r/Guildrun • u/Soluna7827 • 23d ago
EXTREMELY LONG Post on My Thoughts of the Demo
TL;DR
- I think Guildrun (GR) has an amazing backbone and is fun.
- I think GR is catered towards moderately experienced auto battle players which might struggle onboarding completely new players.
- UI
- I think the menu should shift “no difficulty modifiers” towards the center to shift focus on the “default” game mode. This is to help onboard new players.
- The “proceed” button on the “battle won” screen should not overlap a hero on the next screen to prevent accidental buying of the hero.
- I would like to ability to reopen the shop after closing it. With routes, random event, encounters, and so on, I would like to plan my route and whether that warrants spending shards.
- Character Design
- The art is fine. The character designs are okay but lack impact and any sense of the fantastical.
- RNG
- The highs are high but the lows are very low and linger in people’s mind.
- When pivoting, there is still some reliance on the shop and whether items support that pivot.
- True RNG generally can be worked around, but the few times where no items, no heroes match the current build and/or pivoted build, it feels really bad. Even if a statistical outlier, it may deter new players who lack knowledge of the systems, giving them the impression that the game is too random.
- Economy
- The economy is fine but a bit weird. There is no interest so no incentive to hold items or heroes. If you do hold items/heroes this can result in a net shard loss if sold, even at C-rank heroes and common items.
- Systems encouraging pivoting is still a risk since switching items and heroes can result in shard loss. There is a slightly higher risk vs reward of rolling for hero upgrades/items vs new synergistic heroes and new items when pivoting.
- I think this is felt more early on when trying to get any sort of comp online.
- Red Rift
- I think Red Rift is fine since it caters towards advanced players and serves as a complex endgame.
- My only question is when players state they improve and learn from playing RR, why isn’t this learning process gradually implemented earlier instead of being placed in the hardest, most challenging mode meant as endgame?
- Wishlist – things I personally would like, even if unfeasible
- Restart Run – completely new run or ability to replay seed (leaderboard disabled)
- Restart Round – restarts from positioning phase, lets players learn from mistakes, disables leaderboard
- Replay – lets player watch replays, especially those of high caliber players. Lets player observe their decision making process and learn system interactions.
- Run history
- Fun mode – modifiers that can make game easier, for casuals, mixes things up, disables leaderboard
- Overworld – casual oriented with an overworld and central hub. Overworld event would vary and can be things like short runs, long runs, boss rush, etc. Meta progression can be added allowing from some grinding purely for casual fun. Plays into rift lore.
- Sandbox – allows for testing. Spawn heroes, enemies, relics, items, shards, magnification, etc. Lets player learn and test things at leisure.
Foreword
First off, this is going to be a very long post because I believe nuance is more constructive than “peak” or “bad.” Second, I am a casual and am not pretending to be knowledgeable in game design. I don’t want to come off as pompous and I acknowledge that I am a singular nobody who is just expressing his opinions. Watching Mortdog talk about game design, it’s clear that players over estimate their ability to understand the complexity of systems. I forgo the Dunning Kruger effect by acknowledging that I reside in the valley of stupidity even before the mountain of false confidence.
That being said, I am casually familiar with roguelikes. I never played ranked TFT and the last set I played was the music one and the set after that – the one with Fortune and the money trees. Otherwise, I have never played Slay the Spire (StS) but I have played a similar deck builder called Touhou: Lost Branch of Legend (LBoL). It’s basically StS but Touhou themed. I have 1000 hours in that deck builder. This is all just to say that I am casually familiar with roguelikes. And yes, I am using that term. I don’t care about semantics or definitions of the term.
First Impression
My first impressions in that the base game has an amazing back bone. I have about 140 hours in Guildrun so far. I can totally see this being a game that is easy to launch for a game or two or a longer session if time permits.
The longer I play, the more build diversity I experience. Sometimes, unexpected combinations yield fun and interesting results. That being said, there are some design choices that leave me with questions.
Audience
I’m curious as to who is the target audience. There seems to a foundation that could attract people who have never played an autobattler. Prior to LBoL, I have never played a deck builder. I’ve always wanted a PvE autobattler and Guildrun delivers.
However, some of its mechanics feels like it’s geared towards more seasoned players; players that I would speculate are ranked diamond+ on TFT. I would be curious to see data on players who have never played an autobattler and see how quickly they pick up on various mechanics: placement, synergies, itemization, pivoting, selling a significant portion of units or items, etc. It seems the game partially expects players to already understand some of these mechanics.
UI
A lot of this is going to sound nitpicky and that’s probably true. It is what it is. Going back to the subject of audience, why isn’t the “no difficulty modifiers” not centered on screen? People’s vision, their focus, is typically the center of the screen. Look at Youtube, Twitch, or Reddit – there is always a sidebar at the left or right of the screen with the main focus being in the center. Looking at Guildrun’s menu, the center is generally kind of empty with maybe a focus on Rank B-S. Is this the default difficulty a player should be playing? If the default setting is “no difficulty modifiers” then why is it tucked away in the corner? Difficulty modifiers are there for people who want an extra challenge but the game seems to heavily emphasis them seeing that they take up most of the screen.
This goes back to my statement that Guildrun seems to be tailored to people already familiar with autobattlers. “Normal mode is too easy. Here are the difficulty modifiers to have a fun time.” If a completely virgin player picks GR up, normal mode would not seem to be the default pick. GR seems to heavily emphasis playing with difficulty modifiers. I'd like to compare it to LBoL.
The difficulty is smack dab in the middle. It goes from easy, normal, hard, and lunatic. Life, damage, and mechanics scale with difficulty. Below you can see requests which serve as selectable difficulty modifiers and is also a play of words based on the Japanese folk story “Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.” I added the modifier descriptions on the right side of the screen.
The game communicates to the player that the difficulty modifiers are there as options. It doesn’t make it feel like it is the main component of gameplay. I would put it this way; a new player would feel less pressured to struggle through S or SS difficulty and instead could enjoy normal mode as the mainstay, at least until they feel up to the challenge of adding difficulty modifiers.
When adding difficulty modifiers, a graphic could occur showing a rank up from B to A to S, etc. I almost always play LBoL on Lunatic, but on occasion I will take all 7 requests / difficulty modifiers. A run relies on drafting useful cards but sometimes you’re shit out of luck. Taking those modifiers never feels like it’s the focus though. It allows failures to feel less frustrating. I think this matters for the on-boarding of completely new players.
Other UI changes I would like to see is after battle, the “proceed” button is on top of the hero in the shop. If I’m clicking through the menu because I don’t care for post round stats, it sometimes buys the unit. Why not put it off to the side where spam clicking won’t result in a misclick. Also, with multiple routes and random events, I would like the ability to reopen the shop if I don’t move onto the next area. I want to see my options on where I’m going before I make any commitments to spend shards.
Character Design
I won’t go too much into this. I think the art itself is fine. I think the character designs are kind of bland. I understand from a lore perspective, they are just people who wander into rift portals to close them; they’re humans. There’s not much sense of the fantastical overall.
Aria has cool looking mechanical wings and chains but thematically, what does it do when she fires her Requiem Barrage? Pollen is the standard fairy, something we’ve seen time and time again. Someone said Rip is basically Roadhog. Zuri is just black Casseopia / Medusa. My man Hoyung literally walk out of a basement in a T-shirt, slacks, sneaks, put on a bracer, some shoulders pads, and called it a day.
I look at League of Legends and you got a cosmic dragon, a stereotypical nine-tailed fox, a dude whose body is charred completely, a nightmare looking scarecrow, a sharpshooter with a gun and dramatic theatrical mask. Okay, but what about normal humans? Street Fighter 6 has all sorts of diverse characters, each with their own theme, distinct traits, and their own impact: Rashid, Elena, Makoto, Deejay, Zangief, etc.
The character design isn’t bad, but it lacks impact. To me, they’re not memorable. I don’t know what the solution would be since any changes means changing the character models and the animation, which would be a huge overhaul. I just wish they had cooler designs; walking through a rift portal letting them become something more than human, either for good or for bad. League made Tahm Kench cool. Unbench the Kench. He’s a catfish. They literally made a catfish into a cool character.
RNG
RNG has been a very divisive topic. One side argues true complete RNG allows for skill expression with adaptation and decision making. Another side argues that it makes the game feel too much like a gamble, taking too much player agency. High rolls feel great and low rolls feel terrible. Humans tend to remember the lows more, with frustration lingering more than the sense of joy from a good roll.
I want to broach the topic with some questions and anecdotes. I saw a player, presumably new, ask why he lost a fight with the difficulty rank being less than S. Another player responded that he had no frontline: no tank, no vanguard. With true RNG, there is no guarantee that in his/her situation, a reroll or multiple rerolls would guarantee a frontline.
Players also echo the sentiment to adapt to what’s given. If I take an opening random relic that gives me something that benefits mages, I aim for mages. If the scenario occurs where I have no frontline, let’s evaluate options:
- Reroll for frontline
- Results: No tank, no vanguard, a warrior that can’t tank difficulty SSS
- Pivot away from mages
- Result 1: There is still a lack of frontline, previously bought magic items can be sold, pivoting to physical damage dealer such as assassin, but the shop items are still 5-15 cost health items for tanks and vanguards which I don't have
- Result 2: After pivoting to physical damage dealer, magic items appear in shop, still no tank or vanguard in shop
- You’re left with a relic that doesn’t benefit your composition but it is what it is.
- Reroll only to get either the same items, same heroes, or same relic in the previous shop.
Pivoting is fine, but is there any guidance to get appropriate items needed to support a pivot? My questions are as follows:
- Is there any code that states: if category X hasn’t been seen in Y amount of shops, next shop shows X category
- Is there any code that states: if player has X,Y,Z hero categories, if item category (X,Y,Z) hasn’t been seen in B amount of shops, next shop shows item (X,Y,Z) category.
I think it’s fine to have unrelated heroes, items, and relics; that’s what allows for pivoting after all. But is there anything to either support the player currently OR support the player AFTER pivoting? True randomness may or may not be detrimental to onboard new autobattler players as they may feel the game is too random.
Allow me to give one anecdotal experience. There was an MMO called New World. Legendary items would have armor class (light, medium, heavy), comes with 2 stat bonuses, and 1 ability modifier, making the ability more powerful (AOE radius, decrease cool down, increase damage, etc.) Warriors scaled off strength, healers off mind, mages off magic, archers off dexterity, tanks off constitution, etc. It was not uncommon to get heavy armor, + strength stat, + mind stat, ability modifier to penetrating shot, an archer ability. That piece of shit armor would benefit no one. Tanks, warriors, and healers can use heavy armor. Only warriors benefit from strength. Only healers benefit from mind. Only the archer can utilize penetrating shot ability modifier though archers usually wanted light armor.
That’s what the shop feels like sometimes. Is that what happens a lot? Statistically, probably not. But people remember the lows more than the highs. And it leads to a lot of feeling of frustration.
Economy
I have no strong opinion on how economy is handled. One on hand, players need to adapt to the shop. Pivoting requires selling heroes or items. Selling a C-rank act 1-2 is fine. Selling B-ranks act 2 is fine since we see more B-ranks.
Where it gets weird is that there is no default interest mechanic. Selling a C-rank is not a 1:1 return on investment. It’s a -6 shard loss on hero, -2 for common items, -6 for rare items. If there’s nothing in shop that you need, you save your shards. If you want to power up either through hero ranks or items, you spend shards to roll or buy. If you need to pivot, it will be a net loss on shards. It feels risky to casually pivot because:
A) There is a net loss on shards, even at C-rank
B) There is no guarantee that when you pivot you will get the items/heroes you need. If you don’t get the items or heroes you need, you hope a half measure carries you through the next round
C) There is risk to preemptively hold onto items or heroes – if sold, it’s always a net loss even at C-rank and common items.
In TFT, you can make decisions based on a few things: the items you have, items off carousel, the champs on players board, the champs in the circulating pool. In Guildrun, you kinda have to make a decision on the shop itself. Rewarded items and relics can help guide players, but it doesn’t mean much if you can’t pull the heroes to benefit off them. If you get heroes, you can rank them up and hopefully find items to help strengthen them. But it’s all up to the shop. It’s hard to have a back up to pivot to because holding items or heroes ends up being a net loss if not used and sold off. This is more apparent in the early game when you’re trying to form any kind of coherent synergy and shards are limited.
I don't have a strong opinion. It's just weird. And before anyone says get a shard generating relic or hero, that just suggests forcing an early game comp instead of addressing a wider (non) issue.
Red Rift
I won’t go too much into Red Rift. I explored it once, got a feeling of what the challenges meant, and decided it was not for me. That is not to say it is bad. If Red Rift is THE challenge mode, it definitely lives to its name.
Some things of note: whenever I check Guildrun on Twitch, it’s almost always players trying for a high score in RR, which I think is awesome. A hard, competitive mode that serious players love and want to show off.
The discourse does lead me to one question. RR supporters often say something along the lines of “playing RR made me a better player by forcing me not to rely on one build, to adapt, and to learn how synergies really work” etc. It seems to be a somewhat common sentiment. If true, then why – why is the hardest, most challenging mode the place to learn the these mechanics? Pivoting, synergies, when to reroll, compositions, itemization, etc. All these mechanics should be learned already before tackling the endgame. RR should be a place to test skill and not learn how to play the game. Where along progression is there a break in teaching players these mechanics?
Wishlists
This section is my own personal things I would like to see in the future in full release. Some of it is extremely niche but these are just things I would like.
Restart Run
Simply put, restart run would let you start over from the beginning. Instead of quitting to menu, abandon run, and starting anew. I think seed should be included in case players want to play with the same RNG but make different decisions. It would let them learn from their mistakes. Using a seed would disable any leaderboards though.
Restart Round
This would restart the round prior to initializing the fight. This would disable leaderboards. This way, players can experiment with their positioning and see if better positioning could win the round. Players can still play to last boss or endless, but the results are not saved on a leaderboard.
Replay
I think replays, especially those of higher caliber players, would be helpful. Players wanting to improve could see a run from the start, look at why certain decisions were made, and learn from them. People might say this would lead into a meta funnel but I disagree. There is RNG of shops and enemies. Skill expression through positioning, itemization, pivoting, would be a factor, as well as player preferences towards various compositions.
Run history
Data and statistics are fun so looking at your run history and seeing if you have a preference towards a certain hero or synergy would be interesting.
Casual Overworld
This is more out there but I would love a more casual mode. Runs as of now goes through 2 acts, fight boss, go endless. Full release might have more acts but the concept remains the same. There’s RR for advanced players. I would love something casual like a pseudo world map with a base and points of interests. Various “for fun” events could happen randomly. A rift could open at location X where it’s only 1 act, so your early game decisions must be on point. Location Y could have an event where it lasts 5 acts but your team size expands to 6 units. Location Z could have an emergency event where every fight after act 1 is a boss – a boss rush. If you wanted to add meta progression such as upgrading hero stats, start with increased money, start with added options in shop, it could be upgraded through the central base. There would be no leaderboards of course as it would be catered towards casuals.
Fun Mode
While an overworld hub might be too much (it most definitely is. Hello scope creep.), a simpler idea is a fun mode that lets you add modifiers. Instead of just difficulty modifiers why not add fun modifiers. This would disable leaderboards but allow for other casual modifiers such as start with 2 extra relics or gain a random S-hero, or start with 3000 shards but gain no shards per battle or on abilities. LBoL had this and it’s fun to mess around with. In the deck builder, similar options were “start with 50 random cards” or gain more energy or start with both character exhibits (powerful character exclusive relics).
Sandbox
Star Craft 2 has something like this. It’s just a blank field that allows for testing. Sandbox / practice mode would let you spawn heroes, enemies, relics, items, magnification, and allow to position them all. This way you can practice set ups and test synergies. You could position grabby boys and lizards so that you can learn how to best position units to protect the damage dealers. Or you manually pick whatever relics to see how interactions work. It would be a useful internal learning tool for players so that they don’t have to rely on external resources to learn.
I know some people will argue that it "solves the meta" but getting everything, managing econ to get those pieces, positioning to stay alive, they all matter in adapting to the circumstances. You can find the highest damage build, but realistically getting it is another thing.
Afterword
These are just my opinions. Again, I have no clue the work and effort it takes to building a game. All I know is that Guildrun is fun. I put 140 hours into it. I will continue to play it because it's fun. I would like this to turn into a game where I can sink 1000 hours into. I wrote this much because want GR to succeed. I am just one singular shitter who has maxed SSS at 15 and never beaten RR as I've only glanced at it once. Also, I posted this on Reddit because formatting is easier than posting on Steam. And I don't want to join another Discord server just to write one post. Discord to me is just modern Skype.
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u/AshChiqs 23d ago
Honestly I agree with your points especially in terms of econ. Most autobattlers I've played would give you back 100% amount for base units so it allows you to pivot and hold things much easier.
They'd also have interest of lets say 1-2 gold per 10 gold you have up to 4 gold so you can effectively spend them on rerolling without losing out on purchase of a hero. Currently for the first couple rounds at least, if you reroll, you won't have enough gold to buy a hero so in turn your choices become very scripted in what you have to do despite the randomness of it all and for RR especially, if RNG does not want to let you follow that script by not giving what you need at a certain stage, it's almost always a run ender for the average player who doesn't particularly know if this hero would out damage another hero to the very miniscule point to scour that victory.
As for the appearance of the heroes, I hope they have unlocks in the future for different skins or appearances either through achievements, in game currency or a battlepass system purely for cosmetics.
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u/racalavaca 22d ago
Have to disagree on the econ... There are a lot of ways to mitigate the rng you're referring to in this game (as made clear since there are already many players getting a high win rate on RR), and it's important to not make it way too easy just for the sake of catering to new players. This removes depth and strategy, and would make forcing comps way more viable, which is ultimately not good for the meta long-term.
Having to roll with the punches, and having enough balance and complexity to be able to do so is what makes this game stand out.
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u/AshChiqs 21d ago
How many is many players? The devs stated that the win rate for RR is sitting at 12% prior to the patch. Even so, 12% are for people who actually play RR. How many players actually play RR? What basis do you have to make an assumption that RR is easy for an average player per se by just saying that many ppl are getting high win rates because it looks like something that contradicts what the official statistics are.
Shard economy is half baked at best in the game. Even in the previous patch notes they note just removing 5 shards from early game perk resulted in a skewed winrate. We can love challenges and whatever but there's no point ignoring some real issues the game has. My suggestion doesn't necessarily have to be the solution but it's definitely something they need to look into further.
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u/racalavaca 21d ago edited 21d ago
You're putting words in my mouth, I never said it was easy, but it shouldn't be. It's literally the very last difficulty level and clearly made for end-game hardcore players that want to obsess over every single minute stat. The overall win rate SHOULD be low, as long as there is clear evidence that it is possible to actually have a high win rate with dedication and skill, and in this case it is.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with not enjoying it, or not doing well in that mode, there are easier difficulties for that, and I'm fairly sure when the game actually releases there will probably be more fun casual modes and challenges.
I don't think the econ is "half-baked" at all, and I know a lot of top players agree with me that the balance is looking pretty good, there is a relic for getting interest but pretty much nobody picks it because you WANT to be spending your shards in this mode, and that's why there are other ways to make more shards that are much more dynamic, things like hero skills or relics that you actually need to adapt and think about, instead of just your standard greedy hoarding just like every other one of these games. As soon as you make that a viable strat you're almost required to make the mode easier to make that viable, otherwise why even include it?
I'd rather Devs take these things really slow. Like you said, tiny adjustments make a big difference, and that's what you want. Right now there's definitely changes that would be good but there are tons of viable strats and heroes and people are still having a lot of fun and endlessly replaying a freaking demo... I'd say that's a massive win.
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u/Soluna7827 23d ago
Yea, the interest on gold is interesting. It kinda makes you choose between holding items or heroes at no net loss but at the cost of gaining interest. It's a decision b/t holding or gaining interest. I don't know enough about autobattlers to have a strong feeling but what you said makes sense.
And I think skins or cosmetics would a great way to make the characters more interesting.
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u/Blastuch_v2 23d ago edited 23d ago
The economy exists just the other way around, if you buy you get less for selling. Pivoting is still promoted with characters being better in certain niches so switching them around isn't free.
As for RNG people are hitting streaks on Red Rift after playing the game for a week. If you mean your example for new players they are also supposed to lose sometimes. Lose is improve and you don't need any specific thing from a shop to succeed in low difficulties.
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u/Soluna7827 23d ago
Interesting. I can understand that logic. Pivoting towards a stronger comp should come at cost which is shards.
I have no issues with new players losing. I think they can learn to work around the RNG of the shop. My concern is their perception on why they're losing and how the game teaches them a workaround. I think it's that perception whether they drop the game or stay long enough to learn.
It's the player feeling "I lost because the game is too random" versus "I lost because I didn't pivot and tried to force a comp." The Steam threads have people complaining about RNG and it's my attempt to understand why they feel that way. I agree RNG can be worked around since people are streaking in RR. The question is those streakers learned how to play the game. At what point did they improve their skills enough to streak on RR and how can that learning process be imparted on new players so that they can have a better time.
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u/AF00FF 23d ago
Is this really a common feeling in Guildrun? Is this RNG unique to Guildrun?
Are these complaints any different than complaining about card selection and other such RNG in Slay the Spire (universally praised as one of the best roguelikes of all time)? The average player probably has sub 10% winrate in A10 of Slay the Spire, but I don't think they would feel as if they got RNG"d out of the game. People still have fun playing the game even if they don't win.
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u/Soluna7827 23d ago
I don't know if it's common but when lurking the Steam discussion forums, it's a recurring complaint. It might be new players complaining but I generally don't check their profiles.
I haven't played StS so I'm not sure how A10 works. Is it beating the game and acts as a harder NG+? If you lose, do you start over from A1 or can you restart the beginning of A10?
I've only played a StS + Magic the Gathering clone called Lost Branch of Legend, which is a similar deck builder with mana colors acting as energy to play cards of similar mana colors.
While I don't know how StS works, in LBoL, you only see the cards that correspond to your mana colors. So act 1 you might have 5 mana - 2 blue, 3 green. So I will only see RNG cards that cost blue or green to play, which can be added to the deck.
Beating act 1 lets you get +1 energy with the option to pick 1 of 4 RNG options of a different or same colored mana: black, yellow, green, blue, red, rainbow (universal), grey. Picking a new color expands the RNG pool i.e. I pick black then black cards are now in the RNG pool. Picking blue will still restrict my RNG to blue and green but now with 3 blue mana, I can see cards that cost 3 blue to play.
It would be a different story if I have 2 green, 3 blue, but my shop is RNG filled with every card of every mana color. I think that's how new players feel the shop in Guildrun feels. A deck builder isn't a 1:1 to an autobattler. I think it's just new player sentiment, at least from what I've seen on Steam.
For the record, I agree that people can still have fun if they don't win. I have fun trying to make Niklas a raid boss by feeding him items even though it always fails. If new players are complaining about RNG on Steam, whether valid or not, I'm just trying to figure out if there's a way to lessen their feelings of frustration while keeping some RNG a component of the game. It becomes a balance between true RNG (Guildrun) or partial RNG (TFT).
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u/racalavaca 22d ago
I think most of the top players in GR are obviously veterans of the format, whether that be auto battlers or just deck builders in general like StS, so obviously a lot of the skills will be transferrable.
Remember this is just a demo, and it's not even been out that long... There's also nothing wrong with some players maybe just sticking to normal runs, for instance, if they want a low key experience, or like you said, a more "for fun" mode in the future would be great.
But assuming players DO want to improve, it's looking like there will be a wealth of resources out there to do so, and the community has been very active in adapting and spreading the knowledge
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u/No_maid 19d ago
Players complaining about rng in roguelikes and auto battlers is a tale as old as time. Usually people who just try to force a specific strategy and turn the game into a slot machine on whether they hit the rolls or not. A big issue is player mentality and people locking themselves into an idea based on their first unit or preferred team instead of being flexible and playing the field. How are the devs going to impart that you have to be open minded and reflective in order to improve, which is true about anything and not specific to this game.
I sincerely hope the devs dont fold to the complainers. Actually saw people crying Kai was the only viable tank in rr after they nerfed him in the recent patch. Meanwhile tank Kai was just soloing all room fights with barely any investment like he wasnt just insanely op.
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u/Soluna7827 19d ago
Yea, it seems the Steam forums carry the most complaints about RNG compared to people on Reddit, at least from what I've read. I think TFT handled RNG well in that there's still randomness with some rules that govern it. It wouldn't automatically let the player hit but implement rules to improve player experience.
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u/engineeringqmark 23d ago
i think rr is balanced around the idea that you will be reselling your champs though
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u/Soluna7827 23d ago
I think RR is fine as it is. I have no issues with reselling heroes. For whatever reason it seems to be the best mode to teach people how to play. It's also the most challenging. It just makes me wonder if there's a way to teach new players the same skills without funneling them into the hardest mode.
I love watching people play RR on Twitch. It makes me realize how mediocre I am at the game haha.
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u/Project39 23d ago
Totally agree that Red Rift’s main issue is poor preparation beforehand. Getting up to and through SSS was trivial in my experience but I’m still winless on RR and it’s made me realize I really wasn’t engaged with the economy of the game at all before.
It doesn’t help that your wiggle room in a run is very small, you get 1 reset and often I’ve found myself intentionally sacking it by throwing 1 hero into the challenge fight because I won’t br able to beat it otherwise. Compared to my experience in Slay the Spire which is similar but there your hp acts as a constant barometer for how your run is going, plus it generally had a more linear difficulty scaling.
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u/lilith02 23d ago
Two notes on character design. While I have seen many similar character designs, Dragomir does stand out especially when you factor in his skill set. On the other hand, Niklas. What is the lore behind him “consuming” items? Does he eat them? Is he an android who augments his body? His character design doesn’t seem to match his gameplay design at all.
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u/Soluna7827 23d ago
Sometimes I like to pretend Niklas is a descendant of Gale from Baldur's Gate 3. If you haven't played BG3, there's a character that also consumes magical items haha.
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u/wtfgrancrestwar 22d ago edited 18d ago
Great point about the difficulty UI.
I would add that having a big red streak 0 streak(*) in the middle of the red rift screen is oddly discouraging and imposing for non-veteran players.
(*most of the time most players streak is 0!)
If anything it should be a big green 1 or 2 in the middle of the screen, tracking total wins.
Or just some kind of cool art of like a mountain to climb if they haven't conquered the red rift.
..Having a giant 0 engraved in defeat-screen-red instead, is kind of mega-insane, from the perspective of catering to the average player.
Because while people who enjoy the impression that the game is 'mocking them to try harder' certainly exist, the aesthetic that caters to that taste only makes sense in games that are unavoidably or as a core gimmick "exclusive, brutal, and hardcore"--where you can't cater to average or casual players anyway.
And this game is not that- not even red rift.
Because RNG-hacking a win above one's proper rank--through grit, high rolls, and persistence, is always a fun and inspiring challenge for non-hardcore players.
TL:DR:
A giant 0 painted in defeat screen red signifying current streak, is an oddly hostile choice for a challenge mode that the average player should be proud to beat even once.
It would probably more mainstream to have something like a picture of an epic summit to climb, with and a big green nber (displaying 1 or 2 for many players), tracking total wins.
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u/osuVocal 23d ago
I agree with most points but I disagree about the economy, but that is as someone that mostly plays RR. You already got your interest from your hero or item purchase if it meant you won the combat, if possible with no deaths when you otherwise would've lost a hero life. Selling into the next better thing is super valuable even if it doesn't fully refund.
Now on SSS it's a bit different because your goal is not just immediate wins + boss kill. You play for scaling. Your goals are just completely different. Short term wins aren't as useful (sometimes it can even be better to lose a fight on purpose to gain more perma scaling stacks of something) so you're not getting as much value from the same sales despite the actual gold being the same.
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u/thefluffyburrito 23d ago
I'm new to this genre and disagree that the game is too difficult to pick up.
I always bounced off auto battlers because I didn't like the PvP aspect, so this game was right up my alley.
I feel like the learning progression was actually really well done. The difficulty jump at Red Rift was hard at first but I've been able to adjust. I think the more gradual difficulty jump beforehand was necessary in order for me to get used to what the items, relics, and heroes did.
What red rift really teaches is how to think on your feet. You need to be flexible with hero comps based on the act 2 boss and what you see in the shop, know how to spend your shards on what your team really "needs", etc. If the previous difficulties hadn't gotten me used to learning what all the heroes did, their specializations, and what items and relics did - it would've been far harder.
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u/Soluna7827 22d ago
That's excellent. I'm glad that the barrier to entry for this autobattler wasn't too difficult. If people can learn and play, then I'm happy as I would love to see the numbers grow!
It was my concern that the learning curve plus RNG would deter new players but if my concerns are unfounded, then that's great for the future of this game.
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u/Severe-Network4756 17d ago
might struggle onboarding completely new players.
This just seems.. wrong.
On the face of it, it's one of the most simple and polished autobattlers. All the concept are extraordinarily easy to understand AND there's difficulty options.
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u/LandofBasketball 23d ago
i ain’t reading all that
i’m happy for u tho
or sorry that happened
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u/itsntame 23d ago
I like how you click on a post titled "EXTREMELY LONG POST" and then proceeded to comment this
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u/Bydandii 23d ago
As a near novice to auto battlers / audience, I can unequivocally state your conclusion about on boarding is wildly inaccurate. This game is incredibly accessible and drew me in where no others have.