[WastingMyTime89]

For how good it is, the game does a terrible job teaching you how to play it properly. To win consistently you need to know the enemy patterns, what your next big challenges can counter, what the ? rooms are likely to be and when rare cards are likely to drop. Contrary to what beginners tend to do, it is more important to focus on overcoming your immediate upcoming challenges than focus on your synergies too early (for example you need damages fast at the beginning). Then the game looks easy at ascension level 1.

Part of that is obscure knowledge can be acquired losing repeated, part is more obscure and you will only gain reading the wiki or watching streamers.

I think that’s inherent to the nature of deck building game and fans of the genre like it this way. I feel ambivalent about it personally but I also have played two hundred enjoyable hours of Slay the Spire over the years.

[shadytrees]

I agree with this: the game appears simple but there are some surprisingly complex interactions, and even pro players consult the wiki/spreadsheet/external resources during their runs. For example, only last month did Jorbs discover something new about how Gold-Plated Cables and Emotion Chip and Loop operate (something about how GPC fires earlier or later than Loop, which affects when you want to take damage during the Heart fight with Beat of Death going); on the last stream, he also ran into War Paint making Snecko Eye worse because it upgraded Dualcast to 0-cost, which means that the Apotheosis he had in his deck was unable to lower the cost of a e.g. 3-cost Dualcast+ (normally, Apothesois lowers a Snecko-randomized energy cost to the correct value when it upgrades a deck mid-fight). Keep in mind that this is someone who has >8000 hours put into this game, and these discoveries are still causing him to update his priors.

Great game! Every decision matters!

[lelandfe]

Learning through repetition is part and parcel of the roguelike world, it’s the core mechanic for things Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon.

I think Slay the Spire is fairly accessible in spite of this, although “accessible” doesn’t necessarily mean one will win every run. I’ve never consulted a wiki or watched a stream and still have a grand old time playing.

[wly_cdgr]

No...the game does a wonderful job of not teaching you to play it properly. Figuring out all those things on your own is the whole dang game!

[WastingMyTime89]

You are never going to figure out that the drop rate for rare cards go up by 1% every time a non rare is rolled from a base chance of -5% yet this is a critical information for pathing choice. It doesn’t matter at ascension 1 or 2 because they are easy (I have a 100% win rate at both and I am in no way a good player) but it gets critical later on. Same thing with some of the weirdest monster loops. The fact that the first three encounters of a floor are drawn from an easier pool and you should therefore aim for a fourth floor elite is never made clear. The game is full of information you will be hard pressed to figure out just by playing repeatedly. The fun of the game is making smart decision to neuter it’s randomness. The ramp up to reach this point is far too long. The sole reason I played hundreds of hour of this game is because I watched a stream of it semi-randomly. In my opinion that’s a flaw.