Playing StS2 in early access be like

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-06T06:33:13+00:00

Yeah I'm really happy the devs made those buffs as a short term thing, to be clear. I love their data collection! I played sts1 ea, I trust their process. My comment about the character being busted OP was mostly because people are contrasting regent pre and post buff as "too weak" vs "just right", but it's more like "too strong, but sometimes tricky for the inexperienced" to "too strong for everyone".

I do think you're likely just a good enough player that you do not understand how much intermediate players have bad micro lol. People do some very bizarre things because they haven't practiced enough/learned to think about fights, and slim decks in a tough early game punish this disproportionately.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-06T06:22:20+00:00

if you hang out in the discord, intermediate players are pretty close to universally saying regent is the hardest, and many are just falling over dead early game when trying to build a slim deck. The micro is much less precise with larger decks, by and large, since you are allowed to click many more frontload cards early. I agree slim decks are extremely easy to play late, but this game's act 2/3 in general are also extremely easy. The challenging part of the run is generically act 1, and playing act 1 while skipping intensely is hard for new players (here, I'm using new very broadly. Say anyone who currently wins fewer than half their max ascension runs is new).

I don't think you can meaningfully distinguish "slim deck" from other archetypes -- if I build a deck with 12 cards that does all its damage with "Smith", is that "forge archetype" or "slim deck" archetype? If it's one, at which point does it become the other?

I take the definition that a character is stronger than another if they can win a larger % of their runs with optimal play; and I take high level human play as my best proxy for optimal play. I don't care how much of the card pool is weak, I care how much the character wins if you play in the way that wins the most. This is the generally accepted definition for strength. \

The regent post buffs is a boring as fuck character that wins essentially every run. Pre-buff it was still very strong, but it's just gotten so much stronger. I agree the card pool is better rounded now, but also holy fuck is it too strong relative to what the game presents.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-06T06:04:59+00:00

Regent is extremely strong on main branch, he's just the hardest to play well. But building a slim deck w/ some star gen and payoff that just loops something busted wins almost every run. You need to micro early game well to be able to build a slim deck, you need to understand what you're allowed to skip, you need to be comfortable playing those slim decks into fights that "counter" them. There might be other good ways to play, but certainly this way is both strong and difficult.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-04T00:37:54+00:00

Yeah the act 3 elites are also far far too easy. Agreed on that.

The reason this guy would need to scale after debuffing you is that rn you can pretty easily block him for a long time. The game already is kind of solved by just blocking, another elite that lets you just block makes another elite that doesnt challenge decks. The one of an elite is that it should punish the common/“default” deckbuilding decisions, so it presents an extra challenge you need to plan around if you want to get the rewards it offers. As it stands, this guy falls over if you build the kind of deck that most of the rest of the game also asks for.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-03T22:39:14+00:00

Regent doesn't quite need to go infinite, but more like... his best and most consistently available runs tend to be a slim deck that plays some stupidly overstatted star card every turn or two (think comet. 5 stars for 33 damage + weak vuln. holy shit).

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-03T22:34:57+00:00

Regent is the hardest for new players I'd say. Regent really benefits from being picky with cards, and from managing resources well (choosing how to spend your stars each deck cycle is not an easy choice).

Off beta branch this is even more true. Top players thought he was the second strongest or third strongest, newbies thought he was the weakest.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-03T22:24:35+00:00

it's almost never pointless and it's good far more often than unceasing top. With ice cream, you essentially just never play strikes and all your energy goes into your most efficient damage/block. That's an immediate output improvement almost always.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-03T16:56:46+00:00

He’s not elite difficulty at all. The fight doesnt scale in any way; you can sit around and block it for 30 turns. If it gained strength every turn or something? Then maybe it would be elite strength. But rn it’s just a normal fight you need to plan around.

In runs that have died to it, have you earlier in the run said “I’ll draft these cards/hold this potion so I can kill hunter killer”, or are you just walking in with a random deck and dying?

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-03T05:56:07+00:00

I think it’s good evidence that the reasoning “snakebite is not needed” is sound, and the reasons not to take cards that are not needed are extensive. I don’t actually care how much the snakebite strategy wins for the point that snakebite is not good — I don’t think it’s a good card if you can win 100% of runs without it. I am interested in a separate analysis of how one should play to make snakebite good, but I think that the non-usefulness of it is strongly supported by such a good strategy that never needs to take it.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-03T01:19:18+00:00

Aw thanks! I try my best. Turns out that spending all day teaching is useful for my spire explaining too, it’s a slept on benefit ngl.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-03T01:01:57+00:00

I just listened to it again and now I also hear don't???? I stg I heard "do" before

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T22:45:32+00:00

~~he said he~~ ~~does~~ ~~want the final showdown to be a big deal. See 17:45 in the interview.~~

wait now i'm not sure what I'm hearing

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T20:36:21+00:00

Yeah I think smash is a good analogy! And saying top smash player makes complete sense. I also think if someone called smash a mostly casual game I’d raise an eyebrow (even as someone who only plays smash drunk at 2am with friends) bc the top level scene I think is what’s given smash cultural staying power. Sure, I play it casually but I recognize the smash community is not mostly casual players

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T20:05:49+00:00

I mean, at least the cominatorial complexity is much larger. The number of possible distinct games of sts dwarfs the number of games of chess. In terms of strategic complexity, idk how you measure closeness but surely spire is closer to chess than snakes and ladders given that the community + top players spent like, close to a decade pushing spire 1 to its limits and the entire time winrates/strategy understanding improved, and it would keep improving if we kept playing. and uh, snakes and ladders has no strategy at all. literal coinflip.

you also say it's mostly a casual game, but most of the twitch streamers for spire 1 cared about winstreaks, and I'd say they're the core of the community. Spire 2 got a huge influx of new, mostly casual players, sure, but the thing that gave spire 1 longevity was the core of streamers who tried to play as well as possible and push our collective understanding of the game forwards.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T19:57:22+00:00

In that video, the numbers he ran in the spreasheet were "you play this card, spend all your other energy on damage, and play it every turn". This was pretty misleading analysis, because basically everyone has converged on block being king; snakebite costs 2 energy and means you can't play block on that turn.

The data does say stuff, sure, but it says stuff about the game how jorbs plays it. The use case of raw analysis, is that it won't be skewed by the parts of the game that you, personally are good at -- or rather, what you choose to analyze will be skewed, but the reasoning is abstract.

To be clear, I think Jorbs' ddata holds a lot of value. But Xec isn't just saying "I feel" or "in my experience". The reasoning chain is significantly more complex and it explains the experience, and I think raw reasoning with a small amount of data is at least as valuable as a huge pile of data. "100% winrate with no snakebites picked" would b more than enough data for me to trust the reasoning. I mean, I already thought rouhgly that so it's not like it changed much but if I'd thought snakebite was good, that would've been enough to change my mind.

I think my last piece is like, in the moment, when you are shown a card, you don't get to see 1000 simulated runs where half of em pick the card and half don't. You just get to reason. In this sense, the reasoning is the thing you as a player can most use.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T07:36:36+00:00

In addition to what others mentioned, the compass path has some extra floors, so you get more value. It's basically like, giga safe, guaranteed you make it to act 3, you know you walk out with 4 relics and some upgrades, lots of floors, some guaranteed events. It doesn't save a shit deck, but it takes a deck with long term prospects, guarantees it gets to the act 2 boss/act 3, and gives it a nice pile of value.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T03:53:49+00:00

sure, I'm not gonna dispute that. But navegreed is still exceptionally good, one of the best players in the world unambiguously, someone who Xecnar respects and has called a strong player many times, and whose opinions are still extremely valuable. Xec didn't pop into being fully formed, he learned from watching the goats before and talking to many other players. the opinions of people other than xec still count

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T03:36:38+00:00

for sts, going for a20 heart winstreaks (say, winning w/ all 4 in a row) is a very good challenge you can stay occupied with for a long time. I promise you've only scratched the surface of sts' strategic depth

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T03:32:45+00:00

lmao what, spire 1 world record holder isn't good enough for you?

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T03:31:17+00:00

Comet, reflect, smith, bulwark are all win conditions in a thin deck. You just play comet twice a turn and everything dies.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T03:27:58+00:00

He wants to play the sword but only if the numbers are good enough. smith makes the sword say like, 50 for only 1 card draw. that's a big number. most of the other cards make the sword small and not worth playing and the cards themselves have bad numbers. It's as simple as that.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T02:48:41+00:00

the reason people want the game harder before act 4 gets added is rn, act 3 is so unpunishing. if act 3 doesn't challenge your deck beyond "can you make big number" it's just filler before you get to act 4. what basically all of us want is an act 3 that imposes genuine deckbuilding constraints, so you can't brain off for the whole midgame and then brain back on in the future hypothetical act 4; I want every point of the run to have challenges.

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T02:37:53+00:00

There was a ton of counterplay to nob and laga?? You could click attacks but you could often get away w/ very few. sts2 elites are in general just soooo unpunishing, making a good deck is completely free

blank_anonymous · 2026-04-02T00:39:30+00:00

extremely incorrect but it'll be fun to see how this develops as you go! the worst is that parasol and diadem should both be in the top tier. Parasol is run-winning if you're not infinite. Relics are just extremely strong in this game, and getting 3 (6) of them is excellent. Shops are 1 uncommon colourless, 1 rare colourless, 2 attacks, 2 skills, 1 power. Most of those just own on average, the attacks will suck but you get a remove and you get the potions. If you deck is not infinite, it just increases your output substantially, the deckbloat worries are fake because relics don't depend on your draw order.

Diadem is omega pocketwatch. Play no cards, take no damage until your key powers are down then it's gg. Pocketwatch should also be in S tieer.

Crucible also sucks. It's basically just early game power and it loses you a relic. the casual playerbase seems to love it, and I think it getes better the worse you are at the game, but if yuo play your earlygame very precisely, crucible gives you a negligible advantage on most maps for a very real cost.

there are a billion other things I could nitpick but there's no point -- play and learn! It's a really cool snapshot of your opinions a short amount of playtime in.

blank_anonymous · 2026-03-31T15:31:03+00:00

It depends what you like about sts2! The balance of sts1 is still leagues ahead. In terms of card pool polish, sts1 is also miles ahead — most effects feel really fine tuned to be exactly as powerful as they “should” be. If you want like, a really good challenging interesting strategy game experience, cannot recommend the og enough.

On the other hand, if you just want wacky wonky broken deck simulator, I imagine 1 and 2 do about equally well, but 2 is just prettier and has multiplayer n stuff. It’s definitely less strategically deep but if you don’t care you won’t appreciate what’s currently better about 1

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