I played my first round of One Deck Dungeon. I made it to the dragon and then died in the second round. I feel like I am only partially understanding this game. Is experience not that helpful? How many items can you carry? Is there any benefit to not using your heroic feat or would that just be foolish?
From my admittedly limited experience and memory of the specific rules:
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Leveling earns you the ability to roll more dice and have more abilities. The actual number of dice and abilities differ from class to class. One of the most important things to me regarding leveling is unlocking the second black die, which I tend to rely on heavily. Therefore, I think experience is very helpful. But sometimes you do have to weigh the benefit of experience versus a new die.
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Some heroic feats are more important to hang on to than others. The warrior, for example, banks dice for use later. It is a simple opportunity cost problem where if you use them now, you may not have them later when you need them. And, of course, when you do use them youāll realize that you didnāt need them on that particular check; it happens all the time. Some feats have negatives; the thief, for example, has to spend time to activate her feat.
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I am not good at this game, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I find it helpful to always take dice as a reward, especially the ones that add hearts. As for abilities, I definitely try and take the ones that let me change a die to a 6, since it is usually important for bosses.
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@Mirefox has you covered with his answer but, because Iām an arrogant ass, I thought Iād throw in my $0.02.
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Experience is helpful. Characters can only carry so many items/skills per level and the ability to add more items (dice) and skills (ways to manipulate dice) are the heart of the game. As Mirefox mentioned, getting to 4th level and getting that 2nd black die is also important. I always try to get there, but will forego it if the rewards I keep getting are too amazing to toss aside. Another benefit of leveling is that you get more potions. Try to save your healing potions until the boss fight, but use them if you need to. With character progression enabled (see below) you get more checkmarks on how far you get, so I always try to get to the boss even though I know Iāll get slaughtered because it will make later runs easier.
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Speaking of tossing rewards aside: I focus on collecting items first and foremost. Skills and experience are secondary. Basically, I enter every challenge only rarely skipping them (The only one I usually skip is the monster that has you discard all 1ās and 3ās and the one that forces you to convert an item to XP before the fight). If the die is one I need, I take the item every time. If the skill is one that gives me extra dice (if youāre the rogue and get a skill that lets you sacrifice a dex die to roll 2 strength die, thatās a winner, for example) or the ability to set a dice to a ā6ā, I grab it. Like Mirefox says, you need 6ās against the bosses, so grabbing these are super important. Also really good are skills that let you add +1 or more to a die value. Otherwise, convert to XP.
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Use your characterās Heroic Feat as much as possible. Thereās no need to save them up, as you canāt use them against the boss anyway. Some are much more powerful than others. I like the Rogue, Archer, Witch, Druid, Hunter are great. Adding Caliana to your team is crazy. I think sheās way overpowered and can win 80% of my runs if sheās in the party. Powers that allow you to use them every turn with a cost are better than the ones you have to earn by taking damage, fleeing, or whatever. You need to make sure youāre not spending too much time when you do this (which is why I like the Rogueā¦unless you roll a lot of 1ās). Play with the easier heroes to get your bearings. Seriously, having a strong Heroic Feat can make it so much easier to get to the boss. It wonāt help you against the boss, but will definitely help you get your character built up enough that the boss isnāt too much of a challenge.
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Play with 2 heroes, picking two whose starting dice layouts donāt overlap. For example Rogue + Paladin or Rogue + Hunter. Then use items to fill in the deficiencies that each have. So, if playing Rogue/Hunter, grab blue items for your hunter and yellow for your Rogue. If those arenāt available, look at the skill and see if it might be useful. If not, change it to XP.
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Play with character progression enabled. Even when you lose youāll gain some checkmarks to add to those heroās sheets, making them easier to play in later games. The top section of each characterās sheet are universal benefits that work all the time and theyāre all good. Otherwise pick one section that trips your trigger and focus all your points into that one sectionā¦you can only use one section (plus the universal one at the top) per run.
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You can play with the Forest of Shadows characters, but Iād do it against the regular bosses and select Standard Deck. The Hybrid deck includes poison which is a pain in the butt you donāt need until you know whatās going on. Likewise, pick āHealingā for your characters and not āCure+Aidā. The Cure+Aid thing complicates things and straight up healing with potions is easier to get a handle on.
It think thatās it. Iām sure Iām forgetting something, but if you have more questions just ask.
I played for a long time before actually beating a boss, but now have successful runs more than 50% of the time, even against the hard bosses. It will click eventually.
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Iāve been giving Sentinels of the Multiverse another shot on iOS since in paper it is a game I should live but in reality I get way too frustrated with it, often before I even get to take a turn. Iāve been playing with random setups.
In my first game I played against Omnitron. I didnāt have any healers and most of my damage was really low. I had Fixer, who had the potential to dish out quite a bit, but Omnitron kept playing cards that removed everything ongoing. It was a bit of a slog, but I whittled Omnotron down to 0. Of course, he managed to play a card right before dying with 15HP and I actually ended up losing even though he was eliminated. Ah well.
My next game I played against Apostate and all he did was reiterate what frustrates me so much about this game. At first he actually seemed like a bit of a pushover, but then he started playing all these relic and demon cards that brought more into play and mitigated a significant amount of damage.
For me, this game invokes the kind of rage I have when I play hearthstone and my opponent starts dropping legendaries on turn two.
I still give Handelabra an A+ for a great digital adaptation and I still want to like the game, but it is a demoralizing one for me.
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Your post inspired me to fire up ODD again, and I have to say that this is one of those experiences where I prefer the iPad over the iPhone WAY more. I find I have a really hard time keeping track of characterās health with the swiping required on the phoneā¦
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I agree, and the same goes for Sentinels. That said, Handelabra should be heaped with praise for coming up with a way to port their games to the phone rather than keeping them iPad-only.
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I agree that the ODD interface is a little tougher to deal with on the phone, but I prefer to play it there because it fits my preferred style of phone game: something I can easily play one-handed in short bursts. For some reason, I think I should play games with more depth on the iPad (or on my PC/Switchāthe iPad really doesnāt get much gaming time any more).
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I feel the same way about Sentinels. I know I should like it, but every time Iāve tried it, the play experience has always left me thinking, āNever going to play that again.ā And the only other game I have felt that way about is HS, which I have sometimes stopped playing for many months at a time, but eventually go back to because some new expansion will look appealing to me. At least with HS, youāre playing against people (some of whom buy a lot of big cards); with Sentinels, it feels like the AI is screwing you over just because it can.
The problem is twofold for me:
Iāve mentioned this before, but I really hate that the villain gets to go first; before Iāve had a chance to do anything, he/she is absolutely piling on.
Second, there is no slow ramping up of the threat, like in a game of Pandemic; the AI does not do a basic move like āDo 2 damage to every hero.ā Instead, it seems like every villain turn is ādestroy all equipment, then play 2 henchmen - both of whole grant the villain immunity - then do 2 damage to every hero, then a henchmen does 3 damage to the strongest hero, then the villain does 4 damage to every hero, then end-of-turn effects fireā¦ā
It is a lot to take. I suppose it makes victories even sweeter, but I canāt take it sometimes.
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I have had Sentinels for a while now, and I think that even though battles were fun, it is hard when a game has so much DLC that you feel like you paid money for what is really just a glorified demo. Rather than make me want to drop money to unlock what I am missing it just pushes me away altogether since thereās no way to unlock it in-game. Hoping ODD doesnāt do that too, I know it also has a lot of locked stuff.
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For me, it felt like playing a spreadsheet. I canāt think of a game that felt less heroic than SotM. It seemed like math class.
Perma-deleted many, many moons ago.
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My problem with the game is that nothing feels like it has an impact on its own. My characters donāt feel like they do anything.
The game is a slow grinding arm wrestle, with boring moments or seemingly unfair moments.
I do like a few of the magazine cover fights, they feel a little bit puzzle.
But playing a character that takes two turns to set up, only to be staring down half my HP missing just feels, yuck.
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Stacks on SoTM!!!
Not unfounded comments laid out here. I must admit, I give it a crank only every now and then and at that, usually come away with some of the thoughts expressed here.
That said, itās clear the game encourages you to find the right synergies with the right heroes to take on the right villains. Some heroes are just terrible against some villains. I donāt mind it so much as a complete turn off, and Iāve read some people reaaaaaally liking that aspect. But yeh it can be frustrating particularly if you donāt play regularly to know the synergies or if your starting out it is really quite daunting.
Itās one of those games where youāve got to be up for the tit-for-tat style of debuff/damage and also willing to lose games but find synergies through lots of trial and error. Itās not a game thatās like self contained where you find the synergy while in the game (having first learnt how to play and got some familiarity of course), Itās more like being able to enjoy losing games in order to find something that counters that villain with that environment.
Iām not enthused by it but not totally dissuaded. Iāve read others gushing about it too.
I hesitate to even ask this because I am 99% certain I already know the answer, but maybe itās a diamond in the rough: has anyone tried Warriors of Waterdeep? Is is anything other than the f2p dumpster fire I assume it is?
Itās not bad ā¦ although I have one important caveat.
Itās well-done, crash-free, scratches some D&D itches, and is generally fun to play. That said, Iāve discovered ā along with everyone else ā where they put the big gate. Iām basically cruising around with fourth-level dudes, and ā¦ wait for it ā¦ moving up to fifth level is almost certainly going to require some spending.
I havenāt decided what to do yet. Iām playing enough other stuff right now that my WoW decision can wait. Perhaps indefinitely.
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Thanks!
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After spending a little time with Warriors of Waterdeep I agree that it is entertaining and a well-put-together game. I havenāt hit the gate yet, so Iām not tainted by the f2p frustrations.
My only complaint thus far, if you can call it a complaint, is that this game is more or less the same game that is on the App Store hundreds of times, only with a fresh coat of paint. All of these quasi-RPGs work almost exactly the same and it is merely a matter of picking the IP that you most prefer.
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I had not even heard of this yet. Once Touch Arcade became just noise, I stopped paying attention to general iOS game news. For the most part, if you guys donāt mention something, or I donāt find it accidentally in the app store, I donāt know about it.
So trying this now. seems ok so far
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I feel attackedā¦
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