Brother Lui

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Just remember that on the last 2 rounds of a deck best even to discard in order to place the last combo otherwise you will suffer big damage. I like all the combinations with the followers but never have used Molly & Chloe together must be nuke strike :LOL:
 
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Droid Productions

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yea, seer and fox could use a buff. For the fox, I suppose a 10% passive attack boost would be a good foil to Bella's def passive.

The seer just has too many problems. Mainly, its so hard to visualize the result of a shuffle, that its just not worth it to take the extra time when you might not even get anything good out of it. Second, its a board modifier so it could act as a double edged sword. Just less explosive for both parties than Chloe's center joker or Molly's joker spam on the outside. It fits so well thematically, but the impact on gameplay is not too significant.

I was thinking... what if her skill has no cooldown and can be used multiple times in one turn? This way you can just rearrange cards at will to visually confirm which one gives the best results. Her current CD is short enough that you can use her skill every turn anyways, so there won't be balance issues associated with this change. It wouldn't make her actually better than the sorcerers for most people, but at least it would fix the first issue.
She's scheduled for an upgrade in act IV (sort vertically as well as horizontally). But she remains a difficult character to play, at least until she gets her second sets of upgrades. Kitsune similarly will get a static boost in time.

For the record, my person favorite is Molly + Akane/Kitsune, with at least one high tier shield gem in a flush or straight slot. At lower tier, Kitsune's slash is vicious, but at higher tier the fact that you're pretty much never putting down anything lower than a straight compensates for Molly's power drain.
 
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Gunner Rey

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Personally I run a pure lightning deck. The stun is just too good even with the diminishing returns. I find most find fights end in 1-2 board clears. Running a pure deck also takes out one dimension of complexity when choosing which cards to play and thus speeds everything up.
I've yet to find a 'Lightning-3' gem nor a 'Lightning-5' and 'Lightning-1' gems are worthless, due to the combination deduction you don't add any lightning damage unless you use it as the very first one and who leads off with a pair? I've also not seen anything above level seven except a 'Fire-8' and the Flawless Diamond ('Damage-9') you can get for 50 ingredients.

Thus I'll usually have a 'Shield-1' on a pair and while I've bought a 'Lightning-2' as sometimes that one extra Lightning damage point is what you need, in practice you don't run into that many two pair opportunities so I usually put a
'shield-2' there or the 'damage-2' you get from the shrine. If I can find one I'll put a 'Shield-3' on three-of-a-kind, but often I'll still have Chloe's 'Fire-3' there at day 53.

If we're talking Elsewhere expeditions party composition also plays a role. I would always take Bella. She can give you 4 extra moves if you can find a campfire. So almost always. This increases your time efficiency so assuming you can handle the fight nothing beats this. Additionally her poison bolts do great damage and the passive damage reduction is icing on the cake. She's a must take.
I agree regarding Bella, she's also about the only way you'll get to 50 ingredients to get that flawless diamond by day 53.

Chloe is just straight up great for generating jokers and is my second fav. Molly makes more jokers obviously but the debuff requires some special deck set ups. She's probably better for rage and/or defensive decks but I like it more simple.
Forget about the debuffs, Molly and Chloe are the perfect complements. Use Chloe to 'spawn' a joker in the center and use Molly's jokers to fire three 'Lightning-7s' and a 'Shield-7' in an asterisk pattern around the center joker. The opponent will get one move, where he'll have to place the fourths on a set of sides, then you can hammer him with a three play opportunity which will likely include two more hits with that 'Lightning-7.' Snap. Crackle. Pop!

Third spot goes to Emily for me. Once her upgrade kicks in she can keep me at 100% in almost all cases. Dylan can fill a similar role but I find it easier to spam and stack Emily's defense. Some of the later enemies can hit for a few hundred damage if they can line up a good line. I find being reactive to be more problematic. But I also run a lightning deck so the early stun turn let me get to a defense amount where I can't be touched easily.
Emily can be part of a viable team, but until she gets that upgrade she contributes less than any other possible companion. Even with it she takes three turns to generate as much shield protection as Molly and/or Chloe can get you by making a Shield-7 viable, though that does expend an attack.


Katie obviously complements a fire deck but I find the stun effect from lightning too useful and Bella already does damage while providing so much more.

That leaves us with the seer and her kitsune. The seers ability is interesting and certainly powerful. But also requires a lot of thinking since you have no way of previewing the result. Jokers are just easier to use and more flexible. But the real killer is that they only come as a pair and the kitsune just deals some damage. It's a decent amount but there nothing more to it. No synergies to exploit, no other skill and abilities, nothing. Not worth it imho.
Katie needs an upgrade and having to take those two as a team decreases their viability immensely.
 
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Droid Productions

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I've yet to find a 'Lightning-3' gem nor a 'Lightning-5' and 'Lightning-1' gems are worthless, due to the combination deduction you don't add any lightning damage unless you use it as the very first one and who leads off with a pair? I've also not seen anything above level seven except a 'Fire-8' and the Flawless Diamond ('Damage-9') you can get for 50 ingredients.
I modified the lightning gems in 0.3.35, bumping up the lower values. Will let you know how it looks.
[/QUOTE]


Katie needs an upgrade and having to take those two as a team decreases their viability immensely.
Katie will get an upgrade :) But she was also the first to get a genuine upgrade in act I, so it's been taking a while to give her another one as the power curve grows.
 
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Rolo

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You need Emily once to give Dylan a boost (Regenerate!). After that I do not take her with me.

Katie needs the flawless fire gem (gift) for 500£ to be of good value. (day 22 to 25)
 
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You need Emily to give Dylan a boost (Regenerate!). After that I do not take her with me.

Katie needs the flawless fire gem (gift) for 500£ to be of good value. (day 22 to 25)
That may be a mistake later :) Emily's the key to a lot of events in Elsewhere.
 

Rolo

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That may be a mistake later :) Emily's the key to a lot of events in Elsewhere.
Ok, you know more Droid ;)
Players always have to be awake and flexible. Adapting the crew to new situations ofc. ;)

In the moment (day 25, until 50 ingredients) Bella is most important to me.
 

desmosome

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Emily essentially gives 100 hp per turn. Dylan heals 50 + regen. I believe regen is 10% so your hp would have to be 500 to break even with Emily. Considering the fact that Shield carries over between turns, she is the superior defensive support for most teams if you had to choose one. Lightning also helps you stack up lots of shield to mitigate possible multi combo bombs that strong monsters could drop. Dylan would have to catch up slowly to top you off after such a turn.
 

Rolo

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Thats nice about the game, that so many ways are working, and every individual can find his style. And next day, even find a better style. And next update, another new strategy ... :)

Ofc. with 100 shield, Emily is strong. There are a lot of good combos ;) (where I am now, she only has 40)

Emily essentially gives 100 hp per turn. Dylan heals 50 + regen. I believe regen is 10% so your hp would have to be 500 to break even with Emily. ...
Imo, healing and regen is more worth than shield. If your HP is down because the enemy has put down your shield, then new shields do not help to bring your HP up again. And that may be dangerous. I like shields through a gem ofc. But beware of pierce and poison (shield breaking).
 
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Droid Productions

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I found the sweet little scene where you talk to Emily on the paths during a rest, is there more to that?
If you've played the latest beta, she mentions that she had a sword teacher, once. He's since disappeared, though people report seeing him in Elsewhere. (It's part of Act IV, but not implemented yet).

Apart from that; Emily at rest, Emily with Dylan (unlock regen), Katie at rest (Recharge the True firegem if it's been used), Bella at rest (Regain +5 moves), and of course Snowdrop at the Shrine are the story events in Elsewhere at the moment. I'll be adding more.
 
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desmosome

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Droid, what do you think about letting INT scale the power of your debuffs/buffs? I believe STR scales the damage, but does this include things like burn count?

It will probably be a headache to balance initially, but I feel like its needed. INT does very little atm, and there is only really one stat build that is viable. Get charisma up to a decent amount and dump everything into STR. INT scaling the power of your buff and debuffs would open up lots of possibilities for char building.
 

Droid Productions

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Droid, what do you think about letting INT scale the power of your debuffs/buffs? I believe STR scales the damage, but does this include things like burn count?

It will probably be a headache to balance initially, but I feel like its needed. INT does very little atm, and there is only really one stat build that is viable. Get charisma up to a decent amount and dump everything into STR. INT scaling the power of your buff and debuffs would open up lots of possibilities for char building.
Latest beta build, INT scales secondary effects by 0.5% / point. I'm going to bump that up to 1% / point tonight, as some people are feeling it's still UP compared to STR. INT also gives you an XP bonus, but the testers running a high-int build right now are seeing their levels only slightly higher, since the high STR builds can take on better opponents.

If you're interested in testing poker variations and chatting poker balance, the to do that. There's a sub-channel, #love-of-magic-poker-balance where there's a bunch of people who're honestly far better at the poker game than me, arguing balance and tactics.
 

desmosome

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Latest beta build, INT scales secondary effects by 0.5% / point. I'm going to bump that up to 1% / point tonight, as some people are feeling it's still UP compared to STR. INT also gives you an XP bonus, but the testers running a high-int build right now are seeing their levels only slightly higher, since the high STR builds can take on better opponents.

If you're interested in testing poker variations and chatting poker balance, the to do that. There's a sub-channel, #love-of-magic-poker-balance where there's a bunch of people who're honestly far better at the poker game than me, arguing balance and tactics.
not into discord but I do like to talk game balance :)

I'm glad INT scaling the secondary effects are already in! Some suggestions. Direct damage and cluster gems should still be based on STR if its not already like that. Shield/Rage should scale with int, although thematically, rage might fit better with STR.

While were at it, maybe CHA can increase support effects? Perhaps lower the CD reduction a bit and add some effects scaling.
 
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not into discord but I do like to talk game balance :)

I'm glad INT scaling the secondary effects are already in! Some suggestions. Direct damage and cluster gems should still be based on STR if its not already like that. Shield/Rage should scale with int, although thematically, rage might fit better with STR.

While were at it, maybe CHA can increase support effects? Perhaps lower the CD reduction a bit and add some effects scaling.
Pretty much, as of 0.3.35, here's the combat effects of your stats

* STR adds 10 points of health/point. That's then scaled by difficulty (2x for the easiest, 1.5x for the second easiest).
* STR adds 1% additional damage / point. In addition the easiest/easier difficulties multiply damage by 200% and 120% respectively
* INT adds 1% additional Xp / point.
* INT adds 1% / point to the secondary effect.
* CHR adds +1/point to the Companion recharge rate.

On damage vs secondary effect. have both a "direct damage" component and an "effect" component.

1587023953386.png

So. Assuming we're playing on normal difficulty, with a STR/INT/CHR build of 20/10/10, triggering a Fire3 would do:
30 x 120% = 36 points of direct damage
9 x 110% = apply 10 points of fire to target (all values round up)

Right now I suspect I'm charging the Companions a bit fast, but everyone seem to love it so I don't have the heart to take it away from them.
 

desmosome

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Pretty much, as of 0.3.35, here's the combat effects of your stats

* STR adds 10 points of health/point. That's then scaled by difficulty (2x for the easiest, 1.5x for the second easiest).
* STR adds 1% additional damage / point. In addition the easiest/easier difficulties multiply damage by 200% and 120% respectively
* INT adds 1% additional Xp / point.
* INT adds 1% / point to the secondary effect.
* CHR adds +1/point to the Companion recharge rate.

On damage vs secondary effect. have both a "direct damage" component and an "effect" component.

View attachment 621793

So. Assuming we're playing on normal difficulty, with a STR/INT/CHR build of 20/10/10, triggering a Fire3 would do:
30 x 120% = 36 points of direct damage
9 x 110% = apply 10 points of fire to target (all values round up)

Right now I suspect I'm charging the Companions a bit fast, but everyone seem to love it so I don't have the heart to take it away from them.
Yup, I know about the base dmg component and effects. But I believe the pure physical gems still have a base dmg + additional dmg component right? Under the current system, INT probably increases the addtional damage portion of those gems. I just think maybe it would be nice for those to scale with STR instead so STR based builds have something to play around with (not that they need a buff at this point, but char building possibilities are always nice).

That's why I thought having a CHA focused build being viable might be fun as well. Character build options. Currently, most of the supports do recharge too fast since you can use them every turn at very modest CHA lvls, provided you hit a big hand. The balance is largely based around using those supports each turn, so I think a better direction with CHA would be to increase their effects. Maybe fiddle with the base recharge rates a bit, and make the damage/shield/heal types scale the effects, while the card types can scale their recharge rate? A bit complex and inelegant, but it would be fun to have a CHA build.
 
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desmosome

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Ok one last bit before going to bed haha. Not sure how you are handling decimals with the scaling. You said all values round up, and that would be fine fore most things, but lightning uses such small numbers that it might get a bit wonky. Maybe adding a zero to all numbers dealing with lightning might make things better?

Sorry for spamming the thread, I finished the game yesterday and it really left me thinking about it haha.
 

HSHS1111

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I'm running a high Charisma build (31 Str, 27 Int, 58 Cha at the End of Act 3) and I'm happy with it. I can use the companions almost every turn.

It's not just a passive cooldown they have right? I have the impression what you play/how much damage you do also factors in. Although I don't remember ever having read something about it.
 
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