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The Competitive Duality of Slay the Spire

92 points by luu 5y ago

egypturnash 5y ago
What on earth does “rotating” mean in this context?
- pvg 5y ago
  I think it's changing characters on each run, 'rotating' through the lot.
  - egypturnash 5y ago
    That was my best guess too. But I feel like there could easily be some other meaning that makes sense to someone who has obsessively played thousands of games of Spire.
    - pvg 5y ago
      I googled it a bit and that seems to be it and what made sense to me, having obsessively played probably only hundreds of games of Spire.
- germanjoey 5y ago
  It means you play through the four characters in order in four successive runs, e.g. ironclad -> silent -> defect -> watcher, rather than e.g. just playing the watcher (the character generally considered the easiest to win with at high skill levels) 4 times in a row.
deltaonefour 5y ago
There must be something I'm doing wrong. I've logged a lot of hours in this game and I'm nowhere near as good as what this player describes. Out of 10 runs I can make it to the end probably 3 times.
- hypersoar 5y ago
  Well, this guy was a #1-ranked MTG player, so it's not a fair comparison for most of us mortals. It took me hundreds of tries and some very good luck to beat A20.
  - wincy 5y ago
    I called it good at ascension 2 and uninstalled, doesn’t the novelty and enjoyment wear off long before you’d hit ascension 20? I guess this is maybe why I’ve never really been an expert at anything just pretty good.
    - cole-k 5y ago
      > doesn’t the novelty and enjoyment wear off long before you’d hit ascension 20? I don't think it's a problem at all that you didn't enjoy it after A2. Some folks do (like Jorbs or your comment's parent) and some don't. If your line of questioning was more along the lines of why it didn't wear off, I can give my own anecdote. I found that the increase of difficulty makes the game more interesting to think about because you have to be much more methodical in how you craft your deck and play it. There are a lot of variables to manage and account for too.
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        I kind of feel like by A2 I’d have figured out where the optimizations are, and it’s just a matter of finding them, not sure if I’d have the energy to actually try them in game.
        chitowneats 5y ago
        Until you've actually played at A20 it's hard to understand how different the game is. There are picks for cards, relics, shop purchases, etc, that are absolutely crucial to get an A20 heart kill that you would never even consider picking at A2.
        cole-k 5y ago
srcreigh 5y ago
I want to splice in an extra hook for this article. > Around twenty years ago, as a teenager, I was building decks for Magic: the Gathering pro tours, and proudly reached #1 in the world in constructed rank and #3 in the world in limited rank on Magic: the Gathering Online. I later dropped out of college to play poker online, and became one of the strongest No Limit Hold ‘Em cash game players on Pokerstars between 2008 and 2011, easily earning enough to pay for travel and living expenses for most of my 20’s.
- deleted 5y ago
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epivosism 5y ago
The author is one of the best Slay the Spire players in the world. Here's an example of a fun run at ascension 20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgu-lMQnA74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgu-lMQnA74 He isn't the most talkative player. Other interesting people to look up are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEvDtGBqQFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEvDtGBqQFk . Another good one is lifecoach1984 on twitch.
- ridiculous_fish 5y ago
  jorbs is great. His low-key sarcastic style hits just right. Don't miss Searing Blow +16. Surely his most celebrated and infamous run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY4fe-jQEyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY4fe-jQEyA
  - chillage 5y ago
    Lol just watched it yeah that's definitely an entertaining run
- chillage 5y ago
  I'll put in a plug as well for Baalorlord who is extremely friendly and explains his moves very well. I've watched tooons of his videos https://youtube.com/c/Baalorlord https://youtube.com/c/Baalorlord
  - idrios 5y ago
    Baalor is great at sts and ridiculously friendly. His ladder challenge was immensely fun to watch
- kibibu 5y ago
  I'm guessing you didn't read the whole article before dropping a link to lifecoach without annotation...
  - tomgp 5y ago
    Lifecoach is an odd one, he's a fantastic deeply analytical player who just doesn't seem to understand why anyone would play a game in any other way, and as the article points out is just rude about people who don't conform to his ideas about the "right" way to enjoy things.
schoen 5y ago
I like watching people play Slay the Spire online. I can see that it's very deep and sometimes quite suspenseful. It's weird to me as a NetHack and DCSS player that people view it as a "roguelike" (though I think "roguelite" is more common). I've spent thousands of hours playing those games and won at both of them, though not anywhere near a competitive level. And Slay the Spire feels extraordinarily unlike them to me. Like, it's turn-based, and has hitpoints, permadeath, and a randomized map. But (apart from the graphics question), it has no grid, it has a discrete combat mode, almost everything dangerous occurs only during combat mode, your inventory is only useful during combat mode, you access different parts of your inventory at different times due to the deckbuilding mechanism, you can't usefully retreat to a cleared area or otherwise cause enemies to move or not move on the map, and you have no character stats, skills, or intrinsics except max HP (although relics could be viewed as providing an equivalent to intrinsics), and there's no equippable armor, melee weapons, or ranged weapons. Is "roguelikeness" enough of a flamebait topic by now that I just ought not bring this up?
- pvg 5y ago
  That's sort of the point of the 'roguelite' term, to describe games that are not what people used to call 'roguelikes' (i.e. games pretty similar to actual Rogue). The key element is repetition (a game that has 'runs' as a core part of its gameplay) - there are others but most things with that mechanic are called 'roguelites'.
- deleted 5y ago
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- hombre_fatal 5y ago
  The debate isn't all that interesting. The entry paragraphs of the wikipedia article rehash the debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike People use the term to mainly mean procedural generation, permadeath, and random upgrades. But it's like arguing whether something really is "deep house" or not on electronic music forums. At a certain point you have to accept that not everyone's definition is the exact same, appreciate the common themes, and try to enjoy the show anyways.
genewitch 5y ago
I used to top leaderboards with a couple of friends in the 6 years between 98-2004, mostly with RTS and FPS games. What really ruined 'competitive' games for me was World of Warcraft, i think. even though i logged over 800 hours in games like COD4:MW, All the Battlefield games from 2 through 4 (including 2142 and BFBC2, which IMO is the best one), and the like, i wasn't ever able to break top 100. My wife did manage to become either the best or top 2 worldwide with the M249 in bf4, having played about 3 times more hours than i did. Because of all of that, and the general burnout from Wow 13 years ago or so, i have a hard time caring enough about any game to play it through legitimately; i also no longer play any competitive games at all. I read this article and have added the game to my wishlist for a future purchase, even though, in general, deck building games have never interested me. Since there's thousands of hours of gameplay and banter about the game online, the 'hook' of the article actually got my attention. I'll never be #1, or top 10, or even top 100 of any game again. I'm mostly ok with that.
- dsclough 5y ago
  I just have to say you shouldn't let your past experiences with grinding skill in old games destroy your ability to enjoy new ones. Slay the Spire is one of the best games to come out in the last three decades in my opinion. It's just that good.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    That's kind of judgmental to say how they should or shouldn't feel about it yeah? You don't generally just decide to feel that way about something that used to be a big part of your life, and you also don't undo feeling that way on a whim. And nothing about the experience they described centered on the quality of the games, so it also doesn't feel relevant that this one is apparently particularly good.
    - genewitch 5y ago
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antisthenes 5y ago
As interesting as it may be, I can hardly accept the argument that it is in any way competitive. Playing against static mobs with a finite game-tree is inherently...not very competitive? And not particularly entertaining either. It's not like the game tree is infinite. The mobs and their attack patterns are all known in advance. At some point during the win-streak, aren't you really just competing against the seed generator for a more favorable bunch of seeds that let you have the longest win-streak? An achievement, yes, in the same sense that a speedrun is an achievement, and improving it is also technically an achievement. But in my mind, the title of a competitive game are reserved strictly for games where the gameplay itself is performed against another player or a team. Not to belittle his achievement, I'm sure it's very meaningful (to him).
- chousuke 5y ago
  Beating STS is a test of adaptability; the game is hard, and getting long winstreaks is not an easy feat (or winning at all). The game has enough variety that getting a streak of "favorable" seeds is not going to happen. You might get a truly heinous seed that is basically unbeatable no matter what you do, but most seeds will be beatable exactly because you know the possible challenges so you can make decisions that give you the best chance of defeating them.
- jholman 5y ago
  You just argued that running (100m, marathon, etc) is not competitive, that weightlifting is not competitive, that bowling is not competitive, that target shooting is not competitive. Just achievements. That's fine, you can humpty-dumpty words all you like, but everyone else thinks that those things can be competitive. However, note that literally the entire point of the author of the blog post is that he doesn't want to be competitive and does not see his own behaviour as competitive, but rather as collaborating on achievement, so it's super weird that you're snarking on him.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    If you controlled any of those sports with deterministic multiple choice actions then they wouldn't be competitive.
honkycat 5y ago
> Its non-competitive merits are superlative. Competitive card games of comparable complexity have existed for decades with incredible popularity — Magic: the Gathering, Hearthstone, Poker — and Slay the Spire removes the need for those games to have an opponent for you to play against. Slay the Spire is a great game, but comparing it's complexity to Magic the Gathering is laughable. It is a MUCH simpler game. > As such, it is my opinion that it is fairly easily the most valuable game in the world for people who are interested in complex card games but disinterested in competition. So we start by establishing a unproven premise, and then justify the rest of the essay based on this. > I later dropped out of college to play poker online, and became one of the strongest No Limit Hold ‘Em cash game players on Pokerstars between 2008 and 2011, easily earning enough to pay for travel and living expenses for most of my 20’s. Paying for living expenses is a questionable bar for success. I paid for living expenses delivering pizzas for Domino's. And I probably worked less hours. Not to pick on the poster. I just think this essay could have a better introduction. Why bother establishing premises that you could never hope to actually establish in the first place? "I was a competitive Magic the Gathering player, and also a professional online poker player. With this credentials established, I will tell you why I enjoy Slay the Spire more and present to you a history of world records in Slay the Spire.
- taeric 5y ago
  Pushing that it is a simpler game is a bit of a non sequitur. In many ways, chess is also a simpler game. Wouldn't make sense to claim it is laughably so, though. Similarly, paying for things with an hourly job is very different than doing do so with a competitive job where pay is not guaranteed. I get the impression you are asking if the credentials make him an authority. No idea, there. They do give a good reference point to how much they liked card games, though.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  >Paying for living expenses is a questionable bar for success. I paid for living expenses delivering pizzas for Domino's. And I probably worked less hours. Success obviously depends on the objective. Paying for living expenses is successes for billions of people. Doing so in a zero sum (or negative sum) game of skill is a valid definition. More so if winnings cover your living for a decade after you stop playing. I'm guessing that delivering pizzas didn't allow you to retire and travel in comfort for years after.
wly_cdgr 5y ago
Finally picked this game up and I love it. Recently popped the A20 achievement (with The Ironclad) after about 250 hours and definitely still feel like a beginner - this game definitely has plenty of depth. I really recommend not consulting any strat guides / watching any expert playthroughs / etc if you pick this up. So much of the fun is in figuring stuff out on your own. Games are a space where, unlike at work, you can allow yourself that luxury - so enjoy it! P.S. I also think this game's potential as an honest-to-goodness esport is underappreciated. Not all esports need to be PvP!
- wly_cdgr 5y ago
  P.P.S. Add me on Steam (wlycdgr or if that doesn't come up try wly_cdgr)! I am always looking for more friendly leaderboard rivals :)
wly_cdgr 5y ago
Drop your Steam tag if you play on there! Mine is wlycdgr (wly_cdgr if that doesn't come up) - feel free to add me
Netbeing 5y ago
For Android users who enjoy Slay the Spire, I recommend checking out Rogue Adventure. I just found it a week ago and I'm hooked. (In fact it's the only game I've been playing since I installed it.) It's free with ads, but the ads are 100% optional and you can pay $5 to get the same rewards. I won't claim it's anywhere near as well-designed or as well-balanced as StS, but there are 12 classes and it looks like there's a similarly deep replay value.
robotnikman 5y ago
I love that game, though I only have been able to beat the Heart with the Defect
epivosism 5y ago
One missing part of the STS community is a problems site. I've speculated on creating this: * capture entire game state in a string * be able to view the state * be able to sub in and out the random seed state (in legal ways) then subject top players to the same fight, with random (but possible) seeds for how it goes from there. i.e. this excludes "hindsight" where you know/learn the seed state by seeing shuffle order. If you could do this you set up problems for 100 tough fights, have elite players play them (multiple times each, varying seed), and actually get a comparison function for a subcomponent of the game. i.e. with this current draw and this deck in this fight, under all possible playouts, who has the best results, each playing a random seed N times. A corollary to this idea would be: as streamers were playing, they could capture the game state into a hash, to share, which someone else could load. i.e. as you are watching someone play a fight load the exact same state into your app and play from there. Hopefully, with a new random seed so there is no hindsight info leaking risk. This also leads to an interesting game safety improvement: rather than using a seed which never changes from the start of the game (iterating as you play), at every floor, feed your seed in from a central server. This way cheaters would have a much harder time running this scam: in-memory read the game seed and share with a confederate. Confederate invisibly matches your play, then in a tough fight, plays beyond where you are to see what is upcoming in later floors, and relays the info back to you. The dispatching server would know who it gave what seed, so submitted runs could still be fully replayed with the changing seeds. Cheating would still be possible, but somewhat harder. This would also enable "duplicate STS" more safely where 100 streamers all play the same seed, but since seed changes every floor, hindsight would be less valuable.

92 points by luu 5y ago

egypturnash 5y ago

What on earth does “rotating” mean in this context?

pvg 5y ago
I think it's changing characters on each run, 'rotating' through the lot.
- egypturnash 5y ago
  That was my best guess too. But I feel like there could easily be some other meaning that makes sense to someone who has obsessively played thousands of games of Spire.
  - pvg 5y ago
    I googled it a bit and that seems to be it and what made sense to me, having obsessively played probably only hundreds of games of Spire.
germanjoey 5y ago
It means you play through the four characters in order in four successive runs, e.g. ironclad -> silent -> defect -> watcher, rather than e.g. just playing the watcher (the character generally considered the easiest to win with at high skill levels) 4 times in a row.

deltaonefour 5y ago

There must be something I'm doing wrong. I've logged a lot of hours in this game and I'm nowhere near as good as what this player describes. Out of 10 runs I can make it to the end probably 3 times.

hypersoar 5y ago
Well, this guy was a #1-ranked MTG player, so it's not a fair comparison for most of us mortals. It took me hundreds of tries and some very good luck to beat A20.
- wincy 5y ago
  I called it good at ascension 2 and uninstalled, doesn’t the novelty and enjoyment wear off long before you’d hit ascension 20? I guess this is maybe why I’ve never really been an expert at anything just pretty good.
  - cole-k 5y ago
    > doesn’t the novelty and enjoyment wear off long before you’d hit ascension 20? I don't think it's a problem at all that you didn't enjoy it after A2. Some folks do (like Jorbs or your comment's parent) and some don't. If your line of questioning was more along the lines of why it didn't wear off, I can give my own anecdote. I found that the increase of difficulty makes the game more interesting to think about because you have to be much more methodical in how you craft your deck and play it. There are a lot of variables to manage and account for too.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      I kind of feel like by A2 I’d have figured out where the optimizations are, and it’s just a matter of finding them, not sure if I’d have the energy to actually try them in game.
      - chitowneats 5y ago
        Until you've actually played at A20 it's hard to understand how different the game is. There are picks for cards, relics, shop purchases, etc, that are absolutely crucial to get an A20 heart kill that you would never even consider picking at A2.
      - cole-k 5y ago

srcreigh 5y ago

I want to splice in an extra hook for this article. > Around twenty years ago, as a teenager, I was building decks for Magic: the Gathering pro tours, and proudly reached #1 in the world in constructed rank and #3 in the world in limited rank on Magic: the Gathering Online. I later dropped out of college to play poker online, and became one of the strongest No Limit Hold ‘Em cash game players on Pokerstars between 2008 and 2011, easily earning enough to pay for travel and living expenses for most of my 20’s.

deleted 5y ago
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epivosism 5y ago

The author is one of the best Slay the Spire players in the world. Here's an example of a fun run at ascension 20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgu-lMQnA74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgu-lMQnA74 He isn't the most talkative player. Other interesting people to look up are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEvDtGBqQFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEvDtGBqQFk . Another good one is lifecoach1984 on twitch.

ridiculous_fish 5y ago
jorbs is great. His low-key sarcastic style hits just right. Don't miss Searing Blow +16. Surely his most celebrated and infamous run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY4fe-jQEyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY4fe-jQEyA
- chillage 5y ago
  Lol just watched it yeah that's definitely an entertaining run
chillage 5y ago
I'll put in a plug as well for Baalorlord who is extremely friendly and explains his moves very well. I've watched tooons of his videos https://youtube.com/c/Baalorlord https://youtube.com/c/Baalorlord
- idrios 5y ago
  Baalor is great at sts and ridiculously friendly. His ladder challenge was immensely fun to watch
kibibu 5y ago
I'm guessing you didn't read the whole article before dropping a link to lifecoach without annotation...
- tomgp 5y ago
  Lifecoach is an odd one, he's a fantastic deeply analytical player who just doesn't seem to understand why anyone would play a game in any other way, and as the article points out is just rude about people who don't conform to his ideas about the "right" way to enjoy things.

schoen 5y ago

I like watching people play Slay the Spire online. I can see that it's very deep and sometimes quite suspenseful. It's weird to me as a NetHack and DCSS player that people view it as a "roguelike" (though I think "roguelite" is more common). I've spent thousands of hours playing those games and won at both of them, though not anywhere near a competitive level. And Slay the Spire feels extraordinarily unlike them to me. Like, it's turn-based, and has hitpoints, permadeath, and a randomized map. But (apart from the graphics question), it has no grid, it has a discrete combat mode, almost everything dangerous occurs only during combat mode, your inventory is only useful during combat mode, you access different parts of your inventory at different times due to the deckbuilding mechanism, you can't usefully retreat to a cleared area or otherwise cause enemies to move or not move on the map, and you have no character stats, skills, or intrinsics except max HP (although relics could be viewed as providing an equivalent to intrinsics), and there's no equippable armor, melee weapons, or ranged weapons. Is "roguelikeness" enough of a flamebait topic by now that I just ought not bring this up?

pvg 5y ago
That's sort of the point of the 'roguelite' term, to describe games that are not what people used to call 'roguelikes' (i.e. games pretty similar to actual Rogue). The key element is repetition (a game that has 'runs' as a core part of its gameplay) - there are others but most things with that mechanic are called 'roguelites'.
deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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hombre_fatal 5y ago
The debate isn't all that interesting. The entry paragraphs of the wikipedia article rehash the debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike People use the term to mainly mean procedural generation, permadeath, and random upgrades. But it's like arguing whether something really is "deep house" or not on electronic music forums. At a certain point you have to accept that not everyone's definition is the exact same, appreciate the common themes, and try to enjoy the show anyways.

genewitch 5y ago

I used to top leaderboards with a couple of friends in the 6 years between 98-2004, mostly with RTS and FPS games. What really ruined 'competitive' games for me was World of Warcraft, i think. even though i logged over 800 hours in games like COD4:MW, All the Battlefield games from 2 through 4 (including 2142 and BFBC2, which IMO is the best one), and the like, i wasn't ever able to break top 100. My wife did manage to become either the best or top 2 worldwide with the M249 in bf4, having played about 3 times more hours than i did. Because of all of that, and the general burnout from Wow 13 years ago or so, i have a hard time caring enough about any game to play it through legitimately; i also no longer play any competitive games at all. I read this article and have added the game to my wishlist for a future purchase, even though, in general, deck building games have never interested me. Since there's thousands of hours of gameplay and banter about the game online, the 'hook' of the article actually got my attention. I'll never be #1, or top 10, or even top 100 of any game again. I'm mostly ok with that.

dsclough 5y ago
I just have to say you shouldn't let your past experiences with grinding skill in old games destroy your ability to enjoy new ones. Slay the Spire is one of the best games to come out in the last three decades in my opinion. It's just that good.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  That's kind of judgmental to say how they should or shouldn't feel about it yeah? You don't generally just decide to feel that way about something that used to be a big part of your life, and you also don't undo feeling that way on a whim. And nothing about the experience they described centered on the quality of the games, so it also doesn't feel relevant that this one is apparently particularly good.
  - genewitch 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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antisthenes 5y ago

As interesting as it may be, I can hardly accept the argument that it is in any way competitive. Playing against static mobs with a finite game-tree is inherently...not very competitive? And not particularly entertaining either. It's not like the game tree is infinite. The mobs and their attack patterns are all known in advance. At some point during the win-streak, aren't you really just competing against the seed generator for a more favorable bunch of seeds that let you have the longest win-streak? An achievement, yes, in the same sense that a speedrun is an achievement, and improving it is also technically an achievement. But in my mind, the title of a competitive game are reserved strictly for games where the gameplay itself is performed against another player or a team. Not to belittle his achievement, I'm sure it's very meaningful (to him).

chousuke 5y ago
Beating STS is a test of adaptability; the game is hard, and getting long winstreaks is not an easy feat (or winning at all). The game has enough variety that getting a streak of "favorable" seeds is not going to happen. You might get a truly heinous seed that is basically unbeatable no matter what you do, but most seeds will be beatable exactly because you know the possible challenges so you can make decisions that give you the best chance of defeating them.
jholman 5y ago
You just argued that running (100m, marathon, etc) is not competitive, that weightlifting is not competitive, that bowling is not competitive, that target shooting is not competitive. Just achievements. That's fine, you can humpty-dumpty words all you like, but everyone else thinks that those things can be competitive. However, note that literally the entire point of the author of the blog post is that he doesn't want to be competitive and does not see his own behaviour as competitive, but rather as collaborating on achievement, so it's super weird that you're snarking on him.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  If you controlled any of those sports with deterministic multiple choice actions then they wouldn't be competitive.

honkycat 5y ago

> Its non-competitive merits are superlative. Competitive card games of comparable complexity have existed for decades with incredible popularity — Magic: the Gathering, Hearthstone, Poker — and Slay the Spire removes the need for those games to have an opponent for you to play against. Slay the Spire is a great game, but comparing it's complexity to Magic the Gathering is laughable. It is a MUCH simpler game. > As such, it is my opinion that it is fairly easily the most valuable game in the world for people who are interested in complex card games but disinterested in competition. So we start by establishing a unproven premise, and then justify the rest of the essay based on this. > I later dropped out of college to play poker online, and became one of the strongest No Limit Hold ‘Em cash game players on Pokerstars between 2008 and 2011, easily earning enough to pay for travel and living expenses for most of my 20’s. Paying for living expenses is a questionable bar for success. I paid for living expenses delivering pizzas for Domino's. And I probably worked less hours. Not to pick on the poster. I just think this essay could have a better introduction. Why bother establishing premises that you could never hope to actually establish in the first place? "I was a competitive Magic the Gathering player, and also a professional online poker player. With this credentials established, I will tell you why I enjoy Slay the Spire more and present to you a history of world records in Slay the Spire.

taeric 5y ago
Pushing that it is a simpler game is a bit of a non sequitur. In many ways, chess is also a simpler game. Wouldn't make sense to claim it is laughably so, though. Similarly, paying for things with an hourly job is very different than doing do so with a competitive job where pay is not guaranteed. I get the impression you are asking if the credentials make him an authority. No idea, there. They do give a good reference point to how much they liked card games, though.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
>Paying for living expenses is a questionable bar for success. I paid for living expenses delivering pizzas for Domino's. And I probably worked less hours. Success obviously depends on the objective. Paying for living expenses is successes for billions of people. Doing so in a zero sum (or negative sum) game of skill is a valid definition. More so if winnings cover your living for a decade after you stop playing. I'm guessing that delivering pizzas didn't allow you to retire and travel in comfort for years after.

wly_cdgr 5y ago

Finally picked this game up and I love it. Recently popped the A20 achievement (with The Ironclad) after about 250 hours and definitely still feel like a beginner - this game definitely has plenty of depth. I really recommend not consulting any strat guides / watching any expert playthroughs / etc if you pick this up. So much of the fun is in figuring stuff out on your own. Games are a space where, unlike at work, you can allow yourself that luxury - so enjoy it! P.S. I also think this game's potential as an honest-to-goodness esport is underappreciated. Not all esports need to be PvP!

wly_cdgr 5y ago
P.P.S. Add me on Steam (wlycdgr or if that doesn't come up try wly_cdgr)! I am always looking for more friendly leaderboard rivals :)

wly_cdgr 5y ago

Drop your Steam tag if you play on there! Mine is wlycdgr (wly_cdgr if that doesn't come up) - feel free to add me

Netbeing 5y ago

For Android users who enjoy Slay the Spire, I recommend checking out Rogue Adventure. I just found it a week ago and I'm hooked. (In fact it's the only game I've been playing since I installed it.) It's free with ads, but the ads are 100% optional and you can pay $5 to get the same rewards. I won't claim it's anywhere near as well-designed or as well-balanced as StS, but there are 12 classes and it looks like there's a similarly deep replay value.

robotnikman 5y ago

I love that game, though I only have been able to beat the Heart with the Defect

epivosism 5y ago

One missing part of the STS community is a problems site. I've speculated on creating this: * capture entire game state in a string * be able to view the state * be able to sub in and out the random seed state (in legal ways) then subject top players to the same fight, with random (but possible) seeds for how it goes from there. i.e. this excludes "hindsight" where you know/learn the seed state by seeing shuffle order. If you could do this you set up problems for 100 tough fights, have elite players play them (multiple times each, varying seed), and actually get a comparison function for a subcomponent of the game. i.e. with this current draw and this deck in this fight, under all possible playouts, who has the best results, each playing a random seed N times. A corollary to this idea would be: as streamers were playing, they could capture the game state into a hash, to share, which someone else could load. i.e. as you are watching someone play a fight load the exact same state into your app and play from there. Hopefully, with a new random seed so there is no hindsight info leaking risk. This also leads to an interesting game safety improvement: rather than using a seed which never changes from the start of the game (iterating as you play), at every floor, feed your seed in from a central server. This way cheaters would have a much harder time running this scam: in-memory read the game seed and share with a confederate. Confederate invisibly matches your play, then in a tough fight, plays beyond where you are to see what is upcoming in later floors, and relays the info back to you. The dispatching server would know who it gave what seed, so submitted runs could still be fully replayed with the changing seeds. Cheating would still be possible, but somewhat harder. This would also enable "duplicate STS" more safely where 100 streamers all play the same seed, but since seed changes every floor, hindsight would be less valuable.