My opinions

[SpanishMan]

Hello, this message is for the devs, as I know they read things posted here. First, I want to say that the game is a blast to play. A very interesting concept and different from other stuff as it is 2d.

Now I wanna give my feedback as it is an early access and its ma duty. No real correlation between topics, wll just rant about things I liked or not after having played it on gog.

-Clarification: the game should tell you better how modifers works, for example the 3rd monster floor feels difficult to grasp at the beginning, also how much dmg is done with spells sometimes is not clear (real dmg changes from the theorical dmg the game shows you it will deal, for example because of hoplite passive or ice elemental when enemies have freeze stacks).

The best example of this is the second combat spell of the second boss you unlock, the tree woman. She deals AOE air dmg and 10% extra damage por stack of penalty, and then removes all penalties from enemies. I have found that this spell always deals less dmg than the red bad that appears telling you the theorical dmg it will deal. I have lost some games because of this, and have reached to the point where I never use that spell. Its a shame because I thougth it would be like the magma guy who deals more dmg from each penalty, but it does very little dmg even when enemies have a lot of stacks of different penalties, and then REMOVES then, so its better not to use it. This can be a clarification problem or a balance problem, I dont know.
In summary, if a enemies have 10 and 10 applications of elemental resistance down for example, and I use that ability, before using it the game shows in his hp bar that it will die. But it does not, it deals way less dmg than intended, so its a very little useful ability. Maybe it could remove buffs at least.

Another clarification problem is that the first times I used the vampire thing that exchanges your hp for money I really wasnt aware of my hp being sucked. Also realted to vampires, the vampire minion ability need to make clear that it spreads hemorrague stats before applying his 3 stacks, not after.

Another is power-power increases only direct damage, not dots I suppose? It increases the dmg of spells as they are cast by you? How much?

Make stats of ice skeleton passive show as a buff.

-Increase diversity of events: not the "events" things only, but things to do, apart from training yourself, your monsters, random events, raise mroale, etc. A lot of time you are stuck between some money-related stuff u dont have money for, or a random event that, in at least 20-25% of times, also requires money.

-Increase variety of monsters and builds: this is self explanatory and, to some extent, obvious. Maybe give "mutations" to monsters,heroes and bosses: the possibility to mutate it and change something, maybe stats or type (for example now ice elemental is fire elemental, but retains stats and abilities, now consumes stacks of fire). Or it could be done with a drawback, you mutate a monster to give it a stat raise at the cost of lowering other. Maybe a combination of those things. Ofc some of them would be for endgame only.

-Legendary trinkets; related to special event chains, mobs or other stuff that can lead to special figths or something like that.

-Morale. I guess ur aware of this, but I have found the morale build not that useful, as in the majority of times DoT damage is way stronger and less easy to counter by heroes passives. The ♥♥♥♥ing hoplite is the exception, as that ♥♥♥♥er destroys everyone and everything.

-Add depth: something can be learn form iratus and similar games: maybe minions and enemies could have those stats/mechanincs:

-Damage shield (general of type-specific):for every stack of shield, when attacked remove 1 and negate/reduce damage. Great to make glass cannon minion who can maybe stand 1 shot, but after that they die to everything or almost everything.

-Resistance to displacements and stuns,also dots: in the form of % or stacks as discussed above. 1 legendary minion already have something similar.

-Minimum stats:specially to make tanks actually tank, having 50% fire resistance for example with a 25% minimum, meaning it cant be lowered more than that. Also AOE resistance, or resistance to dots, maybe a passive that let you live at 1 hp so u cant be oneshoted.

-Specific minion/heroes related mechanics:an idea is to make a minion take a maximum damage, or being healed by some damage type.

-Being able to damage your own minions by different ways for benefits-a beserkers minion for example, or to trigger the artifact that enrages them.

-Minions that takes 2 or 3 places to deploy, also heroes.

-Stamina system for minion and hero spells: for both bands, making figths a lil bit longer and more tactically.

-Adiing silences and basic attacks, a silenced minion or hero can only basic attack.

-Wild idea:give more spells to heroes. Now we have more randomness as they can use either of them, so I dont know how to implement properly.

-Increase tanky builds and minions. The only one I have seen working is demons with the legedary fire demon minion, with 50% healing of dmg done, 30% more power and traps that decrease fire resistance. Even stack two of those minions with a fire elemental to spread fire. In this case is not even inheret tankiness, he heals because he deals a lot of damage.

-Forcing a certain order of rooms, so for example you know you can use a trap before first minion room.

-Earth and air builds feel lackluster.


-Balance: at least for early-mid ents feel not powerful enough even when fully upgraded by talents. Yes, they increase dmg for the boss, the problem being that in mid-late you dont want heroes from ever reaching your boss in the first place. Some increase to lategame potential for them would feel great, and also some trinkets to improve them.

The same can be said with revived skeletons, which, even full upgraded by trinkets and the legendary minion that increases dmg for skeletons, the skeleton you revive can sometimes tank 2 attacks, but barely do something more.

Ice skeleton feel simple. Not weak,just lack something notorious. Its preferable to use another yeti to make a 3 ice party.

-Probability in trinkets: some trinkets fell way too random. A 10% to activate traps a second time can be a gamewinner or, the majority of times, useless. The % to revive as skeleton is another example. I think it would be way better to work in stacks-for example every dead minion gives 1 stack, at 7/5/3 stacks the next minion that dies consumes then and revives as a skeleton.

This can be applied to heroes, too. If found that the crusader counters revive builds too much (just a random example), you can give her 3 stacks- only the first 3 revives will be countered. I mean that this already happens, but the number of uses of their abilities are either infinite, or only once.

Another contender is stun, which I cant really give feedback for: it feels bad to be stunned several times in a row by pure chance,also doing it/or trying and failing.

-Speed:its a very important stat and I have found that heroes increase it by lvl up
way higher than minions do, making a lot of build fall rather hard into the lategame as they cant stand the fact that heroes atatck first, and then a second time after the first monster attack (they die the first or second attack wave).


This is all for today, as game add more content and I paly more I will make more of these if you like them. Cheers!

[Azurewrath]

Yes let's have some long event chains. Much time I just pick the action that you can leave immediately.
But it doesn't need great rewards, just keep the balance and make improvements.

[Deathraven13]

Prologue version and the EA version is different.

For exemple you talk about hero being fast wich is a problem later and the fact that Air build is not very good, well you have a harpy that can boost allies in front of her with a spell, and you can level up your units, so usually fragile units like skeleton archer with level up can have up to 100 speed, if a harpy boost it (harpy got 120 in speed so most of the time she act first) it can go to 120 wich mean they'll attack before most heroes. So a harpy can boost slow units.

Then you have some units that decrease the strength of heroes meaning your slow tanky units will be able to survive a hit if theya re resistance.

So you have a range of fast units and slow units, if you use slow units be sure to make them tank damage they are better at tanking.

The Enchantress thing sounds like a bug wich i have also encountered, so yeah that's annoying.

As for randomness well..... I play XCOM games, where I've missed more 99% chance to hit than shots under 50% chance to hit (so if it's not 100% chance to hit when I see a 99% chance to it I say "Hey look a 99% chance to MISS"

Talents for masters are not weak, they can be situationnal sure but they have their uses, for exemple the slave master gaining buffs when allies dies and he receive damages is pretty good, it just depend of your build and the way you tweaked the game, for exemple if exhaustion = -3 on death then you can decide to fight adventurers and only placing traps, if they reach the Master you'll be happy to have talents and trained it.

To be honest for now the game is kinda easy but that's because they did not add everything yet, so more stuff will be coming.

[hajabuba]

Morale is no way weak, actually pretty op with Slaveholder. There's also some silence trap that disables heroes skills iirc(never used it but i think skills are considered those passives?).

[SpanishMan]

Originally posted by Deathraven13:

Prologue version and the EA version is different.

For exemple you talk about hero being fast wich is a problem later and the fact that Air build is not very good, well you have a harpy that can boost allies in front of her with a spell, and you can level up your units, so usually fragile units like skeleton archer with level up can have up to 100 speed, if a harpy boost it (harpy got 120 in speed so most of the time she act first) it can go to 120 wich mean they'll attack before most heroes. So a harpy can boost slow units.

Then you have some units that decrease the strength of heroes meaning your slow tanky units will be able to survive a hit if theya re resistance.

So you have a range of fast units and slow units, if you use slow units be sure to make them tank damage they are better at tanking.

The Enchantress thing sounds like a bug wich i have also encountered, so yeah that's annoying.

As for randomness well..... I play XCOM games, where I've missed more 99% chance to hit than shots under 50% chance to hit (so if it's not 100% chance to hit when I see a 99% chance to it I say "Hey look a 99% chance to MISS"

Talents for masters are not weak, they can be situationnal sure but they have their uses, for exemple the slave master gaining buffs when allies dies and he receive damages is pretty good, it just depend of your build and the way you tweaked the game, for exemple if exhaustion = -3 on death then you can decide to fight adventurers and only placing traps, if they reach the Master you'll be happy to have talents and trained it.

To be honest for now the game is kinda easy but that's because they did not add everything yet, so more stuff will be coming.

To have some decent speed you need to spam arpy which is clumky. She is the only one who gives speed adn even with speed the majority of lategame heroes are faster, including upgraded minions that I ofc upgrade to lvl 5 asap.

Even spamming tanky units and doing a stun-weaking build, I have found that the way to tank the most is by spamming demons with healing. For example the spartan or hoplite skeleton could be a good tank if other minion could support him and increase his tankiness, as he is melted by fire which is very common. We currently lack builds in which one or two minions buff another to make a megaunit.

Skeletons builds are bad I think. Even with revive trinket and more skeleton health, they are not tanky or deal enough damage, specially revived skeletons. Similar happens with ents,but those are strong earlygame with talents.

I think i have not said that talents are weak in any way.

The % thing its simple-this game its not XCOM, so I dont see why that comparison its even valid here. 10% to multitrap is, well, 1 is every 3 or 4 figths.

[SpanishMan]

Originally posted by hajabuba:

Morale is no way weak, actually pretty op with Slaveholder. There's also some silence trap that disables heroes skills iirc(never used it but i think skills are considered those passives?).

What I have found its that its countered pretty hard by some heroes passives, something which does not happen to damage unless you go monoelement.

[Daemos]

Originally posted by Guapo D Mansion:

-Morale. I guess ur aware of this, but I have found the morale build not that useful, as in the majority of times DoT damage is way stronger and less easy to counter by heroes passives. The ♥♥♥♥ing hoplite is the exception, as that ♥♥♥♥er destroys everyone and everything.

*Laughs in Morale build*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnMLKLtsf5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO8fHEbHkGs

But otherwise good points for the rest.

[LostCrusader]

-The trinkets for buffing minion types that aren't demon seem pretty under powered. For example, the orc(?) type gets a chance at enrage when hit, which could be useful if they were tanky enough to actually survive multiple hits. Compared with the demon's healing or extra damage trinkets it has no impact, and I'm not sure I've ever seen it actually activate. Skeleton and elemental trinkets look just as bad.

Maybe the enrage would be meaningful if it affected others of that same type in the room.

-Tanks need more beef, especially if they have speed under ~40. They don't do as much damage as high speed minions and don't get enough hp or resists to actually last any longer than the faster minions. Having a faster minions with resists that may hopefully line up always looks to be better.

-Morale looks lackluster. This is just how it looks to me, but the tears don't seem to be as valuable as blood. Blood from what I have seen gets master upgrades, minion upgrade events, and can be used for collectors, as well as alchemy conversions. Tears get master upgrades and alchemy conversions only, so you are missing out on potential upgrades.

[Ichthyic]

Originally posted by hajabuba:

Morale is no way weak, actually pretty op with Slaveholder. There's also some silence trap that disables heroes skills iirc(never used it but i think skills are considered those passives?).

yes, there is an epic ("starred") trap you can earn as a reward that will remove hero passive skills for a set number of turns based on how high a level you have gotten the trap.

it does indeed remove the ability of heroes to be immune or remove morale damage, autoheal damage, and that annoying mage ability that scrambles your unit lineup. highly recommended.

there should be more trap types like that, that add/remove skills or something similar.

[SpanishMan]

Originally posted by LostCrusader:

-The trinkets for buffing minion types that aren't demon seem pretty under powered. For example, the orc(?) type gets a chance at enrage when hit, which could be useful if they were tanky enough to actually survive multiple hits. Compared with the demon's healing or extra damage trinkets it has no impact, and I'm not sure I've ever seen it actually activate. Skeleton and elemental trinkets look just as bad.

Maybe the enrage would be meaningful if it affected others of that same type in the room.

-Tanks need more beef, especially if they have speed under ~40. They don't do as much damage as high speed minions and don't get enough hp or resists to actually last any longer than the faster minions. Having a faster minions with resists that may hopefully line up always looks to be better.

-Morale looks lackluster. This is just how it looks to me, but the tears don't seem to be as valuable as blood. Blood from what I have seen gets master upgrades, minion upgrade events, and can be used for collectors, as well as alchemy conversions. Tears get master upgrades and alchemy conversions only, so you are missing out on potential upgrades.

I agree with the first two paragraphs, and the third one: I played a full morale build to the endgame and I won. I can say: viable with slaver, but boring, of the reasons being the lack of a legendary minion specialized in morale. You just spam the wraith minion that can suicide, and when squishy minions die in 1 tick, the orc that deal a weak AOE fear. Basically more than half of the job is done by traps and demoralizing buff.

[SpanishMan]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

Originally posted by hajabuba:

Morale is no way weak, actually pretty op with Slaveholder. There's also some silence trap that disables heroes skills iirc(never used it but i think skills are considered those passives?).

yes, there is an epic ("starred") trap you can earn as a reward that will remove hero passive skills for a set number of turns based on how high a level you have gotten the trap.

it does indeed remove the ability of heroes to be immune or remove morale damage, autoheal damage, and that annoying mage ability that scrambles your unit lineup. highly recommended.

there should be more trap types like that, that add/remove skills or something similar.

The problem is that its not a given that you will have a trap before your first encounter, and second I am not sure if the "inmune to traps" or "block first trap" are affected by that.

[Nafem]

Morale builds are actually extremely fun and effective.
I recorded that clip yesterday, (50secs or so)

https://youtu.be/Xh1oHWJDqMI

I think it is one of the best archetypes right now, along with bleeding and nature/poison.

[SpanishMan]

Originally posted by Nafem:

Morale builds are actually extremely fun and effective.
I recorded that clip yesterday, (50secs or so)

https://youtu.be/Xh1oHWJDqMI

I think it is one of the best archetypes right now, along with bleeding and nature/poison.

"I played a full morale build to the endgame and I won. I can say: viable with slaver, but boring, of the reasons being the lack of a legendary minion specialized in morale. You just spam the wraith minion that can suicide, and when squishy minions die in 1 tick, the orc that deal a weak AOE fear. Basically more than half of the job is done by traps and demoralizing buff."

Its great build but lacks endgame minions, and so, some versatiliy. Also I would add more only-stress minions, are there are already a lot of only damage minions, but very few morale specific. You end using a lot of minions only spamming 1 attack which is the one that damages morale.

[Flavalicious]

The tree legendary minion is pretty good for morale builds. Same with the Skeleton lord, gives all skellies in your dungeon empowerment. Pretty OP when you got 4+ fire/ice skellies in your roster :P

Dark Magus was also pretty damn OP in my last run. Super fast speed, morale ability that also tires enemy heroes. In some cases i would put him in the first room and get 2 or 3 casts off before they cleared the room.

Also pandoras box is OP as all hell. lol. Some of the dungeon layouts i was having the heroes take over 100 morale damage per tick

[Averagedog]

Is there an actual conclusion to this game or one planned similar to how slay the spire has you attack the heart or really just anything that will end the run other than death? A Goal of winning to work towards is what I am generally looking for.

[LostCrusader]

Originally posted by Averagedog:

Is there an actual conclusion to this game or one planned similar to how slay the spire has you attack the heart or really just anything that will end the run other than death? A Goal of winning to work towards is what I am generally looking for.

Runs end after year 2, with each year being 52 weeks. Also has a kind of guaranteed boss fight at the end of each year with a forced run against champions.