Thoughts on the Highs and Lows of Battle card strategy, balance

[Tempvirage]

So... now that a rough date on release is planned and the mechanics are mostly set in stone, I thought I'd compile a list of some of the strongest combinations for each hero and how I've found they impact the game.

Standard disclaimer: I have only been playing since April and have not reached max prestige so my experience is not all inclusive of what the game offers in full. I'm currently only on P6 for Sal and Rook, with several additional runs on P0 done for play-testing. I am not advocating for any mechanics to change, I'm just putting down in writing what my general impressions of the game and battle system are, and the strongest card combinations I've found and how they compare to the other 95% of cards. That said, I've spent a crap ton of time examining the game and compiling data to expand the Gamepedia Wiki for Griftlands so I've seen/experienced more than most.

--General Gameplay--

Sal and Rook's campaigns feel very different from each other. I was extremely happy to jump into Rook's campaign after beating Kashio the first time, thinking I was hot ****, only to have Grout Bog put me face down in the mud several times. Holy crap Bossbit and Flekfis can be a rude awakening the first time fighting them. In contrast, at lower prestige Sal's campaign really doesn't feel like a rogue-like much at all. There aren't really any random events that just... hinder you as a player. You're almost always given an option to either ignore an event or choose a beneficial option once you know what different selections result in. Compared to games like Darkest Dungeon and FTL, there don't seem to be any events thrown at you that are specifically meant to screw you over. It mostly boils down to weighing your deck strength against the idea of "Can I afford to lose health to survive this and the boss" and "Does taking this item give me enough strength to outweigh whatever health is spent getting it?" I don't mind that design choice, but the game overall really doesn't feel rogue-like in the same sense that other rogue-likes I've played have felt. There's rarely any "oh ****" moments where a 50-50 or RNG based decision gets you hurt or really puts you in a bind. The only event close to that I can think of is Rook's 'misty walk' event where you either take on a status card or lose some resolve... which is hardly threatening.

The story focused elements of the game are its highlight to me. The writing is witty, compelling, and interesting. It certainly shows that the game was initially pitched as an RPG and that concept has bled through to its current state. The take-away for me so far has been not to expect Griftlands to be a downright dirty 'you're going to regret that decision' rogue-like, but rather a deck building game with a good story and some light rogue-like elements where your choices open up new story elements and character development. Exploring the dialogue options and trying to piece together how some decisions affect the story is really satisfying to a player like me. Enough with that for now, though. Let's talk about battle.

--Sal--

Sal has many fairly powerful options and build paths you can expand upon depending on what cards are offered. It's also very easy to earn shills for her to buy cards so her options increase quite a bit if the merchants are feeling generous. Overall, Sal's campaign feels good to play as power gains are noticeable and steady throughout a run, though most enemies don't seem to match that curve besides maybe Kashio or Oolo. It sometimes feels like it's all too easy to murder everything in your way and challenge really only seems to come when intentionally trying to force enemies to surrender to avoid Banes, as overkill becomes an issue with bleed and counter. Knowing what enemies give what banes, however, allows you to avoid a lot of issues and can result in you freely killing enemies that have banes you don't care about.

Sal's biggest strengths seem to lie in being able to easily stack defense with counter or bleed damage, or otherwise potentially gain an obscene amount of burst through the use of discard, wound, and ambush cards. However, her 'specializations' could lead to situations where normal enemies present very little challenge, but bosses with special mechanics completely decimate a run (I'm looking at you, Hologram Projection Belt Kashio). Kidney Shot is rare, and for good reason. Extremely powerful 0 cost card (when upgraded) that essentially lets you do w/e you want for 2 turns unless facing crowds.

Sal's High Points:

Spoiler

Combination: Hemorrhage, Vertical Slash, Barnacle (Options: Bloodbath, Gash, Hemophage, and Lacerate)

Use: Stack bleeds, gain defense, heal any damage taken. Rinse, repeat, profit.

Thoughts: Sal's basic bleed synergy is really strong. She deals damage, gains decent defense, and can potentially heal to full every fight. Probably one of my personal favorite combinations to draft. Easily built into as Stab can offer bleed or defense on upgrade before Hemorrhage or Lacerate becomes available. As a bonus, Bloodbath makes stacking bleeds very satisfying against groups of enemies.

Spoiler

Combination: Boosted Rummage/Enduring Adapt and Wind up/Spare Blades (Optional: Duster, Psionic Feedback, Seeker, and Stinger)

Use: Use Boosted Rummage or Enduring Adapt to cycle your deck, Blade Flash to kill or use Wind up as a powerful single target finisher.

Thoughts: Fairly powerful combination that is empowered by being able to draft any # of optional cards you find. Potential infinite if thinned enough. Draw 3 for 0 with Boosted Rummage feels very broken in discard decks. If Visionary Footwork is added, you can basically draft anything you want and get away with discarding your hand for 9+ actions and a stupid amount of damage on the turn it's drawn, though this carries the risk of having to draw it first.

Spoiler

Combination: Doom with Crackler, Replicator, or Visionary Footwork

Use: Replicate or discard Doom with Footwork, play Doom 2x+ to drastically increase panic. Using cracklers first, if offered by Phroluk, can cause most enemies to surrender instantly once Doom is played twice.

Thoughts: Doom's cost is a huge drawback, but replicator and/or Footwork completely removes that limitation. Stacking Doom with Visionary Footwork is incredibly broken. Pale Doom feels like it should have Expend. Otherwise, the card is extremely overpowered even with its rare occurrence.

Spoiler

Combination: Spines, Deepstance (Options: Seeker, Stringer, Survival Reflexes, Boulder Stance, etc.)

Use: Play your abilities, become a brick wall that hits back.

Thoughts: She's a brick... House. Sal's defense/counter stances are crazy good, especially if you can draft and afford to play multiple copies. Thin out any attack cards and upgrade Feint for more defense or counter. Watch as enemies hit themselves for 40+ an attack. Mostly held back by Spines costing 2 initially, but action point grafts or upgrading into Pale Spines fixes that.

Sal's Low points:

Spoiler

Burst is just strictly worse than Lacerate and usually worse than Hemerrhage/Vertical Slash. It's not even close of a fair comparison to Rook's Sear due to Concentration and overcharge.

Cynotrainer requires temporary power, action, and an additional card in hand to make drafting it more useful than just drafting a duplicate of the attack card you're using it on. That's... a steep cost for such a minor bonus. Granted, discard can be incredibly powerful in some circumstances. But then why not just draft any number of less rare cards that have more powerful discard effects?

Ravenous is great on its own but is limited by when you can use it. It's really only usable in specific fights, such as against creatures or if using the serial killer mutator. Otherwise, it's a dead draw.

Hemophage, Churn, and Follow Through essentially burn half of your turn for a very minor heal/combo gain. I would rather prevent damage with defense or gain combo with an attack then... just heal back some damage taken or regain combo without dealing damage. You tend to lose more in the turn taken to play the card than you benefit from playing the card. Churn also draws you cards, sure, but you just spent 2 AP doing nothing but making your discard pile larger.

Discharge is expensive and requires either a deck filled with replenish items or Readiness to fill your hand to even come close to matching damage with any two 1 cost bleed cards. It's a good target to discard with Footwork in an otherwise 0-1 cost deck. But then so is literally any other 2 cost card.

 

--Rook--

Rook's Parasite is a small hurdle to jump but under some circumstances you could reduce your max hp to 10 and it wouldn't matter due to almost no enemies in his campaign having pierce attacks (I assume this design choice is intentional, and it makes perfect sense if there's no infinite to exploit). The free defense from spending charge makes his lower overall defense gains from maneuvers even out. Annoying to hatch but powerful once acquired, Bog Doom and Bog Down are worth acquiring if given the option. There is one slight issue of Rook having many, many cards requiring charge as a resource but he only has 2 cards that reliably build charge without additional requirements (Induction Blast and Crank), and that's if you get offered Induction as an upgrade (43% chance). Otherwise, you're stuck building it 1/turn only to spend all of it on 1 card, and ~20 cards require either multiple charge or full charge to be more useful than your common Sear, Burner, etc.

Rook's High Points:

Spoiler

Combination: Gun Smoke with anything

Use: Gun Smoke... Profit

Thoughts: Even without visionary being an upgrade option... gun smoke feels so, so strong. Spending 1 charge for a free action is just a free action and 1 defense every turn, at minimum. Upgrading into overcharged turns it into a free damage boost. Incredibly powerful card.

Spoiler

Combination:  Any burn effect + Visionary Char (Options: any form of card draw)

Use: Burn an enemy, play your hand for a gain in actions. Cycle. Repeat.

Thoughts: Being able to get burn on Blast makes this combo trivial to get and completely breaks fights. Repeated theme of action point gain from Char/Gun Smoke being huge power spikes.

Spoiler

Combination: Sear, Wildfire (Options: Accelerant. Crackle, Firestorm, Chimney)

Use: Stack burn on 1 enemy. Finish with Wildfire for huge AoE bursts.

Thoughts: Wildfire allows for very high AoE damage and acts like a finisher for Rook. Defense is lacking but can be nullified with 1-2 defense heavy cards such as Suppressing Fire, Take Cover, Posture, etc. Struggles against both Night 3 bosses due to only being 1 target, though the preceding negotiation can potentially make the fight significantly easier regardless of your deck. Completely decimates the Night 2/4 bosses.

Rook's Low points:

Spoiler

Vent is just a worse Fan the Hammer. Sure, it might cost 0, but I'd rather spend 1 AP to get a large burst of damage than spend 0 AP but lose all charge.

Cataclysm takes way too much work to make useful. Its most useful synergy is with Psionic Storm, but that card is also rare, is expensive to play, and has an additional requirement of having to cycle your deck to gain anything from playing it. There isn't even any guarantee drawing an affliction will be useful if there's multiple enemies on the field. Otherwise, Rook can only reliably apply two status effects; burn and scorch. Almost all of his other status effect cards having an additional requirement attached of spending charge or being empty (besides Resonator). This makes it so it's just simply not worth playing these cards, ever, despite them having fairly powerful/unique effects. What this results in is you now have at least 6 cards (Brain Tick, Cataclysm, Cyclone, Ego Rip, Psionic Storm, Ripper) in his pool that play on debuff mechanics for damage that become subpar to any other single burn card and the resulting burn damage, all of which are rare or uncommon except for Ego Rip.

--Final thoughts--

The card pool is large enough that any one of these combos can be difficult to pull off. That said. action point gain is significantly stronger than any other card effect (as is expected when the base action point pool is so small). Combined with any of the grafts that grant extra action points, it's almost too easy to end most fights before any significant threat is posed to the player. Status effects inflicted on the Hero can mostly be completely ignored, with really just wound being the only threat to a player.

Progress in a run feels significant, with the power curve being noticeable between days 1-2, 2-3, and 3-4. However, certain cards are significantly powerful on their own, while most other "powerful" effects require 3+ cards to feel just as impactful. Most cards can/have to be passed up in favor of focusing on specific effects or strategy.

There's almost never a point where taking some of the rarer but unique cards pays off over the more powerful (but often expendable) common cards. This mostly feels like it comes down to the fact that battles rarely take more than 3-6 turns, thus expending low cost but powerful cards is how most runs are played out. Letting fights drag out longer just results in the player taking too much damage, as healing is either very limited or expensive. Certain card rarities and their synergy requirements significantly impact their usefulness and makes it so the player is forced to either draft a deck using Veteran with these cards, or completely ignore them in a normal run.

I'm done writing now. If anyone read the whole thing, kudos and thanks to you. Let me how your experience has differed from mine.

TLDR:

Tempvirage's Top 10 Cards for Sal and Rook:

Spoiler

Sal:

1. Footwork: AP gain - Both upgrades are useful and lets you draft 2 cost cards without concern of drawing dead cards
2. (Pale) Kidney Shot: 1-0 cost stun - Gives you basically 2 turns to do anything you want against 1 enemy.
3. Exertion: AP gain - Same deal as Footwork but requires card draw synergy. Has really good synergy with Replenish Items.
4. (Boosted) Rummage: Free card draw. Literally no reason not to draft it unless your other options are higher on this list.
5. (Twisted) Wind Up: Free discard target that once drafted makes every single discard effect gain +2 damage.
6. (Enduring) Adapt: Let's you burn your entire hand then refresh it. Grows exponentially stronger with Spare Blades, Wind Up, etc.
7. Spines: Gives all defense cards counter - Let's you build a highly defensive deck that hits back for potentially huge #'s with proper synergy.
8. Deepstance: Fairly weak without consistent ways to gain counter; Boosts counter damage to insane #'s on long boss fights combined with Stringer and Spines.
9. (Boosted) Seeker: Heals - Has synergy with any discard effect and lets you heal for unfair amounts while further preventing damage.
10. Sal's Daggers: Upgrading for Gut Shot or Vertical Slash gives you two of the strongest types of cards of their type (multi-hit/combo and bleed)

Rook:

1. Gun Smoke: Footwork 2.0 - Literally just a free action every turn and doesn't expend. Both upgrades are useful.
2. (Visionary) Char: Refunds AP if target is burned, gives you +1 action once upgraded while also dealing damage. Feels unfair as a common.
3. (Tall) Sear: Deals damage and applies burn. With concentration/overcharge/power, potentially Rook's single strongest attack card.
4. (Inductive) Crackle: Deals damage and gains charge. Allows you to stack overcharge easily in a burn deck.
5. (Boosted) Wildfire: Finisher for Burn decks. Only downside is it can deal such outrageous damage it almost always murders someone.
6. (Pale) Amplifier: Makes burn also apply scorch. Bread and butter for burn decks. Boosts burn damage by 50%, minimum.
7. Firestorm: Huge AoE damage with Burn.
8. (Promoted) Searing Bullet: Spend overcharge to apply wound. Really shows how strong wound is. Only downside is having to build overcharge.
9. (Spined) Telegraph: Rook's best defense card if you can build concentration. Makes stacking concentration much easier. Can potentially counter multi-hits for insane damage (perfect counter card for Flekfis and Bossbit)
10. Ammo Case: Really only worth because of Rat Shot for cripple and card draw. Only useful because there's very little utility in Rook's card pool.

Battle feels good. Cards costing 2+ are risky to play even on P0 without AP grafts or Boons as they essentially skip your turn. Most common and uncommon cards are straight upgrades to base cards. 9/10 Rare cards feel bad/synergy requirements feel too steep over the more powerful common/uncommon cards even when the lower rarity cards have Expend, unless you draft a specific Rare early using the Veteran mutator and are able to build around it. Some exceptions I found were Boulder Stance, Kidney Shot, Amplifier, and Wildfire. Most abilities are worth drafting early if you have time/health to spare to play them or can build around them. Stun is such a powerful effect it's worth drafting every time (except maybe crushing blow).

[TripSin]

.

[WingedKagouti]

13 hours ago, Tempvirage said:

Stun is such a powerful effect it's worth drafting every time (except maybe crushing blow).

That currently leaves 1 Stun card worth drafting: Kidney Shot.

In general, any 2+ cost battle card that isn't an Ability feels like it has to do a lot more than just X-times what a similar 1-cost card does, simply due to the opportunity cost of cards costing 2+. If Crushing Blow didn't Expend I'd possibly consider using it over Kidney Shot, but since it both costs 3 and Expends it feels like all it accomplishes is adding a turn to the fight.

[Maniafig]

I usually take Crushing Blow if it's offered. It still leaves some spare energy assuming I have the right Boss Battle Grafts, it has killer synergy with Visionary Footwork, it still does some chunk of damage and your allies are still free to attack enemies. Kidney Shot in turn is such a no-brainer pick that I can't think of a single time I've not added it to my deck when offered.

For all the talk of Combinations, I'm surprised Combo wasn't mentioned, or the somewhat similar Concentration for Rook. I've had good runs stacking them with Sal and Rook paired with the cards that apply defense depending on your amount of Combo/Concentration. With a bit of Graft support and a thin deck or sufficient card draw you can easily become an unassailable brick wall. 

Rook's decks also generally benefit from a source of Ricochet since it's so efficient at cranking up your damage per energy, my preferred one being the one that applies Ricochet equal to damage inflicted. 

As for rare cards in general, Shock Therapy is very good in Overcharge-based decks, which have a high damage ceiling and some excellent synergistic cards. It pairs especially well with Concentrate, since every paired point of Concentrate and Overcharge effectively equals one Power. Viciousness can also be pretty crazy. 

Aside from that I do agree Rare cards are generally too expensive and long-term for their own good, I decline picking any at all much more frequently than I feel like I ought to be doing, even when they are cards that by all means synergise with my deck.

[SASHIKISONS]

1 hour ago, WingedKagouti said:

If Crushing Blow didn't Expend I'd possibly consider using it over Kidney Shot, but since it both costs 3 and Expends it feels like all it accomplishes is adding a turn to the fight.

Comparing Kidney Shot and Crushing Blow side by side like this isn't a fair comparison to make. The game is not designed to offer these two cards together in card drafts (although it might be possible?), so comparing the two against each other (opportunity cost) misses the mark. The two cards should be looked at on their own merits.

Crushing Blow stuns, expends, and does reasonable damage for doing so IMO. To pass on Crushing Blow in a draft (that doesn't have KS) solely because Kidney Shot is a better card misses the point I think

[Tempvirage]

58 minutes ago, SASHIKISONS said:

Crushing Blow stuns, expends, and does reasonable damage for doing so IMO. To pass on Crushing Blow in a draft (that doesn't have KS) solely because Kidney Shot is a better card misses the point I think

I've actually never drafted Crushing Blow outside the initial 10 card draft with Veteran on P0 runs solely because its cost is too high and by the time it shows up, I likely already have 2-3 2+ cost cards and I don't want to draw dead hands. I'd much rather draw a 2 cost ability that I can set up with a cheap 1 cost attack or maneuver than have a 3 cost card that just delays the fight 1 turn. I'll have to play a run and see if it's worth taking over the other offers at higher prestige. It's probably really good with Footwork but I think that goes for any 2-3 cost card, as long as your deck only has 1-3 cards that cost as much. It's just a repeat of the idea that action point gain is the strongest card effect in the game, and as such Footwork/Gun Smoke are auto-picks.

Kidney Shot's strength is that it gives you two turns to play your hand against 1 enemy, or gives an opportunity to stop an attack and whittle down (or kill) another enemy simultaneously. Compared to Kidney Shot Crushing blow is free damage, sure, but you're forced to discard the rest of your hand with it. That drawback seems really steep.

[SASHIKISONS]

Again, comparing Crushing Blow to Kidney Shot against each other heads-up is a false dichotomy, unless you only see the two in a draft together. This is a deck-building game, not a game where you enter with a deck already built

Its entirely possible for Crushing Blow to be mediocre, while Kidney Shot is independently great. In terms of existing together in game design, decisioning whether to take one by looking at relative value to the other doesn't normally exist, like it would in a CCG or PvP card game (AKA power creep)

I don't normally take Crushing Blow either for reasons already mentioned, but there are instances where I have, and I imagine there will be times in the future as well. Those decisions would be made without Kidney Shot being part of the analysis, unless KS is in the draft, or I already have it

 

As for topic, I'm still developing my feelings on card/gameplay balance. I definitely think some things could use change, but this is currently alpha so its to be expected. Interested in reading what we all think for sure. Thanks @Tempvirage for doing up this post

edit: grammar

[Gr1m-]

I havent read everything yet but,

"Burst is just strictly worse than Lacerate"

Not necessarily true, you can boost Burst's damage/bleed output A LOT with Power (Scatter, Shadow Mastery, Uppercut,...) and Wound (Serrated Edge, Vital strikes) allowing you to apply way more Bleed stacks than Lacerate can.

It's one of the reasons why I always grab Ghost Strike (to max out Tall Burst at 9 damage/Bleed guaranteed).

[WingedKagouti]

13 hours ago, Maniafig said:

I usually take Crushing Blow if it's offered. It still leaves some spare energy assuming I have the right Boss Battle Grafts, it has killer synergy with Visionary Footwork, it still does some chunk of damage and your allies are still free to attack enemies. Kidney Shot in turn is such a no-brainer pick that I can't think of a single time I've not added it to my deck when offered.

If you don't get those +Action Boss Grafts Crushing Blow suddenly becomes a lot less worthwhile. Even if you have Visionary Footwork.

And getting a 3 cost card just in the hope that you get to discard it with another specific card that Expends does not feel like a good plan, even if you keep your deck lean. It might be ok if you can keep your deck in the 10-12 card range, but I've had issues getting specific 2 card combos when I needed them even with decks that had 9-11 cards left after expending stuff.

4 hours ago, Gr1m- said:

Not necessarily true, you can boost Burst's damage/bleed output A LOT with Power (Scatter, Into the Night, Uppercut,...)

I agree with your point, but ItN is Defense not Power, you're most likely thinking of Shadow Mastery.

[Tempvirage]

11 hours ago, Gr1m- said:

"Burst is just strictly worse than Lacerate"

Not necessarily true, you can boost Burst's damage/bleed output A LOT with Power (Scatter, Shadow Mastery, Uppercut,...) and Wound (Serrated Edge, Vital strikes) allowing you to apply way more Bleed stacks than Lacerate can.

I was judging Burst from the perspective of single card strength, not strength of synergy. Otherwise I'd definitely want to rate Cataclysm higher. It seems like such a cool card but it requires too much compared to ultra strong single cards like Sear. Lacerate scales off of itself and stacks effects with every other bleed card, and it encourages that being @1 cost.. Burst requires setup with at least two other cards to really get much out of it, and the cost being @2 really hurts it up until you can get Footworks or AP grafts.

Uppercut is another card that I actively avoid because in order to get a return from spending that extra 1 AP, you'd need to play 2-4 attack cards to compensate for its cost an effect. It's a good card to target with something like Concentrate but... that's entirely too random. And again, you're then having to play a 3 card combo to get the same benefit out of just playing all your 1 cost attack cards across 2 turns. It really only pays off on the turn you play it if you have 5+ AP to spend and have it in hand to start the turn with.

Having to draft 3 cards to get proper synergy out of all of them doesn't feel great when you're trying to keep your deck thin, unless you manage to draft that exact combo using the veteran setting. Granted, the power curve might end up higher by doing that, which it should given it takes 3 cards to make it work, but I don't feel like most enemies match that curve. That's all I was trying to convey. I think the strength of some single card effects are powerful enough to discourage playing around trying to draft the bigger, riskier combos.

I don't really want to say it... but I feel like doubling the default AP # to 6 and doubling the cost of all cards (except for 0 cost improvise cards like Blade Flash or cards with downsides like Duster), but also increasing all enemy base damage by 1-2 and increase their health by 30%? could be a fun way to adjust card strength across the board. It'd also bring Footwork/Gun Smoke and AP grafts closer in strength to ability cards and utility maneuvers like Concentrate (In its current state it feels practically worthless to me. Then again, just making Concentrate an improvise and letting me select 1 out of 3 random cards in the draw pile would make it great.)

Really my only gripe with battles is it really doesn't feel satisfying to play 1-2 cards a turn and pass, which is usually the case for your first or second turn if your deck centers around abilities. Setup turns like that become risky (and punishing) on higher prestige.

[pacovf]

Upgraded uppercut is fine. It basically guarantees that you will win any fight that goes long enough, since very few enemies scale up with time. You don’t have to play it in short fights.

The point of concentrate is to play extra cards for the sake of effects that improve with extra cards played. It’s only really good with the upgraded version that draws two cards, though.

Footwork is not that good unless your deck has a lot of 2+ cost cards, or a massive amount of draw. 

I agree with the general point that cards that require a lot of synergy to work are bad in principle. Particularly if they cost 2+. Something like Burst is meh at best, essentially a card that triple-counts your power. Not that many things scale with bleed count. Cross (equivalent for Combo decks) has a place in your deck more often.

Crushing blow is ok. Yes, it’s not kidney shot, but that is arguably the best card in the game. Crushing blow often just “mulligans” a turn, and deals some damage in the process. It would be ok if it was just that, but it gets even better from there with extra actions or allies. Not a bad card to add to your deck earlier on.

 

[RageLeague]

Footwork is always good, especially if you go for visionary. At worst if you somehow only have 0 cost card in hand, it replaces itself, and even with 1 cost cards, it's a net positive 1 action (and card).

[pacovf]

Visionary footwork is fine. More often than not, it’s a one-shot +1 action while being card neutral (+2 cards, minus Footwork, minus the card discarded), which is good enough. Main problem is that unupgraded footwork is actively bad. Losing 2 cards to gain an action is terrible for Sal, barring Muscle Bank. And it takes a lot of Battles to upgrade, because of the high xp cost, plus being a one-shot. 
I used to think Footwork was worth it solely because of Visionary Footwork, but now I’m not sure I would grab it unless it’s early game and I’m aiming for (or hedging for the possibility of) a discard deck.

[SASHIKISONS]

2 hours ago, Tempvirage said:

Having to draft 3 cards to get proper synergy out of all of them doesn't feel great when you're trying to keep your deck thin, unless you manage to draft that exact combo using the veteran setting. Granted, the power curve might end up higher by doing that, which it should given it takes 3 cards to make it work, but I don't feel like most enemies match that curve. That's all I was trying to convey. I think the strength of some single card effects are powerful enough to discourage playing around trying to draft the bigger, riskier combos.

I don't really want to say it... but I feel like doubling the default AP # to 6 and doubling the cost of all cards (except for 0 cost improvise cards like Blade Flash or cards with downsides like Duster), but also increasing all enemy base damage by 1-2 and increase their health by 30%? could be a fun way to adjust card strength across the board. It'd also bring Footwork/Gun Smoke and AP grafts closer in strength to ability cards and utility maneuvers like Concentrate (In its current state it feels practically worthless to me. Then again, just making Concentrate an improvise and letting me select 1 out of 3 random cards in the draw pile would make it great.)

Really my only gripe with battles is it really doesn't feel satisfying to play 1-2 cards a turn and pass, which is usually the case for your first or second turn if your deck centers around abilities. Setup turns like that become risky (and punishing) on higher prestige.

I would like us to expand on this. What I feel like the biggest issue with game balance at the moment is (what distorts everything else):

-game difficulty isn't hard enough

-card synergy is too readily obtained, and too strong for how easily its obtained

-Somewhat consistently, a whole bunch of unspent shills at endgame

 

My take on where balancing should start in this regard, is to reduce shill income in game, and rebalancing card effects and rarity in such a way that makes it more difficult to get those synergies. (I think Klei will do this card rebalancing regardless) If that isn't enough, then I think making encounters more difficult at the base game could also happen

In a deck-building game such as this, each card draft should be looked at more as a "how much better would my deck be for taking each one of these cards, and which one helps me most right now?", and less of "which one of these cards has more end-game synergy?" As I have read somewhere else on these forums, I agree that campaign difficulty is really a day 2-3 spike, with the rest of the campaign more or less a formality.

 

A good example of what I mean, is actually Crushing Blow. The card is a battle turn all by itself, in the convenience of one card!

-Stun (effectively, as much defense as it would take to mitigate damage from one source)

-About 3x the avg effect of "Stab" (Stab = 3.5 dmg on avg; Crushing Blow = 10 dmg on avg)

Crushing Blow doesn't scale into the end game, which makes it a decent removal target once the deck is fully formed. But as a stand-alone card, it makes your deck much better in the earlier game, as it guarantees that you'll have a decent turn when you draw it, most of the time (unless you're facing 3-4 enemies). This type of analysis is what we should be concerned with, as end-game synergy has the whole campaign to form. I think the reason we don't see this, is because of what I feel like are the main issues that I've outlined at the start.

What do you guys think?

[WingedKagouti]

2 hours ago, SASHIKISONS said:

My take on where balancing should start in this regard, is to reduce shill income in game, and rebalancing card effects and rarity in such a way that makes it more difficult to get those synergies. (I think Klei will do this card rebalancing regardless) If that isn't enough, then I think making encounters more difficult at the base game could also happen

I am against this for low Prestige. Most of the things in this thread are (currently) concerns that only really affect experienced players who understand the mechanics and have formed opinions on what they feel is good or not after many runs.

A new player (and anyone else playing low prestige) should be able to stumble upon these high synergy builds as they have the potential to create an exciting story, or at the very least make for a Your Wildest Screenshot post.

Increasing the effect of various prestige tiers is a better option IMO. And if you personally want an even tougher experience, Mutators can help out.

[SASHIKISONS]

Certainly, I don't want the base game difficulty to approach StS or FTL type difficulty, where the average new comer might never complete a campaign. Definitely don't want that. I think theres a LOT of leeway before that point however

I believe an uptick in base game difficulty could improve the structure of campaign difficulty, by forcing players to make what might seem to be "sub-optimal" decisions in interest of becoming better in the short-term. Taking the "defined benefit" now as opposed to the "speculative ideal" later. Having to consider this type of decision due to increased difficulty (not crazily so) would do a lot to enrich the gameplay in my opinion

As it stands, I think I'm on the opposite end, where I'm just moseying through prestige levels trying out new things and not feeling threatened in doing so... not that I'm the best player (I'm definitely not, too lazy for that). I definitely feel like my interest is waning, haven't really felt the impact of prestige levels so far. After reading some of these forums though, I feel like there are more people who feel this way?

To be fair to your point, the "your wildest screenshot" is not the type of thing to excite me. I feel like completing campaign should feel like more of an achievement than it currently does, but again, these are just my feelings so far. Interested in reading everyone's thoughts/feelings

[pacovf]

I think people coming from StS overestimate how hard Ascension 0 is, and how much of a difficulty jump each Ascension is. They also underestimate how much skill they gained since they started playing StS, that they can now apply to their first Griftlands runs. StS is harder, but not *that* much harder.

That being said, faster prestige unlocks would be welcome. Something like “unlock 2 prestige levels (instead of 1) when you finish a run without using any legacy bonus (including day restart)” would have been cool, but last experimental update makes that change rather unlikely.

[Tempvirage]

2 hours ago, pacovf said:

I think people coming from StS overestimate how hard Ascension 0 is, and how much of a difficulty jump each Ascension is. They also underestimate how much skill they gained since they started playing StS, that they can now apply to their first Griftlands runs. StS is harder, but not *that* much harder.

That being said, faster prestige unlocks would be welcome. Something like “unlock 2 prestige levels (instead of 1) when you finish a run without using any legacy bonus (including day restart)” would have been cool, but last experimental update makes that change rather unlikely.

That's kinda where I'm at currently with Prestige. I don't really feel like playing Rook and Sal's campaigns 8 more times each just to unlock the higher prestige modifiers. Mostly because there's nothing at the end of that road currently. Granted, the effects are cool and some (50% healing on rest) actually affect how I play, but otherwise, it feels too slow of a ramp up in difficulty. But... it's also keeping me busy to build up to a higher level where (hopefully) I reach a point where I'm satisfied with the challenge so I probably shouldn't complain.

It's a lot to ask, but maybe adding a final outfit to P14 or even P10 or such would make it feel more satisfying to grind out 10+ runs. Or maybe lock new but really silly mutators behind prestige. Something like "All card costs are random" or "Bosses are completely random". Imagine rolling Kashio as the Night 1 boss. :P

[WingedKagouti]

3 hours ago, pacovf said:

That being said, faster prestige unlocks would be welcome. Something like “unlock 2 prestige levels (instead of 1) when you finish a run without using any legacy bonus (including day restart)” would have been cool, but last experimental update makes that change rather unlikely.

I fully agree that unlocking Prestige levels feels more like a grind than a challenge.

What if, instead of unlocking prestige levels like we do now, we unlock Prestige Mutators whenever we complete a run with certain conditions and then apply them the same way we do normal Mutators. The conditions could range from "Complete your first Run" to "Complete a run where you recover less than 50 Health through sleep" or "Complete a run with 5 Prestige Mutators". Some of the current Mutators could easily be considered Prestige Mutators, eg. the "Everyone Dislikes you" and "No Health/Resolve Recovery From Sleep" ones could easily have been part of the current Prestige levels.

It may be too late for such a change, but it's still something to consider.

[TripSin]

I just finished prestige 14 on Sal and it felt fine to me. I enjoy playing the game and so it didn't feel like a grind to me to keep doing runs. Each run was an opportunity to try new cards and approaches I hadn't tried before, adapting to what was offered. 

[SASHIKISONS]

20 hours ago, pacovf said:

I think people coming from StS overestimate how hard Ascension 0 is, and how much of a difficulty jump each Ascension is. They also underestimate how much skill they gained since they started playing StS, that they can now apply to their first Griftlands runs. StS is harder, but not *that* much harder.

I think this point is very valid! However, I only logged about 60 hours on StS, and last touched it years ago... Only got to ascension 5 on two characters it looks like.

Aside of gameplay elements, what I love about Griftlands is the world-building, character set up in this world, and choice of action; StS didn't have these aspects, and it felt like a very monotonous style of game play that I didn't like. However, the reason I stopped playing StS was not the difficulty, but what felt like lifeless-ness to me.

I think the point about StS vets coming to Griftlands is a valid one, but I definitely think Griftlands could stand to be a bit more difficult too. Some of the pictures in the "your wildest screenshot" thread (while very cool!) seems to indicate to me that the challenge was more on imagination of deck potential, than succeeding at the campaign. There is no point trumpeting about it though, since I'm sure Klei is aware of success rate via data obtained from play, and has their own targets in mind.

Interesting ideas on prestige unlocks!

[Iamteehee]

Top StS players are able to win (get a heart kill) at maximum ascension at a winrate of somewhere close to 50%. In contrast, I have won 12 out of the 12 runs I've done at prestige 14 so far (and I am a much worse player than the top StS players). I would like to see Griftlands get to the point where winning a run at maximum difficulty is similarly challenging. Here are some opinions of mine regarding what Griftlands at that difficulty would look like: 

Losing negotiations should be somewhat common: Negotiation in Griftlands is fairly unique among deckbuilder games that you don't die if you lose a negotiation. It is also rather unusual in that resolve regenerates quite quickly, which is a really powerful aspect of negotiation that is often ignored (you get a third of your missing resolve back every combat). Since there are almost always multiple ways to do each mission, losing a negotiation doesn't even really prevent the player from getting stronger by doing missions, and so, at the highest difficulties, I think it is fair and reasonable for negotiation to be hard enough that the player will occasionally lose them, unless their deck/grafts are really really strong. 
(Somewhat tangentially, I think in some situations, where you have a mission you can do by either negotiation or combat, it is actually optimal to get some xp from the negotiation, then intentionally lose, then do the combat option, so you can double dip on xp.) 

Combat/negotiations should be hard enough that the player have to take good early game cards to survive: Right now, prestige 14 is "easy" enough that you do not need to put too much effort into surviving day 1 and so you can dedicate your attention to picking cards and grafts that are really good later on, but not necessarily optimal for day 1. This creates sort of a "snowball effect" where encounters get easier and easier as the days go on and the game is basically over by day 3. This snowball can be curbed by making it so, on each day, the player must dedicate a significant amount of effort to just surviving the day. 
In particular, I think in Sal's campaign, Drone Master Joel needs to be made quite a bit harder, since, right now, he is much easier than Sparky. I think the main reason for this is the fact that the guard of the Grog and Dog is always(? usually?) a Jakes Smuggler, whose attack is a burst of 3 shots, making them very well-positioned against killing Joel's drones. Making the prestige 10 "bosses are even stronger" modifier increase the number of hits a prototype drone can take before exploding would be a good first step in closing the gap. 

Some of the more egregious methods of damage scaling (especially of Sal) need to be nerfed: (This point isn't as directly related to "Griftlands hypothetical max difficulty" as the other two points are, but I think it's worth saying anyway, since it is still relevant.) Wound is quite a bit too strong. It only decays at 1 per turn, which makes stacking wound similar to power stacking, but significantly easier to come by. In particular, the wounding barbs + multi-attack interaction is much too powerful. Wounding barbs is, in my opinion, the strongest non-boss graft in the game and should probably be rare at the very least. The temporary power + debuff cleanse interaction is also quite a bit too powerful for how incredibly consistent it can be, with two possible feint upgrades giving health (which cleanses debuff with the Jakes Smuggler boon) and another giving debuff remove. It would be good to change all the temporary power effects to adrenaline effects instead, as is being done with Smith. 

 

There's a lot more on this subject I want to say, but it's 3:30 AM where I am, so I am going to end this post at this point. I will have more on this subject later. 

 

 

[WingedKagouti]

2 hours ago, Iamteehee said:

The temporary power + debuff cleanse interaction is also quite a bit too powerful

This one is afaik fixed in the Experimental build, where Temporary Power has been replaced with a different status that has the same effect as Temporary Power that isn't cleansed(to avoid exactly this).

 

2 hours ago, Iamteehee said:

It is also rather unusual in that resolve regenerates quite quickly,

One of the current Mutators removes Resolve recovery after winning a battle. With my Prestige Mutator suggestion, this Mutator would certainly be a candidate for conversion into a Prestige Mutator.

[Tempvirage]

On 5/21/2020 at 4:42 AM, Iamteehee said:

Some of the more egregious methods of damage scaling (especially of Sal) need to be nerfed:

The temporary power + debuff cleanse interaction is also quite a bit too powerful for how incredibly consistent it can be, with two possible feint upgrades giving health (which cleanses debuff with the Jakes Smuggler boon) and another giving debuff remove. It would be good to change all the temporary power effects to adrenaline effects instead, as is being done with Smith.

Well it looks like some of this was taken into consideration as counter damage doesn't scale off of power now, so that definitely brings down Sal's power level and being unable to stack tons of defense but still hit like a truck.