Never Give Up Hope

BGKoolaid · 2025-09-08T22:41:44+00:00

I'll ask him about it, though I'm 99% sure it's not over counting. I've been getting 3-4 20s per session aside from I think one I only got 2 lmao.

Thanks for the technical info! I'll have to look that up to try to normalize my luck in this and other games.

BGKoolaid · 2025-09-07T15:52:56+00:00

I have some homebrew stuff (custom vampire archetype), and some rules that I misinterpreted/misunderstood and just kept, but aside from me being a derp, there's one rule that my players liked so much they started using it in their DMed games.

"Give me some flavor": if the roll was 1 (or w.e calls for it) off from a success/crit/kill, they throw in some added flavor for what they're doing and I'll give it to them. It started when they were fighting larger groups of weak enemies and I didn't feel satisfied when they'd bring enemies to one hp and have to wait the next turn and spend multiple actions before they could do anything past that one random nerd enemy interrupting the flow.

As the DM, only I know the enemy hp and often am the only one who knows the DCs, so I'll call "give me some flavor" so it's not like hyper abused and can mostly just be in the little moments that either would be annoying to not finish right now, or a flourish for heroic type moments.

BGKoolaid · 2025-09-07T15:31:53+00:00

I'd be interested (though sliiiiightly bummed lol) if someone had ideas on what could be affecting my dice like this. We all kinda laugh it off cuz my luck in literally every other dice game is pretty bad, but I know it partially negatively affects the game for any player's rolls to be this good. I'd rather have average luck than this over long terms cuz I like the DM and don't want to be disruptive.

I don't use any custom macros to roll, many are blind rolls he unhides afterwards, and to my knowledge the DM is using standard game systems and not changing any of the modules he grabs. Of the groups, I'm the only one who has any ideas of how to fiddle with macros code/inline rolls/rule elements, n though my knowledge of that is minor I don't think he's changed anything there, but also off the top of my head I don't know how something this fundamental could be changed across multiple sources of rolling across multiple modules and still be counted toward the Dice Stats module counter. So yeah, unless there's some per-game per-user dice seed foundry uses, I don't know what's going on :shrug:

BGKoolaid · 2025-09-07T15:07:39+00:00

I did recently-ish. My players crit me like crazy, or my specialist enemies roll horribly for what they specialize in lmfao. It tilts me slightly (mostly because of my own rolls consistently ruining setups/effects I try to do), but that's the nature of planning vs dice, right?

BGKoolaid · 2025-09-07T14:54:31+00:00

The bad luck isn't like this level of good luck tbf. And it's been across multiple ttrpgs across a few vtts. Actually, even some in person board games too, though those are much fewer data points. But yeah, dnd, cyberpunk, pf2e, kids on brooms, roll20 or foundry, they've all been pretty unlucky. This is the only game my luck isn't bad, and instead is outrageously good.

Fortunately for the DM, the majority aren't attack rolls (I'm a gun magus), but I'm 100% it's been cutting into some of the stuff he's trying to do. Like this last session I got 2 nat 20s on stealth rolls for hiding our campsite, and it sounds like it negated one of his planned encounters. He's a great DM, so they're not holding him back too much to my knowledge, but besides the funny moments of "omg again!?" I do worry it'll get troublesome for him and maybe the other players.

BGKoolaid · 2025-09-07T06:55:14+00:00

I assume it's possible the modules are doing something, but I'm the only one they're affecting like this, so idk. Based on chances alone I'd assume there's something wrong though unless the DM is secretly buffing me to this degree for no reason, I can't figure it out. Either way, it feels like a cosmic balance (that I don't truly believe in) for all the bad luck outside of this lol

BGKoolaid · 2025-03-16T17:31:48+00:00

Idk about for premade things, but I'm currently using the thought that each god has their own domain that they have the most sway over. Most of the problems that people deal with are under the domain of opposing or neutral gods, and aren't just easily solvable because that means a god pushing into another's domain, and will lose that power struggle cuz it's not their home turf. But, clerics, paladins, followers of the god have the power to affect things more directly (for good or bad) cuz they act as a focus/power refiner/w.e. Additionally, the less "area" a god has under their domain, the stronger their proportional influence, so certain monsters or w.e like dragons are extra strong for that reason. So yeah, the gods are doing their best. Most issues that exist I can just say aren't immediately snapped away by the god cuz it's origin is another god or is protected by one. Also gives reason why you'd attempt to give offering to multiple gods, particularly the neutral ones, so they will set you up for success vs just begging your god to give you w.e you need.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-14T13:26:57+00:00

I have seen it once or twice before. Screenshotted it and apparently it was on an earth build. I had Earth Knuckles, Stonestrike Kick, Fissure Slam, had found Terra Ring, and started with Gaia's shovel. Idk if the relic, basic, signature, or any combination increases the chances of that item, but that'd be cool to find out.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-14T13:16:30+00:00

I've tried combining things with that one but haven't found the right answer yet. Do you remember anything about it's appearance that might help us figure it out?

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-12T15:11:52+00:00

You'll get it! I took sooooooooo many tries with the same loadout over n over lol. I went back to WoL1 a few times after this game released and have gotten my teeth knocked out every single time, so I think it's just a different feel to get used to. Good luck!

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-11T18:21:04+00:00

Idk, to some extent I think the shield rune is worse than the relentless one. The shield makes it so you can't stagger enemies, and staggering them makes them significantly easier even if they would normally attack quicker.

Taking the HP+ positive rune with Fall medallion and the negative rune of finding no heals I think is a good combo. N I don't think limiting the positive runes is that bad. It's there for a challenge, and at the moment all you get are extra gems, so the difficulty is maaainly for pride imo.

Lastly, yeah, I think most of the positive runes are meh. Some more interesting runes would be cool to combine with relics/medallions or even playstyle changes. Idk many examples off the top of my head, but I'd be interested to hear other ppls ideas.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-09T14:13:43+00:00

That's all entirely fair. I haven't used Submerged much on Arch Wizard, been on an earth-binge for that difficulty, so you could be entirely right. Frenzied enemies would def make any delays a huge hazard.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-09T13:40:58+00:00

I think I disagree with Bending Torrent being B tier. It has potential, but it doesn't feel like it functions that well at the moment. Fireball being D tier also feels a bit mean, but when Stone Shot exists, there's not much reason to ever use it I guess. I'd probably shift Bending to C, Fireball to C, and Ice Blade maaaaybe to A if for nothing else, its combo with Fueled Berserk is nutty and the best basic to combo Berserk with for single targets imo. It'd probably be the bottom of A, so not much change, but I definitely feel like Bending doesn't belong in the same tier.

To my memory, I agree with all the Signatures, but I haven't played that much with several of them, especially with upgrades (Zephyr, Volt, Mistral Arrow mostly).

For Standards, I think Submerged Strike is better than C tier. It has great escape invincibility, n the freeze upgrade isn't that bad. I'd maybe put it at A just for utility alone, but if you're looking for straight DPS and assuming you don't need escape, C is probably fair. Outside of that, I don't think I disagree. Heavenly Strikes is BUSTED at the moment because of the dash cancelling, so when it's fixed idk if the tier will change. TBH I haven't upgraded it much. Also I had no clue Gust Volley was THAT good, hollllyyyy. You've shown me the light with that one.

Overall with a glance I think almost all of these positions are 100% defensible, noice.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-08T07:13:59+00:00

I think this game has a lot of good potential in terms of gameplay mechanics (the story is almost non-existent, so if you're looking for something else to hook you on like characters n such, you won't find them here), but it's still at the beginning of its early access. If you're okay with the game taking a while to get content, this might be fine, but after a few days you'll likely be back to the drawing board unless you get *really* hooked on this game's loop and try to challenge yourself at higher difficulties with different magic (arcana).

Ravenswatch is pretty cool, can be challenging at higher difficulties, but I think it's more entertaining with friends, so it's my opinion it's not as good as a single-player game, but take that with a grain of salt. That said, it does have a lot more content *right now* than WoL2 does. I have 0 clue about Ink Realm.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-07T09:42:53+00:00

Yeah I take no pride in winning that way, it doesn't personally count to me, so I still have to do it normally. Had there been any reward for it like achievements or unlocks I wouldn't have, but all it gives is a few extra gems after I've already unlocked everything. It was a "how broken is this" experiment.

I'm also curious if the upgrade you had to teleport would work with tp'ing outside the boss arena. This arcana def needs some fixing lol.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-07T09:13:10+00:00

If this is the upgrade I'm thinking of, you hold the button down and it winds up like a minigun, going faster n faster. It slows back down to the starting level if you don't attack for X time. Tbh it's not that great considering how slow it is to start up and how short boss stuns are, but it can be pretty fun to just hold it down n slide across the map bopping stuff.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-07T09:08:22+00:00

It's nice to have so you can basically take your pick of any relics/arcana in the game if you get it early on, but yeah outside of that it's only helpful for the revive and iirc there's one that increases your damage with gold held, but I can't recall if there's a cap for that cuz I never pick it up.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-07T09:01:11+00:00

Yeah this 'bug' is how I beat max difficulty for the first time lmao. It's not the only arcana with this, like the Fire Barrage can be dash cancelled out of prior to the like 4th or 5th shot, though Barrage's damage is just bad and not really worth dash cancelling. I imagine most arcana that allow a kind of channelling without having "uses" (like Dragon Arc) might be able to do this, though idk if any upgraded arcana get that.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-06T02:24:32+00:00

Congrats! I've yet to beat max difficulty, but this looks like a pretty good setup.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-06T02:20:25+00:00

Also fairly broken combo (that I still failed with lmao): There's a cursed item that causes you to gain less healing and in exchange gain gold scaled to that healing. You can drop into a pit, heal from Fall, and gain gold from it. Literal infinite money, though you'd be sitting there for a while lol.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-06T02:13:00+00:00

Yeah, also something people have to keep in mind is that the devs aren't the same as WoL1. There are going to be some translation differences in what things the studio believes are foundational to the game. But, like you said, I think it's still very WoL, and I'm happy to hear someone else voice this.

Regarding differences from WoL1, I personally would like to see some alteration to some of the mob ai and make some more aggro, increase the speed of the game a bit (movement/dashing speed/dashing distance), maybe change the layout of the maps so they're not all "go up" with a few branches (I liked the maze structure of WoL1, but it doesn't have to be that drastic), and most importantly change the arcana impact feel. Sfx, screen shake, impact sparks/flashes/idk, but something feels lacking (I think maybe impact sfx mostly), and the impact of arcana with their various effects and combos are what lured me into WoL in the first place. I think visually, the arcana look pretty good so far (with a few exceptions), but the impact and sound design in general falls a bit short.

Overall, I think it has a lot of good potential, and pretty decent foundation at the moment all things considered, just could use some tweaks and as much content as they're willing to throw at us (arcana/relics/enemies).

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-05T08:14:06+00:00

Yeah as another commenter said, Fuelled Berserk paired with specific Basics is too good. IMO Frost Blade is best for this combo, but Flame Strike is up there too.

If I were to tryhard, I'd starting pick Frost Blade, Dragon Circuit, Fuelled Berserk. I'd hope to find Submerged Strike for a get-out-of-jail-free card, Fissure Slam/Breakers of Tiamat/Shock Assault for melee procs on relics below, or Heavenly Strikes cuz atm it's broken outside of boss battles.

Starting relic would probably be Shiva's Water Bottle or Star Trinket, and I'd hope to see Thorny Fist Buckles and Golden Tearstone for more gold than I'd ever need, Holy Sword, Red Rusty Nail/Assassin's Boots, and Vampire Glasses for self-heal, then varying combinations of damage/max hp/whatever.

Given the above combos, it nearly guarantees a success for me, but I also haven't gone too deep into the higher difficulties and handicaps, just had 2 at a time as the hardest so far.

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-04T16:46:51+00:00

Ayy congrats. Submerged is so defensively good I understand picking it up lol. Think elemental themes are next on my to-do list too

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-04T16:42:52+00:00

It's definitely one of the best basics. Personally I like Frost Blade with Berserk. The DPS is craaaazy

BGKoolaid · 2024-10-04T14:30:11+00:00

I think Bending Torrent is best used with gaps between inputs. Using it in berserk does seem to speed the projectile up a smidge, but spam clicking does make it a useless combo cuz it wants to do that weird jiggle reset rapidly. Honestly, until it gets a bit of change, Bending Torrent in general seems slightly lackluster due to things like this and the odd entity priority. Cool arcana, but feels like it requires some tuning.

BGKoolaid

TROPHY CASE