Battle/Fighting situations are weird

[Tianzhou]

I am playing it on german.

I do not know if its only me being bad, but sometimes the RNG hits so bad, that i can not progress through day 2 on the last battle.
Also the fighting cards with comboing/bleeding are confusing/not explained. 

So I always prefer debate quests, because I can manage those and feel like I am doing progress with stacking new/better cards, which I can not tell for Battle cards ->
They feel less rewarding and hard to progress with for fighting battles. I am stuck on day 3/4 mostly, because of fights I can not handle somehow. 
I hope there will be better explainings, (if I am too bad), or a look taking into that, since I am feeling it is quite unbalanced.

Right now I have 7 hours play time and it is fun, I will keep playing it. But the "main story" of Sal is starting to get a little more boring everytime I restart the game to unlock 100% progress.  

[RageLeague]

9 hours ago, Tianzhou said:

I am playing it on german.

I do not know if its only me being bad, but sometimes the RNG hits so bad, that i can not progress through day 2 on the last battle.
Also the fighting cards with comboing/bleeding are confusing/not explained. 

So I always prefer debate quests, because I can manage those and feel like I am doing progress with stacking new/better cards, which I can not tell for Battle cards ->
They feel less rewarding and hard to progress with for fighting battles. I am stuck on day 3/4 mostly, because of fights I can not handle somehow. 
I hope there will be better explainings, (if I am too bad), or a look taking into that, since I am feeling it is quite unbalanced.

Right now I have 7 hours play time and it is fun, I will keep playing it. But the "main story" of Sal is starting to get a little more boring everytime I restart the game to unlock 100% progress.  

Here's some hints:

Right click if you are on pc to skip dialogs completely(you still need to make choices). Turn up the negotiation and battle presentation speed if you feel they are too slow. This can decrease the amount of time it takes to finish a run.

You need to focus on your battle deck on high prestige, as you don't die from losing negotiation(although it will be very inconvenient), but you will from battle that happens at the end of each day. Practice more on them to gain more experience and learn how the different conditions work.

[AYellowShadeOfB]

2 hours ago, RageLeague said:

Here's some hints:

Right click if you are on pc to skip dialogs completely(you still need to make choices). Turn up the negotiation and battle presentation speed if you feel they are too slow. This can decrease the amount of time it takes to finish a run.

You need to focus on your battle deck on high prestige, as you don't die from losing negotiation(although it will be very inconvenient), but you will from battle that happens at the end of each day. Practice more on them to gain more experience and learn how the different conditions work.

I'd add onto this the following:
You have to balance your battles and negotiations. When you battle, you get XP and drafts to make your battle deck better, and when you negotiate, you get drafts to make your negotiation deck better.

Every day ends in what I'll term a "gauntlet:" A series of encounters you have to battle or negotiate through, finished off by a boss fight.

If your negotiation deck is too weak, you won't get help for the boss battle, such as by getting the smuggler on day 1 or demoralizing the assassin on day 2.

If your battle deck is too weak, you can't pass the fight, even with the help.

So you have to balance your battles and negotiations so that you'll get help for the fights and be strong enough to actually win, since your allies won't do everything.

Quote

I do not know if its only me being bad, but sometimes the RNG hits so bad, that i can not progress through day 2 on the last battle.
Also the fighting cards with comboing/bleeding are confusing/not explained. 

What RNG is this? I can't really think of anything applicable for the RNG. Is it the assassin you get for the fight, or something?

Combo feels pretty simple to me? You essentially have three types of combo cards: Cards that give you combo points, cards that spend combo points for effects, and cards that have effects while you have combo points.

Same with bleed. Bleed is essentially damage over time, rather than immediatly, and you essentially have three types cards: Cards that apply bleed on enemies, cards that have bonuses when used against enemies that are bleeding, and cards that give you bonuses when you apply bleed.

If I had to guess, your issue that RNG screws you over might be connected to you not properly understanding the battle cards - You don't know what to do with combo and bleed, so it feels bad to you whenever you draft one (thus causing you to feel unlucky) and so any battle deck you build will be unoptimized because you don't know how to use the cards you get. But I'd say that once you understand the cards you have, this issue will stop being one, since you can build effective and focused decks.

Here's one tip: If you find that you're getting lots of cards for one specific tactic (such as Bleed or Discard or Improvise or Combo) make your deck around those cards! Bleed cards benefit from other bleed cards (if you have lots of cards that apply bleed, cards like Gash will be useful more often) so by making a deck that is almost entirely bleed cards, you can make a deck where every card benefits from the other cards. This is more powerful than a deck that contains random cards without synergy.

Quote

So I always prefer debate quests, because I can manage those and feel like I am doing progress with stacking new/better cards, which I can not tell for Battle cards ->
They feel less rewarding and hard to progress with for fighting battles. I am stuck on day 3/4 mostly, because of fights I can not handle somehow. 
I hope there will be better explainings, (if I am too bad), or a look taking into that, since I am feeling it is quite unbalanced.

Here's the thing: Battles feel less rewarding, and you feel negotiations make more progress, and that they are unbalanced, BECAUSE THEY ARE.

Let's look at some practical examples:

In battles, one of Sal's best cards that gives actions is Exertion. This gives you 2 actions that turn, while you lose one the next turn.

In negotiations, one of Sal's best action cards is Second Wind, which - depending on the size of your deck - can give you 5 actions. Easily. No drawback.

In battles, any cards that deal a lot of damage - such as Bedlam - have a drawback. If you deal a lot of damage, you're going to wind up hurting yourself in some way, too.

In negotiations? If you have rapid fire, or intrique, you can deal lots and lots and lots of damage easily, or you can stack dominance, or arguments that passively deal damage, and deal a ridiculous amount of damage.

 

Here's a terrible graph to explain it:

Basicly, in negotiations, you are a lot more powerful - but so is the enemy. Conversely, in battles, the enemy doesn't scale that way, and Sal's moveset is more balanced too.

This isn't an accurate graph by any means, it's just one I think should make it easier to visualize:

In negotiations, it's easier to feel that you're getting stronger because you get much stronger abilities and cards, but your enemy does get stronger too - so it's balanced.

In battles, while you do get stronger all the time, it's slower than in negotiations, and while the enemies also get stronger, again, it's slower.

 

I hope some of this, at least, is helpful or comes across as such. I didn't want to write such a long response, but I had a lot I wanted to say.

 

 

[Kleicher]

Yeah, it can be sometimes.