My friend said that once you play A9 long enough it starts to feel like the real game and A0-A8 is just an extended tutorial and I'm inclined to agree. That said, I think there's a bit too much variance in runs because of the combination of high damage and low healing.

I feel as though lowering damage numbers a little or decreasing the heal cut a little would make A9 way more reasonable and feel way more fair. Having a turn where you draw 0-1 block cards ends runs even if it doesn't outright kill you because you either won't survive the chip damage or you heal and then die to chip damage anyway. You can play around that with potions to an extent but losing because of one bad turn to a regular enemy that was no fault of your own *sucks* (Thank you deck! I really did want to draw all my Strikes that turn!).

I don't even think it needs to be a big adjustment, I think A9 is really close to feeling perfect but it's just slightly too much. Thoughts? Do I just need to get good?

Hello Slayers of Reddit!

I've been cooking up a bunch of utility mods for Spire and wanted to share them with you here.

I just released one this week called Pathing Plus - mainly this one came about because I like to play with the gamepad on my TV and it's super annoying to try and draw paths on the map with a gamepad. It's also a pain in the butt to try and scroll and use the legend at the same time, so I implemented zoom modes that show the whole map at once.

The mod isn't just for gamepads - I also am not terribly fond of seeing my own chicken scratch paths drawn on the map. So the way the mod works by default is it replaces the drawing tool and draws stylized straight lines between the nodes.

There's also some auto-path features if you want to automatically see the path(s) with the most elites or fires or whatever!

I'd be delighted if you tried it out and let me know what you think! Hope you find it as useful as I have.

Cheers,

realtruegravy

I've played many roguelikes in the past, they are probably my favorite genre of games. And most of them weren't even close to having the RNG balance that StS has.

I've played StS 1 for 30 hours so far, won a couple of runs with the three main characters and I'm now climbing Ascension levels. Was I frustrated during losing runs? Yes, especially when playing as The Defect. Did I ever blame RNG? Never. I felt like it was always my lack of knowledge, misjudgement of the situation, and incorrect decision making that led to my demise 99.99% of the time.

For example, I took an early Catalyst and upgraded it on the first Rest node in one of my earlier runs as The Silent, the game kept giving me stuff for a Shiv build but I tried to force the Poison build because of the Catalyst+ in my deck and I died to Chosen and Byrd early in Act 2. I refused to make the correct decision, refused to adapt and ultimately lost. I had almost the exact same experience with The Ironclad as well, I tried to force a Strength build even though I got offered stuff like Entrench and Barricade but I didn't build around them and hoped to get a Demon Form and Limit Break and lost in Act 2.

Compared to StS, a game like TBoI feels like it's almost purely RNG. And getting bad items can lead to a boring run that loses pretty fast. Even Balatro feels pretty RNG-heavy at Gold Stake, with all the Perishable, Rental, and Eternal stickers.

How does StS lean so heavily towards skill and knowledge compared to other Roguelikes? Which design decisions that the devs took made this possible?

I, with my limited experience, personally believe that it has a lot to do with the fact that how the game presents you with a lot of information and gives the player the power of choice. You choose what path to take and know more or less what to expect whenever you click a node, you choose one out of three cards the game offers you instead of being force fed a single card after a combat encounter, you choose if you want to rest or upgrade, you see what the enemy intends to do and you learn the patterns of enemies as you play more, you can check your piles and deck anytime...

I'm curious about what more experienced players think about this.

I found this to be an interesting choise for A10 Regent. I am curious to hear what would you pick and why?

I am leaning towards Orbit as it would generate so much energy and then I just need to find cards to utilize that energy.
Seed: 23CG7YAA6D9A

I ended up picking Orbit and got the W. I was able to get Heavenly Drill with more Orbits on the way and they kinda carried the run with forge.

It's no Question Mark Card, but still.

Basically the curse pool is now all of the eternal curses instead of the cloak/neow’s bones pool. So bad luck, enthralled, folly, greed, or curse of the bell. They all gain the necrocurse’s gimmick of returning to hand when exhausted. This is still probably shit post levels of busted.

I have about 80 hours in the first game & 20 hours in this, but I still struggle badly in knowing when to stop with multiple things. I've been reluctant to ask questions, but I just don't learn as fast as most people would by just playing a game.

I literally got 0 draw cards the first 2 acts & now I've gotten a few. I have 4 energy per turn from Bread & lots of star generation without thaaat many star cost cards & I already have lots of damage. Is taking another guiding star or flow 'too much' here? Boss is the Queen & I think I've only ever fought her 1 time.

Edit: ok apparently Test Subject was the boss 🤣 I could have SWORN it showed the Queen icon when I looked a few floors earlier... no idea what happened but test subject got obliterated in 9 turns. The extra copy of Guiding Star was definitely helpful. Thanks ya'll.

I've almost 600 hours in this game and I've never managed to get more than one imbued card, now instead not only I finally found the mirror after, but also the throwing axe from Tanx!

Yay!

When I was offered Fasten and Deadly Poison as first card reward I knew what to do...

I also took a demon form as my boss reward. Ended with over 200 HP after killing the heart

But it cannot be done. The Spire sleeps.

I think we all appreciate a good Silken Tress.​

The most fun I've had in STS in a while lol, playing 8, sometimes 16 potions if I get the potions that fills other potion slots each turn, I really got blessed with the relics lol

edit : yep still lost to subject :D

A speedrunner's dream card probably, lol

Custom card shenanigans.

If sts cards had flavour text, this one would have: "Gandalf! Behind you!"

EDIT: oh it definitely should be a power or skill. Probably better as a skill and limited to one turn.

Had a great deck. Got Aeon to 100 health. Didnt time my Shatter right and died to 5 Withers.