Griftlands Leaderboard

[LETSCHAT]

On 6/23/2020 at 6:10 PM, pacovf said:

Well, my concern was that higher scores are grindy, which isn't fun. The other (unspoken) complaint is that the best shill-to-score conversion is boons, then grafts, then nothing, and this reduces player choice, which isn't fun either (hence: please increase our score when spending money on rare items).

Making it so that spending money decreases your score does make high scores harder, but also even more un-fun. So I cannot say I am in favour of that. I would prefer score decrease from eating or drinking, or from health/resolve recovery when you sleep. Or extra score for fighting bosses wihtout allied NPCs. Makes the game harder without reducing player choice quite as much, nor being grindy. I'm sure we could think of more stuff like that.

Okay, after sitting on this for a while...

Game gets easier as you power climb in the game.  Score increases as you power climb.  Why are we celebrating easy wins?   

There should be a "lowest possible score at the highest prestige level" category.

Why?    

Beating the game with the fewest grafts, fewest boons, least number of successful combat/negotiations, etc. actually represents a more skillful game.   

Lowest Possible Score at the Highest Prestige Level = Most Impressive Run

 

[Monoris]

Something like this.
 

You can add me to this category.

[LETSCHAT]

Hell yeah!

 

I've got another reason to crack open Griftlands.

 

I'm going to totally tactically suck more than you, dude.  :P

 

also, looking at how the score is filled out, the lowest perfect score is likely 4000.

Low score strats seem to be:

Sal: Combat only (Negotiation is Overrated Runs)

Collect as little as money as possible, (choose missions that offer the smallest sum of shills).

Veteran mutator, consider deck synergy early on

Purposely failing jobs might reduce completed job count?

Milk card experience at all costs.

Pets/Hired Help

Stay alive!

 

 

[Wumpus the 19th]

10 hours ago, LETSCHAT said:

Hell yeah!

 

I've got another reason to crack open Griftlands.

 

I'm going to totally tactically suck more than you, dude.  :P

 

also, looking at how the score is filled out, the lowest perfect score is likely 4000.

Low score strats seem to be:

Sal: Combat only (Negotiation is Overrated Runs)

Collect as little as money as possible, (choose missions that offer the smallest sum of shills).

Veteran mutator, consider deck synergy early on

Purposely failing jobs might reduce completed job count?

Milk card experience at all costs.

Pets/Hired Help

Stay alive!

 

 

this sounds like a good idea and hopefully klei changes the point system to benefit the high score while being less grindy or slow.

[Kevin]

I think y’all are going to like the next update. 

[Wumpus the 19th]

4 minutes ago, Kevin said:

I think y’all are going to like the next update. 

[Monoris]

Meanwhile, Rook's Brawl Highscore

[Wumpus the 19th]

since i want to keep this thread up for as long as possible, and since kevin personally challenged us with his high score on the daily.

save scumming was used extensively, so this feels like a dirty win. still, this is a sort of "perfect" run with defensive surge getting the defend and multiple resets due to me playing on the first turn. kashio got the gun and bot, which had me win by the skin of my teeth.

[AYellowShadeOfB]

A rather normal victory. Might try an all-mutators prestige 15 later, but should I go for Relatable or First Impressions?

 

[pacovf]

Relatable is much, much harder. Early negotiations will  be surprisingly hard, getting people to love you will be very rare, and money will be scarce since quest rewards are tied to your relationship with the quest giver. Up to you. 

[AYellowShadeOfB]

Relatable it is.

 

Just so you know, since the update just came out, I'm running a 24-mutator run. Some of them will help me, but oh well.

[Monoris]

Daily challenges are sweet

[The GSW]

How does one get 20 people to love them without First Impressions and getting really lucky with the impressions?  The most I can get without a mutator is like 7 or 9.  I got like 15 with it.

 

[AYellowShadeOfB]

The answer is picking legacies. There's a legacy that makes the Admirality like you by default - yes, it overrides them even if you took Relatable.

[AYellowShadeOfB]

Has anyone beat 24-mutator Prestige 15?

On generation 11 right now, this is tough as nails - only made it to Kashio ONCE, and to day 5 overall TWICE.

If anyone else wants to beat, here's a lot of stuff I've noticed:

-If your starting pet is an Erchin, tough luck. They don't assist in negotiations while untrained, and are pretty weak overall.

-Why Me makes Lumicytes superior pets, since so few enemies will target them (only AOEs or Random target attacks can hit them) and thus they won't steal their Power.

-If you get the legacy to make the Admirality/Spree like you by default, that overrides Relatable. It's fairly strong.

-Mutator makes the game a LOT harder. Since the mutations are random, you can end up with situations like running a diplomacy deck and having your card get only hostility options as upgrades. Furthermore, the upgrades aren't upgraded cards most of the time, so your deck's power level stays the same, and it also makes you unable to get the upgraded versions of your Instincts/Daggers/Improvs.

-Mental Overload and Why Me make for a terrifying combo - If you happen to draft a copy or two of Scars at the start. Since your hands will often be 7+ cards, Scars will have excellent results, and since all enemies attack you, the defence won't be wasted and the counter will get lots of use.

-Insomnia is another problem. Since sleeping no longer restores health or resolve, you lose the free daily 50% restoration, and since it no longer removes cards, drinking and eating to restore resolve/health is harder since you'll have to remove the cards during battle (or at the night market).

-Negotiations are much harder than fights, so avoid jobs that need you to negotiate. I'm not sure why exactly this is, but I think it might be because negotiations generally allow for way more schenanigens and absurd interractions (including the famous gatling gun decks) and losing those really hurts you.

-Discard is great for clearing your hand from the cards from Mental Overload, and since the ones that have extra bonuses if discarded will stick around until you get rid of them, it has a bonus to it other decks don't really get.

-Just The Facts and Backpedal are great in negotiations. Your hand will usually get clogged, and they'll let you clean it.

-Shopkeeps are terrible enemies in negotiations. Since you don't discard at the end of the turn, but your hand-size still has a cap, you'll usually have your hand filled with Kickback cards. Just The Facts and Backpedal greatly help with this, but there will still be problems.

-The Appopriator core argument will steal cards that are in your hand from Mental Overload.

-Brillance's effect on cards is overridden by Unnatural Growth, but its effect on Grafts is not.

-Nadan will always give you the lockmelter on day 5 unless you leave him behind, while Oolo will not always give you a requsition chip even if you do the things you're asked to (the general pattern with Oolo I've noticed is that if you have to kill someone you hate for the task, you'll get the chip).

-If you can get ravenous, get it. You're going to be murdering 1-3 enemies at the end of a fight most of the time, and that's a significant amount of health.

-If you, for some reason, want to make this even harder, remove Tool Box, Animal Lover, Barbarous, Pet Owner, Elimination and Loyalty.

I'd be intrested to see if someone can beat this, because it really is very hard. The only idea I have is using the starting drafts to create some broken combo in your deck, but I'm fairly sure the lack of upgraded cards due to mutator effectively makes that impossible.

[AYellowShadeOfB]

  

12 minutes ago, pacovf said:

I’m honestly not even sure what you’re trying to do is possible  Kudos for even trying!

I made a Sal run back when prestige 11 was the highest just with Relatable, and it was really hard. I did another just with Insomnia, the one that removes card drafts after each battle/negotiation, and an old mutator that removed resolve gain after battles (it’s a prestige difficulty now) and I could barely do it too. 

Trying *all mutators* at once, plus the extra hard bosses we have now, is a non-starter for me. You may be able to do it by drafting the perfect deck with Veteran/etc, but the Mutator mutator (ugh) means you can’t count on those cards being upgraded to something useful either. Your best bet is having a strong NPC offering to help you for free, and then sticking around due to the Loyalty mutator; they need to like you first (tough with Relatable), and it’s completely random, so you can’t really plan around it.

wrong thread, but yes.

Something I've had happen once is get the assassin from day 2 to join me: beat them, spare them, then they're added to the random NPC pool.

Since they'll like me after sparing them, that should probably help get them, but even so it's a slim chance.

[pacovf]

I didn’t notice this post before replying on the other thread. Oh well. The only other tip I have is that Mutator can be used to get access to a lot more Rare cards than you would normally get. Some are really powerful (Kidney shot anyone?). You want to keep “upgrading” to increase your odds to score the really efficient cards, even if they don’t work that well with the rest of your deck (which should go for a discard/counter strategy, as you mention). Same with Negotiations, Agitate can win most of them all by itself, for example. An advantage of negotiations is that you can play a few rounds for the xp, even if you don’t expect to win, and lose minimal resolve (you can concede at the beginning of any turn).

I didn’t think of the faction relationship legacy as overriding Relatable. That’s definitely very powerful. 

[AYellowShadeOfB]

Yeah, kidney shot is arguably the best card in the game. I joke that the best possible deck is just 80 copies of kidney shot.

The relatable-override is excellent with admirality. You’ll want to engage in as few negotiations but possible, but the 30-shill bounties really help get you tons of money, and of course, you can exclusive pick quests from admirality members for that extra 25% reward bonus.

I haven’t tried multi-agitating before, but I agree, Heated is a very good argument. I’lö test it out next run.

 

[The GSW]

How about a + or a - to final score, depending on the mutator?  Also, mutators should be shown on the final screen.  I mean, I could post my 19k+ score and claim I used no mutators...

17 hours ago, AYellowShadeOfB said:

Yeah, kidney shot is arguably the best card in the game. I joke that the best possible deck is just 80 copies of kidney shot.

The relatable-override is excellent with admirality. You’ll want to engage in as few negotiations but possible, but the 30-shill bounties really help get you tons of money, and of course, you can exclusive pick quests from admirality members for that extra 25% reward bonus.

I haven’t tried multi-agitating before, but I agree, Heated is a very good argument. I’lö test it out next run.

 

Kidney Shot is probably the best, followed by Concentrate, when it comes to combat.  I think Resilience is the best negotiation card.

Also, legacy should be a factor in final score.

 

[The GSW]

On 7/26/2020 at 12:16 AM, AYellowShadeOfB said:

The answer is picking legacies. There's a legacy that makes the Admirality like you by default - yes, it overrides them even if you took Relatable.

I never even considered using failure to pump up a max score. Even still, I find it difficult to believe, even with a failure legacy, that one can attain 20 loved without using mutators.

[AYellowShadeOfB]

Lads, I've done it.

I beat 24-mutator prestige 15 on Sal (I hereby dub this the 24-15 run) on GENERATION FOURTEEN.

(full list of mutators, since I accidentally covered up some)

Spoiler

Now, I belive I'm the first one to do this. So, can we all agree that it's pretty impressive?

Anyways, can't wait for someone to beat a 24-15 run with Rook. Congratulating whoever they are ahead of time.

If people are intrested, I could post a more detailed guide on how I did it later?

Final score:

[Gr1m-]

You absolute madman I haven't attempted this yet but seems like a fun challenge

[pacovf]

Nice! Did you change anything in your strategy to finally succeed? What would you say were the mutators that helped the most to get it done? 

[AYellowShadeOfB]

STUN HELPED.

I got like 3 copies of Crushing Blow and 2 copies of Kidney Shot thanks to RNG.

If Griftlands had a pantheon, Kidney Shot would rule it.

I'll make a full guide tomorrow, late right now.

What you should know is that the whole run relies heavily on RNG and pre-planning your whole game on it. If you get the Slobbering Aberration Shroog, you're screwed, if you get bad Day 5 events, you're done for, if you get bad luck with mutator, you're already dead, if you negotiate too much past the first few days, say goodbye to your 20 resolve.

(Rant incoming)

In other news, I'd like to say that Mutator is the worst mutator in the game. It turns everything into a pure RNGfest, as your generic stab could have options to turn into two Finishers in your pure discard deck, or it could turn into a choice between pale kidney shot and concentrate.

I get that the randomness might be the goal, but this is the wrong way to do it. It drastically impacts your gameplay to an extent no other mutator does (except possibly Mental Overload) and makes you reliant on RNG to a ridiculous extent. If you get good cards, you're likely to win, but if you get three of your central cards having only hostility/manipulation upgrades in your pure diplomacy deck, you're screwed.

The cards are also usually non-upgraded. Did I mention it cuts your access into central cards? Hostile Instincts is a neccessity for Hostility decks due to the double for the evokes and the +1 dominance compared to normal instincts, and it affects your daggers/improv cards/basic cards too. No more Lucid Threathen or Pale Fast Talk.

The idea is fine, but at least make mutator "choose from two random Upgraded cards" and include the Basic cards in the pool! That way, it won't turn the expected Griftlands power curve (which is exponential for negotiations, by the way) into a knot and still lets you get your uniques. I get it's optional, but right now? I honestly don't see how it could make the game any more fun or tactical at all.

(While at it, I want to say that Griftlands is incredibly polished, but the AI for your allies could use a tune-up: Guarding other allies when they aren't being attacked is eeeh)

[pacovf]

I don't think Mutator is meant to be a particularly serious uh mutator (can we please get a name change, Klei?). I can see an argument for the random upgrade options to always be upgraded cards (and/or cards with the same rarity?). By itself, it has the advantage that pretty much any card you get offered from upgrading your basic cards is better than an actual upgraded basic card, so it's a power boost in that sense, especially if you are running "Starved" at the same time. You don't *need* Sal's instincts or Sal's daggers, although not having access to them does restrict deck building somewhat.

For what it's worth, mutators were originally meant mainly for testing before the dailys got implemented. Dailys are much shorter than a regular campaign, so it's ok to have some that are kinda silly.