Health is too sparse in the Arcade mode

[TwiiK]

I started playing the arcade mode with a friend yesterday and getting 20% (or something) of your health back at the end of each floor is too little. Not sure if attributes like life on hit and life after kill are planned for the game or if potions aren't implemented yet, but in its current state it's like: "Ohh, I got hit on the first floor, let's just restart" and I think that is a bit too unforgiving.

I like the way it is in Binding of Isaac where health is sparse, but you can alter the way health affects you or how much of it you find during your playthrough with the items you find. Also enemies deal a lot less damage in Binding of Isaac. In Grindea a monster can easily take half your health in one hit.

We managed to "cheese" our way to the boss on the first halloween themed floor by just kiting the monsters and killing them with cheap skills like insect swarm and lightning cloud.

But by the end each of us had nearly 300 max health, but that's meaningless because you'll never get any of it back anyway. At least not enough that having high max health matters.

And is max health supposed to heal you or not? I've picked up the Bloomo card which gives 50 max health a couple of times and once it actually healed me for 50, but not the other times. Getting a hat with max health does not heal me.

If other people think the current difficulty is fine then perhaps I'm asking for a beginner difficulty? We just want to experience some more of the game, have some more leeway in what skills we use, and not die constantly on the first or second floor.

 

[GarlicJelly]

I think you just need more practise. I can reach the 5th floor with Shadow Clone as my skill pretty much every time. I don't really know how the cards and the gear affects your HP but having a higher Max Health increases the health gained from the health orbs so having a higher Max Health is atleast somewhat desirable. I've found that DEF is the best stat to get in Arcade runs since lowering the damage taken helps you stay alive longer. At one point I was even using the Support skill to boost my DEF and it was working pretty well but I'm pretty sure that they nerfed the exp gain after I started using that build so now you can't use that build because you don't get enough skill points to put into another skill while maxing out your main skill. Also apart from the health orbs you can also find a nurse that can heal you and if you're lucky and beat the mysterious guys challange you can also recieve a health orb.

 

[TwiiK]

Yeah, I guess. We just bought the games yesterday and couldn't even pass the first floor at first, but it's still a feature I would like to see. I much more enjoy getting to the end each time and then play through with a different build next time like in The Binding of Isaac rather than dying early on.

Perhaps something like a noob mode where you can't earn rewards and your score doesn't count like in Risk of Rain? Just so you can at least see the content, learn boss- and monster tactics etc.

 

[GarlicJelly]

Yeah, I guess. We just bought the games yesterday and couldn't even pass the first floor at first, but it's still a feature I would like to see. I much more enjoy getting to the end each time and then play through with a different build next time like in The Binding of Isaac rather than dying early on.

Perhaps something like a noob mode where you can't earn rewards and your score doesn't count like in Risk of Rain? Just so you can at least see the content, learn boss- and monster tactics etc.

If you play the Story mode you can easily practise and learn the movement of the enemies in Arcade mode. I remember when I first started playing the game, I was getting rekt BIG TIME by the Rabby's and the Slimes. When you get more comfortable with Perfect Blocking and know every single movement of the enemies the game becomes easier. But Arcade mode is probably not going to be this hard on the early floors as more floors gets added, the game is still in Beta and there is about 60%-75% missing from the Arcade mode (I'm guessing based on how long the Story will be).

 

[Fred]

What GoodStuff said, the Arcade Mode right now is balanced after how many floors we have in it at the moment. There's 8 floor in total as of now, where in the end we are planning to have 24 floors. So the difficulty is kinda skews at the moment since we don't want people to just waltz through the few floors we have in the beta.

That being said, Arcade Mode is meant to be a challenge. The enemies are much harder then in Story Mode and the sparse health is a conscious design decision that we'll keep running with going forward. We'll probably pitch in a a few more addition of health sources besides just clearing floors, getting the nurse or as a betman reward, but managing your health will still be a big part of the game.

I think the main reason people get a little thrown of when entering Arcade from Story mode is that it promotes a whole different play style. In Story you can pretty much just tank your way through most stuff and in most cases, it will work out fine. In Arcade you really have to utilize all the mechanics in the game to be successful, which takes some time to getting used to.

If you keep playing the game you'll be surprised how soon you'll be able to crush the first four floors without much trouble. Once you reach the Halloween forest I admit things ramp up a little too quickly but like I said, the difficulty of the floors will decrease as more floors gets added.

I'm not trying to make it sound like "you're wrong, the game is perfect as it is now!". There's still a lot of balancing to be done from our side, no doubt. But just give it some more time and practice and I think you and you're friend will be able to salvage shitty first floors into full health a few floors later!

 

[TwiiK]

Sounds reasonable.

I discovered this game completely by accident yesterday and I'm really loving it so far. Personally I could do without the JRPG cutesy stuff, but that's obviously a very subjective opinion. The combat, skills, graphics and feel of the game are really solid.

And judging from what you guys have said we're perhaps not behind the curve at all. We reached the Halloween forest after just a few hours of play without really playing the story mode. Guess we'll just suck it up and try harder.

I'm working on a pixel art diablo game as a hobby project myself and this is the best source of inspiration I've found so far.

Anyway, I can't tell if you're supposed to mark threads as solved or answered or similar, but I'm at least happy with the answers given here.

 

[Own]

The Arcade Mode is unforgiving with health lost because the Arcade Mode is there to teach you one thing:

How not to take damage. It's about identifying the enemy 'tells', when to shield, what opportunities you can perfect block in. Arcade Mode is like The Binding of Isaac, which is also about memorizing enemy patterns and exploiting them. Once you get them down and learn how to shield block, it becomes a piece of cake.

 

[Luart]

Arcade is not balanced, only with insect swarm u can easily farm essence, then put 1 pt on the cloud and GG WP (really, just try it, its just broken, very broken)

 

[MrChocodemon]

Anyway, I can't tell if you're supposed to mark threads as solved or answered or similar, but I'm at least happy with the answers given here.

No, it doesn't matter. If you want, you can change the title to something like: [Solved] ~~~
But it's not necessary. Don't worry about it

And if you ever have any question, doesn't matter how small or "stupid" you think it is. We'll be happy to help

 

[GarlicJelly]

Arcade is not balanced, only with insect swarm u can easily farm essence, then put 1 pt on the cloud and GG WP (really, just try it, its just broken, very broken)

With the fishing added to Arcade mode I can now get 3 essence's almost every run and I don't use Insec Swarm at all. As long as you can reach the 5th floor you will 100% get atleast 1 essence without fishing and with fishing you have a pretty big chance of getting 2. If you're really good at getting S ranks you will pretty much always get 2 essence's for reaching the 5th floor so Insect Swarm is not needed to farm essence.

 

[Luart]

getting 5 essence per run is worth it afaik xD you rush the entire arcade and get 500k pts minium xP

 

[GarlicJelly]

getting 5 essence per run is worth it afaik xD you rush the entire arcade and get 500k pts minium xP

I can't get further than the 5th floor boss with Insect Swarm and it takes forever to get there. You never get A or S rank on a room because you're just running around. I don't like it.

 

[Luart]

then you are doing something wrong, the only hard thing with this build is if you get the crystal boss on floor 7, the only place where u can die with insect swarm xD
EDIT: i would record a run, but my pc lags when i try to record smth :c will see what i can do