I don't understand this game.

[some (momi)]

Let me begin by saying that I do like the game, and I acknowledge that I'm very bad at it. That said, I'm having a tough time with it. I've managed to beat one run, dousing the candle thanks to Glacial Shield.

(1) What are the statistical breakpoints that players want to target? Looking over the bestiary, I'm seeing 17 for speed (21 to break Phase Shifters), and then from there it seems like all in on Attack or Defense, but not particularly both. If you have moderate attack and defense, you'll have a low chance (if any) to stop the damage, and allowing a monster to live more than one turn [if you're not defense spec] just means it'll deal more damage.

(2) Some items (and mechanics) seem to fundamentally change the game, while others 'seem cool', but are ultimately irrelevant (in my low level play experiences).
(2.1) Run changing items : [Freezing Tiara], [Glacial Shield]
=The freeze effect on these items makes things MUCH more manageable. I don't think you can beat Owl with Freezing Tiara, but if you get a good 2 other items, you may be able to progress through Light path.
=Glacial Shield on the other hand is the serious MVP, as that parry -> freeze makes exploders and such FAR less deadly, provided you've been able to pick up enough defense.
(2.2) Questionable items : [Poison Gloves], [Petrify weapon]
=Poison as a mechanic seems questionable; yes, the stacking damage is nice, especially if you're a block build - but otherwise it seems like a bait. Poison items reduce your initial damage, which feels really bad early on - I could kill this enemy in one hit and take no damage without poison, or I could kill the enemy (with poison proc), but take damage from their attack back as a result. Not only that, but the items that support a poison build seem to be very rare... maybe two of them in total? (Poison Dagger, and the +3 damage against poisoned enemy artifact)
=Petrify sounds cool, but it's a pseudo poison, but fortunately resolves at normal damage speeds. That said, it has all the drawbacks poison does, in terms of very limited items that interact/buff it - there are a few, but half of them require you to already have a source of petrify, with itself is rare (getting an initial source). My biggest gripe with [Petrify] though, is that it doesn't work as [Freeze] does - in that it prevents death effects from resolving. If it did, that'd feel really nice to use - an offensive form of Freeze.
(2.3) A lot of the items aren't really interesting, or things to build around - they're just... there; but I cover this point more in point (6).

(3) Exploders: These guys are the worst. Well, that and not being able to skip a turn short of the spellbook item. I understand you can manipulate them, and they reveal their positioning, but... there's only so much space in the dungeon, and since you can't skip a turn - you either take some additional damage trying to dance around them, or you take additional damage trying to escape them and stealthing past other monsters when they're ready to explode. There's more to this, largely with spell targeting and stealth, but I'll cover those in separate areas.

(4) Spells, in particular, Scrolls: Why can't I target guys that are revealed, but not directly in front of me? My thoughts were "Oh, this spell targets a monster. Ok, let me try to target this deadly monster that's revealed, but not in front of me - oh, I can't? Why can I inspect them, but not target?". It may fundamentally alter the game's balance to allow you to do so - but being able to target backline enemies with spells would be great. It'd help navigate the rings, but not necessarily be the end of the world since scrolls are rare, and spellbooks require combat actions to cooldown.

(5) Ranged minions: Is there a way to stop their damage, short of the Mask (stops their attacks entirely), or the other item (that reduces their range by 1)? I know I can dodge, but that's a rare stat - and regardless of how much block I have, it seems that they're always going to deal their 1 damages. Yes, that's a small amount, but when you're lower on life, require a few turns to get through the cards infront of them, have to dodge around stronger monsters; it just adds up real quick - and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

(6) RNG : This game seems heavily random, which itself is not a bad thing. Layout of cards, initiative ties, stealthing, items, monsters, and so on - it all adds up; but worse, it doesn't really feel like any of my choices matter. Yes, they do matter, but - the game feels like "find a broken item early on and base your build around that, or lose". A middle-ground build of stats just feels bad, and the items are largely less-useful, unless they happen to provide the stats you want for your build.

(7) Wishing Well: This room can only let you sacrifice the second-to-last slot item? That feels really bad, because the majority of the time I encounter the room (say early on), I won't have that slot filled - again, it's random. I think it'd be cool if the Wishing Well allowed you to sacrifice a randomly determined slot (determined each time you enter the room), or allow you to select a piece of gear to sacrifice to the well [like the Equipment Sacrifice scroll].
=This would also go a long way towards easing the complaints about not being able to unequip items, which feels really bad to not be able to - since due to the item randomness, you might not find a "if you have X items or less equipped" item until you've already got that many items, or more.

TLDR: Interesting game, and I admit I'm bad at it. A lot of decisions feel punishing to the player more than the game, on top of the inherent randomness. Not only that, but as a result, many decisions (items) feel like a wash - you either meet the stat breakpoint you're targeting, or you don't.
=The items as a result aren't interesting to pick through, in effect or stats; you're just taking the best of the two (including rerolls), versus making an actual build.

[livinghell]

(5) there is a mask protecting you from them. The only other way is to tank the damage.
(6) turtle life principle, you pinned it.

You forgot "suicide items" class. Like with ability "attack on pass". You no more can pass the exploders wtih it.

[Twice Different]

(1) Hmmm, a bit hard to talk to this as I don't personally play the game this way.
I understand where you're coming from with this analytical approach, but it's not really designed to this philosophy. We wanted to make a game where item effects can drastically change the way you play, as opposed to the dry numerical approach a lot of games take where everything is "number go up".

(2.1) People often get Minimalist achievement with Hermit's Tiara.
It's a bit of a trap item though, and frequently overestimated. You miss out on a lot of stats and effects by limiting your inventory but it's certainly possible to finish the game with it.

(2.2) There are 20+ items with Poison-related effects, though a portion of these start locked. Plague Spellbook is considered the best spellbook by some players, and Sadistic Will mask is incredibly powerful.
Interesting thoughts about Petrify.

(4) I agree this would be good. I can't recall exactly why we decided to only allow front card targets, it may have been due to touchscreen awkwardness (Switch). Probably worth revisiting the consequence of changing this.

(5) Like you say there are a few items which mitigate it. Ranged creatures are designed to force players to rush them or avoid them.

(6) In the future we want to improve item reroll to help players find synergies as the item pool grows. This will also help your concluding thought.
Finding something broken early is effective on Normal difficulty where special rooms generally have corpses, but not so much higher difficulties. More of the strategic nuance may come to light as you play - part of it is learning quirks of the special rooms and creature behaviours. eg. If you stand between an exit and a Scrounger, the Scrounger will move away from you and not exit. That kinda thing.

(7) Yea, I think this could be good. The team's had a few discussions about Wishing Well to this effect. There's another discard Spellbook coming, too.

[some (momi)]

Wow, thanks for the in-depth response! <3

I'm still processing it all, but; it sounds like I need to do two things - one, play more fluidly instead of trying to commit to a build, and two, I know I definitely need to try stealth more.

Stealth is just tough to use, and super risky; Candle gives you an 80% base chance to be hit, and Dark Gem decreases that to 60% - but at the cost of -2 speed, which means you'll need to use the Stealth option even more. I'm just learning when to take the risks, is all. I'm also very likely trying to kill too much - which doesn't give loot, it just gives souls - and not that many in the beginning.

Regarding Petrify, a thought that entered my head was - what if the the percentage of HP that was petrified when the monster died, was the % chance it had to 'Freeze', and not use death effects?

Either way, I'll have to give it some more goes and see where I end up. I'm 10 hours in, I'm enjoying the game, I just wanted to get my thoughts out there, and see/learn areas I could improve my plays upon.

Thanks!

[Twice Different]

Yea Stealth is crucial.
Mastering its use is a core part of the strategy, as even though the Stealth chance starts very low, the game is balanced around failing stealth frequently.

In some dungeons you get more leverage by equipping before attacking, even though you soak a bit of damage moving around.

I think you'll find more success with an adaptive play style, like you suggest. Making the most of what's available. It's a bit more like a drafting system in that regard, it's very rare to get perfect inventory synergy but a lot of items have cross-synergies.

[Lawlzer]

See what you find, and (try) to make a build out of it! Don't decide your build early, you can literally decide your build in the final few rounds! Oftentimes I feel like I'm offered crap, and oftentimes lose - it's a rougelite, that's expected.
I think there are builds you can make work for most of those (spoilers on my 2 wins down below)

Quick tip though, if you're not absolutely requiring an item, SAVE YOUR SOULS! Getting a legendary for (160) souls will MAKE your run! Legendaries are game changing, and once you have a legendary or two, you can decide what to put the rest of your souls into! Would highly recommend trying this.

My first bunch of runs (not that I'm remotely experienced), I did try to get lots of high-stat items, e.g high attack and very high speed, basically the biggest glass-cannon, one-shotting every enemy before they can hit me. I had some very good runs with these ideas... but none that would have worked for the [end] :)

First Win (Normal Mode) - Mass defense, had Bloodstone (80% chance on attack to heal 1 hp), and on-parry, "reflect" (deal) 5 damage. Basically just sliced and sliced, taking minimal damage (since I have like 30 defense, was nuts), healed a tiny bit every round, and enemies just killed themselves.

Second Win (Hard Mode) Again mass defense, but this time I had Petrify! I didn't get good Petrify cards until literally the last 2-3 areas, but I got super lucky with them and decided to try this out.
Spell - Book that heals for however much Petrify a target has. Normally this will only give you, maybe max 9 healing. Not bad, but extremely situational (cannot heal on demand, need to constantly have an enemy with Petrify)...
Main Petrify Source - Ascension (+1 Petrify on attack, per 4 health. I had about 40 HP going into the final fight, giving me 10 petrify/attack. Absolutely insane Normally I would have like 20-30 hp here, but I got this item a couple waves earlier and a few other items spawned more hearts, so I was 100% focused on hearts.
And, the final item was Crushing Concoction (Healing missing Health becomes Petrify to all creatures).
Yeah, the entire build was literally "hit an enemy 2-3 times (give him 20-30 petrify), get low HP, heal it all with one spell ability, wipe the map, collect victory." (Still a LOT of close calls, but I was fine)
edit: I was dealing so much map-wide AoE, that I was actually able to get over 1900 souls during the final fight.

[Klaus]

Originally posted by Twice Different:

(1) Hmmm, a bit hard to talk to this as I don't personally play the game this way.
I understand where you're coming from with this analytical approach, but it's not really designed to this philosophy. We wanted to make a game where item effects can drastically change the way you play, as opposed to the dry numerical approach a lot of games take where everything is "number go up".

(2.1) People often get Minimalist achievement with Hermit's Tiara.
It's a bit of a trap item though, and frequently overestimated. You miss out on a lot of stats and effects by limiting your inventory but it's certainly possible to finish the game with it.

(2.2) There are 20+ items with Poison-related effects, though a portion of these start locked. Plague Spellbook is considered the best spellbook by some players, and Sadistic Will mask is incredibly powerful.
Interesting thoughts about Petrify.

(4) I agree this would be good. I can't recall exactly why we decided to only allow front card targets, it may have been due to touchscreen awkwardness (Switch). Probably worth revisiting the consequence of changing this.

(5) Like you say there are a few items which mitigate it. Ranged creatures are designed to force players to rush them or avoid them.

(6) In the future we want to improve item reroll to help players find synergies as the item pool grows. This will also help your concluding thought.
Finding something broken early is effective on Normal difficulty where special rooms generally have corpses, but not so much higher difficulties. More of the strategic nuance may come to light as you play - part of it is learning quirks of the special rooms and creature behaviours. eg. If you stand between an exit and a Scrounger, the Scrounger will move away from you and not exit. That kinda thing.

(7) Yea, I think this could be good. The team's had a few discussions about Wishing Well to this effect. There's another discard Spellbook coming, too.

You should nerf hermit´s tiara, it is very very op

[Asschen-Sukar]

Oh god, this guy again... Anyways, props to the op, good feedback.
If you want to try hardcore stealth, you can try Misting Vessel, and combine it with an item that requires you to limit the number of equipped items. Hermit's Tiara is the most obvious choice there. Please refer to my guide for Tiara, for more information.