Sorry, but I really don't get it !

[No One]

I like card games, this one has overwhelmingly positive reviews, with people having spend 1000h+ on it, so I'm sure that many people really enjoyed it and I thought I'd love this game myself, but I can't help but find it extremely boring.

Here is how I see it : you start with a terribly boring deck, and when finally you start having a deck that is not completely boring after what looks like an eternity (just by pure luck, since most of the deckbuilding seems random to me anyway), you die and you have to start again from scratch, with the boring deck... Maybe, if there were a way to skip the first 20-30 min of the run, I might find it fun, but as is it, really, I don't see why it's so popular.

What am I missing ? Could someone tell me what they find fun in it ?

[Zu]

Try draft or sealed deck in custom mode.

[Khor]

Mechanics-wise, there`s WAY better stuff out there.

StS is considered "good" because it`s very polished
and with that polish comes the fact that the game can be played at a "competitive level" where your skill matters for winrates.

If you don`t enjoy that kind of gameplay, yep, draft/sealed is an option, but you'd probably want to try some of the newer "Spirelikes"


Also, some of us have 1000+ hours because, simply put, few years back there wasn`t much else of this kind

[⭕TheSodaman]

I initially did not think I would like Slay the Spire due to not having some type of carry over progress other than just a few unlocks, being light on story, or light on characters.

Then I ended up playing a game like Nova Drift (rogue-like Asteroids with dozens of way to build) and discovered I was largely driven by the possibility of "what could be" more than story or characters, though the latter definitely drives me.

And so Slay the Spire, the "what could be" factor of a given class or a given run drove me. And while I knew that every 40~60 minutes on this game could be one hour to progressing toward completion of another game, seeing what synergies could come together for a deck to clear at least Act 3 with any consistency (first goal since Act 4, Ascensions, or achievements are another story).

But I also realize this game is not for everyone. And some players genuinely enjoy building and customizing their deck with a bit more control, preserving the deck between runs, and/or having something else to show for their time spent in a PvE game. e.g. maybe closer to Magic the Gathering (I am assuming the electronic version is similar to the physical version minus having buy random packs of cards and keeping an eye out at local hobbyist gaming hubs / comic book stores or pockets of players scattered across the city to trade. Where you build a deck and start with that deck over and over again.)

[Nibbie]

Sounds like you may be new to the Roguelike genre. The idea of roguelike games is to start with a basic, fairly weak kit, and find random powerups during your run to make you strong enough to beat the random encounters and win a run. Each run is fairly short, usually less than an hour, so dying and retrying over and over isn't as punishing. A lot of the fun of roguelikes comes from successfully combining the random stuff you are given in a way that works. God runs where everything comes together can happen, and you can revel in your power, or you can get a run where nothing comes together how you want and you have to struggle every step of the way, and celebrate that you made it against all odds.

For Slay the Spire specifically, your choices matter a lot more than most roguelikes, giving you a lot of control over how your runs go despite so much about them being random. Most roguelikes are action games, where you can beat a bad run with mechanical skill alone. Slay the Spire being a card game, you can't dodge the automaton's laser, you have to not only play well during that fight, but every fight before it to maintain your health, as well as pick cards that allow you to beat those fights without losing too much health, pick a path that lets you get as strong as possible without dying, pick options in events and shops that maximize your chance of winning, and so on.

As mentioned above, there are other modes of play as well. For example, there is an endless mode where you keep looping, so runs don't end as soon as you get powerful like you feel. There is also a mode where you draft your starting deck, and a daily challenge that often changes your deck in weird ways, like starting with all rare cards.

[Yojo0o]

The ideas at play here are that it's a deckbuilder and a roguelike. The deckbuilder genre, popularized by Dominion, is very different from TCGs like Magic: The Gathering and similar. You start with a base deck of weak cards, and need to find ways to gather strong cards that synergize, ideally while also removing weak starter cards from you deck as well. STS combines this with the Roguelike genre.

With a selection of one of three cards each time you complete a basic fight and many other ways to get selections of cards, luck is present but not nearly as significant as you might think starting out. Attempting to force a specific strategy from the start could fail due to luck since you aren't guaranteed a specific card, but broadly speaking you ccan and will find synergies and strategies as you go to make your deck more coherent than just a pile of hopefully decent cards.

It ultimately may not be for you, but those of us who do enjoy the game find the replayability to be huge, and the challenge to be satisfying as hell. What's unfortunate here is that you're writing off those early stages as "boring". The game is a deckBUILDER, and if you're not going to have a fun time building a deck, you're likely not going to have a fun time with the game as a whole.

[No One]

Thanks for all the answers. I guess I'll give it some more tries.

I'm not new to roguelikes (I like some of them, like FTL, btw), but most of them allow you to keep a (small) advantage from your precedent runs, and the start is not so slow/boring.

Here, having a really successful run or a completely failed one feels the same, there is virtually no impact - yes, ok, you might unlock a card that now you have 1% chance to find, and, if you actually find, has like a 5% chance to work well with the other cards you might have found during the run.

Plus the start of the runs are so slow... I just can't derive any fun from the first 10-20 minutes. Having to "pay" 10-20 minutes of tedium just to have a chance to have fun for another 10-20 minutes seems a very bad deal in a game to me.

At least i'll try the draft and sealed modes, they seem more fun indeed.
Thanks again everyone.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Originally posted by No One:

(just by pure luck, since most of the deckbuilding seems random to me anyway)

Think I found your problem. It's not luck. Good players can easily attain a 100% winrate on the lowest difficulty. The highest difficulty, which I assume you're not playing yet, is a massive jump up from that and yet there are top players who can do very well on that too.

Maybe you're getting too hung up on trying to make a specific combo work and getting upset you didn't find the right pieces for it. One of the first lessons Spire tries to teach you is that you have to adapt to what you have now, not what you hope might show up later. It's only luck if you try to rely on luck, don't do that. This is not a gambling game.

Really, the fact that this game heavy punishes that kind of speculative play is what I love most about it. I've played a lot of games where it does just feel like it all comes down to finding a lucky combo that can carry you, but there is (almost, coughcorruptiondeadbranchcoughrushdowninfinitecough) no such thing as getting carried in Spire. In fact you can't lean on a single strategy at all, you need to build a well rounded deck to succeed at high difficulties.

Originally posted by No One:

I'm not new to roguelikes (I like some of them, like FTL, btw), but most of them allow you to keep a (small) advantage from your precedent runs, and the start is not so slow/boring.

Those are roguelites, not roguelikes. Honestly a bastardization of the genre if you ask me, the whole point of the original Rogue[en.wikipedia.org] is that every run is self-contained. You're supposed to improve your own skill as a player, not grind until a bigger number carries you.

Frankly I'd prefer if StS didn't even have those unlocks at all, the full card/relic pool should just be there at the start, but at least you get them so quickly that it's irrelevant. It's just meant to be the teensiest tiny carrot to get you to play enough runs to get hooked, it's not any sort of progression system that makes you stronger.

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by No One:

I'm not new to roguelikes (I like some of them, like FTL, btw), but most of them allow you to keep a (small) advantage from your precedent runs

The only recent roguelikes I've played are FTL, Into The Breach (which I much prefer), Enter the Gungeon, Dungeon of the Endless (not a good one, it just can't quite come together), and this. And in none of those do you actually keep a small advantage from the previous runs, mechanics-wise. Sure, you unlock things, but once it's all unlocked, the runs all start the same way, and nothing but your knowledge and experience carries over when it's done.

Originally posted by No One:

yes, ok, you might unlock a card that now you have 1% chance to find, and, if you actually find, has like a 5% chance to work well with the other cards you might have found during the run.

Ah, well, there's part of the problem. See, almost all of the cards in this game work well with at the very least a large minority of the other cards in the pool. That 5% is more like 20%-30%, at minimum, unless you choose to take a card that doesn't help your present deck or it's one of those very rare cards that just doesn't work with anything else. The reason for this is because most cards share effects with many other cards. This ain't like M:tG or something, where you need to get THIS specific card which has THAT specific effect that is completely unique to it, and then get a specific combo with other such cards, and that's the only thing that works and there's comparatively little room for adjustment or modification. The effect the card has is more important than the card itself. Blocks, draws, attacks, energy, buffs, and so on, which kind of simulates a more action-oriented game, but in card form.

Originally posted by Mega Missingno.:

Frankly I'd prefer if StS didn't even have those unlocks at all, the full card/relic pool should just be there at the start, but at least you get them so quickly that it's irrelevant. It's just meant to be the teensiest tiny carrot to get you to play enough runs to get hooked, it's not any sort of progression system that makes you stronger.

Actually, the point of it seems to be that it introduces you to the mechanics of each character gradually. Downplayed or lesser strategies tend to become more feasible and brought to the forefront with each unlock. The full potential of Ironclad's power-boosting exhaust and unique self-harm mechanics are only realized once certain cards have been unlocked.

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by No One:

Here is how I see it : you start with a terribly boring deck, and when finally you start having a deck that is not completely boring after what looks like an eternity (just by pure luck, since most of the deckbuilding seems random to me anyway), you die and you have to start again from scratch, with the boring deck...
What am I missing ? Could someone tell me what they find fun in it ?

Let's start with pathing. Which path you choose is very important. The amount of elites you encounter, when the first or second shop appears, the amount of events and basic fights and what you do at campfires all change how powerful your deck can become.
e.g.:
Not enough elites = few relics = weaker deck.
Not enough hallway fights = few cards = no damage against elites.
Too many fights/elites too early = wasting campfires for rests.

The first 2-3 cards you pick define which path you can take.

"just by pure luck, since most of the deckbuilding seems random to me anyway"
The game has tons of syngergies, which you are most likely not aware of. Managing the cards you're offfered and shaping them into an overpowering deck is one of the main skills required for this game.

"What am I missing ? Could someone tell me what they find fun in it ?"
How to navigate the RNG and shape a winning deck out of it.
You don't go for "a build" you pick what's good; short-term, mid-term and long-term and syngergyses with what you have, meanwhile you need to keep a balance between your choices, so you wont die on your way and wont be outscaled at the end.

[No One]

Ok, thanks a lot everyone. I'll try harder, and probably use a guide or two.
I probably deserved a "git gud" , I guess, but your answers were all polite and useful. Thanks a lot again !

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by No One:

Ok, thanks a lot everyone. I'll try harder, and probably use a guide or two.
I probably deserved a "git gud" , I guess, but your answers were all polite and useful. Thanks a lot again !

Yeah, no, don't think like that. "Git gud scrub" is only for whiny ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who just want to ♥♥♥♥♥ and moan and blame a game rather than give it a fair shot, and even then it's just a lazy fallback response for people who are almost as bad as (or even worse than) the people they're saying it to. Not for people who are genuinely looking for some kind of help or advice.

And, to add to what's been said already, not only are draft and sealed pretty fun and possibly more suited to your tastes, but they can also be very educational, and teach you things about deck balance that you might not have learned otherwise. It certainly helped me understand the importance of balance when I first tried them out in the daily climb and was surprised to be doing poorly even though I chose what I knew to be "good cards".

[Khor]

Originally posted by LHGreen:

Yeah, no, don't think like that. "Git gud scrub" is only for whiny ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who just want to ♥♥♥♥♥ and moan and blame a game rather than give it a fair shot, and even then it's just a lazy fallback response for people who are almost as bad as (or even worse than) the people they're saying it to. Not for people who are genuinely looking for some kind of help or advice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blSXTZ3Nihs

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by No One:

Ok, thanks a lot everyone. I'll try harder, and probably use a guide or two.
I probably deserved a "git gud" , I guess, but your answers were all polite and useful. Thanks a lot again !

People are ususally helpful here and if you, e.g. post a failed run to spirelogs or post a seed, people will try to give advice and/or replay the seed and explain their choices.

[Aerond]

Originally posted by Khor:

Mechanics-wise, there`s WAY better stuff out there.

StS is considered "good" because it`s very polished
and with that polish comes the fact that the game can be played at a "competitive level" where your skill matters for winrates.

If you don`t enjoy that kind of gameplay, yep, draft/sealed is an option, but you'd probably want to try some of the newer "Spirelikes"


Also, some of us have 1000+ hours because, simply put, few years back there wasn`t much else of this kind :conwayshrug:

It's its own genre now? "Spirelikes". Hahah.

[horse sized nut]

its a roguelike, you just sound like you don't like them
ps 20-30 minutes is usually at least 50% of a run for me; once you play a little bit you don't have to spend so much time wondering if a card is good or not