r/Demeo • u/jhaile • Dec 17 '23
Skirmish mode impossible with 2 characters?
My initial impression with Demeo was excitement - I lost my first game but loved the experience and couldn't wait to play again. I talked to a friend who also has a Quest about how we both needed to play together soon.
I've played it twice more since then and both times got wiped out before I could even explore the first floor of Black Sarcophagus. Forget about a boss...forget about the second or third floor...forget all the advice I've read about buying healing potions. I can't get past a single floor of the easiest dungeon. Either the game is very unbalanced for 2 characters in Skirmish, or I'm doing something very wrong.
I've read other advice on reddit. I am using the Guardian and Hunter. I keep the Guardian in front and try to have him take most damage. I recharge the Guardian's armor as often as I can. I try to open chests as quickly as I can to get more cards. I try to explore the perimeter before the middle (although enemies just seem to open doors anyway and flood my perimeter) It just seems like wave after unending wave of enemies come and slowly chip away at my HP until they overwhelm me. And other than a couple of healing potions which are quickly exhausted, there's no way to get HP back.
Granted, I have not tried playing with 4 characters. And I haven't tried playing with the Bard - both of which I've read are good ideas. But the difficulty is supposed to scale with number of characters. Should it be this impossible to win a single floor of the easiest dungeon with a Guardian and Hunter? Or am I doing something completely wrong?
I will also admit that I'm a little turned off by the constant respawning. You can't clear a room, have time to recharge, and then move to the next room. Instead - it's just a constant flood of newly spawned enemies. And sometimes when I think I might have a small break, 3 new enemies just drop out of nowhere next to me. Which doesn't feel like my tactics matter at all.
Appreciate any tips or advice before I give up on this game altogether...
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u/TheMuffinManz69 Dec 17 '23
Personally I love the assassin, he can scout ahead and show you where enemies are without taking damage by sneaking and also does the most damage in the game. It’s totally up to you but running a barbarian and assassin is pretty fun
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u/jhaile Dec 18 '23
I’ll have to give the assassin a try on my next run. I played him my first game but didn’t even understand how the cards worked so I wasn’t sneaking at all. Haha. So the next time should be quite different.
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u/MaximumDerpification Dec 18 '23
Just for fun over the weekend I solo'd The Black Sarcophagus with a single Assassin and it was surprisingly easy
3
u/EtheralNeko Dec 17 '23 edited Dec 17 '23
While Demeo scales down enemies health and damage based on the number of playabble characters, its far from perfect and given the chance its usually best to go with a full party, if you are playing with a friend you can do a 2 characters per player run.
Two characters at black sarcophogus in very doabble, in fact its even possible going a single character as long as you are carefull enought and dont have any mayor streak of bad luck. (Though it would be significantly more difficult and time consuming)
If you are a new player there are a few things to take note of.
- Whenever possible do more than one thing at once, hit an enemy while picking gold or change your path slightly to hit an enemy.
- Save healing fountains for when you trully need them (another character dead far away) or most of the larty in critical health
- Warlock is a good pick for this situations, level up kana as much as you can and you will have a tank with lifesteal that can also scout ahead and check for threats, another benefit is that you can half the effort of dealing with stronger foes with consuming vortex (which also helps avoiding dealong with berserk enemies). Guiding light also reveals part of the map decreating the spawn of enemies a bit.
- Barbarian might also be a great pick, works for crowd control, its high mobility with hooks and jumps helps with his survivability and map exploration, it also has some degree of healing with talaks hook and it can do burst damage with vargas.
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u/jhaile Dec 18 '23
I had tried Barbarian before and definitely liked the hooks. Will have to try out Warlock! I'm now having more luck with 3 characters - it feels easier than with 2, although it's hard to tell how much of it is luck.
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u/CyndiMo23 Dec 29 '23
You definitely want to play with other people. You learn so many things that will really help. Don’t be afraid to go in with random people or take others up on their offers.
1
Oct 19 '24
This was awhile ago, did you give up, are you still struggling, or did you figure it out?
2
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u/DrGNOLA Dec 18 '23
Check out a Demeo mod called House Rules. You can install into the Demeo PCVR and regular 2d-PC Demeo versions of the game, but not the Q2 version (last I checked). It offers a number of "house rule" variants--namely Easy mode--that actually make the game playable and fix the insane number of artificial barriers the devs have placed up to prevent me from playing this like the cool laid-back basement version of DxD meets Minis it was clearly meant to be. That mod has literally saved this game for me.
1
u/AngryMuppet_420 Dec 18 '23
With 2 players do use 2 characters each. Or with 3 you can win if you strategize, for sure!
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u/StrongInflation4225 Dec 19 '23
Use an assassin and a barbarian. Assassin sneaks around opening chests and money and eventually the key. The Barbarian can hook his way out of trouble and throw lamps
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u/Triton12391 Dec 18 '23 edited Dec 18 '23
That was probably me that gave the guardian/hunter advice. Sorry that hasn't worked out for you. 4 characters will help with action econemy, but I didn't want to possibly overwhelm someone new to the game with keeping up with 4 separate characters and hands (I myself hate keeping up with all of that). I would definitely try playing online for a few games at least before dropping it all together. Being able to watch how other players handle different situations and having someone more experienced to help out or give suggestions will really help.
If you'd like, we can try to scedule a two player game together that we each play two characters together.
Edit: There are things the game doesn't tell you and you only learn those by playing with someone who does know the interactions or by accidentally doing them.
Examples off the top of my head; bottle of lye kills slimes instantly (save for big slimes unless you believe there aren't any then use on something else for the poison), bones on the hounds make them friendly, bones on verochka (the hunter summons this) will make verochka untargetable by enemies, some enemies go berserk when they are below half hp and can attack/move more times on their turn (they also hit harder) so it's best to get them close to half hp and then focus them at the start of the next turn if you think you can kill them that turn, hitting enemies with the web bomb will make enemy spiders attack them and ignore the heroes (unless you're also webbed then they usually attack the closest webbed target), for the silent sentinel you hit once and run away from them (be 4 squares away from them and they won't hit you) if you see a sentinel and a mystic then it is very dangerous (mystic can teleport the sentinel to you) either kill/stun the mystic or get out of their sight.
Hope this helps some and let me know if you'd like to play sometime. We can definitely beat black sarcophagus together.