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Astronarch Chat: Really enjoyed it for a 5-10 runs, but after that I feel like I've narrowed in on a couple of extremely strong strategies / classes that continue to over perform, whilst others just don't work or are way harder to make work. Don't get me wrong, it's super fun, but I think I've hit my limit on it for now.
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Feb 8, 2023 04:16
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PotatoManJack posted:Astronarch Chat: The class balance Is all over the place but it’s still great fun imo
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Feb 8, 2023 07:02
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What counts as "adjacent" in Astronarch?
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Feb 8, 2023 08:01
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Jack Trades posted:What counts as "adjacent" in Astronarch? Pretty sure it means in the same "big" square of 4. That's why assassin is so good, since you can stick him in the other one and he's pretty much self sufficient and will only ever die to counter damage.
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Feb 8, 2023 08:25
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imo the only real outliers in terms of class balance are frost mage (way way too good, easily in its own S tier, and frost is OP, and it's the only class that uses the frost mechanic so if you don't pick one loads of items are bunk) and druid (too versatile). maybe juggernaut is also too good. all the other classes are more or less okay and you can make them OP with some work all the way up to C20. the adjacent system is also cool in theory but in practice on higher corruptions i always ended up having a square of 4 supporting each other and an assassin or vagrant (whatever that class is called) or a DPS guy with the hood that gives you hidden in the other square. i also 100%ed the game lol
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Feb 8, 2023 11:06
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I just realized Luck Be A Landlord got its full release last month. It's a cool... uhh... roguelite slot machine. As weird as the concept is it's a fun (and fittingly rng-based but there are ways to mitigate it for consistent wins) game about selecting roguelite-style rewards to place new synergistic symbols on your slot machine to maximize your chances of earning enough money to pay rent. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1404850/Luck_be_a_Landlord/ https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256916543/movie480_vp9.webm?t=1668596654 They're not exactly similar games but if you like Astronarch you might like this (it has a demo) - it's the distilled essence of "choosing the best reward to put a build together" in a similar way to Astronarch. And they're both games that I put far more hours into than I would have expected Also worth noting is that this game has essentially been updated multiple times almost every single day for over 2 years now and is still getting daily updates, even after the full release. Most of them are just bugfixes and maybe one or two small additions but it's absurd how active the dev has been. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Feb 8, 2023 |
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Feb 8, 2023 11:46
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deep dish peat moss posted:Also worth noting is that this game has essentially been updated multiple times almost every single day for over 2 years now and is still getting daily updates, even after the full release. Most of them are just bugfixes and maybe one or two small additions but it's absurd how active the dev has been. can second it, it's absolutely fantastic, the slot machine gameplay is really good even if it sounds like it'd be a huge joke
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Feb 8, 2023 19:01
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That turn-based roguelike Monster Train's devs are making got a demo in Steam Next Fest: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062810/Inkbound/
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Feb 8, 2023 19:13
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I beat Astronarch on my first run and here are my opinions on the classes I picked:
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Feb 8, 2023 19:19
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Megazver posted:That turn-based roguelike Monster Train's devs are making got a demo in Steam Next Fest: i honestly really dislike this. monster train is solid tho i am not into it as this thread tends to be generally, but the way this feels to play just feels extremely off to me.
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Feb 8, 2023 19:33
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Megazver posted:That turn-based roguelike Monster Train's devs are making got a demo in Steam Next Fest: It's very Transistor'y. A Transistor-like, if you will. I kinda like it.
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Feb 8, 2023 19:49
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Re: astronarch I'm at corruption 10 or something, and every time I pick pyromancer I easily cruise through the entire game. Burn items are pretty common and his DPS is off the charts with enough people applying them
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Feb 8, 2023 19:50
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Megazver posted:That turn-based roguelike Monster Train's devs are making got a demo in Steam Next Fest: Inkbound seems fun. The movement and damage mechanics were confusing, but it was fast paced enough that I wanted to do more runs. The one thing that sticks out is it needs a matchmaker. Give me that Guild Wars 1 flow without having to talk with people (or read quest dialogue).
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Feb 8, 2023 20:57
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Megazver posted:That turn-based roguelike Monster Train's devs are making got a demo in Steam Next Fest: The writing and voice-acting in this is like nails on a chalkboard to me, but then I hated Monster Train's aesthetic, too. Some dude doing an intentionally-annoying voice going "Ah another IYNQLINNG from the SEA OF STORIES, you are worthless and indistinguishable from all the others... but OH, BY THE AUTHOR, you have BOUND a KWILL, could the OLD TALES be TRUE could you be a BINDER??? perhaps YOU can REWRITE the STORIES but oh NO that's surely IMPOSSIBLE (BUT MAYYYYYBE?????)" dude I'm a faceless lump with a hammer gently caress off
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Feb 8, 2023 21:08
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Yeah, the skip button is mandatory.
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Feb 8, 2023 21:38
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megane posted:The writing and voice-acting in this is like nails on a chalkboard to me, but then I hated Monster Train's aesthetic, too. Some dude doing an intentionally-annoying voice going "Ah another IYNQLINNG from the SEA OF STORIES, you are worthless and indistinguishable from all the others... but OH, BY THE AUTHOR, you have BOUND a KWILL, could the OLD TALES be TRUE could you be a BINDER??? perhaps YOU can REWRITE the STORIES but oh NO that's surely IMPOSSIBLE (BUT MAYYYYYBE?????)" dude I'm a faceless lump with a hammer gently caress off every time
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Feb 8, 2023 21:44
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Anyone playing the prequel to Elona, Elin? Its looking pretty good! Made by the same dev. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2135150/Elin/ Beta Demo is available here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BXxcK0t1zkJFn-5mVaX93OabUFJKrVnO/view Also, looks like Ultima Ratio Regum 0.10 should be released this week or next! https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/02/04/ultima-ratio-regum-0-10-update-8/
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Feb 8, 2023 22:59
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frostmancer is easily the best dps in Astronarch, by a relatively wide margin. not saying other character can't succeed on high difficulties by any means, but high damage, scaling damage, global damage, and control all in one unit is a bit much
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Feb 9, 2023 01:56
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deep dish peat moss posted:I just realized Luck Be A Landlord got its full release last month. It's a cool... uhh... roguelite slot machine. As weird as the concept is it's a fun (and fittingly rng-based but there are ways to mitigate it for consistent wins) game about selecting roguelite-style rewards to place new synergistic symbols on your slot machine to maximize your chances of earning enough money to pay rent. This one slaps, tyvm for another great recc
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Feb 9, 2023 02:46
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Megazver posted:That turn-based roguelike Monster Train's devs are making got a demo in Steam Next Fest: I have already put a double digit number of hours into this demo and it's ridiculously fun in multiplayer, too. Extremely unique game that works incredibly well once you understand what's going on and how to play it. All three classes in the demo are quite unique and have some pretty fun synergy options together. I think my favorite aspect is that upgrades and improvements come fast and furious and almost every upgrade you pick up feels like they range from "meaningful boost" to "literally build defining". A lot of the time run-based roguelites fall apart on the upgrade track but this one seems to have a good handle on it.
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Feb 9, 2023 02:53
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Captain Foo posted:frostmancer is easily the best dps in Astronarch, by a relatively wide margin. not saying other character can't succeed on high difficulties by any means, but high damage, scaling damage, global damage, and control all in one unit is a bit much Yep, just won my first corruption with frostmancer well ahead... though my gladiator tank with the +MaxHP/sec item, the 'lose 50% of max HP and give it to others at battle start' item, and the 'invulnerable first few seconds of battle' item (which does prevent the HP loss...) was fun too. Literally doubled the max HP of the rest of my party each battle.
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Feb 9, 2023 03:17
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Mozi posted:Yep, just won my first corruption with frostmancer well ahead... though my gladiator tank with the +MaxHP/sec item, the 'lose 50% of max HP and give it to others at battle start' item, and the 'invulnerable first few seconds of battle' item (which does prevent the HP loss...) was fun too. Literally doubled the max HP of the rest of my party each battle. Very nice combo
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Feb 9, 2023 04:14
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Kanos posted:I have already put a double digit number of hours into this demo and it's ridiculously fun in multiplayer, too. Extremely unique game that works incredibly well once you understand what's going on and how to play it. All three classes in the demo are quite unique and have some pretty fun synergy options together. I'll have to give it another shot! I played as the binder(?) weaver guy and cleared a couple rooms without really feeling it. Maybe because I never got anything other than my starting three abilities?
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Feb 9, 2023 06:15
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OutOfPrint posted:Astronarch is in the Fanatical Very Positive bundle, as low as one game for $1: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-very-positive-bundle-3 I bought it, and got to the boss of Area 3 on my first run, but for the second half of the 3rd area I was basically losing half or all of my group on every fight, and the boss just absolutely murdered me. How much does character placement affect things? The game frequently recommends having at least two characters tanking attacks, but how do I accomplish that? Should I just have two beefy characters anywhere in the front row? In the front most square in each set of four squares? Also, what counts as "adjacent"? Some abilities and items say they do X if I have one adjacent character, or X adjacent characters. I would assume it means "next to the guy in a cardinal direction", but does it go from one group of four squares to the next? Also, any general tips? After a certain point it felt like I couldn't do anything to delay my loss, so obviously I must have made some pretty big mistakes leading up to that point.
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Feb 9, 2023 08:42
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I played the previous dungeon drafters demo and unless if I am an idiot the new demo added new characters, and drat, this game seems like it will be a lot of fun. I played the animal ears lady this time and I like their starting deck a lot more than the mage, a lot of fun movement options.
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Feb 9, 2023 09:46
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RoboCicero posted:I'll have to give it another shot! I played as the binder(?) weaver guy and cleared a couple rooms without really feeling it. Maybe because I never got anything other than my starting three abilities? You will always have the starting three abilities on each class. You'll get significant mutator upgrades to two out of three of them in one run; an example for the weaver is an upgrade for your #2 "do a giant chunk of damage to everyone you have threaded" ability that instead destroys your threads and applies a giant stack of burn to all the threaded targets. There's also a whole host of smaller upgrades for each ability that can affect how you play/gear, like the mosscloak shuriken guy channeling you into crit or poison builds based on your picks. For a comparison it's actually close to Hades - you'll always have the same "weapons" in one run, but you'll get hammer equivalents along with other smaller upgrades.
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Feb 9, 2023 10:06
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:I bought it, and got to the boss of Area 3 on my first run, but for the second half of the 3rd area I was basically losing half or all of my group on every fight, and the boss just absolutely murdered me. Adjacent is everybody in the same foursquare. Splitting attacks depends on enemy placement too, look at the little lines. Most of the time having two dudes in the front of your main square is fine, sometimes you have to put a sacrificial lamb in the front of the other square. Or just somebody who is invisible/comes back from the dead/etc. If you can't see yourself holding onto an item until the end of the act take the money. Think about what you want each character to do and give them items that boost that. Status effects are better than straight damage in my experience.
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Feb 9, 2023 10:21
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:I bought it, and got to the boss of Area 3 on my first run, but for the second half of the 3rd area I was basically losing half or all of my group on every fight, and the boss just absolutely murdered me. character placement is extremely important. you can see who the enemies are going to attack based on the red arrows, and you can experiment with swapping squares and stuff to get different results. either you want everyone to attack your main tank or you want to split the damage between the main tank and off tank. above like C10-C15 you probably won't be able to weather the storm with just a main tank unless you've got them really geared up. below C10 you can get away with it. adjacent means anyone in the same four spot square. most powerful effects usually require adjacency but some of them don't. lots to try out. general tips are make sure you don't ignore stats which make a surprising difference, have a plan for how to level your character (i.e. always give your frost mage the first two blue orbs because his passive is ridiculous, doubles and then triples frost applied, AND applies frost to adjacent enemies, it's offense and defence in one attack) and give the right items to the right classes. juggernaut wants HP, paladin wants defense and +MP (because he's actually an off tank who's there to spam shields), berserker wants +speed, ideally on attack, to get his engine going, etc. choosing what items to pick is extremely important, particularly early in the game. a +100HP, +15% healing item makes an enormous difference early on, but if you're choosing between that and the 'consume 10 frost on this enemy to deal 300% damage to all enemies' or some of the other run-breaking relics, you have a hard choice on your hands. sometimes you have to choose the boring and effective relic to get you through those first few boss fights so you can get some orbs. sell everything you're not using, because upgrading relics at the shop is number one way to get stronger. the relics skyrocket into these god tier strats once they're upgraded twice, with either massive stat boosts (the healing relic i mentioned above becomes like, +300 HP, +45% healing, which is insane, the +speed on attack axe gives you 8% speed boost every attack, etc.) or crazy effects. figure out which relic is the strongest one in the context of your party and upgrade it, and if you still have money, the second strongest, etc. at base difficulty every party configuration is workable but at higher difficulties i would usually start with tank + healer + DPS in some broad configuration, and if i made the healer a druid they could usually off tank. tanking is incredibly important in this game because your back line will melt instantly. if i wasn't running a frost mage i'd always level the healer's active ability and the tank's passive. there's a lot of accelerating engine DPS classes in this game (anything with poison, berserker, wild mage, any DPS class with items that boost stats on attack or ability activation) and keeping them safe to keep doing damage is a lot of what you're trying to do. oh yeah and pay attention to what the enemies do. some of them will gut your backline, some of them stop healing, some of them gently caress up all of your plans. try to remember roughly if they were in the top, middle or bottom square of the map and avoid it if your party can't deal with certain things. if you can't explode all enemies very quickly then never ever fight against the guys who prevent healing because you'll die.
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Feb 9, 2023 10:31
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Top path in area 3 will murder you fast if you rely on shields
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Feb 9, 2023 14:35
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I picked up Little Noah last year on a friend's recommendation, and it's been sitting in my Steam library for months. Finally started playing it a couple of days ago and I really like it. The art style is super cute, the music is nice and whimsical, and I really adore the summons you string together in combat. Very charming and relaxing. It's not a particularly challenging game, even before accounting for the meta-progression. Got halfway through the third chapter on my tutorial run after all, but I haven't unlocked Hell mode yet, so it might get harder. My only complaints are that the performance is a little spotty at times, and that the story is an afterthought and pretty forgettable. Thankfully there is very little of it past the tutorial. Definitely recommend checking it out, especially on sale.
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Feb 9, 2023 14:50
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Captain Foo posted:Top path in area 3 will murder you fast if you rely on shields They also hard counter damage debuffs if you aren't spamming smaller debuffs on top --- my dps outlaw party got demolished by those cleansing urns. I made it to c18 so far and the enemy groups that consistently wreck most/all of my party are: (i) the a2 group with 2 drunken brawler guys and 2 tigers (ii) the a3 group with a bunch (4?) golems and a wizard or two (iii) the a3 jailer miniboss Invincibility or stun potions are S-tier just for moments like these against enemies that do incredible burst dps with their abilities
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Feb 9, 2023 14:51
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I beat my first attempt at an Astronarch run last night quite easily, game's pretty fun. I assume the default difficulty is piss-easy mode compared to whatever comes next though. I had no idea it was fully an auto battler.
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Feb 9, 2023 14:53
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RoboCicero posted:I'll have to give it another shot! I played as the binder(?) weaver guy and cleared a couple rooms without really feeling it. Maybe because I never got anything other than my starting three abilities? Yeah your priorites when selecting which room to go to based on reward should be: 1. Binding (ability) upgrades. These are extremely impactful and can mutate your basic abilities into stomping machines depending on what else you get. 2. Money. You can use this to buy more binding upgrades or trinkets. 3. Trinkets. I forget the in game name for these but these items can let you stack your preferred damage type or crit, or give you utility like +1 action point per turn. At the start of the run and before each boss fight you can select a new ability, but you can only hold a total of 5. In my experience you never NEED anything other than your base kit, but the Blink ability becomes completely busted with upgrades, giving you a ton of movement, reducing cooldowns when you use it, and resetting cooldown on kill. It feeds into itself when fully upgraded and enables you to use your other abilities way more. I'm looking forward to playing way more Inkbound once it's open to the public again.
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Feb 9, 2023 15:01
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The biggest tip for Inkbound that isn't immediately obvious to new players: Your basic ability pierces/aoes. example: Dont just bind 1 thing as a weaver, position yourself and bind many things in one cast
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Feb 9, 2023 15:26
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Smith Comma John posted:They also hard counter damage debuffs if you aren't spamming smaller debuffs on top --- my dps outlaw party got demolished by those cleansing urns. potions or game breaking OP combos are your two options, basically, since the game gets pretty brutal (though imo not overly so) at high Cs. i found a few that were relatively reliable - frost mage has the artifact that makes you do 700% weapon damage to adjacent enemies (and clears all frost stacks) if you apply frost to an enemy with 10 frost + the various items that apply frost at the start of the fight + stack as much attack on the frost mage as possible means you destroy most of the regular fights with ease as your second or third attack splats an entire square with huge burst damage. the C20 boss abilities mess with this strategy too much to make it viable against bosses but it's strong enough that you can build your entire team to take down bosses and mostly rely on the frost mage to explode regular fights and then just swap some items around for the boss. or paladin with the +15MP/s (your ability costs more every time you use it) + reduce MP cost for every ability use for boss fights, or the bouncing buckler which does X damage per 100 shield generated + biggest defense item (either full plate or the one that gives you defense for enemy frost stacks if you have a frost mage) = a paladin who spams shields 2.5 times faster than normal and either does respectable damage (and the fight will be over before the increased ability cost becomes a factor) or reduces the cost every time it's used. in both cases you only really need to hit the big enabling item and the rest sorts itself out. there's tons of other combos like juggernaut with +HP and +healing which is just incredibly strong and both of those are easy to find. there's wild mage with the legendary artifact that gives you +damage on ability use. berserker with anything +speed. and items like the crossbow (attack the back rank) can change your whole strategy too, and make really hard fights really easy.
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Feb 9, 2023 15:30
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Non-obvious Astronarch tip: If you mouseover the zone icons on the left side when selecting where to travel next, you'll get a brief description that gives a general hint to what the enemies in that zone do or counter. Also on the subject of OP characters the Bloodmage is my favorite.  Passively heals your tank for (once leveled up) 3x 5% of its current HP per second (stick an Oaken Knot for regen on the bloodmage!) and heals itself back to full, all while contributing very solid damage. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Feb 9, 2023 |
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Feb 9, 2023 22:14
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Can confirm that DoTs (and Frostmancer in general) seem like the way to go, Outlaw-Eternal-Alchemist then Frostmancer and Assassin as the later picks absolutely flattened the game, never lost a single battle and killed the final boss in like 10 seconds without him doing anything.
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Feb 9, 2023 23:23
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I died multiple times of exhaustion in the Elin demo trying to follow the crafting tutorial stuff and only realize "oh yeah i should probably just make a bed before all this other stuff its telling me to make" lol, that's elona. The building stuff is kinda clunky but it actually has some pretty nice options and the stuff you can do messing around with the home plate and room plate systems seem pretty neat. Look forward to trying it again when its more fleshed out down the line.
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Feb 9, 2023 23:26
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deep dish peat moss posted:I just realized Luck Be A Landlord got its full release last month. It's a cool... uhh... roguelite slot machine. As weird as the concept is it's a fun (and fittingly rng-based but there are ways to mitigate it for consistent wins) game about selecting roguelite-style rewards to place new synergistic symbols on your slot machine to maximize your chances of earning enough money to pay rent. I’ve been playing Ftaghn Simulator instead. Luck be an Old God, more and less. I can’t tell you which is better. You spin a wheel instead of a slot machine, and compared to the pre-release demo it got a lot more clarity, better control of your deck, and chaos/order game modes. The sequence of your draws matters much more than Luck be a Landlord but adjacency matters a bit less since there are only two adjacent positions. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2050590/Fhtagn_Simulator/ That said, I stopped playing it after a December bout of Covid. Primarily in favor of various Switch roguelike/lite games and metroidvanias and city builders/survival games on PC. I’ll probably revisit Luck since it’s out. While I bought a few before the holidays, the only pc rogue adjacent game I’ve played recently is Rogue Invader, FLERP, and the Dungeon Beneath. Did pick up some great ones for the Switch, but lots of stuff familiar to me or the thread.
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Feb 9, 2023 23:56
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OutOfPrint posted:Astronarch is in the Fanatical Very Positive bundle, as low as one game for $1: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-very-positive-bundle-3 Thanks for pointing this out! I totally missed it was in there somehow.
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Feb 10, 2023 00:08
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