the Spire, the other (locked without the three-colored key) leading to Act IV. That way players still feel that they achieved a small victory, even if they did not take on the ultimate challenge. It is a small change, but it is purely psychological.

Solution II: Introduce multiple variants of the Heart, just like there are three different bosses for the end of each act. That way, you are not forced to focus on one particular deck, and can just see if the deck you built works against THIS variant of the Heart.

Solution III: Allow the players to slightly change their deck at a cost before entering Act IV. For instance, the game could allow players to sell some of their Relics for half their original value, and use the gold gained to buy cards from the complete pool of cards, for a price which would normally be asked by the Shop (or maybe double that price). So a player has some way to mitigate the influence of the RNG, if it is withholding a particular card which the player feels they need for their strategy.

[jeron]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1587735539

LOL.
Just LOL.
It was supposed to be a kind of "I-dont-care" run, just "let's pick every strange thing I meet". Snecko Eye, Apparitions and Bites all gathered in Act 2.
And then somehow I defeated boss in act 2... and in act 3... and elites in act 4 with just 10 dmg received... and then defetead The Heart, even without reaching it's dmg cap – largely, it killed itself, hitting my spikes and flame barrier with "x12" attacks.

The main thing here is that I was so lucky with 3 "+max hp" relics – without them it was just 28 hp, and I would die when I didn't pull out Apparition against 4x12 attack. But still – LOL. After few dozens of tries...

[jeron]

引用自 Flyboy Connor：

There are multiple solutions for the dissatisfied feeling that you get when you do not manage to defeat the Corrupt Heart.

Solution I: At the end of Act III, after reaching the Heart, let the player choose between two doors: one door that leads out of the Spire, the other (locked without the three-colored key) leading to Act IV. That way players still feel that they achieved a small victory, even if they did not take on the ultimate challenge. It is a small change, but it is purely psychological.

Solution II: Introduce multiple variants of the Heart, just like there are three different bosses for the end of each act. That way, you are not forced to focus on one particular deck, and can just see if the deck you built works against THIS variant of the Heart.

Solution III: Allow the players to slightly change their deck at a cost before entering Act IV. For instance, the game could allow players to sell some of their Relics for half their original value, and use the gold gained to buy cards from the complete pool of cards, for a price which would normally be asked by the Shop (or maybe double that price). So a player has some way to mitigate the influence of the RNG, if it is withholding a particular card which the player feels they need for their strategy.

Solution II looks some strange, as for me, I and III are great.
Selling things is what this game really lacks. It would add a lot of variativity to deck building, it will prevent that frustrating feeling when you lack 3 coins to buy something very important for your run, and it will compensate that disappointment because of getting useless relics like Orange Pellets or Du-Vu Doll.

[Dalai Llama]

The final act needs some internal restructuring, that much is certain. The campfire is utterly useless unless you play on an ascencion level where your health is not restored after a boss & you managed to have trouble at the last boss (in which case good luck with the heart/elite fight). The shop is nearly entirely hit or miss, but I guess it is nice to restock on potions, or maybe get a lucky relic.

Speaking of relics: You do not get one after the act 3 boss I believe. Which is ironic, considering the harsh jump in difficulty thereafter, and the pain you already went through in order to get all 3 keys.

I personally like the idea of the 2 doors. Even if it just showed a picture of your character escaping to try again.

Also, I beat the game with the silent this time. I tried to go for a poison deck, but failed to secure any catalysts (RNG be praised) or even noxious fumes (until act 4), despite a lot of combats and shops. I did however get the spirit event for intangible again, and upgraded all of them again, which allowed me to suceed on a deck that is not capable of surviving 12x12 damage otherwise. I also had 3 footwork, but let us be honest, with the normal damage numbers the heart is throwing about, it hardly matters unless you have a cheese strategy like intangible or entrench + barricade.
I additionally became a vampire, giving me some self-heal that offsets taking 2 intangible attacks without block while dealing some damage. Max HP do not matter in the final bossfight anyway, so I decided that even with about 30 max HP, it'd be worth it - and it was. Another really lucky ? event.

http://prntscr.com/lt7kg8

I also managed to refine my idea of what the heart does: It does nothing new. It does, however, do everything you encountered so far, all at once, and much harder. Is that good or bad? Debateable. I'd argue it is bad because it is bland powercreep, turning the "oh damn, timeeater, that's gonna be fun" moment into a "ugh, yeah I cannot use this deck if I want to win act 4".

I was able to beat it with a sub-par deck because I got lucky with the ? events... again. So either you play hyper-defensive, or you need to get a very specific event and capitalize on it. And hyper-defensive is also dependant on card drops so... RNG does as RNG does.

I will maintain my metaphor of rolling 10 out of 20 rolls critical. And let us be honest, despite multiple deck types being possible, the game is already very punishing of certain builds and strategies. The heart just further limits the way you may build your deck, and as a result, your fun as a deck-builder.

[AshtinPeaks]

引用自 Flyboy Connor：

Solution II: Introduce multiple variants of the Heart, just like there are three different bosses for the end of each act. That way, you are not forced to focus on one particular deck, and can just see if the deck you built works against THIS variant of the Heart.

Cut it down for sake of longness and because I love solution I and III. I know in a mod they implemented selling relics, but it would be nice to see that in vanilla to be honest.

Solution II I have a slight problem with. It would need to be implemented very carefully I feel. It would suck it get a great deck but then yet shut down by a certain varient. I feel like this solution could be nice but it would need to be very carefully tinkered with and played with.

Edit: spelling

[Dusk_Army]

引用自 Fade_Away：

引用自 Flyboy Connor：

Solution II: Introduce multiple variants of the Heart, just like there are three different bosses for the end of each act. That way, you are not forced to focus on one particular deck, and can just see if the deck you built works against THIS variant of the Heart.

Cut it down for sake of longness and because I love solution I and III. I know in a mod they implemented selling relics, but it would be nice to see that in vanilla to be honest.

Solution II I have a slight problem with. It would need to be implemented very carefully I feel. It would suck it get a great deck but then yet shut down by a certain varient. I feel like this solution could be nice but it would need to be very carefully tinkered with and played with.

Edit: spelling

Perhaps take it as a logical extrapolation of the rest of the game: there are multiple possible bosses for Act IV, but you know which one you will be facing from the beginning of Act I or, if that's easy, from the moment you collect the third key? I mean, while we're brainstorming.

[Nakaruru]

引用自 Zu：

Relevant sources of block that are not cards in this run since it's not obvious:

Did helix soak up a big attack for maximum value?
Did torii and clay ever give you more health than you lost from a multi-hit followed by a big one?

I was able to bottle my one disarm which negated the first multi hit attack from the heart and yes the helix soaked the first big hit, I played to that exact setup from the start of the fight by making sure I had block to negate the damage per card for the first two rounds. I even skipped playing offering to keep the helix intact. Torii and clay helped some but honestly after the first cycle I was starting to use feel no pain and eventually corruption to block the majority of the damage from every attack, I think I took 30 or 40 damage the whole fight. The other key point was that I had a bottled demon form so I started scaling my damage from round one. Had sozu and burned all my potions before hand so no extra help there.

[jamesc70]

Finally beat it with the Ironclad in normal, but barely.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1588045800

And I'd say that is with a very good mix of cards and artifacts; a rare run. The extra healing at rest and boss fights was key. Being able to heal when starting the Heart and after the 2 Elites was huge (21? health). Entrench was also key (with flame barrier/ghostly/etc) to survive even up to the Heart.

[AshtinPeaks]

引用自 Dusk_Army：

引用自 Fade_Away：

Cut it down for sake of longness and because I love solution I and III. I know in a mod they implemented selling relics, but it would be nice to see that in vanilla to be honest.

Solution II I have a slight problem with. It would need to be implemented very carefully I feel. It would suck it get a great deck but then yet shut down by a certain varient. I feel like this solution could be nice but it would need to be very carefully tinkered with and played with.

Edit: spelling

Perhaps take it as a logical extrapolation of the rest of the game: there are multiple possible bosses for Act IV, but you know which one you will be facing from the beginning of Act I or, if that's easy, from the moment you collect the third key? I mean, while we're brainstorming.

After collecting third key would be actually pretty sweet. Adds a risk/reward for. Collecting early.

[Marcmaz]

引用自 Flyboy Connor：

For instance, an Ironclad must rely on blocking, which means you need one Barricade, several Entrenches, lots of Body Slams, and only very small numbers of other cards (and if you have those other cards, they should be powers or Exhausts). In the fight against the Heart the Barricade must come out almost immediately.

I beat the Corrupt Heart with nearly no blocking on the Ironclad on my first try, just straight up full damage from double demon form, heavy blow, and pummel.


But the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Silent is killing me.

[Nik]

引用自 Marcmaz：

引用自 Flyboy Connor：

For instance, an Ironclad must rely on blocking, which means you need one Barricade, several Entrenches, lots of Body Slams, and only very small numbers of other cards (and if you have those other cards, they should be powers or Exhausts). In the fight against the Heart the Barricade must come out almost immediately.

I beat the Corrupt Heart with nearly no blocking on the Ironclad on my first try, just straight up full damage from double demon form, heavy blow, and pummel.


But the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Silent is killing me.

You NEED Footwork+ as Silent or u ded. Maybe even 2x Footwork+.

[AshtinPeaks]

引用自 No_Nickname_Idea：

引用自 Marcmaz：

I beat the Corrupt Heart with nearly no blocking on the Ironclad on my first try, just straight up full damage from double demon form, heavy blow, and pummel.


But the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Silent is killing me.

You NEED Footwork+ as Silent or u ded. Maybe even 2x Footwork+.

Techincally apparitions may not make you need footworks

[Nik]

引用自 Fade_Away：

引用自 No_Nickname_Idea：

You NEED Footwork+ as Silent or u ded. Maybe even 2x Footwork+.

Techincally apparitions may not make you need footworks

You need the event tho so it's not reliable.