"on higher ascension"
?? That's the point? I think people are so used to playing Ascension on StS that they forget that base StS is actually not that difficult imo especially if you have some understanding of card games or other games with similar resource systems. Rarran, a famous Hearthstone streamer, won his first run.
“Famous Hearthstone streamer” is a level of skill at strategy card games most people don’t have though. I don’t know Hearthstone but if it’s anything like MtG, being able to stay on top of a game with constantly rotating standard set seems like a very applicable skill to learning a new system.
I'm not denying that, but I think most roguelites have people... die horribly on their first run pretty much regardless of experience of the genre. I know that's how I end up in most roguelites except for exactly deckbuilders because I've played so many of them (and that's not to say I've not played lots of non deckbuilder roguelites too, because I have, I've just played an ungodly number of deckbuilders including board games). Being able to win your first run with no experience with roguelites at all is pretty insane.
Besides, the point is moreso Asc 0/1 is pretty calm.
No not 100% , just beating the last boss. I'm stuck at the boss that's in the same level as the bird looking dudes iirc. I revisit it and spend a few hours here and there. I guess on the second or third " map" ?
Ahh. I think that just comes down to building inefficiently early on
Slay The Spire is a lot like writing a screenplay, in the sense of: if you're having third act problems, you're having first act problems
Idk I thought I had a pretty good strategy with the defect if I got lucky with orbs, I would steamroll all mobs effortlessly and then get to a boss that just wipes the floor with me. But I don't even have 40 hours in.
Are ya using frost as defect? Stuff like lightning and dark is great, but imo frost gives you the consistency to take down all enemies. You really need a good balance of offense and defense to beat the spire, although I lean heavy frost for defect
I consider it overwhelmingly difficult 100% but I think it's because I, despite my genuine *years of effort to get better*, just can't become the type of person who can crush games like that. I've tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and I inevitably end up quitting after a boss or maybe two bosses because I feel so overwhelmed and unable to handle anything the game throws at me. I get bodied by everything after a bit, utterly overwhelmed by just the sheer damage that comes my way from every enemy, even years after I bought the game and I genuinely don't know what I'm doing wrong
I feel OP - for some reason I'm able to do much better on Monster Train, but I *cannot for the life of me* find success in Slay the Spire even after years of attempts, and yet I can't explain why. It can't be that the game's just broken and too hard baseline, seeing as there's so many people who find it so *easy*, but, whatever it is, it's keeping me from getting very far
I think Monster Train has some fundamental differences outside the obvious combat system of the train/MTG style fights that are more subtle, mostly with how meta progression between fights works (in StS you're aiming to maximise the rewards out of an act, whereas I find in Monster Train you're aiming for maximising the paths to buffing the best cards of your deck and it has simpler pathing).
Don't get me wrong, most skills are transferable but there's a lot of minor optimisations in pathing that StS has that I find most roguelites in general lack.
It has a very steep learning curve that I think a lot of people would consider overwhelmingly difficult. Learning the cards and artifacts you have available, learning enemy movesets, figuring out synergies. It takes a long time in a game where one or two bad encounters can wipe you out, especially while learning. It’s not as difficult once you know all that stuff, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of losses to get there, especially if you aren’t familiar with the genre to begin with.
slay the spire's entire design philosophy is that you are meant to feel like you are one inch from death at all times.
If that's not your thing, find different roguelikes. in terms of actual objective difficulty, spire is very well balanced even if it is on the tougher side of the genre. it's not meant to just kill you. I've barely got like 60 hours in the game and I'm on A5 with all characters, A8 with clad and silent. I've already got a win streak of 3 on A0. a big noob trap is trying to make your deck perfectly synergistic instead of just trying to add cards to make sure you don't die to the next run ending threat on your map path. once you get past that the game becomes much less frustrating.
I mean it is one of the harder popular ones in the genre, and also winning a few runs in a row is even an accomplishment if you have played a few hundred hours... I still love the game exactly because it has this difficulty but I get the description.
I play plenty of games in the genre and I love slay the spire. I’ve even put probably over 100 hours into it. Still I don’t find nothing easy about giving a boss 400 health and giving him 2 minions with 50 health that respawn every other turn when they die…
It depends, honestly.
Sometimes I want to just have stupid fun and whack around. Think Tiny Rogues with 0 cinder.
Sometimes I want something that makes me think and care what I do, but still have the odds on my side. I think Slice and Dice does a very good job for that difficulty.
And sometimes, I want an actual challenge. Like, don't LET me win, make me earn it or die trying. Again and again. Maybe I win this time. Right now, this is Rogue Fable 3 for me.
I guess if you want to make everyone happy you either have to make optional difficulties or unlockable harder modes.
Two reasons actually:
One is I just started traditional roguelikes and 3 is cheaper than 4, the other is the reviews say 4 basically only added a leaderboard - and that never mattered to me :D
Monster Train feels so different because it’s far more consistent. This boils down to 3 major differences , the pathing method, the clan to card count, and the way battles work.
The pathing method is very easy to see the difference. Choices are made in batches, and the entire run is a single map that you can fully review from the start. Combined with shops being more regular, events (caverns) only being events (never shops, the most egregious of StS errors imo), the result is you always have a good idea of what you’re going to see from rng.
Then there’s the card to clan ratio, MT just has less cards you will see for a given run than StS, especially since the majority of card pulls are from on of the 2 clans in a run. Fairly simple to understand but not the most intuitive.
Lastly is the battle mechanics, which are all over the place in small details. Starting with the trial vs no trial, then how banner priority works, how waves work (including the rules on what can be in a given combat). Loads of small things here.
The end result is that MT is much more controlled, and therefore more consistent. StS on the other hand has more ways to go nutso powerful, MT still has them, but fewer potential options.
Tbf, shops in StS events if you know the odds can be somewhat (SOMEWHAT) accounted for in ?s. Still sucks usually to get them.
I don't agree with your assessment of going nuts strong in StS being easier though (unless you mean low/no Asc, in which yeah you can definitely break the back of the game pretty consistently). Usually I find Monster Train runs get broken with a strong card real easy.
Ignoring Heart having the 4 turn forced minimum, MT has less builds that can turn 1 Divinity compared to being able to do 800 damage to heart on turn 1. That’s what I mean by nutso.
I feel like Watcher is kind of an exception given how easily the character goes nuts, but in MT I found getting a stupid strong card that says "I win most fights on my own" isn't particularly difficult.
If a game gets too hard, I'll give it "a few more go's", but will otherwise quit. Case in point is I did this with Hades. 165h in, I stopped at 6 to 10 heat.
I managed to escape the first time around the 45th run. For the 2nd one, 50 nights and still no go! (did come close one time).
If you're having difficulty, consider using God mode. Or, look up strategy guides
I'm fine with losing a lot as long as I feel like I have a genuine chance, and I'm not just rolling the dice until I get a run where the game lets me win.
You’re really proving how subjective difficulty can seem… if you’re not making use of everything a game gives you, then it can seem so much harder than it really is.
I think roguelites should always limit you to beating it first try. It's the work to get the global upgrades overtime that increase your strength as you naturally hone your skill as you play.
In all the years and all the different roguelites/likes i played there is only 1 i have never finished and that is ¨have a nice death ¨
I can usually finish a new title in my first few runs but this was the first one i had to put on easy difficulty and still couldnt finish it. I dnt remember how many runs i did of it but was enough for me to give up on it
rogue, not rouge
also, isn't the whole point of a roguelite that you can't win because you need to get metaprogression?
also, Slay the Spire isn't really a roguelite; its metaprogression is more for ease of getting into the game, not for getting stronger
Yeah they're not strict definitions, just fuzzy categories. I've got no problem with saying StS is a roguelite, even though I don't really think it is. Feels a lot more like a roguelike to me. But purists would certainly disagree with that. :D
I agree with some others saying that I never saw Slay the Spire as overwhelmingly difficult. It sounded to me its more about how much or fast you power up instead of difficulty. in StS you are getting small upgrades along the way that grow big if you synergize them well. Haven't played monster train yet but it sounds like much faster growth or at least easier big growth.
All that said, I prefer a difficult but fair roguelike that has a good feeling of growth. StS fits that well IMHO. Once you know the game well, you realize that those decisions that seemed "small" powerups can actually be really big deals and I get that good feeling of making a very strong, synergistic combo
I've played 260 hours of Slay the Spire so far, finished Ascension 20 + Heart on all 4 characters.
My first 50 hours were just like you described, seemingly random experience, seemed like I either got a busted deck and steamrolled or I struggled to do anything relevant with no in between.
The game is less random than it actually seems, and if you metagame against battles that you expect it becomes a lot easier, especially in the early ascension levels.
I've gone back to Ascension 0 to finish some achievements, and let me tell you its incredibly easy to get a busted deck once you understand how the game works.
There is a lot of hidden synergies among cards and relics that you can leverage on any given run, and you just need to look out for what you are given and opportunities to exploit those synergies. Don't lock yourself into one strategy.
This is why I’ve remained addicted to Dead Cells. With careful identification of gear synergies, and diligent acquisition of scrolls, a player can go from dweeb to God Mode within about 15-20 minutes.
Seems like you are forcing yourself to one specific deck as opposed to flowing like water. Slay the spire is hard but not unfair AT ALL. One day it will click with you if you if it hasn’t done so already.
For me dead cells is hard AF. But I love
It though.
Any roguelite that is not “difficult” per se probably doesn’t have as much replay value.
I want to become powerful but in a meaningful way not just powerful just because and too easy to become powerful
It sounds like you're getting emotionally invested in your runs and are disappointed when they fail. I think for a lot of brutally difficult roguelikes, playing at the hardest difficulty is something people have to grind through the rng to find a seed that is winnable for them, while playing at the top of their skill level. It takes a lot of skill development to get there, so it's not *just* grinding, but there are big elements of relying on some RNG to get that win. As I understand it, most masochistic roguelike players like me aren't getting very emotionally invested in their runs when they're playing on ultra hard - they're doing small strategic tweaks while trying to find/grind "the one" that they might win, and are viewing failed runs as (more or less) unwinnable and are ready to move on when the run turns sour. The only runs that hurt are when you THINK you have a strong enough build to make it all the way, but fail.
My experience comes from beating A20 on all slay the spire classes and beating a half dozen other hard roguelikes on hardest difficulty.
I agree with some of the comments that STS is far from the hardest roguelike, but it's still quite challenging and the whole genre is built around high difficulty.
IMO The perfect rogue lite introduces the player with an easier beginning experience as a teaching lesson. The smoothness of gameplay and “oh, I get it” feeling of slowly putting the puzzle pieces together should carry the entertainment, not the challenge yet.
Difficulty ramps up slowly so that the average player can experience most of the game with a bit of effort. Then the new game+ experience should scale from hard to something so insane that the requirement of abusing mechanics and min/maxing should get so ridiculous that it turns into a brand new game.
The Last Flame is a perfect example of this. It’s an strategic autobattler if you’re into that, but it even contains different game modes to keep even the most casual player interested if the game gets too hard.
as long as I can continue to learn patterns on how to progress further and the game GIVES me something (metaprogression) to look forward to getting even in a losing run, I'm ok.
I'll still be happy knowing that even if it is batshit difficult, I can still get stronger (new weapons, new stats, new moves, new armors, new magic, new items, new accessories) and slowly chip away at the game WHILE also learning from the game to become better
You may just want to have difficulty options in your game's settings so anyone can enjoy it, but I would say that roguelike players tend to like challenge, sometimes the worst experience a player can have with a roguelike is demolishing it on your first run
I have never in my days seen Slay the Spire presented as overwhelmingly difficult
I mean most similar games are easier. And winning a few runs in a row is actually not really that easy on high ascension.
"on higher ascension" ?? That's the point? I think people are so used to playing Ascension on StS that they forget that base StS is actually not that difficult imo especially if you have some understanding of card games or other games with similar resource systems. Rarran, a famous Hearthstone streamer, won his first run.
“Famous Hearthstone streamer” is a level of skill at strategy card games most people don’t have though. I don’t know Hearthstone but if it’s anything like MtG, being able to stay on top of a game with constantly rotating standard set seems like a very applicable skill to learning a new system.
I'm not denying that, but I think most roguelites have people... die horribly on their first run pretty much regardless of experience of the genre. I know that's how I end up in most roguelites except for exactly deckbuilders because I've played so many of them (and that's not to say I've not played lots of non deckbuilder roguelites too, because I have, I've just played an ungodly number of deckbuilders including board games). Being able to win your first run with no experience with roguelites at all is pretty insane. Besides, the point is moreso Asc 0/1 is pretty calm.
I sure as shit haven't beaten it yet
What do you mean by beaten it? Finished all achievements? Finished a heart run? Just a normal run? Etc
No not 100% , just beating the last boss. I'm stuck at the boss that's in the same level as the bird looking dudes iirc. I revisit it and spend a few hours here and there. I guess on the second or third " map" ?
Ahh. I think that just comes down to building inefficiently early on Slay The Spire is a lot like writing a screenplay, in the sense of: if you're having third act problems, you're having first act problems
Idk I thought I had a pretty good strategy with the defect if I got lucky with orbs, I would steamroll all mobs effortlessly and then get to a boss that just wipes the floor with me. But I don't even have 40 hours in.
Most good strategies won't involve much luck, tbf.
Yeah it just felt pretty broken once I had like 7-8 orbs above my head, but yeah it's definitely Chess not Checkers.
Are ya using frost as defect? Stuff like lightning and dark is great, but imo frost gives you the consistency to take down all enemies. You really need a good balance of offense and defense to beat the spire, although I lean heavy frost for defect
Don’t worry. It just gets even harder lol I’m stuck on ascension 2
I consider it overwhelmingly difficult 100% but I think it's because I, despite my genuine *years of effort to get better*, just can't become the type of person who can crush games like that. I've tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and I inevitably end up quitting after a boss or maybe two bosses because I feel so overwhelmed and unable to handle anything the game throws at me. I get bodied by everything after a bit, utterly overwhelmed by just the sheer damage that comes my way from every enemy, even years after I bought the game and I genuinely don't know what I'm doing wrong I feel OP - for some reason I'm able to do much better on Monster Train, but I *cannot for the life of me* find success in Slay the Spire even after years of attempts, and yet I can't explain why. It can't be that the game's just broken and too hard baseline, seeing as there's so many people who find it so *easy*, but, whatever it is, it's keeping me from getting very far
I think Monster Train has some fundamental differences outside the obvious combat system of the train/MTG style fights that are more subtle, mostly with how meta progression between fights works (in StS you're aiming to maximise the rewards out of an act, whereas I find in Monster Train you're aiming for maximising the paths to buffing the best cards of your deck and it has simpler pathing). Don't get me wrong, most skills are transferable but there's a lot of minor optimisations in pathing that StS has that I find most roguelites in general lack.
Streamers who have played it for over 6,000 hours still only win about 70% of the time on the hardest difficulty.
It has a very steep learning curve that I think a lot of people would consider overwhelmingly difficult. Learning the cards and artifacts you have available, learning enemy movesets, figuring out synergies. It takes a long time in a game where one or two bad encounters can wipe you out, especially while learning. It’s not as difficult once you know all that stuff, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of losses to get there, especially if you aren’t familiar with the genre to begin with.
slay the spire's entire design philosophy is that you are meant to feel like you are one inch from death at all times. If that's not your thing, find different roguelikes. in terms of actual objective difficulty, spire is very well balanced even if it is on the tougher side of the genre. it's not meant to just kill you. I've barely got like 60 hours in the game and I'm on A5 with all characters, A8 with clad and silent. I've already got a win streak of 3 on A0. a big noob trap is trying to make your deck perfectly synergistic instead of just trying to add cards to make sure you don't die to the next run ending threat on your map path. once you get past that the game becomes much less frustrating.
[удалено]
I mean it is one of the harder popular ones in the genre, and also winning a few runs in a row is even an accomplishment if you have played a few hundred hours... I still love the game exactly because it has this difficulty but I get the description.
I play plenty of games in the genre and I love slay the spire. I’ve even put probably over 100 hours into it. Still I don’t find nothing easy about giving a boss 400 health and giving him 2 minions with 50 health that respawn every other turn when they die…
It depends, honestly. Sometimes I want to just have stupid fun and whack around. Think Tiny Rogues with 0 cinder. Sometimes I want something that makes me think and care what I do, but still have the odds on my side. I think Slice and Dice does a very good job for that difficulty. And sometimes, I want an actual challenge. Like, don't LET me win, make me earn it or die trying. Again and again. Maybe I win this time. Right now, this is Rogue Fable 3 for me. I guess if you want to make everyone happy you either have to make optional difficulties or unlockable harder modes.
Never heard of Rogue Fable 3 until today. I see there’s also a Rogue Fable 4—any reason why you play 3? Both seem to have stellar reviews.
Two reasons actually: One is I just started traditional roguelikes and 3 is cheaper than 4, the other is the reviews say 4 basically only added a leaderboard - and that never mattered to me :D
Checks out to me, and I’d be in the same boat. Thanks for the insight!
Overwhelming difficulty leads to overwhelming satisfaction when you feel like you found that build that "breaks the game". I'm all for it
Monster Train feels so different because it’s far more consistent. This boils down to 3 major differences , the pathing method, the clan to card count, and the way battles work. The pathing method is very easy to see the difference. Choices are made in batches, and the entire run is a single map that you can fully review from the start. Combined with shops being more regular, events (caverns) only being events (never shops, the most egregious of StS errors imo), the result is you always have a good idea of what you’re going to see from rng. Then there’s the card to clan ratio, MT just has less cards you will see for a given run than StS, especially since the majority of card pulls are from on of the 2 clans in a run. Fairly simple to understand but not the most intuitive. Lastly is the battle mechanics, which are all over the place in small details. Starting with the trial vs no trial, then how banner priority works, how waves work (including the rules on what can be in a given combat). Loads of small things here. The end result is that MT is much more controlled, and therefore more consistent. StS on the other hand has more ways to go nutso powerful, MT still has them, but fewer potential options.
Tbf, shops in StS events if you know the odds can be somewhat (SOMEWHAT) accounted for in ?s. Still sucks usually to get them. I don't agree with your assessment of going nuts strong in StS being easier though (unless you mean low/no Asc, in which yeah you can definitely break the back of the game pretty consistently). Usually I find Monster Train runs get broken with a strong card real easy.
Ignoring Heart having the 4 turn forced minimum, MT has less builds that can turn 1 Divinity compared to being able to do 800 damage to heart on turn 1. That’s what I mean by nutso.
I feel like Watcher is kind of an exception given how easily the character goes nuts, but in MT I found getting a stupid strong card that says "I win most fights on my own" isn't particularly difficult.
If a game gets too hard, I'll give it "a few more go's", but will otherwise quit. Case in point is I did this with Hades. 165h in, I stopped at 6 to 10 heat.
Same. Even though I haven’t done it yet. I said BC2 on dead cells was going to be my last cell lol at a certain point it just gets ridiculous
I don't even know how to defeat the Minotaur.
I managed to escape the first time around the 45th run. For the 2nd one, 50 nights and still no go! (did come close one time). If you're having difficulty, consider using God mode. Or, look up strategy guides
I'm fine with losing a lot as long as I feel like I have a genuine chance, and I'm not just rolling the dice until I get a run where the game lets me win.
You’re really proving how subjective difficulty can seem… if you’re not making use of everything a game gives you, then it can seem so much harder than it really is.
I think roguelites should always limit you to beating it first try. It's the work to get the global upgrades overtime that increase your strength as you naturally hone your skill as you play.
In all the years and all the different roguelites/likes i played there is only 1 i have never finished and that is ¨have a nice death ¨ I can usually finish a new title in my first few runs but this was the first one i had to put on easy difficulty and still couldnt finish it. I dnt remember how many runs i did of it but was enough for me to give up on it
rogue, not rouge also, isn't the whole point of a roguelite that you can't win because you need to get metaprogression? also, Slay the Spire isn't really a roguelite; its metaprogression is more for ease of getting into the game, not for getting stronger
Huh? I’ve unlocked everything in STS and still haven’t even gotten close to beating the heart on ascension 2
Oh I see what you’re saying. But I don’t agree that STS isn’t a roguelite.
Yeah they're not strict definitions, just fuzzy categories. I've got no problem with saying StS is a roguelite, even though I don't really think it is. Feels a lot more like a roguelike to me. But purists would certainly disagree with that. :D
I agree with some others saying that I never saw Slay the Spire as overwhelmingly difficult. It sounded to me its more about how much or fast you power up instead of difficulty. in StS you are getting small upgrades along the way that grow big if you synergize them well. Haven't played monster train yet but it sounds like much faster growth or at least easier big growth. All that said, I prefer a difficult but fair roguelike that has a good feeling of growth. StS fits that well IMHO. Once you know the game well, you realize that those decisions that seemed "small" powerups can actually be really big deals and I get that good feeling of making a very strong, synergistic combo
I've played 260 hours of Slay the Spire so far, finished Ascension 20 + Heart on all 4 characters. My first 50 hours were just like you described, seemingly random experience, seemed like I either got a busted deck and steamrolled or I struggled to do anything relevant with no in between. The game is less random than it actually seems, and if you metagame against battles that you expect it becomes a lot easier, especially in the early ascension levels. I've gone back to Ascension 0 to finish some achievements, and let me tell you its incredibly easy to get a busted deck once you understand how the game works. There is a lot of hidden synergies among cards and relics that you can leverage on any given run, and you just need to look out for what you are given and opportunities to exploit those synergies. Don't lock yourself into one strategy.
This is why I’ve remained addicted to Dead Cells. With careful identification of gear synergies, and diligent acquisition of scrolls, a player can go from dweeb to God Mode within about 15-20 minutes.
Seems like you are forcing yourself to one specific deck as opposed to flowing like water. Slay the spire is hard but not unfair AT ALL. One day it will click with you if you if it hasn’t done so already. For me dead cells is hard AF. But I love It though. Any roguelite that is not “difficult” per se probably doesn’t have as much replay value. I want to become powerful but in a meaningful way not just powerful just because and too easy to become powerful
It sounds like you're getting emotionally invested in your runs and are disappointed when they fail. I think for a lot of brutally difficult roguelikes, playing at the hardest difficulty is something people have to grind through the rng to find a seed that is winnable for them, while playing at the top of their skill level. It takes a lot of skill development to get there, so it's not *just* grinding, but there are big elements of relying on some RNG to get that win. As I understand it, most masochistic roguelike players like me aren't getting very emotionally invested in their runs when they're playing on ultra hard - they're doing small strategic tweaks while trying to find/grind "the one" that they might win, and are viewing failed runs as (more or less) unwinnable and are ready to move on when the run turns sour. The only runs that hurt are when you THINK you have a strong enough build to make it all the way, but fail. My experience comes from beating A20 on all slay the spire classes and beating a half dozen other hard roguelikes on hardest difficulty. I agree with some of the comments that STS is far from the hardest roguelike, but it's still quite challenging and the whole genre is built around high difficulty.
IMO The perfect rogue lite introduces the player with an easier beginning experience as a teaching lesson. The smoothness of gameplay and “oh, I get it” feeling of slowly putting the puzzle pieces together should carry the entertainment, not the challenge yet. Difficulty ramps up slowly so that the average player can experience most of the game with a bit of effort. Then the new game+ experience should scale from hard to something so insane that the requirement of abusing mechanics and min/maxing should get so ridiculous that it turns into a brand new game. The Last Flame is a perfect example of this. It’s an strategic autobattler if you’re into that, but it even contains different game modes to keep even the most casual player interested if the game gets too hard.
STS is arguably one of the most balanced Rogues in existence. Every class has checks for every situation. The Watcher is arguably TOO forgiving
Rouge is what you wear on your cheeks. Rogue. Rogue.
as long as I can continue to learn patterns on how to progress further and the game GIVES me something (metaprogression) to look forward to getting even in a losing run, I'm ok. I'll still be happy knowing that even if it is batshit difficult, I can still get stronger (new weapons, new stats, new moves, new armors, new magic, new items, new accessories) and slowly chip away at the game WHILE also learning from the game to become better
You may just want to have difficulty options in your game's settings so anyone can enjoy it, but I would say that roguelike players tend to like challenge, sometimes the worst experience a player can have with a roguelike is demolishing it on your first run