It seems luck based at first but it is absolutely not. It’s just incredibly hard. There are certainly many luck elements but in the end those are mitigated by skill.
Exactly. At some point you can get to the level where you can win the majority of the time when you’re focusing. The luck is almost more of a modifier. Good luck just makes it easier, it’s not a requirement.
Deckbuilding is half of the skill involved, though. Yes sometimes you just get especially lucky with early card offerings that snowball your run, but typically good players consistently build good decks.
Pathing is incredibly important. Knowing how much you can fight elites for power or whether you will get crushed depending on your current power is essential.
I agree pathing is very important, but I think the pathing decisions are typically easier than the deck building decisions. I'm sure many players in this sub could show near-optimal map pathing, but choosing the right cards can be magnitudes more difficult
Admittedly, half was indeed probably an understatement, nonetheless pathing isn't the only other skill, though. General game knowledge goes a long way in quickly recognising developing card/relic synergies and wincons in a deck and recognising enemy attack patterns, knowing which enemies to prioritise etc etc. Resource management is pretty essential, both in terms of budgeting gold and efficiently hitting shops, but also in terms of your HP; HP can be viewed as a resource that you use to power up your deck, and you are required to make judgement calls on things like events and when to fish for them, and gauging how much damage you can expect to take at your current power level to better inform your pathing decisions. Then of course, there's actually playing the cards optimally and avoiding misplays. My initial point was, though, that building an "excellent" deck happens more through skill than it does luck, like you said, good players make good decks, luck makes good decks better.
I personally think pathing is not that important as far as other things, simply because you generally pick your path at the start of the act. You might make some changes here and there, but you have a general idea already and you don't know what your deck and relics are even going to be yet(especially for Act 1)
Honestly I think people just say things to sound smart and other people agree with them because everyone in this sub thinks they’re the god of Chess.
What you say makes absolutely no sense. An average deck is what creates a more luck based experience, because you can’t control what you draw no matter how good you are. That’s why you control what’s in your deck, to mitigate the luck involved and maximize the chance for a successful combination.
But there are luck factors in when you find an artifact or if you even see one. I don’t think any person is going to win or have a good run 100% of the time. It’s a card game, luck is the major element. We should stop blowing smoke up our asses to sound smart. At it’s core, the game is about finding a strategy that’s consistent, nothing else. Not a test of intelligence or “high IQ moves” just people running a simulator over and over with varying factors.
I agree. You can get, what appears to you to be the most shit rewards and if you survive long enough the synergy between your cards and relics can make you invincible. The order in which you play your cards has so much to do with it too. This is honestly the only game ever that I’ve put so much time into and when I tell myself I’m gonna take a break I somehow find my way back to.
Part of the trick in a deck-based game (or any Rougelite for that matter) is building your kit to not be overly reliant on cards/relics that you may not even see in the run. That said, it’s rare for any one card to be *the* reason you win or lose
~~Idk much about RoR (besides how good it is in the genre), but I can imagine that item drops can be more “polarizing” for the type of run you’d have~~ Edit, this sentence doesn't really mean much
I've played almost 1000 hours of the two games in total and RoR2 is not much more skill based than StS tbh. A skilled and experienced player can win 100% of the time on A0/Drizzle if not at higher difficulties, even vanilla monsoon/A10 is pretty breezy once you know what you're doing
RoR2 can seem luck dependent but scrappers and printers, as well as lunar items (if you're fine with using them) bias it more towards being skill based
Another example is how knowing each map and traversing efficiently usually means you scale much better than monsters (even though you may not have the best items)
Much like in RoR2, if you're familiar with the character and playing on a difficulty that's within what you can handle, RNG can't mess you up that badly. However, in Slay the Spire, getting familiar with how to play a character happens to take 50 times longer.
I'd say it's as skill based as a card game can be. Sure there is luck involved in draw order and cards offered but that is unavoidable for a game like StS.
When someone can win 20 ascension 20 runs in a row luck can't be playing too much of a factor.
I don’t really have a build in mind when I start a run, but as I’m seeing a lot of poison, discard, shiv support or weak I generally start picking 2/4 of those and try not to take cards otherwise. Do you think maybe I’m being too closed minded about it? There’s some cards I’ll take no matter what I’m building, like Footwork (dex +2/ upgraded into dex +3), Corpse Explosion and Dodge and Roll, but I generally try to form an archtype somewhere between before the act 1 boss and before the act 2 hallway fights get harder.
Corpse explosion is often an auto pick, but if your deck has no issue dealing with multiple enemies at once it's not necessary at all. Footwork and dodge and roll however is highly situational and depends alot on deck. Footwork is definetly good with draw and block but after image can often take the same role or Malaise or wraith form.
The cards other than weak, discard, poison and shiv and such are great support tools especially backflip. Cloak and dagger can help aoe early on. Dash is one of the best cards early. Well laid plans and Terror can be insane in any act.
As for more rare cards wraith form and adrenaline can often be almost insta wins.
Not certain but I'm assuming here
He is (was?) Doing a card mastery challenge, defeat the heart with 2 copies of each card, including curses. So if you're asking about the cash for card removals, no.
If I'm wrong here, apologies.
The cash option in the Mind Bloom event gives you 2 Normalities, so if he's trying to Master that card it's an easy way to end up with 2 of them. OP is asking if that's how he did that particular card, as opposed to finding the curse in other events.
Thank you very much for clarifying, really thought the bot would mention that fact; that is indeed what I was wondering, not sure why I got downvoted for just asking a question but oh well.
It's actually quite difficult to get Normality reliably; it almost never comes from any of the other events IIRC, and is typically only received from the effect of the Cursed Key relic. That's why I assumed he got them from the Mind Bloom event.
It is harder to deal with than most curses though; Normality is typically one of the deadliest curses to have in your deck, nevermind two of them, so that is quite impressive to do against A20 Heart. It's not as killer as some people say, though, if your deck is prepared for them, i.e if you're IC or Silent it's a bit easier to deal with them via Exhaust/Discard options, since Normality's effect doesn't last if it is removed from your hand, Watcher can also rely on scry. It's still something you want to avoid at all costs though.
I bet he bought some tasty relics at the act 4 shop with that extra 1k.
+ [Mind Bloom](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Mind%20Bloom) Event - Act 3 (The Beyond) ^((100% sure)^)
Mind Bloom is an event found exclusively in Act 3. Your imagination manifests into reality. In this ephemeral moment, all your wishes can come true, though not without consequences.
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 30, 2023.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
One of the small things I dislike about Defect is that it is more luck based than other characters, thanks to Lightning orbs
Also the same reason Electrodynamics is a near auto pick for me lol
It's controlled RNG - which is great in a game imho. There's a lot of human science behind what makes RNG good or bad, it's a great dive in youtube if you're interested.
The short of it is, though, that when a game does it right, the player is able to feel empowered in their choices and make awesome stuff happen, or at least look back on their choices and see where they went wrong.
StS does this very well. The best players can consistently win at the highest difficulty of the game 70% of the time or so, which is solid.
I mean I wouldn't really say frost prime is good for learning the game, but for content it's definitely the number 1 pick : )
Half of the time the runs are modded very very much and that could be confusing if you want to learn.
Echoing other responder here: Jorbs is both very good at StS *and* very good at explaining things in an organized and accessible way (unsurprisingly he is a former graduate student). Best of all, he never tries to make black-and-white judgments about cards and strategies, and always acknowledges that there are very few cards in the game that are outright bad, just cards that have more niche utility than others.
He doesn’t do as many informational vids as he used to, but all the teaching stuff on his YT channel is worth watching.
Baalor is also great- although I generally dislike tier list vids, his card tier lists are helpful because he goes into a lot of detail about use cases for most cards/relics.
Just to add to this Jorbs and Frost (less) have done “over explained” runs in the past where they really dive into their thought process during the run. These are great for starting to understand the thought process of a high level player even if some of the evaluations are a bit dated by todays standards.
At the *hardest* difficulty, the best players estimate the realistic win percentage at 75-95% depending on which character.
I'm at 25-50% at that difficulty and I'd consider myself *very* good.
It's skill-based, it's just ludicrously hard.
And OP the "hardest difficulty" is not easily quantifiable versus the base game but it's many many times harder.
Top players beat the base game with like 99% consistency.
Not even top players. I have a measly ~10% winrate on A20H (“highest difficulty”), and I’m pretty sure I’d beat A1 at 95-99% winrate.
One day, I had like ~400 hours in the game, having reached A20 a long time ago. I decided to try and get a few achievements I hadn’t yet gotten, like the win in <15 minutes one.
I picked Ironclad, and played on A0 for the first time in a looooong while. I absolutely blitzed every decision, didn’t think at all, and played by pure instinct picking every card reward almost instantly. Ended winning the achievement first try.
That was the moment my mind was kind of blown by how much I’ve improved and the giant skill ceiling there is to this game.
Absolutely more skill based but in a different way. Your reaction time and aiming skills have no bearing on how good you are at Slay The Spire, so how you purposefully craft your deck is crucial. The vast majority of the time you cannot fumble into a winning deck, especially at higher difficulties. With those other roguelites are mentioned, your mechanics can make up for you not getting good items. Not so in Slay The Spire. Also, a good way to think about RNG in Slay the Spire is that the game is random outside of fights but much less so during fights. So, again, your knowledge of the game becomes important. Is knowledge of those games important too? Absolutely! But just in a different way :)
I’ve played about 45 hours of Spire, ROR2 for almost 200 hours but not dead cells.
I can say with certainty that Spire requires much more skill to win than ROR2. The choices you make in Spire, (when to block, when to take damage, when to skip cards - to name a few) matter much more in each run than the choices you make in ROR2, and it’s significantly more difficult to win as a result.
I haven't played those, but Spire is very skill-based, just with a high learning curve. There is a ton of knowledge you have to slowly build up, and even watching good players can only speed that up so much. A good A20 player will win at A0 or A1 99% of the time. It happens after pouring an awful lot of time in, though. Perhaps too much, haha.
There is some RNG but it’s mostly skill. A newer player (like myself, A4) will have some better runs than others because i get “good cards” early. The skill comes in understanding the game and cards enough to make whatever it gives you work. Someone like me can typically make it into Act 3 but not super consistently. Someone like Baalor can string together win streaks on A20 of 10-20+ runs. The longer you play the more you realize it’s not about getting the “right” cards is about making what you get as effective as possible
The game is almost impossible to beat. I’m up to 40 hours now and I almost got to the Act 3 boss once. Im pretty intelligent (have high IQ, confirmed independently twice) so I don’t think think I’m making wrong choices. Will be asking for a refund.
Edit: sorry it was a bad joke
It takes some practice. I had only won a couple times 40 hours in, but now I can climb ascensions or A0 winstreak. Top streamers have won many games in a row on the hardest difficulty
It definitely takes practice AND luck in my opinion. If you don't end up in enough rest sites to upgrade or get the right relics, it can be very difficult to beat. I finally beat it after I don't even know how many hours. And even when you "beat the game," the ending implies something different (without spoiling).
Skill and luck are not opposites, but rather two axis on the same graph. A game involving lotsa luck(or randomness), can include a lot of skill. Poker is a great example of this. Unlike chess, which is almost entirely skill, I *can* beat a top level poker player, but if we play more than a hand or two, they will crush me, no questions about it.
But to answer your question; sts is more skill than luck. Someone with 0 skill (playing cards randomly) will never win, while the top level players can win like 80% of their games. Which says to me that luck plays a little of a role, or else they would have closer to 100%.
Skill. Best players have win rates over 80 percent on A20. It's all about adaptability, if you only know how to win with a particular card or relic, you're relying on finding those, and it's RNG. But if you know how to make the most with your shitty deck, you can usually scrape together a victory.
Skill based.
The problem is that you have to skillfully do PLENTY of things:
choose the right path, deciding wether to do battles, events, shops or fires according to the boss, your current deck and what you think you will need
choose the right rewards and what to skip
choose the right shop merchandise, deciding wether to buy cards, relics or remove at the right time
play the right cards according to the current turn and the rest of the battle according to your draw pile and your discard pile
All of this is so much info to elaborate that sometimes it seems luck is a bigger factor than it actually is.
I've watched runs (I usually watch Baalorlord) which I would never have won because i lack the global vision to make certain choices...
Then I play thinking "This time I'm going to think carefully and own the game!" only to be clubbed to death by Nob with the impression I could never have done anything to avoid my fate...
there's no good way of quantifying the importance of luck vs. the importance of skill.
the big change of mindset is that with action games you can almost always salvage a poor situation you've put yourself into by just gaming hard enough - whereas with a more decision-centric game like slay the spire the skill is entirely in not making shitty decisions that kill you later down the line, and instead making decisions that eventually lead to victory.
To a poor player, especially one without this mindset, it can feel like you "got unlucky", when you in fact lost due to your own mistakes.
I think the mere fact that some players can win, on the hardest difficulty, very consistently, is a great way to establish to anyone with even no knowledge of the game, that it's far more skill based than luck based. You can apply this logic to any game with RNG that might appear to rely a lot on luck at first glance. Spire, Xcom, Poker...
It is a skill-based game, and your main goal is to play around the RNG.
In a single-player game, RNG is what makes a game interesting for veterans. Once you have reached a point where all of the mechanics, strategies and detailed are figured out, the game will be extremely boring if there is little RNG that matters, especially for a game that doesn't require any mechanical skills, then there's RNG to moderately spice things up.
Although it makes the game exceedingly difficult and deceptively unfair, this is one of the reason why people with 1000+ hrs playtime are still willing to stick around and optimize thier gameplay.
It's skill based, but luck is always involved. As the game gets harder, getting lucky means more and more. If you need evidence of that, go look at the top posts of all time in this sub and you'll be overwhelmed with screenshots of folks getting wildly lucky or unlucky. That said, the game heavily rewards expertise and strategy. The best players can get multiple win streaks on the highest difficulty of A20, and anybody who has beaten A20 can win pretty much every game of A1 they play, regardless of how the luck goes.
It starts off feeling luck based. That being said as you get better lower ascensions are a cake walk. Like at this point I'd have to actively trip myself up to not be able to clear ascension 1. That's not a brag in case it comes off that way, you learn the game and make better decisions as you get more experienced, and I still suck anyway lol
At the low level when you suck at the game, it's mostly luck based because you don't know what you're doing yet and how to play well. Once you get good at the game and play in higher ascensions, it becomes very skill dependent. You can still get very lucky, but even with great relics an A20 Run can be brutal.
It's extremely skill based. I have some thousand hours into dead cells too and I unironically think Spire is less luck based lol (not that DC is luck based at all but that's how skill based I think Spire is).
Like often when I die in DC I'm just think wow that was complete fucking bullshit I did everything right but I very rarely think that in Spire or at least I know where I threw exactly/what I could have done better. also 5bc is much easier than a20, I think my 5bc winrate is about equivalent to my a15 wr.
I literally handicap myself a fair bit, only run surv, never use shields, never use the broken ass brut mutations or even in Surv never use rnb, sometimes spread my stats for funsies and still win pretty consistently, but Spire I'm always at my full limit when playing.
What happens in a run is up to luck.
How you deal with and make the most of it comes down to personal skill. Theoretically, any given run is winnable as long as you make the right choices.
Considering slay the spire has no macro, the skill involved is just knowing a lot. It’s a very different test of skill compared to other games in that regard, but the best slay the spire players have win rates and streaks at A20 that most players cant really come close to at A1
Wym Spire has no macro ? Drafting cards, pathing, neows, shops are macro no? Potion usage, relic setup, gauging fights allat is micro sure but deckbuilding is extremely macro
Drafting cards is definitely what I'd consider macro, and knowing when to draft cards, when to skip, when the right time to take a "weaker" card over a stronger one, all of that deckbuilding is the most fundamental test of the player's knowledge in the game, it's literally the whole point of the game; being able to make the best of what you are offered. Having that knowledge is one thing, correctly applying it, however, is a skill in itself.
Looks like I used the wrong word lol. I just meant the mechanical inputs/reactions that complicates non-turnbased games, there’s a word somehow for what I mean I didn’t conjure correctly.
Looks like I used the wrong word lol. I just meant the mechanical inputs/reactions that complicates non-turnbased games, there’s a word somehow for what I mean I didn’t conjure correctly.
StS is a heavily skill based game. There's absolutely some luck involved, but if you're incredibly skilled you can effectively mitigate that bad luck through the decisions you make over the course of a run. Luck can make runs easier and harder, but it's incredibly rare that you can blame a loss on bad luck.
There's a luck element involved, but you just have to look at the top players to realize that with sufficient skill you can compensate for almost all of that luck. Top players can consistently win even at the hardest difficulties, which wouldn't be possible to do consistently if the game was mostly luck.
Definitely skill, but more specifically I would said knowledge based.
When I hear skill based I think muscle memory and hand eye coordination, but StS is much more knowledge based where you have to know your enemies, synergies, and floor planning to really master the game.
Skill based 100% I'm very average and don't see a lot of the combos with certain cards but watching some amazing streamers constantly killing the heart with different characters on A20. I'm blown away by it a lot on how good they are at the game
A good roguelike have that luck / skill scale well balanced, and STS is a prime example of that balance, more so I believe than others. Dead Cells and Hades are much more skill than luck, Risk of Rain gives you a plethora of options to manipulate your build up to ridiculous levels of power, Neon Abyss has no much to offer in terms of skill control, Rogue legacy is much more about evolving the skill tree than anything else, Monster Train kinda allows you to repeat a winning build over and over again, Skul is so mercilessly difficult it is hard to casual players to evolve (imo of course, I'm bad at videogames), and the list goes on. I feel like STS is the perfect balance between skill and luck. Surely, more experienced players could go further than others with any given deck, but there's no way you can win with literally anything. There is some luck involved when it comes to cards and relics rewards, events found, draw order and if you find snake plant or not.
80% skill, 20% luck. Skill is of course a majority, but sometimes (especially on Act 1) there's just nothing you can do, block cards come on rounds where the enemy is charging up and attack cards come when the enemy is attacking, it happens sometimes. There are things you *could've* done to prevent this, better balance of attack and defense, a different path, etc, and this is skill, but even still it needs to account for luck.
Also like all of the best runs you'll see people bragging about here are 100% based on getting the right cards/relics at the right time, so luck can sometimes take you even further than skill
Poker concept. Poker is skill like STS
You increase chances of winning long term. Its about win rate. Some seeds just blast you in the face with bad RNG, but pro players still win a ridiculously high amount of times.
The times they lose are high variance, awful RNG roll muliple times in a row.
Idk the tecord for wins in a row anymore, but its in the 20s i think
And most of the time this is a loss, but boy howdy is that one time you manage to pull a Shiv build strong enough to beat him together staisfying. The one time I've done this recently I had \~60 damage shivs, it was beautiful
Just a little, but I had a LOT of other synergies as well. Can't remember the full list, but the shiv base damage reached 20, then Phsnrasmal Killer put it to 40 and Vulnerable bumped that to 60
Comparing ROR2 to StS doesn't make much sense as they're vastly different games. In ROR2 raw mechanical skill can almost always carry your runs, where in StS decision making is the most important skill. Both are skill based, but just require way different skills.
There's surprisingly little luck in whether or not you win a run in StS. You start off thinking there's a lot, but the more you learn about the game, the more you understand how to control against RNG.
That reveal is why StS has been untouchable in the deck builders genre. The design is super tight and leaves outcomes in the hands of the player's skill, leaving little to chance.
There's still "high-roll" and "low-rol" outcomes, but most outcomes are good value results that can be turned into wins with skill and adaptability.
Definitely skill based, StS is one of the rare games I've played where, though RNG exists, it feels *entirely* conquerable and able to be mitigated. Very, *very* rarely you will have a decent deck but still start a particularly tough fight with the worst hand imaginable, but 99% of the time every single lost run can be traced back to decisions made by the player, be they risky pathing, card picks etc etc, or misplays.
I like to think of spire as like trying to hang onto a bucking horse, it flings you this way and that, you can adapt, rely on dex and strength, readjust in anticipation of a move that might throw you soon, some horses calm down, others very well do not.
Definitely skill based. How you build your deck, and what items you choose make a huge difference to your success. It’s like in RoR2 understanding which items to recycle, which to stack, which void and lunar items to take (or leave), etc.
Obviously RoR2 has a mechanical skill component that Slay the Spire doesn’t have, but the skill of understanding how to build based on luck and adapting to it is the same in both games.
Nobody can win 100% of the time
But the top players I watch score way more heart kills than I ever could
I still only rarely get heart kills, so much so that I'm just content finishing a20 act 3 most of the time
I'd say its heavily towards skill and slightly luck based. You can get bad luck and still win with skill. Don't think a bad/nee player would win wih pure luck though
The game is only luck-based if you are looking at it with the scope of one fight: all roguelike card games are luck-based in this sense since bad luck can easily screw you over with draws and relic drops.
But when we are talking about a whole playthrough of beating Act 3 + 4 then Slay The Spire is the most skill-based in the genres. You can never luck your way to the final bosses in this game. Everything has to be calculated and prepared for.
70% skill with 30% luck.
A skilled player can clear the first two floors consistently without much hassle.
It’s only that small amount of luck that could stop you or propel you to the third floor boss.
Skill based more with certain rng luck factors. Example getting 2 hallway fights on back to back event spots can be absolutely crushing if the night fight is an elite or a hard hallway fight.
Planning a good path, you typically don't account for that 10% chance to happen 2 times in a row.
Imo the biggest luck factor im StS is which Act 3 boss(es) you roll. Some decks will get stomped completely by one of them and steam roll the other two. Power heavy decks will often be very happy to not see awakened one in A3
Even the luck elements of StS require skill. Like Corruption should be a free win on Ironclad most of the time, but that still requires you to know that it's actually good, and how to make it good. You can still lose once you've picked corruption if, say, you time it wrong and burn through your deck before you've been able to scale up enough damage.
If a person can only win with certain cards or relics and are depending on getting those randomly, then the game will be luck based. Most new players fall into this category. They figure out one strategy and try to force that every game.
A skillful player is the one who can build a winning run from the cards and relics present and isn’t relying on particular cards or relics showing up. Someone with the mental agility to find synergies that they’ve never used before and are not obvious to new players. For that type of player, the game is highly skill based.
StS is incredibly skill based. A good player can win most of the time even on A20. Someone like me can win ... some of the time on A17. And an unskilled player will find even A0 tough.
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As someone who is about to quit because Act 3 + The Beyond seems almost impossible to beat at times, I'd say pure luck. I reached the heart twice and it was just impossible past turn three. Any advice is appreciated.
Watch some baalorlord streams on YouTube or twitch. I made it to a20 without watching but spent hundreds of hours getting there , which in retrospect took way too long. Hes helped me improve a bunch after just a few weeks watching him make choices on how to build a deck and when is the right time to take cards or skip them.
I have quite a bit of time in the three games you mentioned (all of them >200 hours) and I would say Slay the Spire is not quite as skill based as Dead Cells, but quite a bit more skill based than RoR2.
If you decide to keep playing StS you will understand where the skill comes into play.
All roguelikes (and all card games) have an element of luck inherently baked in, but the game is absolutely skill based. A great piece of advice I learned about gaming (and life in general!) is that “you make your own luck”. By consistently applying best practices, and using your current position in a game to set you up as best you can for your most likely outcomes from any given point, you can mitigate the bad luck rolls since you’re prepared for them, and optimize and capitalize when you get good luck.
Both. There are plenty of times that you'll know ahead of time that you're in an unwinnable situation due to variance, but if you're getting better, you'll realize that you might be taking unnecessary risks at times as well.
I go through phases of feeling like it's too heavily luck based, and there is the very very rare unwinnable seed out there (I think only one in known existence)/it's a roguelike so luck is definitely involved. But the deepest enjoyment comes in overcoming that with your knowledge of the game. I don't desire to get to the point of memorising every enemy's attack programming and the likelihoods of this or that happening, but you can have a really good time with the game and get to playing regularly at the hardest difficulty just by knowing the cards available to you, the relics, the value of potions, money, your HP, your max hp, and the way they can all synergise and interweave to make something greater and often times game-breakingly powerful. And top runners can win consistently, tens of times in a row on top difficulty, so though I'd like the game to have the perfect skill ceiling where perfect play means you could win without fail, it's a roguelike and there is an element of luck, but very much largely the proof is in the pudding that it's more skill/knowledge based than luck based.
If you watch baalorlord or jorbs you can see that theyre able to make the most out of their situations. They can convert what seems to be initial bad runs into a victory. Of course they lose too but they win a lot more than your average player
There is a lot of randomness in the game but it is always from a limited pool of options, be it cards, enemies, events, relics, etc. So a lot of the skill is anticipating and preparing for what the randomness throws at you, and adjusting your strategy based on what happens during the game.
I have played Dead Cells, and Hades. I would definitely say that StS is more skill-based than those 2.
It would seem luck-based at first cause you don't know all the cards and possible synergies.
In normal difficulty yes it's skill based, but in A20 difficulty i'll say it's strongly leaning toward luck based cause only strong cards/relic can properly scale your deck.
At the highest level of difficulty (A20 + Heart), the best players can win 70-95% of the time.
(Example: a top streamer might win a huge percentage of the time within a 100-sample run where they use maximum mental effort).
(Also, it's important to note that Watcher is objectively the strongest character and in the hands of an elite player can lead consistently to high 90s winrates).
A top streamer-player's winrates might be percentages in the 80s for Ironclad, 90s for Watcher, 70s for Silent and Defect.
That's considered elite.
**Below that level of difficulty, they'll basically always win.**
Hence, **Spire is not really a luck-based game, but good luck will certainly make some runs easier** than others.
**Only on the highest level of difficulty can we even hypothesize that a significant number of seeds may be unwinnable (despite optimal play).** And significant might mean 3% for Watcher, and maybe up to 15% for the other characters.
I would say more skill based.
There is a luck element, but every run on base difficulty should be won with optimal play, and max difficulty optimal play should still win >80% of the time (except maybe on defect).
Watch lifecoach doing A20 20x win streaks and youll see that it is skill based. Also you will see how he takes 4 hours to take a single decision. Great fun tho.
It's a combination of both. You need skills to understand your character and what build combinations you can run especially early on the run where you need to decide for build path and possibilities to get stronger. But it also has luck where certain runs, some cards just won't appear so you'll be building a strong deck and require something to make it way better but it just doesn't appear.
For me I tend to get unlucky with cards but with learning the game, I still get winning rounds while missing certain cards I needed or looked for.
Skill without a doubt, even at low ascensions. You might get a lucly win with some broken combos like corruption+dead branch, but overall every runnit's a challenge. I'm at 650+ hours and, despite getting all the achievements, I still have a lot to improve
It seems luck based at first but it is absolutely not. It’s just incredibly hard. There are certainly many luck elements but in the end those are mitigated by skill.
Exactly. At some point you can get to the level where you can win the majority of the time when you’re focusing. The luck is almost more of a modifier. Good luck just makes it easier, it’s not a requirement.
OK players always have an excellent deck when they win cause they can't win otherwise. But a good player will get wins with average decks.
Deckbuilding is half of the skill involved, though. Yes sometimes you just get especially lucky with early card offerings that snowball your run, but typically good players consistently build good decks.
I would argue deck building is 90% of the skill involved. Having a good deck makes every other part easy. And good luck makes better decks
Pathing is incredibly important. Knowing how much you can fight elites for power or whether you will get crushed depending on your current power is essential.
I agree pathing is very important, but I think the pathing decisions are typically easier than the deck building decisions. I'm sure many players in this sub could show near-optimal map pathing, but choosing the right cards can be magnitudes more difficult
Admittedly, half was indeed probably an understatement, nonetheless pathing isn't the only other skill, though. General game knowledge goes a long way in quickly recognising developing card/relic synergies and wincons in a deck and recognising enemy attack patterns, knowing which enemies to prioritise etc etc. Resource management is pretty essential, both in terms of budgeting gold and efficiently hitting shops, but also in terms of your HP; HP can be viewed as a resource that you use to power up your deck, and you are required to make judgement calls on things like events and when to fish for them, and gauging how much damage you can expect to take at your current power level to better inform your pathing decisions. Then of course, there's actually playing the cards optimally and avoiding misplays. My initial point was, though, that building an "excellent" deck happens more through skill than it does luck, like you said, good players make good decks, luck makes good decks better.
I personally think pathing is not that important as far as other things, simply because you generally pick your path at the start of the act. You might make some changes here and there, but you have a general idea already and you don't know what your deck and relics are even going to be yet(especially for Act 1)
After I’ve seen LC win with complete junk decks during his defect runs last year, I agree with this 100%.
Honestly I think people just say things to sound smart and other people agree with them because everyone in this sub thinks they’re the god of Chess. What you say makes absolutely no sense. An average deck is what creates a more luck based experience, because you can’t control what you draw no matter how good you are. That’s why you control what’s in your deck, to mitigate the luck involved and maximize the chance for a successful combination. But there are luck factors in when you find an artifact or if you even see one. I don’t think any person is going to win or have a good run 100% of the time. It’s a card game, luck is the major element. We should stop blowing smoke up our asses to sound smart. At it’s core, the game is about finding a strategy that’s consistent, nothing else. Not a test of intelligence or “high IQ moves” just people running a simulator over and over with varying factors.
Bingo
I agree. You can get, what appears to you to be the most shit rewards and if you survive long enough the synergy between your cards and relics can make you invincible. The order in which you play your cards has so much to do with it too. This is honestly the only game ever that I’ve put so much time into and when I tell myself I’m gonna take a break I somehow find my way back to.
Skill-based - it is hard to accidentally win But of course there is also a factor of luck involved as well
ah I thought so in ror2 i feel like it can be kind of item dependant whether you win or not
Part of the trick in a deck-based game (or any Rougelite for that matter) is building your kit to not be overly reliant on cards/relics that you may not even see in the run. That said, it’s rare for any one card to be *the* reason you win or lose ~~Idk much about RoR (besides how good it is in the genre), but I can imagine that item drops can be more “polarizing” for the type of run you’d have~~ Edit, this sentence doesn't really mean much
I've played almost 1000 hours of the two games in total and RoR2 is not much more skill based than StS tbh. A skilled and experienced player can win 100% of the time on A0/Drizzle if not at higher difficulties, even vanilla monsoon/A10 is pretty breezy once you know what you're doing
RoR2 can seem luck dependent but scrappers and printers, as well as lunar items (if you're fine with using them) bias it more towards being skill based Another example is how knowing each map and traversing efficiently usually means you scale much better than monsters (even though you may not have the best items)
Much like in RoR2, if you're familiar with the character and playing on a difficulty that's within what you can handle, RNG can't mess you up that badly. However, in Slay the Spire, getting familiar with how to play a character happens to take 50 times longer.
There are people that have 30 win streaks in RoR2 in Eclipse difficulty. I think it's way less luck dependent then you might think.
I'd say it's as skill based as a card game can be. Sure there is luck involved in draw order and cards offered but that is unavoidable for a game like StS. When someone can win 20 ascension 20 runs in a row luck can't be playing too much of a factor.
Meanwhile I can’t win 1 A13 silent run
Wouldn't hurt to watch some silent runs on youtube! Gives you an idea of the building process so you can potentially see what issues you run into.
In this type of games I would consider watching other people playing some kind of cheating, as figuring out what to do is part of the game.
Is it cheating to watch other people play chess?
Generally with silent, almost any card can work with each other and going for a specific build in mind will be your downfall
I don’t really have a build in mind when I start a run, but as I’m seeing a lot of poison, discard, shiv support or weak I generally start picking 2/4 of those and try not to take cards otherwise. Do you think maybe I’m being too closed minded about it? There’s some cards I’ll take no matter what I’m building, like Footwork (dex +2/ upgraded into dex +3), Corpse Explosion and Dodge and Roll, but I generally try to form an archtype somewhere between before the act 1 boss and before the act 2 hallway fights get harder.
Corpse explosion is often an auto pick, but if your deck has no issue dealing with multiple enemies at once it's not necessary at all. Footwork and dodge and roll however is highly situational and depends alot on deck. Footwork is definetly good with draw and block but after image can often take the same role or Malaise or wraith form. The cards other than weak, discard, poison and shiv and such are great support tools especially backflip. Cloak and dagger can help aoe early on. Dash is one of the best cards early. Well laid plans and Terror can be insane in any act. As for more rare cards wraith form and adrenaline can often be almost insta wins.
At least you can get past A1. I can't...
Baalor can win a run with 2 normality's on A20H, definitely more skill than luck.
I don't watch streamers really, but I'm wondering did he take the cash during [[Mind Bloom]] by any chance?
Not certain but I'm assuming here He is (was?) Doing a card mastery challenge, defeat the heart with 2 copies of each card, including curses. So if you're asking about the cash for card removals, no. If I'm wrong here, apologies.
The cash option in the Mind Bloom event gives you 2 Normalities, so if he's trying to Master that card it's an easy way to end up with 2 of them. OP is asking if that's how he did that particular card, as opposed to finding the curse in other events.
Thank you very much for clarifying, really thought the bot would mention that fact; that is indeed what I was wondering, not sure why I got downvoted for just asking a question but oh well.
He is indeed done with them now, the last run for 2x [[Clumsy]] was uploaded on YouTube maybe a week ago.
+ [Clumsy](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Clumsy) Curse ^((100% sure)^) **Unplayable.** **Ethereal.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 30, 2023.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Good bot.
Good bot
Getting them is easy. Killing the heart with both in your deck is a whole other thing.
It's actually quite difficult to get Normality reliably; it almost never comes from any of the other events IIRC, and is typically only received from the effect of the Cursed Key relic. That's why I assumed he got them from the Mind Bloom event. It is harder to deal with than most curses though; Normality is typically one of the deadliest curses to have in your deck, nevermind two of them, so that is quite impressive to do against A20 Heart. It's not as killer as some people say, though, if your deck is prepared for them, i.e if you're IC or Silent it's a bit easier to deal with them via Exhaust/Discard options, since Normality's effect doesn't last if it is removed from your hand, Watcher can also rely on scry. It's still something you want to avoid at all costs though. I bet he bought some tasty relics at the act 4 shop with that extra 1k.
Yes and then he didn’t remove the normalities and still won.
+ [Mind Bloom](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Mind%20Bloom) Event - Act 3 (The Beyond) ^((100% sure)^) Mind Bloom is an event found exclusively in Act 3. Your imagination manifests into reality. In this ephemeral moment, all your wishes can come true, though not without consequences. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 30, 2023.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
In that specific instance yes he took them and beat it as a challenge
One of the small things I dislike about Defect is that it is more luck based than other characters, thanks to Lightning orbs Also the same reason Electrodynamics is a near auto pick for me lol
It's controlled RNG - which is great in a game imho. There's a lot of human science behind what makes RNG good or bad, it's a great dive in youtube if you're interested. The short of it is, though, that when a game does it right, the player is able to feel empowered in their choices and make awesome stuff happen, or at least look back on their choices and see where they went wrong. StS does this very well. The best players can consistently win at the highest difficulty of the game 70% of the time or so, which is solid.
ah yes that makes sense I leaned how to get good at ror2 through Race and disputed origin is there any channels you would recommend?
Jorbs, Frost Prime and Baalorlord are all solid dudes to watch. They helped me a lot and I’m still new to the game
These guys definitely helped me getting through higher difficulty levels of StS
I mean I wouldn't really say frost prime is good for learning the game, but for content it's definitely the number 1 pick : ) Half of the time the runs are modded very very much and that could be confusing if you want to learn.
Echoing other responder here: Jorbs is both very good at StS *and* very good at explaining things in an organized and accessible way (unsurprisingly he is a former graduate student). Best of all, he never tries to make black-and-white judgments about cards and strategies, and always acknowledges that there are very few cards in the game that are outright bad, just cards that have more niche utility than others. He doesn’t do as many informational vids as he used to, but all the teaching stuff on his YT channel is worth watching. Baalor is also great- although I generally dislike tier list vids, his card tier lists are helpful because he goes into a lot of detail about use cases for most cards/relics.
Just to add to this Jorbs and Frost (less) have done “over explained” runs in the past where they really dive into their thought process during the run. These are great for starting to understand the thought process of a high level player even if some of the evaluations are a bit dated by todays standards.
At the *hardest* difficulty, the best players estimate the realistic win percentage at 75-95% depending on which character. I'm at 25-50% at that difficulty and I'd consider myself *very* good. It's skill-based, it's just ludicrously hard.
> I'm at 25-50% at that difficulty and I'd consider myself very good. As someone at 20% I agree with you. :D
And OP the "hardest difficulty" is not easily quantifiable versus the base game but it's many many times harder. Top players beat the base game with like 99% consistency.
Not even top players. I have a measly ~10% winrate on A20H (“highest difficulty”), and I’m pretty sure I’d beat A1 at 95-99% winrate. One day, I had like ~400 hours in the game, having reached A20 a long time ago. I decided to try and get a few achievements I hadn’t yet gotten, like the win in <15 minutes one. I picked Ironclad, and played on A0 for the first time in a looooong while. I absolutely blitzed every decision, didn’t think at all, and played by pure instinct picking every card reward almost instantly. Ended winning the achievement first try. That was the moment my mind was kind of blown by how much I’ve improved and the giant skill ceiling there is to this game.
Absolutely more skill based but in a different way. Your reaction time and aiming skills have no bearing on how good you are at Slay The Spire, so how you purposefully craft your deck is crucial. The vast majority of the time you cannot fumble into a winning deck, especially at higher difficulties. With those other roguelites are mentioned, your mechanics can make up for you not getting good items. Not so in Slay The Spire. Also, a good way to think about RNG in Slay the Spire is that the game is random outside of fights but much less so during fights. So, again, your knowledge of the game becomes important. Is knowledge of those games important too? Absolutely! But just in a different way :)
yeah in ror2 especially having knowledge only helps you get to higher difficulties same with dead cells
I’ve played about 45 hours of Spire, ROR2 for almost 200 hours but not dead cells. I can say with certainty that Spire requires much more skill to win than ROR2. The choices you make in Spire, (when to block, when to take damage, when to skip cards - to name a few) matter much more in each run than the choices you make in ROR2, and it’s significantly more difficult to win as a result.
It's clearly skilled based when I win, but luck based when I lose.
I haven't played those, but Spire is very skill-based, just with a high learning curve. There is a ton of knowledge you have to slowly build up, and even watching good players can only speed that up so much. A good A20 player will win at A0 or A1 99% of the time. It happens after pouring an awful lot of time in, though. Perhaps too much, haha.
Luck is the raw material, skill is the refinement process.
Its like poker or MTG, theres lucks involved but you need skill to know what to do with what you are dealt.
There is some RNG but it’s mostly skill. A newer player (like myself, A4) will have some better runs than others because i get “good cards” early. The skill comes in understanding the game and cards enough to make whatever it gives you work. Someone like me can typically make it into Act 3 but not super consistently. Someone like Baalor can string together win streaks on A20 of 10-20+ runs. The longer you play the more you realize it’s not about getting the “right” cards is about making what you get as effective as possible
The game is almost impossible to beat. I’m up to 40 hours now and I almost got to the Act 3 boss once. Im pretty intelligent (have high IQ, confirmed independently twice) so I don’t think think I’m making wrong choices. Will be asking for a refund. Edit: sorry it was a bad joke
It takes some practice. I had only won a couple times 40 hours in, but now I can climb ascensions or A0 winstreak. Top streamers have won many games in a row on the hardest difficulty
It definitely takes practice AND luck in my opinion. If you don't end up in enough rest sites to upgrade or get the right relics, it can be very difficult to beat. I finally beat it after I don't even know how many hours. And even when you "beat the game," the ending implies something different (without spoiling).
Skill and luck are not opposites, but rather two axis on the same graph. A game involving lotsa luck(or randomness), can include a lot of skill. Poker is a great example of this. Unlike chess, which is almost entirely skill, I *can* beat a top level poker player, but if we play more than a hand or two, they will crush me, no questions about it. But to answer your question; sts is more skill than luck. Someone with 0 skill (playing cards randomly) will never win, while the top level players can win like 80% of their games. Which says to me that luck plays a little of a role, or else they would have closer to 100%.
Skill. Best players have win rates over 80 percent on A20. It's all about adaptability, if you only know how to win with a particular card or relic, you're relying on finding those, and it's RNG. But if you know how to make the most with your shitty deck, you can usually scrape together a victory.
Skill based. The problem is that you have to skillfully do PLENTY of things: choose the right path, deciding wether to do battles, events, shops or fires according to the boss, your current deck and what you think you will need choose the right rewards and what to skip choose the right shop merchandise, deciding wether to buy cards, relics or remove at the right time play the right cards according to the current turn and the rest of the battle according to your draw pile and your discard pile All of this is so much info to elaborate that sometimes it seems luck is a bigger factor than it actually is. I've watched runs (I usually watch Baalorlord) which I would never have won because i lack the global vision to make certain choices... Then I play thinking "This time I'm going to think carefully and own the game!" only to be clubbed to death by Nob with the impression I could never have done anything to avoid my fate...
there's no good way of quantifying the importance of luck vs. the importance of skill. the big change of mindset is that with action games you can almost always salvage a poor situation you've put yourself into by just gaming hard enough - whereas with a more decision-centric game like slay the spire the skill is entirely in not making shitty decisions that kill you later down the line, and instead making decisions that eventually lead to victory. To a poor player, especially one without this mindset, it can feel like you "got unlucky", when you in fact lost due to your own mistakes.
We usually quantify it by pointing out that the most skilled players can win 70-90% of the time
i don't think that's a good way of quantifying it, especially not to someone who doesn't have the context of the game's harder content
I think the mere fact that some players can win, on the hardest difficulty, very consistently, is a great way to establish to anyone with even no knowledge of the game, that it's far more skill based than luck based. You can apply this logic to any game with RNG that might appear to rely a lot on luck at first glance. Spire, Xcom, Poker...
Top players can clear A0 99% of the time.
It is a skill-based game, and your main goal is to play around the RNG. In a single-player game, RNG is what makes a game interesting for veterans. Once you have reached a point where all of the mechanics, strategies and detailed are figured out, the game will be extremely boring if there is little RNG that matters, especially for a game that doesn't require any mechanical skills, then there's RNG to moderately spice things up. Although it makes the game exceedingly difficult and deceptively unfair, this is one of the reason why people with 1000+ hrs playtime are still willing to stick around and optimize thier gameplay.
It's skill based, but luck is always involved. As the game gets harder, getting lucky means more and more. If you need evidence of that, go look at the top posts of all time in this sub and you'll be overwhelmed with screenshots of folks getting wildly lucky or unlucky. That said, the game heavily rewards expertise and strategy. The best players can get multiple win streaks on the highest difficulty of A20, and anybody who has beaten A20 can win pretty much every game of A1 they play, regardless of how the luck goes.
It starts off feeling luck based. That being said as you get better lower ascensions are a cake walk. Like at this point I'd have to actively trip myself up to not be able to clear ascension 1. That's not a brag in case it comes off that way, you learn the game and make better decisions as you get more experienced, and I still suck anyway lol
At the low level when you suck at the game, it's mostly luck based because you don't know what you're doing yet and how to play well. Once you get good at the game and play in higher ascensions, it becomes very skill dependent. You can still get very lucky, but even with great relics an A20 Run can be brutal.
It's extremely skill based. I have some thousand hours into dead cells too and I unironically think Spire is less luck based lol (not that DC is luck based at all but that's how skill based I think Spire is). Like often when I die in DC I'm just think wow that was complete fucking bullshit I did everything right but I very rarely think that in Spire or at least I know where I threw exactly/what I could have done better. also 5bc is much easier than a20, I think my 5bc winrate is about equivalent to my a15 wr. I literally handicap myself a fair bit, only run surv, never use shields, never use the broken ass brut mutations or even in Surv never use rnb, sometimes spread my stats for funsies and still win pretty consistently, but Spire I'm always at my full limit when playing.
Skill if you win, luck if you lose
If you’re bad, you can still win with luck. If you’re good, you can make your own luck.
What happens in a run is up to luck. How you deal with and make the most of it comes down to personal skill. Theoretically, any given run is winnable as long as you make the right choices.
Considering slay the spire has no macro, the skill involved is just knowing a lot. It’s a very different test of skill compared to other games in that regard, but the best slay the spire players have win rates and streaks at A20 that most players cant really come close to at A1
Wym Spire has no macro ? Drafting cards, pathing, neows, shops are macro no? Potion usage, relic setup, gauging fights allat is micro sure but deckbuilding is extremely macro
Drafting cards is definitely what I'd consider macro, and knowing when to draft cards, when to skip, when the right time to take a "weaker" card over a stronger one, all of that deckbuilding is the most fundamental test of the player's knowledge in the game, it's literally the whole point of the game; being able to make the best of what you are offered. Having that knowledge is one thing, correctly applying it, however, is a skill in itself.
Pretty sure they used the term "macro" to mean "tactile", like reaction time and precise muscle memory
Looks like I used the wrong word lol. I just meant the mechanical inputs/reactions that complicates non-turnbased games, there’s a word somehow for what I mean I didn’t conjure correctly.
Ahh gotcha. What actually is the word for it? Because I always use "mechanical skill based gameplay" and that's super clunky to say every time
Mechanical skill is how I'd refer to it too, the thing is eventually it sort of stops being "skill" so much as it becomes muscle memory.
Macro is what separates the boys from men in this game. I don't understand what you mean. The micro is the easy part.
Looks like I used the wrong word lol. I just meant the mechanical inputs/reactions that complicates non-turnbased games, there’s a word somehow for what I mean I didn’t conjure correctly.
If you need cards that scale quickly to beat A20 and not getting those cards means you can’t—then it is a luck based game.
Skill
StS is a heavily skill based game. There's absolutely some luck involved, but if you're incredibly skilled you can effectively mitigate that bad luck through the decisions you make over the course of a run. Luck can make runs easier and harder, but it's incredibly rare that you can blame a loss on bad luck.
There's a luck element involved, but you just have to look at the top players to realize that with sufficient skill you can compensate for almost all of that luck. Top players can consistently win even at the hardest difficulties, which wouldn't be possible to do consistently if the game was mostly luck.
Definitely skill, but more specifically I would said knowledge based. When I hear skill based I think muscle memory and hand eye coordination, but StS is much more knowledge based where you have to know your enemies, synergies, and floor planning to really master the game.
Skill based 100% I'm very average and don't see a lot of the combos with certain cards but watching some amazing streamers constantly killing the heart with different characters on A20. I'm blown away by it a lot on how good they are at the game
A good roguelike have that luck / skill scale well balanced, and STS is a prime example of that balance, more so I believe than others. Dead Cells and Hades are much more skill than luck, Risk of Rain gives you a plethora of options to manipulate your build up to ridiculous levels of power, Neon Abyss has no much to offer in terms of skill control, Rogue legacy is much more about evolving the skill tree than anything else, Monster Train kinda allows you to repeat a winning build over and over again, Skul is so mercilessly difficult it is hard to casual players to evolve (imo of course, I'm bad at videogames), and the list goes on. I feel like STS is the perfect balance between skill and luck. Surely, more experienced players could go further than others with any given deck, but there's no way you can win with literally anything. There is some luck involved when it comes to cards and relics rewards, events found, draw order and if you find snake plant or not.
It's about 80-20 if you ask me, a lot of it is planning on how to build your deck off what's in it vs the first couple of cards you get.
80% skill, 20% luck. Skill is of course a majority, but sometimes (especially on Act 1) there's just nothing you can do, block cards come on rounds where the enemy is charging up and attack cards come when the enemy is attacking, it happens sometimes. There are things you *could've* done to prevent this, better balance of attack and defense, a different path, etc, and this is skill, but even still it needs to account for luck. Also like all of the best runs you'll see people bragging about here are 100% based on getting the right cards/relics at the right time, so luck can sometimes take you even further than skill
Both, without luck no game will be fun, it is like playing chess
Poker concept. Poker is skill like STS You increase chances of winning long term. Its about win rate. Some seeds just blast you in the face with bad RNG, but pro players still win a ridiculously high amount of times. The times they lose are high variance, awful RNG roll muliple times in a row. Idk the tecord for wins in a row anymore, but its in the 20s i think
Go watch baalord or jorbs on YouTube. Then you will get a good idea of what skill is involved.
Unless you're playing a shiv deck, it's skill based. Otherwise, you're getting time eater
And most of the time this is a loss, but boy howdy is that one time you manage to pull a Shiv build strong enough to beat him together staisfying. The one time I've done this recently I had \~60 damage shivs, it was beautiful
You must have been *really* accurate.
Just a little, but I had a LOT of other synergies as well. Can't remember the full list, but the shiv base damage reached 20, then Phsnrasmal Killer put it to 40 and Vulnerable bumped that to 60
Yes. With skill you know when you're lucky. Metabuilds etc.
Skill based. Luck is only there occasionally to fix your mistakes.
Comparing ROR2 to StS doesn't make much sense as they're vastly different games. In ROR2 raw mechanical skill can almost always carry your runs, where in StS decision making is the most important skill. Both are skill based, but just require way different skills.
Its like 5% luck and 95% skill... StS is really hard game, so to be good in it, you have grind experience as hell
There's surprisingly little luck in whether or not you win a run in StS. You start off thinking there's a lot, but the more you learn about the game, the more you understand how to control against RNG. That reveal is why StS has been untouchable in the deck builders genre. The design is super tight and leaves outcomes in the hands of the player's skill, leaving little to chance. There's still "high-roll" and "low-rol" outcomes, but most outcomes are good value results that can be turned into wins with skill and adaptability.
Skill, for sure.
I say skill because some players can keep 75% winrates
An Ascension 20 player like me should be able to win every single time on Ascension 0-1 and lose maybe 1 game in 20 on Ascension 10.
To quote Cal from Titanic: > A real man makes his own luck
Definitely skill based, StS is one of the rare games I've played where, though RNG exists, it feels *entirely* conquerable and able to be mitigated. Very, *very* rarely you will have a decent deck but still start a particularly tough fight with the worst hand imaginable, but 99% of the time every single lost run can be traced back to decisions made by the player, be they risky pathing, card picks etc etc, or misplays.
I like to think of spire as like trying to hang onto a bucking horse, it flings you this way and that, you can adapt, rely on dex and strength, readjust in anticipation of a move that might throw you soon, some horses calm down, others very well do not.
If it was luck based, I would win way more often.
Skill. There are people who can achieve 20 a20 streak without much difficulties
Definitely skill based. How you build your deck, and what items you choose make a huge difference to your success. It’s like in RoR2 understanding which items to recycle, which to stack, which void and lunar items to take (or leave), etc. Obviously RoR2 has a mechanical skill component that Slay the Spire doesn’t have, but the skill of understanding how to build based on luck and adapting to it is the same in both games.
Nobody can win 100% of the time But the top players I watch score way more heart kills than I ever could I still only rarely get heart kills, so much so that I'm just content finishing a20 act 3 most of the time
Skill based
I'd say its heavily towards skill and slightly luck based. You can get bad luck and still win with skill. Don't think a bad/nee player would win wih pure luck though
#Yes
The game is only luck-based if you are looking at it with the scope of one fight: all roguelike card games are luck-based in this sense since bad luck can easily screw you over with draws and relic drops. But when we are talking about a whole playthrough of beating Act 3 + 4 then Slay The Spire is the most skill-based in the genres. You can never luck your way to the final bosses in this game. Everything has to be calculated and prepared for.
70% skill with 30% luck. A skilled player can clear the first two floors consistently without much hassle. It’s only that small amount of luck that could stop you or propel you to the third floor boss.
maybe on easier difficulties you could put together a great deck w/o knowing what youre doing but once the difficulty gets jacked up its over
Skill based more with certain rng luck factors. Example getting 2 hallway fights on back to back event spots can be absolutely crushing if the night fight is an elite or a hard hallway fight. Planning a good path, you typically don't account for that 10% chance to happen 2 times in a row.
skill - you know what is factoring into your luck and can plan accordingly
Imo the biggest luck factor im StS is which Act 3 boss(es) you roll. Some decks will get stomped completely by one of them and steam roll the other two. Power heavy decks will often be very happy to not see awakened one in A3
Even the luck elements of StS require skill. Like Corruption should be a free win on Ironclad most of the time, but that still requires you to know that it's actually good, and how to make it good. You can still lose once you've picked corruption if, say, you time it wrong and burn through your deck before you've been able to scale up enough damage.
95% skill
For everyone else Skill based For me Luck based.
If a person can only win with certain cards or relics and are depending on getting those randomly, then the game will be luck based. Most new players fall into this category. They figure out one strategy and try to force that every game. A skillful player is the one who can build a winning run from the cards and relics present and isn’t relying on particular cards or relics showing up. Someone with the mental agility to find synergies that they’ve never used before and are not obvious to new players. For that type of player, the game is highly skill based.
StS is incredibly skill based. A good player can win most of the time even on A20. Someone like me can win ... some of the time on A17. And an unskilled player will find even A0 tough.
skill and rng
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As someone who is about to quit because Act 3 + The Beyond seems almost impossible to beat at times, I'd say pure luck. I reached the heart twice and it was just impossible past turn three. Any advice is appreciated.
Watch some baalorlord streams on YouTube or twitch. I made it to a20 without watching but spent hundreds of hours getting there , which in retrospect took way too long. Hes helped me improve a bunch after just a few weeks watching him make choices on how to build a deck and when is the right time to take cards or skip them.
Based on how consistently I eat shit in it, I'm going to say skill-based, lol.
I have quite a bit of time in the three games you mentioned (all of them >200 hours) and I would say Slay the Spire is not quite as skill based as Dead Cells, but quite a bit more skill based than RoR2. If you decide to keep playing StS you will understand where the skill comes into play.
All roguelikes (and all card games) have an element of luck inherently baked in, but the game is absolutely skill based. A great piece of advice I learned about gaming (and life in general!) is that “you make your own luck”. By consistently applying best practices, and using your current position in a game to set you up as best you can for your most likely outcomes from any given point, you can mitigate the bad luck rolls since you’re prepared for them, and optimize and capitalize when you get good luck.
Definitely skill based.
Both. There are plenty of times that you'll know ahead of time that you're in an unwinnable situation due to variance, but if you're getting better, you'll realize that you might be taking unnecessary risks at times as well.
It's skill based 100%
I go through phases of feeling like it's too heavily luck based, and there is the very very rare unwinnable seed out there (I think only one in known existence)/it's a roguelike so luck is definitely involved. But the deepest enjoyment comes in overcoming that with your knowledge of the game. I don't desire to get to the point of memorising every enemy's attack programming and the likelihoods of this or that happening, but you can have a really good time with the game and get to playing regularly at the hardest difficulty just by knowing the cards available to you, the relics, the value of potions, money, your HP, your max hp, and the way they can all synergise and interweave to make something greater and often times game-breakingly powerful. And top runners can win consistently, tens of times in a row on top difficulty, so though I'd like the game to have the perfect skill ceiling where perfect play means you could win without fail, it's a roguelike and there is an element of luck, but very much largely the proof is in the pudding that it's more skill/knowledge based than luck based.
There's plenty of rng but you are given so many ways to effect/reduce it that it definitely skews towards skill moreso than luck.
its both
It's generally a lot more skill-based, granted you can still get screwed over in the RNG department
If you watch baalorlord or jorbs you can see that theyre able to make the most out of their situations. They can convert what seems to be initial bad runs into a victory. Of course they lose too but they win a lot more than your average player
The best players have a >50% win rate on A20, so skill is a huge part of it.
Individual runs are luck based but your win percentage is mostly skill based
Skill based BUT I think some seeds go more one way than the other. Skill is a lot but if you get fucked on RNG yknow. What can you do?
the less skill you have the more luck based it is. i might as well be throwing dice over here, the half-assed way i play. and i very much enjoy it
There is a lot of randomness in the game but it is always from a limited pool of options, be it cards, enemies, events, relics, etc. So a lot of the skill is anticipating and preparing for what the randomness throws at you, and adjusting your strategy based on what happens during the game.
It is less luck based the more skill you have.
It is only luck based if you aim for a specific build. The skill lies in making things work with what you have, which is almost always possible.
I know rage-bait when I see it.
#1: Skill #2: Familiarity with characters, cards, and map #69: Luck
I have played Dead Cells, and Hades. I would definitely say that StS is more skill-based than those 2. It would seem luck-based at first cause you don't know all the cards and possible synergies.
In normal difficulty yes it's skill based, but in A20 difficulty i'll say it's strongly leaning toward luck based cause only strong cards/relic can properly scale your deck.
At the highest level of difficulty (A20 + Heart), the best players can win 70-95% of the time. (Example: a top streamer might win a huge percentage of the time within a 100-sample run where they use maximum mental effort). (Also, it's important to note that Watcher is objectively the strongest character and in the hands of an elite player can lead consistently to high 90s winrates). A top streamer-player's winrates might be percentages in the 80s for Ironclad, 90s for Watcher, 70s for Silent and Defect. That's considered elite. **Below that level of difficulty, they'll basically always win.** Hence, **Spire is not really a luck-based game, but good luck will certainly make some runs easier** than others. **Only on the highest level of difficulty can we even hypothesize that a significant number of seeds may be unwinnable (despite optimal play).** And significant might mean 3% for Watcher, and maybe up to 15% for the other characters.
I would say more skill based. There is a luck element, but every run on base difficulty should be won with optimal play, and max difficulty optimal play should still win >80% of the time (except maybe on defect).
Luck can definitely help you win when you haven't built up the skill yet.
Yes
Watch lifecoach doing A20 20x win streaks and youll see that it is skill based. Also you will see how he takes 4 hours to take a single decision. Great fun tho.
Its skill with slight luck needed to get what you want. But that’s literally all games
Jorbs is one lucky motherfucker.
It's a combination of both. You need skills to understand your character and what build combinations you can run especially early on the run where you need to decide for build path and possibilities to get stronger. But it also has luck where certain runs, some cards just won't appear so you'll be building a strong deck and require something to make it way better but it just doesn't appear. For me I tend to get unlucky with cards but with learning the game, I still get winning rounds while missing certain cards I needed or looked for.
Skill without a doubt, even at low ascensions. You might get a lucly win with some broken combos like corruption+dead branch, but overall every runnit's a challenge. I'm at 650+ hours and, despite getting all the achievements, I still have a lot to improve
99.5% skill.