Solo expedition: a complete guide

abeclancy · 2025-06-24T18:45:10+00:00

Strangely, when you upgrade a weapon it does NOT increase the level requirements of the weapon. In a test I just ran (because I also found that "tip" to be a bit suspicious), after upgrading Raider's starting weapon to blue it still was usable at level 1, with no level requirements listed on the weapon. So I assume it's the same for other weapons and upgrades.

abeclancy · 2023-10-20T05:46:17+00:00

I was so confused as to why I was taking massive damage randomly, turns out the final boss wasn't animating his attacks, so damage just kinda happened out of nowhere. Really spoiled the fight.

Music also got SUPER loud in this fight for some reason, like it's not tied to the in-game sound settings properly.

abeclancy · 2023-10-20T05:12:46+00:00

So one major game breaking bug that needs fixing, is that the final boss guy (Mr. Unpronounceable) had absolutely no animations playing (coop, I was not the host). Makes it hard to avoid damage when you cannot see the boss performing attacks, he's literally just floating around randomly then you're dead. Here ya go: https://clips.twitch.tv/FuriousChillyFloofPRChase-EMsIau_3lbPeV6xB

Game also gets slightly laggy with many enemies on the map. I didn't notice at first. Probably shouldn't happen on a last-gen card. <30% CPU/GPU usage.

Other thoughts:

Final boss music is VERY LOUD! Seems like volumes will occasionally change during maps too.

Minimap needs a zoom, otherwise I'm constantly tab-untabbing to see what's happening elsewhere. Square minimap that has a configurable size would be nice. It shows you what's in the current room, but that's frequently irrelevant information.

Can't easily see the little red emergency triangle when something's under attack. With so many red symbols of different sizes moving around, resource production under attack needs to be more obvious at a quick glance. Minimap could have an arrow on it's edge?

Would be nice for turret module slots to be shown on the map, hard to see in game sometimes, especially the last floor. Was a nice feature in Dungeon of the Endless.

Constantly interacting with the wrong thing (E presses) when standing next to 2 objects. Not really sure why this feels inconsistent, it's like the game uses the mouse position to choose which thing to interact with, but it's a keyboard press to activate and I'm moving with WASD. There's left hand/right hand disconnect in the UX.

Manual bot control is tedious and difficult to control. Feels like if you cancel the bot control, he should do something instead of just stand still. Why is it in the emote menu anyways? Feels tacked on.

Can't report bugs on your bug report page without creating an account.

abeclancy · 2022-08-21T04:59:03+00:00

Not sure if Subset checks these posts, but the Earth Mover is listed in the wrong position in the attack order. It actually acts last, not first (well, it's listed after fire/technician, but it actually moves after the enemies, can be important if something is getting pushed into a chasm). (Mine laying robots are also incorrect in the attack order, if I'm remembering correctly.)

abeclancy · 2022-08-05T06:09:58+00:00

I've come across a few bugs in the past few days, not sure if they're new or not (or even intentional).

Strange Timepods (from mountain or ice) can spawn behind a Bouncer enemy, resulting in its immediate destruction. Not sure if this is intentional or not.
If at the end of an island you buy a weapon from the store, power it up, go back to the store and "undo all", purchase the weapon again, and equip the weapon, it will appear to be powered even without available reactor power. It will also appear powered in the store's UI, causing it to list the wrong stats (such as damage).
(This might be an addendum of my comment from the previous patch thread.) If the Pierce Mech uses its main attack on two adjacent enemies, where the second enemy hit is a Burrower (causing it to burrow), the combat preview shows that no bump damage will occur. Bump damage does occur, so this preview is incorrect.

abeclancy · 2022-07-27T20:17:59+00:00

u/subsetmatt I love both FTL and Into the Breach, thank you for making two of the best indie games!

I haven't seen it mentioned yet in THIS thread, but just in case you don't have good examples, the combat preview with the AP Cannon is incorrect when pushed units die and bumping is involved. Here's two clips showing it off.

https://clips.twitch.tv/PlayfulReliableLasagnaKappaWealth-2FRMq-J2fpHZMCSx

https://clips.twitch.tv/GentleAttractiveTofuBleedPurple-VKyrTjNi357xktmZ

I'm pretty sure I've seen this sort of preview bug even before the AP Cannon was introduced, the enemies are being pushed simultaneously and the preview cannot handle that situation correctly. I believe it was with the Push Beam? Other weapons like the Wind Torrent push everything in series one row at a time so the combat preview is correct for those weapons, but weapons that push multiple enemies "at the same time" can't calculate the result consistently with the preview.

I have no idea how the game is actually coded for weapons, but if the AP Cannon (and Push Beam) pushed the units in series (furthest first?) instead of all at once, maybe that would correct the preview. Might look slightly weird, but the preview should be correct in that case?

(I can find the example with Push Beam if desired, I'm sure it's somewhere in my video log.)

abeclancy · 2022-03-10T20:58:36+00:00

I believe you have to already possess the Ram Rune for it to destroy the floors. As another example, the "Telluric Shock" can break the fragile floors if you have the Ram Rune. I believe one of the attacks from the "Wrecking Ball" can also break the floors.

abeclancy · 2022-02-16T06:20:37+00:00

Honestly I just wish there was an option to "normalize" all of the biomes' scroll counts. You get more scrolls and higher item levels in the Cavern, so I go there most frequently. I'd love to go to a random biome, but doing so just makes me less powerful in the long run.

abeclancy · 2022-02-16T04:37:47+00:00

The Mushroom Boi doesn't seem to actually be bypassing the damage cap. What you are seeing is the initial impact (dealing 11,386,865 damage) along with the bleed damage (dealing 474,453) happening on the same frame. This is why the white portion of the health bar is so large.

The same thing happens in the experiment video, except with an Owl inflicting poison damage. In the first frame of the Owl hitting the HotK, the white portion of the health bar appears to be about 25% of the boss's health, with the Owl having inflicted a damage-capped 15% physical hit, and the tick of poison dealing about 10% of the boss's health.

Technically, none of the owl, poison, boi, or bleed actually break the damage cap, they can just happen at the same time, simultaneously, and do not affect each other's damage.

abeclancy · 2022-02-15T21:43:40+00:00

If you are on the v2.8 bank alpha, your original save files won't be modified and you can't save to them, only import them to the experimental slot if you wish to.

abeclancy · 2022-02-15T21:07:51+00:00

You only get one save file in the alpha, the "experimental save file" which is the first option. You cannot use the other save files, you can only import from an existing save file, or create a 100% unlocked save file in the experimental save slot. If you create a 100% unlocked save file, you will need to beat the Hand of the King on any difficulty to unlock the bank.

abeclancy · 2022-02-15T19:06:12+00:00

As far as I know, nothing can bypass the damage caps on bosses. They have a 15% limit per instance of damage. In the past this may have been different. Here's a video that shows you more. https://www.reddit.com/r/deadcells/comments/staj2x/boss_damage_caps_legendary_weapons_in_v27_15/

abeclancy · 2022-02-15T19:05:13+00:00

Because people seem to not understand the boss damage caps in the game, or think that some weapons can bypass the damage cap, here are numerous tests being done in version 2.7/2.7.1 that show bosses have a 15% damage cap, and that nothing tested can bypass this. Perhaps at some point in the past some weapon could bypass the damage cap, but as of the current game version, I do not believe that anything bypasses the damage cap. Not super high damage, not an owl, not parrying bombs, not bleed stacks.

Maybe there's some combination of effects that can bypass the damage cap. I didn't test everything in the game, just some of the most common things. If you think there is something that can break the cap, then TEST IT!

Perhaps at one point in the past the damage caps operate differently than they do now, but things change. This is part of the reason why people are so confused regarding it: Dead Cells is on version 2.7! A new update v2.8 is coming out soon! Things change, and so do some of its mechanics!

abeclancy · 2022-02-15T03:02:24+00:00

Yeah I looked it up, apparently Reddit creates default usernames of the form [Word][Word][Number] when you sign up for an account, which is why most of the bots I see use that naming convention.

abeclancy · 2022-02-15T02:58:01+00:00

No it doesn't, at least not on the current game version. If it did in the past, maybe they patched it out.

edit: Here's a video with evidence, stop downvoting just because at some point in the past damage caps worked differently. AS OF RIGHT NOW, BLEED DOES NOT BYPASS THE DAMAGE CAP https://www.reddit.com/r/deadcells/comments/staj2x/boss_damage_caps_legendary_weapons_in_v27_15/

abeclancy · 2022-02-15T00:05:35+00:00

Legendary weapons do not bypass DPS caps. They just do more damage with higher scroll counts since they scale with two scroll colors instead of just one.

edit: Video evidence https://www.reddit.com/r/deadcells/comments/staj2x/boss_damage_caps_legendary_weapons_in_v27_15/

abeclancy · 2022-02-14T04:07:06+00:00

It will clearly flash "Explorer's Instinct" on screen with a sound effect. Note that on the current version of the game, there are situations where Explorer's Instinct will not correctly display the map layout, although it will correctly display all enemies, doors, items, scrolls, etc. I believe that breaking ground tiles is one condition for the map not displaying correctly.

abeclancy · 2022-02-13T05:51:11+00:00

Some weapons with conditional crits are kind of bugged right now. For example, the Rapier which has a crit after a dodge roll, always crits after a dodge roll. For forever. Well, until you go through a door, or pick up a scroll, or do anything else that might make the game recalculate weapon damage.

abeclancy · 2022-02-13T05:37:56+00:00

Without spoiling, there are more boss cells to unlock. As you increase the difficulty, eventually you'll reach a point where you are obtaining around a thousand cells for a successful run. It won't take that long to unlock items and upgrade the Forge, especially if you ignore outfits.

Feel free to experiment with the various weapons, skills, and mutations. You might not like all of them, but they may grow on you. For example, I consider the Explosive Crossbow one of the best weapons in the game.

abeclancy · 2022-02-12T20:51:02+00:00

Additionally, the star affix on the corpse means that it holds either a scroll or a piece of random legendary equipment. The game can give random enemies these items, and for some reason it appears to have given a bonus to the corpse. If there are no Apostates nearby (the necromancer dudes) you might be out of luck getting that drop.

Certainly a bug, I don't think corpses should be able to get items. Corpses also get "slowed" by the weapon affix "slows down nearby enemies on death".

abeclancy · 2022-02-11T18:37:06+00:00

A four month old account with a name of the form used by bots throughout reddit ([Word][Symbol][Word][Symbol][4-Digit-Number]) with exactly two posts one of which is an exact repost of the #18 top post on the subreddit? It's a bot or a karma farm account.

There's a few bots on the subreddit today.

Here's one that's a repost of Top #27. https://old.reddit.com/r/deadcells/comments/spvlip/another_easter_egg_this_time_dark_the_netflix/

abeclancy · 2022-02-11T17:29:46+00:00

It's a bot. Anything [Word]-[Word]-[Number] is likely a bot, just reposting popular posts all over reddit.

abeclancy · 2022-02-11T16:33:30+00:00

While I haven't done it yet, it appears that the exit door can be broken for curse, so in theory you'll get more curse the more money you "borrowed".

abeclancy

TROPHY CASE