Combat Defense too weak?


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Is it just me or is defense for combat more or less useless? When things are hitting you for an average of 7 or 10 or 12 per hit (and sometimes 2 or even 3 of these) then why bother spending a third of your actions blocking maybe 3 of this? I feel somewhat forced into just going ham and putting out damage faster to knock enemies out of the fight. There don't seem to be any clever combos to make playing combat defensively viable at all (unlike in Negotiation, CALM for the win).

I've completed day 4 and finally did alright in terms of combat, but I'm not even sure I managed to upgrade one of the default Feint cards, let alone take any added defense. They just seem far too weak. May be more interesting if their block was both higher, and they applied more effects. 

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You can use Defense on friends, so you can gain time over their death.

Some defense cards give you Heal or Counter. With some upgrade Defense can give you 5 points

so

- on some combats, find who can give you damage, block him (stun for exemple), and Defense 

- on second boss, you can bypass all damages with 3 Defenses

- ...

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Defensive cards as a whole do feel a little weak.  This is especially true for single target defense cards. I want to briefly discuss negotiations, since you mentioned it.

Cards that add Composure in negotiation are okay and since we start with only 3 they're not as cumbersome in our decks as Feints are.  The issue is simply that as negotiations become extended, the opponents offensive attacks increase and gain greater resolve.  There are points in every argument where our opponent essentially levels up (grow impatient), though I haven't quite figured out exactly when that is.  After the second level up, our basic defense cards can no longer keep up.  The reason why negotiations aren't as hampered by somewhat weak defensive cards, however, is because we start with fewer, other cards we can get add resolve to multiple targets (Calm) or add resolve for playing other cards (Airtight), and there are a lot more draw mechanics.  Therefore we can cycle through what we don't need pretty easily and can still progress in our negotiation by dealing damage while simultaneously gaining composure.  Those basic defensive cards become add-ons for when we really want to keep an argument up that we might otherwise lose and they work to that effect.

Things are quite a bit different in combat: 

Feint is the single most abundant card in our starter deck, making it relatively common that there will be turns in which we draw nothing but Feints.  When our opponent is charging an attack, it is a great time to unload with some offense, but if we have a hand of 4 Feints there's nothing we can do and it feels bad.  Another deck building open world game called Trials of Fire also had this problem.  The dev team decided to add a "redraw" mechanic and give each character the chance to redraw once per battle for every level they've acquired.  This has worked out nicely.  Though, there are no cards that deal increased damage for every card drawn in that game, which would make a similar mechanic here too strong.

Another problem with Feints is that they're maneuver cards.  A cool rare card like Churn, which says "draw cards until you draw your next maneuver card, it costs 0" becomes useless in a deck with a bunch of Feints.  That would mean we would need to remove every Feint from our decks; but with maybe one quest per day and the night market at the end of each day for card removal, it's going to be tough to do that unless there are more events added that remove cards or events that remove multiple cards at once.  Thus far, I've found one special event to remove one card from a deck, and I see it about once every three runs or thereabouts.    

Many defensive cards that we can add to our deck target only ourselves, but there are many instances in which our allies are the targets of attacks and we are not.  This means that a defense first style of play is probably only viable if we intend to fight individually.  That said, there are special events and story missions that automatically add allies to combat, making these draws far less effective.  There are no cards that add defense to all allies when we gain defense.  There are no cards that force enemies to change their target to us.  So self-only targeted defense cards are very, very conditional.  That's in addition to other conditions that might need to be met to make those additional defensive cards effective.  Need combo to make Defensive Card A work? Well, you didn't draw any add combo cards this turn.  Need to discard cards to make Defensive Card B work? Well, you didn't draw any discard cards this turn.  Drew combo/discard cards AND you're the target of an enemy this turn?  Okay defensive card, time to shine, right!?!  Oops, looks like you didn't draw the one copy of the defensive card you chose to add to your deck this turn.  All of those scenarios feel bad, happen pretty commonly, and are a disincentive to add defensive oriented cards to our deck.

Additionally, permanent allies like vrocs and yotes don't yield the benefit from health gain from special events.  Since their damage is only recuperated when you rest at night, those allies might be toast in that day's boss fight if you get into a combat situation and draw somewhat poorly or if they're focused down earlier in the day. 

***SPOILER***
There is a large yeti-like creature, one of the two possible enemies from the quest that Endo gives you and one that you can encounter from time to time that absolutely wrecks, especially on Prestige level 2+.  You and allies will probably receive damage in that fight, especially since decks are highly unrefined on Day 1.  If you have to go fight Sparky - the Day 1 boss that isn't a complete pushover - right after, it could get really messy.  I think this is okay; I want the game to be challenging, but my point is simply: if allies aren't supposed to only be small meat shields until they inevitably die (and maybe they are?) then the current defensive system is probably going to need some adjustments.  
***END SPOILER***

I've unlocked all the cards and can't recall seeing a maneuver that does damage to an enemy or all enemies every time we stack defense.  This is one way that Slay the Spire has made defense stacking builds viable.

It's entirely possible that the character Sal is not intended to be a defensive minded character.  Daggers don't seem like great defensive weapons.  Maybe future characters will be better defenders?

12 hours ago, mister_eugene said:

so

- on some combats, find who can give you damage, block him (stun for exemple), and Defense 

- on second boss, you can bypass all damages with 3 Defenses

- ...

Certainly, there are instances in which a Feint, maybe two, come in pretty handy.  Sometimes I prolong a combat just so I can cheat a couple extra uses out of my other cards and level them up sooner than I would otherwise be able to, especially on Day 1.  That said:

***SPOILER***
The aforementioned yeti monster has a high health pool AND gains power each and every single time you damage him.  If you haven't defeated him after, say, the third round of attacks, which can actually be quite hard to do (especially if we've drawn like 8-12 Feints at this point), he's likely dealing 20+ points of damage to a single character and that character is probably toast.

The shroog (Day 3 boss) gains power every time one of her babies (shroogling?)  dies.  She starts with 3 and calls in fresh ones when they're all dead.  Like the combat drone guy, this can be somewhat exploited, but not nearly as effectively.  She also has an AOE attack that after 3 or 4 rounds, is dealing 15-20+ damage to everyone in the party at once.  It all adds up very quickly and is more effectively handled with competently assembled offensive cards than with defensive cards that can legitimately feel like they get in the way when you draw them.
***END SPOILER***

So, I agree that defense feels a bit weak.  Possible ideas to alleviate:

1) Fewer Feint cards at start? 

2) A redraw mechanic
a) one use per each combat?
b) increases by 1 each day? 
c) does not enhance power of cards related to draw

This is probably overcompensating and would make the game too easy.

3) Abilities/characters that enhance a defensive style of play.

4) We're in early alpha access so probably just best to wait and see what new things the dev team adds over time.  A few rough edges are to be expected and I certainly don't think weak defense cards are game breaking. 

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  • Developer

Hey folks! This is a great discussion, thanks for the feedback!

With defense, there's a specific reason we cannot buff common defensive cards too much, or at least with too much consistency, because if you can play defensively early on, you can drag out a fight indefinitely and upgrade all your cards in one easy fight.

Later in the game with cards like Boulder Stance you can get quite high defense, and I think upgraded feints are still quite useful in certain moments, such as saving an ally or blocking the Admiralty Guard from buffing.

That said, reducing the number of Feints or making more defensive builds later in the game could work (though Sal is designed not to be a defensive character in general)

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1 hour ago, Bigfoot said:

With defense, there's a specific reason we cannot buff common defensive cards too much, or at least with too much consistency, because if you can play defensively early on, you can drag out a fight indefinitely and upgrade all your cards in one easy fight.

That is true already though. The first day (and probably a part of the second) greatly rewards you for extending fights as long as possible to get upgrade points. The escalation mechanics aren't tough enough in the early fights to diminish the strategy, the rewards are too good. Sacrificing 10 health/resolve for just three more rounds (9 upgrade points) is easily worth it and easily achievable. Often you can do much better on a health/rounds ratio. 

Then the game has an oddly warped late game though where the escalation mechanics scaled very quickly and you HAVE TO end fights ASAP or you'll outright die. It completely locks out a subset of slower playstyles, builds and card designs. It doesn't make the game any faster paced though, it just pushes the optimal time for additional grind into the first third.
Skill increase by use leads to the optimal strategy being abusive farming the lowest risk thing that still gives experience.

Darkest Dungeon has a similar problem where artificially extending fights to farm healing and stress relieve is a very useful strategy. They implemented a bunch of punishments for it but the tactic is still an important tool and the punishments just made the game less fun for everyone.

Slay the Spire is using enemy scaling to prevent farming and needlessly extending fights. Your card upgrade system and escalation mechanics seem to do the opposite for a good chunk of the game.
At first I liked the approach but I think I'm cooling on it now. If it limits your overall design space that much and makes certain parts of the game less fun I think it might be somewhat detrimental.

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  • Developer

To be clear, I think late game defense can be a totally valid strategy and is not locked out by our upgrade mechanic. It probably isn't the easiest / most effective strategy to use right now, I agree.

Even dragging out a fight 3 more rounds is kind of okay, my comment is mostly on day 1 dragging out a fight indefinitely and upgrading all cards in one fight.

Thanks for your thoughts on this!

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For defense, I also think the current defense is pretty reasonable. Early game, a defense deck can leverage the their cards to allow a lot of levels to be gained in a fight (even if you take a little bit of damage in the fights). Late game, there are some uncommon and rare cards that actually make defense very strong and tie them to things you are already often doing.

I do not feel as much of the rush that Therlun was talking about, even on high prestiges. I have had some pretty long battles with the last two bosses, although I mainly fought (SPOILER) Oolo (END SPOILER) as my final boss because I think that path is much easier and I prefer a lot of their cards. I might switch that up when Day 5 comes as (SPOILER) you can get a 3 choice (might be always gold) Spree card by sparing Nadan (END SPOILER).

I will note that most of the cards that make defense better are from card unlocks, which might be what makes defense in combat seem so weak initially. It might be nice to move slippery, survival reflexes, active defense, or shokeskin to the base set or an early unlock to help people have defense builds before these unlocks. 

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Ah, I didn't fully think through breaking the upgrade economy by having access to good defense early. Also I'm rather glad that some more experienced players do not fully agree and that defense might be more viable than I had considered. I've only completed day 4 twice (in about 8-9 runs?) so have not explored many of the unlocks (having only gotten to maybe half of them) Also glad to hear from the devs that this character is not as defense minded, implying that perhaps later one or more of the other characters might be. 

Excellent so far, can't wait to see what this all becomes

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On 7/15/2019 at 8:34 AM, Bigfoot said:

Even dragging out a fight 3 more rounds is kind of okay, my comment is mostly on day 1 dragging out a fight indefinitely and upgrading all cards in one fight.

It feels kinda bad because when you put emphasis on playing cards more times over other venues of upgrading (which is already very rare to come by), it encourages an optimal playstyle that's just not very fun. Imagine new players asking for help/guide and everyone tell them you should purposefully not win and prolong your battles. 

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I must admit, while Composure cards seems to be worth, defense cards are pointless.

Not early on, they are valuable, but later on "apply 3 defense" is entirely useless. Apply 5 defense, is a bit more consistent, but far from being great. Without boulder stance I'd be always a corpse.

Boulder stance also enables a much  more fun playstyle, since it's very hard to gain additional actions in combat than in negotiations, you gain back the ability to attack, rather than defened forever

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Especially in fights with allies the weak defense is noteworthy. Good defense cards often can't be transferred. This really limits your ability to interact with allies.

I mentioned it in another thread, extending it beyond just defense value. Besides looking at base defense values and making more card effects transferable here are some other suggestions:

- Taunt: one/several enemies attack the player character instead of another target.
- Switch places: You change positions in combat with an ally. Everything targeting one of you will now target the other.
- Get down!: Gives the ally some defense and changes their move to a defense giving one.

I wouldn't put these effects on cards, as that would be too limiting and specific.
I could imagine a once per battle utility action where you discard one of your cards for one of these actions.

Quick and dirty mockup:

Spoiler

utility.thumb.png.39ca1b6a4c3ecfcbd2f38b27ed629a72.png

Community suggestion are often terrible, this might be too. It's just spitballing. :p

 

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10 hours ago, Therlun said:

Especially in fights with allies the weak defense is noteworthy. Good defense cards often can't be transferred. This really limits your ability to interact with allies.

I mentioned it in another thread, extending it beyond just defense value. Besides looking at base defense values and making more card effects transferable here are some other suggestions:

- Taunt: one/several enemies attack the player character instead of another target.
- Switch places: You change positions in combat with an ally. Everything targeting one of you will now target the other.
- Get down!: Gives the ally some defense and changes their move to a defense giving one.

I wouldn't put these effects on cards, as that would be too limiting and specific.
I could imagine a once per battle utility action where you discard one of your cards for one of these actions.

Quick and dirty mockup:

  Hide contents

utility.thumb.png.39ca1b6a4c3ecfcbd2f38b27ed629a72.png

Community suggestion are often terrible, this might be too. It's just spitballing. :p

 

I prefer to build a strategy with cards with the same effect instead of using a new layer of complexity ;) 

But I like the idea in general.

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I'm struggling to build cards with the same effect now. Over time, so many new cards unlocked that I barely manage to get any consistency in what I get. Not to mention, the occasions for purchasing cards are very little. 

I like bleed build, but it's now impossible to perform, there are too many combo-based cards polluting everything. 

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In my experience, defense + counter builds with recycling are really broken for now. You can stack up to 50 counter and a little less on defense by using the ability cards. (You will not be able to keep any allies alive reliably though)

Its pretty efficient if you keep many items, as they often have refresh, because a lot of cards benefit from having a full hand.

And there is a card that heals you when discarded, I dont recall the name, but I stayed almost full HP my entire last run on Prestige 5.

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