Am I too bad, is the game simply unbalanced or is UnderMine just unfair?

[Palmer Eldritch]

First and foremost, this is not a rant. Playing the game for over 30 hours on Xbox Game Pass and hat lots of fun for the first 20 hours. Now my progress is stagnating. Played a whole lot of Roguelike/Roguelite games and found the ones I played pretty balanced between a challenge and fair mechanics.

When it comes to UnderMine, the game is not even punishing anymore, it's simply getting more frustrating and unfair from one run to another. Yet it feels like the game became even more brutal after a recent update.

Like I said, I do not make any progress anymore. I've slashed the first three main bosses and have unlocked all 5 main dungeons. I unlocked every of the permanent health and damage upgrades and yet, I hardly make any damage. The thworing mechanic is crap and isn't doing much damage and the pickaxe alone simply is not powerful enough to deal a lot of damage to this absurd boss in stage 4. No matter how I throw or slash, I'm in the biggest disadvantage here.

I know that enemies seems to become even stronger when you slay one of the main bosses which makes the permanent upgrades even more useless. So, luck is your friend, right? But even luck is not on my side. The relics are mostly crap or are giving me even more disadvantages. Rooms are full with annoying enemies, standard enemies which seem to habe as many HP as one of those mini bosses and the damage they deal is partly hilarious.

I never played a Roguelike/Roguelite game, maybe with the exception of Gonner, where the player is constantly in a pinch.

Also, I haven't found a single egg that the guy behind the library can hatch. I don't even know what they look like.

Yeah, pretty frustrating journey the past 12 hours and it's possible I will drop UnderMine.

I'm here to ask for some advice. Any strategy for the boss in the fourth dungeon? The boss in the fifth dungeon feels like he is a little more managable than the one on stage 4. But maybe there is something I missed and there is a reason why I'm not dealing a decent amound of damage.

[Narval (PT)]

Tips i can give since i've almost 100% this game:
-Othermine is the best way ( time and effort wise) to discover recipes/eggs/blessing books in the game
-Swing damage is superior to throw damage, there can be fun combos with throw damage, but swing damage requires less investment to be good therefore is better.
-Undermine is the only roguelike that i know that allow you to only unlock the items you want, allowing you to either make the game more difficult or the opposite, don't want a bad item in the item pool? don't craft it with the blacksmith :)
-You can almost double your DPS early game by clicking the swing button then the throw button very fast, doing 2 attacks at the same time pretty much, this makes negative attack speed modifires less effective and vice versa. Hard to do at first tho.
-the game scales the higher the SS ( summoning stone), your choice to play at higher SS since you can unlock everything and enjoy the game at SS00.
-Bosses are very pattern based, memorize them are your mostly good to go.
-Don't take curses if you don't want to see Choguul, especially the major ones, since some of them can straight up destroy the run if you're not prepared for them.
-Eventually you'll be given the aether recipe, no need to worry if you have run out of it and don't want to craft "bad" items.

if i remember more stuff will edit the comment, but remember that this is a roguelike, and as with any roguelike, practice does makes a huge difference, so keep at it and you'll be good to go, enjoy

[Gonna_Fly]

for unlocking stuff you want, there's also Dead Cells, you can get a rune in that game that unlock custom mode, so if you don't like X weapons that you have unlocked you can remove it or re-add it to the pool of weapons at will, however the game is really brutal.

For Othermine, you should finish the game first to unlock it
For the egg you just need to be lucky, open purple chest, destroy purple torch with bomb, open blue chest... there's 2 pet exclusive to Othermine.

And for some tips against boss 4 (the four heads dragon)
-try grabbing the hover boots relic (no damage from pits),
-keep some bombs to destroy the rocks in the side/middle of the room (that give some space to avoid ice breath and less room for small monster to attacké).
-jump on the small statues on the south of the screen, that's make you avoid ice breath too
-for the green shockwave attack, either you get away and dispose of small monsters or you stay at a distance and throw your pickaxe.

[Palmer Eldritch]

Many thanks for your tipps, both of you. You handed me a few interesting tipps here I wasn't aware of. Maybe this will give me a little more motivation.

Also own Dead Cell, but so far hadn't had the time to try it. There are also Children of Morta and Hades waiting, but want to finish UnderMine first.

[Gonna_Fly]

Undermine is easier or more balanced than Binding Of Isaac if you want to compare kind of similar game. The jump action is great to move away faster than running.

For Dead Cell, i warn you again, it's brutally difficult (the first level of difficulty is relatively forgiving but once you can optionally level up the challenge by finishing completely a run, you unlock harder challenge and you must be really more carefull, new monsters and less health refills available). There's actually 6 levels of difficulty and i can't even progress more than the 3rd one... still a great game and if you stream it on Twitch, viewvers can interact by helping or hinder you.

Children of Morta i haven't played it yet and Hades is in my wishlist... too much games, not enough time...

[Palmer Eldritch]

"Undermine is easier or more balanced than Binding Of Isaac if you want to compare kind of similar game. The jump action is great to move away faster than running."

It's really macabre to read this because for me, it was the exact opposite : D
Really enjoyed Isaac and finished the main story in about 15 hours.

I managed to slay the boss in Stage 4 in UnderMine with more luck than anything. And the luck didn't came from great relics and items, Ponzu simply didn't move anymore. Think it was a bug so I was able to hit him without receiving a single hit near the end of the fight.

That acrually gave me hope for the boss in stage 5. But, ♥♥♥♥ it, I found my master in this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. Yes, I will give up. No way I will be able to slay Seer. I even arrive half dead at the boss fight because of the 4 levels I have to clear before I can actually face him. The enemies have gotten even stronger after I've slain Ponzu. It's pure sadism to reach the actual boss, and then you have to fight this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and it is so unbelieveable depressing to see I'm not doing any harm to him.

Even with the boots where you can walk on lava and where you can burn your enemies I wasn't able to do anything. Also, the game always give me the crappy blessng at the beginning with more throwing damage which is completely useless since throwing isn't doing any significant damage.

I actually found two new companions. Some Djinn and the Phoenix. The Phoenix might be rare but let's be honest, it's not doing anything special besides healing you a little and at level 3 he brings you back from Nirvana with 150 HP, which is also a whole lotta nothing.

To know that there is another final boss in the game, this gives me nightmares and I think, for me, it's time to move on because it's the same with Sekiro. You can lock me in for weeks in a single room with the game and there will come the point where I will not make any progress anymore. I know my limits and I know that UnderMine is better than my skills and luck.

[Dreaming Prince]

you need some blessings, either stack melee atk speed and damage, or throw speed and damage. especially if you have the companion that that improves the blessing altars (fairy?) you can literarly kill bosses in a few seconds. dont worry about the minor curses, youll get items and pots to remove em and they dont do much anyway. and ofcourse not using shortcuts but running thru every lvl will let you power up more.

ps throwing is much safer than melee and can still do great damage but its a little more gear dependant than melle

[Izibaar]

The boss at stage 4 is a lot easier if you know that the hit box of the circle attack do not match the graphics. While you receive damage next to the circle, you can jump into the middle and get no damage.

Anyway you must find a good item combo to beat the boss. Collect blessings and hope for curses that you can ignore or find the item that removes curses.
Next boss is easier / less luck dependend.