Punishing VS Challenging Gameplay

[TheVoluntaryist]

This is the kind of game that is just Skinner Box lovable enough that you'll gaslight yourself over it, like some toxic relationship.
Is it me?? Is this just a case of 'git gud' after days and days of hours a day of
not really knowing what I even could've done differently?
I took the cards you gave me. I played the cards you gave me.
Everything else was Blocked or Slimed or Exhausted or otherwise gone.
I "chose" from what remained, and most of the time when I die, it's not because I can't think of what combination would've worked.
It's because there's not enough Draw Cards, Get Energy, Search Hand, Pilfer Discards that you could possibly play in one turn to Choose to get what you need.
Because that's what you'd have to do other than getting consistently lucky. On purpose. As a strategy.
I mean, the combination has so much potential. The unique art style is fun. The combos and upgrading are intuitive.
I mean... she's smart. She's pretty. She's fun. I don't know. I don't know.
Maybe it's me..
But, to me, the difference between Punishing VS merely Challenging gameplay is that in a Challenging game
you know why you lost. You may still be mad you lost, but you rarely feel "robbed". Your frustration is that a particular unfortunate thing happened, or that you didn't do something better that you could have.
In a Punishing game, you can do all the right things, but still be included in the game's Learned Helplessness Exercise of spanking you either way, and at random. I'm not saying that a game can't or shouldn't have random elements. I'm saying when the frustration is not that you didn't do it differently, but that you see nothing to have done differently,
if the unfortunate and uncontrollable circumstance is the norm,
then it's the player input that's perepheral.
Press whatever button you like, lab rat. Run wherever you like in the maze. Now and then, and for no reason at all, and no matter how well you do, we're gonna zap you anyway.
For me, it makes even the victories I do get feel just as arbitrary, and certainly just as fleeting.

[mldb88]

It sounds more like you're focusing too much on specific cards you "need" rather than building a strong foundation first and then honing the deck from there. Also based on the terminology you're using, I'm assuming you're coming from a TCG background. A lot of the habits you pick up there might actively hurt you when playing STS. It's not like playing constructed where you try to dig up your specific hyper combo that will carry you through every fight, actually the core design actively fights this kind of playstyle and rewards more well rounded decks that can handle a variety of situations rather than hyper focusing one game plan and digging through the deck until they get it (that's not to say there aren't strategies that can work like this, but they're few and far between and rarely come up in your average run). When selecting cards, focus more on cost effectiveness and cards that give an immediate payoff in the early stages of the game (mostly Act 1). A lot of the Act 1 encounters, elites and bosses are set up as damage checks to make sure you have enough damage output to even survive what Act 2 is going to throw your way. Leaning more damage heavy in Act 1 and then fleshing out and starting to focus the deck more in Acts 2 and 3 will probably help if a lot of your deaths/losses are more in Act 1 or early Act 2.

If we're talking about base difficulty, once you figure out the fundamentals and get a basic understanding of what the enemies do, it becomes a lot easier. If we're talking highest level difficulty of A20, yea that ♥♥♥♥ can get brutal and even the smallest mistakes can really put you in a bad spot.

Honestly figuring out where a run went wrong is probably the hardest thing to do, since more often than not it's not just one big mistake that glaringly obvious but more a culmination of micro-errors that led up to the situation that ended your run. Would being a little more agressive against a prior elite saved you a few HP by killing it sooner allowing you to take that hit that ended your run? Would having used that attack potion on the hallway fight let you kill it instead of taking a chunk of a hit leaving you too low for the upcoming elite or difficult hallway fight? Did you just make a few repeated misplays and the extra damage in a long stretch of hallway fights put you too far behind in resources? Was it a pathing issue and you took a path that locked you into too many combats without any kind of even/shop/fire to help replenish/add resources to get you through it? Did you just grab a few too many higher costed cards too early before you had the energy relics or other resources to support it (extra energy outside of boss relics isn't exactly common. I'd say expect most runs to cap out at 4-5 energy per turn on average unless you're either playing stance shifting Watcher or have some very specific energy cards).

Lastly, if you're still having trouble, give this a read. It'll give some basic tips on deckbuilding and a lot of mistakes beginning players make (lord knows, I was there when I first started too) and a few tips for each boss and elite.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673443183

[Nibbie]

It sounds like you are largely blaming RNG or otherwise things outside of your control for your losses, but I, and I'm sure many other people that have played for longer periods, can tell you that skill, which in this case is mainly knowledge and decision-making, is a far bigger factor in whether you win or lose. Personally, I have about a 94% winrate at base difficulty over around 300 games; I started keeping track when the game came to phones and I did chill A0 runs while out and about. The best players in the game win more often than not even at the max difficulty. There are so many decisions to make that can tilt the RNG so far in your favor, that blaming the things out of your control for your losses is typically either ignorant or disingenuous,

If you want help figuring out what it is you are doing wrong so you can improve, we would be glad to help. It can be hard to identify on your own what your mistakes are, and learning from the more experienced is one of the fastest ways of getting better. A video of you playing a run, or at minimum a screenshot of it in your run history, can give us some specific points to help with; otherwise, general guides like provided above may help.

[trial_by_fire]

The thing is though, that your choices DO matter in this game.

I get it: it is frustrating to not know what you are doing wrong and where you could have done better. But I think that's just a part of learning.

Maybe some people are geniuses and are able to figure out things right away, but I think that most of us have learned from trial and error. I know that I have had some pretty spectacular fails and that I have walked away from some runs thinking "well, i'm never going to do THAT again!"

But even the failure was a lesson.

I guess that what I am saying is that if you leave it all up to the gods of RNG, then you are at their mercy and they are fickle sons of guns. But by making strategic decisions RNG can be overcome consistently in this game.

I think the community on here is actually pretty good at giving good constructive advice when a person is genuinely asking for help. So maybe give that a try? Post a seed that you had difficulty with and someone here can play it, beat it, and offer advice that might help you improve on your next game.

Anyway, good luck. Hope things improve for you!

[LHGreen]

Lol, do the Portal emojis at the beginning and end mean that I can just portal through the whole post by skipping it, and miss nothing? Or do I actually have to read through that?

Anyway, what Ascension level are you playing on?

Are you using Save and Quit to replay fights and see what you could have done differently?

How do you approach choosing cards to add to your deck?

How do you choose a path to take through an Act?

And I noticed that it sounds like you're viewing your deck as a series of combos and ways to get those combos, rather than as a cohesive whole. That's one of your mistakes, I think.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

The one thing you're right about is that in a game this complicated and full of long-term ripple effects, it can be very hard to identify where you went wrong sometimes. But just because it's hard to tell what the mistake was doesn't mean you didn't make mistakes.

I would even argue that it is not a bad thing for a strategy game to be hard to solve in this way. Trying to figure out how to improve when the decision space is so abstract is part of the challenge.

[TheVoluntaryist]

Originalmente postado por LHGreen:

Lol, do the Portal emojis at the beginning and end mean that I can just portal through the whole post by skipping it, and miss nothing? Or do I actually have to read through that?

Yes. Yes, it does. Nobody is telling you "had to" interact with this in any way.
None of this was required reading, and it won't be on the test.
Nobody made you come here or chose how you spent your time except for you, jack.
Start over or skip on.

[TheVoluntaryist]

The choices DOOO matter? Which ones? Why? I know that I take every opportunity to sell or lose a card as by statistics alone this makes drawing the ones I actually want and benefit from more likely. I know to focus on those that have some synergy, and not count on getting any one stand alone card. I do try to build a robust base, and I'll do whatever homework on that given above at some point.
Yes.. getting better is part of learning..
Which strategic decisions?
So maybe give being genuine "a try"? Maybe trip skipping character accusations a try and stay on the topic.
..but I'll write down some seeds and try that.

[TheVoluntaryist]

Originalmente postado por mldb88:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673443183

Read it. I don't know if it's so much a "guide" as a concise summary of the information you learn in the natural course of gameplay.
This really didn't tell me anything new, and I've still never made it past an Act 2 boss.
So.. yep. Maybe it really is me. Those of you who can play the game should continue to enjoy it.

[mldb88]

Originalmente postado por TheVoluntaryist:

Originalmente postado por mldb88:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673443183

Read it. I don't know if it's so much a "guide" as a concise summary of the information you learn in the natural course of gameplay.
This really didn't tell me anything new, and I've still never made it past an Act 2 boss.
So.. yep. Maybe it really is me. Those of you who can play the game should continue to enjoy it.

Considering how the game is set up, it’s the closest thing to a “guide” you can really get. There’s no magic “trick” or “optimal meta strat” to focus since the value of each individual card can vary wildly based on your current deck, relics, etc. a lot of it comes down to card evaluation, pathing and making optimal combat choices (the only one of the three that you kinda can make/use a guide for since most enemies have either static patterns or semi-random intents, very few being pure random).

Also us saying it’s not as RNG based as you think doesn’t mean that it’s easy. It was probably one of the hardest roguelikes I had played starting out, and I was making every beginner mistake in the book. A lot of the skill comes from just playing and seeing what works in what situations, learning enemy patterns, figuring out what pathing is usually ideal in terms of what nodes to prioritize and when, etc.

What might be helpful if you have a run that you really don’t get why you lost, plug in the seed and run it through again but make different choices and see what happens.

Also Act 2 Id say is generally the biggest hurdle for new player,
or even experienced players. It’s in that wierd spot where your deck isn’t just a random pile of cards by the end of it but might not be a well oiled machine you need it to be to clear the boss easily. I’d say most of my runs still end in act 2, and I’ve got over 700 hours and cleared A20 with 3/4 characters.

[sekai]

I mean the game is roguelike. The genre is just about the "runs". You go in, you do your deeds, most probably die horribly, repeat.

At least each run doesn't take all that long, it's certainly not like League of Legends where it wastes 1 hour per game for very little satisfaction (since you have very little control over your teammates and there's the very unbalanced matchmaking system) and even when things are going smoothly, getting anywhere in Ranked by design costs you hundreds if not thousands of games per season, which each year now has 3...

I'd say Slay the Spire is VERY tame.

........

Not to mention, you can still save-scum the run by simply quitting and restarting the game, which takes a few seconds at most.

You can also copy the "seed" in your game history of previous runs and paste that onto your new run for the same map.

So it's not like the game is completely random. Roguelike these days usually have permanency features like this.

Also once you've unlocked all the cards for the hero, which takes like 4-5 runs as the character to achieve, that's the full extent of everything that character will do. Each Acts also only has so many variations of mobs, encounters, or bosses. So once you've familiarised with the game it's relatively a consistent experience than simply a full random drop-in drop-out where you're left to the wolves. Sure things are given to you randomly, but the toolboxes and the draw buckets are always the same; they just come in different order.

[sekai]

There's not much skill involved than intuitive sense of how each hero plays and which build paths you can aim for on said heroes. As well as general macro stuff like killing more mobs in the easier Act 1 while avoiding mobs in Act 2 and 3. Trying to get as many bonfire as you can. To specific boss or enemy mechanics you need to watch out and prepare for which is simply achieved by running into them and knowing how they play (you can scroll on the map just so you know, so you can always see who the Act boss is based on their icon).

Most of the game skill is really just familiarity and memorisation and ofc, luck. The only hard intelligence needed is number crunch on some of the more synergy-heavy hero or builds. Unless basic math is not your forte then you might struggle a bit on the crunch. That being said, you can still just save-scum. Accidentally screwed yourself with a bad combo and now you'll surely die if you finish your turn? Don't worry just close the game and restart and with 2 clicks and a few seconds of waiting you'll be right back at the beginning of the fight.

So yeah, I wouldn't say it's too bad in the skinner box department. I've seen a lot worse.

.........

One last thing, there's an option in the menu that speeds up the game's animation. I'd highly recommend you use that option. It will save you a LOT of time and the sped up animation looks great anyway, maybe even better than the default speed. You don't need dragged out animation after every move.

[Jimmy Hunter]

Posting a run so we can tell you the mistakes you made would be infinitely more useful then blaming RNG for your own mistakes.

[trial_by_fire]

Originalmente postado por TheVoluntaryist:

The choices DOOO matter? Which ones? Why? I know that I take every opportunity to sell or lose a card as by statistics alone this makes drawing the ones I actually want and benefit from more likely. I know to focus on those that have some synergy, and not count on getting any one stand alone card. I do try to build a robust base, and I'll do whatever homework on that given above at some point.
Yes.. getting better is part of learning..
Which strategic decisions?
So maybe give being genuine "a try"? Maybe trip skipping character accusations a try and stay on the topic.
..but I'll write down some seeds and try that.

Huh? It sounds like you were responding to my post, but not sure.

If it was my post you were responding to, not quite sure what you are finding so offensive in my post. (Character accusations?? Huh?)

Look, it's hard to give advice on what to do if we don't know what you are doing wrong. That's why it was suggested to post a seed that you had difficulty with so that we could give solid feedback and answers.

[LHGreen]

Originalmente postado por TheVoluntaryist:

Originalmente postado por LHGreen:

Lol, do the Portal emojis at the beginning and end mean that I can just portal through the whole post by skipping it, and miss nothing? Or do I actually have to read through that?

Yes. Yes, it does. Nobody is telling you "had to" interact with this in any way.
None of this was required reading, and it won't be on the test.
Nobody made you come here or chose how you spent your time except for you, jack.
Start over or skip on.

It was just a joke. You don't have to take it personally. And I had other advice.

Lol, also, "jack"? Are you Joe Biden about to face off with Cornpop, or something?

Originalmente postado por TheVoluntaryist:

Read it. I don't know if it's so much a "guide" as a concise summary of the information you learn in the natural course of gameplay.
This really didn't tell me anything new, and I've still never made it past an Act 2 boss.

Damn. Okay, well, now you got a problem. Um, I don't know if just posting a screenshot of the results of a run is gonna do it. But Spirelogs is gone, so maybe post a game play video?

[Watereaters]

Originalmente postado por LHGreen:

Lol, do the Portal emojis at the beginning and end mean that I can just portal through the whole post by skipping it, and miss nothing? Or do I actually have to read through that?

It's so you can read it over again in case you missed an important part.