My thoughts on the game so far, help me improve by criticizing and challenging my opinions!
Hi all, first post!
I haven't been part of this community online yet as I've done my best to avoid spoilers and I wanted to form own opinions before being influenced. Now that I'm here, I'd like to see if my assessment of Defect is fair and accurate, or if someone would like to criticize or challenge my take on Defect. I'm curious how much of my observations are biased from my own playstyle and how much of my opinions are a function of these suspected biases. Defect is currently my least favorite and here's why:
Defect's floor feels too high, it's too consistent.
I believe that the Defect is similar to how it was in the first game, in that it feels autopilot and the deck pretty much builds itself more often than not, and at least 50~60% of runs are optimized with a 'generic goodstuff powers/orbs' build - the Defect just has lots of good cards that don't require much synergy to perform at a higher floor than the other classes.
Orbs and powers typically operate off of the same suite of uncommons with little variance, allowing you to easily take generically good cards early on and usually pivot into a more power or orb focused version of the same deck.
Status Card deck is fun, feels parallel to Regent's colorless card playstyle. Less consistent and more polarized than Defect's other options.
Claw (o-cost) is also quite fun, and as high a ceiling as it has, it's not as easily draftable, it requires a specific set of binary conditions to be met early on that it's often not correct to take Claw pick 1 or 2. But if somehow nudged in this direction by a Neow relic or rare card, the deck is borderline unstoppable (Not many enemies appropriately punish this archetype right now compared to STS I).
I think there are two common unintuitive reasons specific to Defect I've noticed in multiplayer (through observation and listening to/discussing logic behind actions) that it seems most players pilot Defect suboptimally:
Underestimation of the value of orb evocation.
The unique tempo of Defect. When to setup, which cards are curses in earlier hallway fights but almost necessities to defeat the known boss of the act? (Capacitor is a great example of a card I am happy to have against most Act I bosses but don't feel is necessary in a hallway, this is related to point 1, since in shorter fights evoking an orb is much more impactful than passive benefits from an orb due to how long fights typically last.)
Elaboration: A direct consequence of underestimating the relevance and impact of passive resource generation through orb evocation is a misunderstanding of tempo. The Defect is capable of massive early burst. As an oversimplification: a lightning orb needs to persist for ~4 turns to be as effective as Dualcast, most hallway fights last only 3~4 turns, especially in Act II when your main priority in a hallway fight should be take minimal chip damage. Getting that campfire upgrade because you saved 20 HP throughout the rest of the Act is crucial, because Defect's upgrades are quite impactful! I think a lot of players in the STS I overestimated how long the average hallway fight would last, leading them to *severely* underestimate the value of Biased Cog for example.
The suite of uncommons available to Orbs/Powers strategy can steer an entire run with minimal calculation.
Glacier is one of the most necessary cards for a Defect run to go that extra mile. The double evocation and block from frost of Glacier is still relevant in the Act III boss. Most other classes have cards that feel more like "necessary and broken act I, but curse Act III." many cards have similar effects that can be accomplished various ways - but there really is no substitute for Glacier (with Ice Lance being an approximate substitute, but the 1 more cost changes the functionality of the card too much).
Although Defect has a lot of cards that provide great defense and should usually be picked early Act I (Leap), those same cards aren't necessary for the Act III boss, since most of your block by then should be coming from your cycle of frost evocation. So don't bloat your deck with too many generic block cards unless necessary to get through an unlucky Act II path.
I also think Defect gets more value out of relics on average compared to any other class, which is a belief I carry from the first STS but am now unsure about in this game, need bigger sample size.
I don't enjoy the Defect playstyle much because it can be done almost entirely off of intuition - you don't get punished for choosing not to calculate because you can't control as many variables - sequencing is pretty much the only calculation necessary but once you get 10s of runs in, the pattern recognition takes over. [To chess players, the analogy here is: Playing Defect is like playing The London System, it's easy, it's boring, the floor is high, it's hard to mess it up, but it usually results in a predictable unexciting experience to play as (and against.)]
To exaggerate: It feels similar to Watcher from the first game in that you could pretty much near a 100% wr [with Watcher this is done by consistently playing an 'infinite enough' (or actually infinite) deck that builds/pilots itself to the point of boredom, much like Ironclad's Dead Branch + Corruption from STS I. Fun the first few times you pull it off though! Which is what's relevant to most of the playerbase, so I don't think it's *bad game design* at all!]
The Defect is somewhat boring to play *when trying to play optimally for highest winrate*. However, if playing a polarized feast or famine playstyle wherein you like to gamble and play as a Johnny/Timmy (as opposed to a Spike, these are M:tG terms) the Defect is well-designed - and that's what's important, since most of the playerbase doesn't play for highest winrate, they have more fun trying to pull off fun combos and take exciting card picks and events over more consistent boring cards and paths, or taking cards that require support that you statistically won't see by the time you fight the boss - but will feel very fun when you hit that ~20% chance to see that chase uncommon! (To poker players, that's like chasing a flush draw on the turn to a pot-sized bet with no further implied odds.)
If this helps our discourse: The order in which I enjoy playing characters, with the goal of highest win % on highest difficulty. Based on 1. How well balanced I feel the character is and more importantly 2. How rewarding it feels to exercise skill expression. In my experience, what's fun is when a character is challenging in a fair way, when I'm often indifferent on decisions, requiring me to be more mentally engaged and stimulated since I'm more likely to be deliberating. But not so overwhelming with tedious decisions that feel meaningless, easier said than done for game devs but STS devs have proven before they can pull it off. I enjoy characters whose long-term strategy requires constant short-term tactics to stay aligned to the plan:
Necrobinder 9/10 Most rewarding to skill expression, feels challenging to not only build but also to pilot, I feel like *most* decisions require deliberations on very thin margins. Even if you draft the most appropriate deck given with the information available, it still requires finesse and calculation to wield properly. Many archetypes are equally viable and only 1 or 2 decks (that can't be reliably forced) feel autopilot. Fair amount of overlap between archetypes, with a few key glue cards like Dirge feeling fun to exploit.
Regent 8/10 Players often underestimate the efficacy of star cards and forge cards even as splashable archetypes. There's not much wrong with taking a single Forge act I when I'm already 4 cards deep into the Star deck - if that's the only scaling I see before the boss fight, so be it. May not have been ideal, would've rather had a Stardust, but it'll do for now. Doesn't mean I have to start taking other forge cards. And if I get a The Smith from the boss, then that'll be the glue between archetypes that allows me to justify further Forge picks. This nuanced dialogue I have with myself is an example of what feels fun for me. Stars and Forge feel viable and fun because they still require short term tactics. Managing Stars is fun. Colorless and Creation archetypes are fun if pulled off, but seldom are they correct when trying to play optimally. I am biased because I've never enjoyed the clutter and debris playstyle in any card game. I prefer to keep it simple. I've always valued tempo over card advantage in most card games. Felt a lot like Watcher in design philosophy
(Side note, I had a thought the other day that Necro floats block, Regent floats attack.)
Ironclad 7.5/10 Feels the most different out of the STS I characters. Early Pyre generic goodstuff is my favorite playstyle! But rare, which I like, shouldn't be too reliably forced or it would get stale. With respect to replayability I believe archetypes that are this fun should be hard to get, but consistent when they are achieved. Block archetype not as good as in STS I, though it feels like a good design for newer players to chase because it has two things most of the playerbase loves 1. *Infinite Scaling* (Blockade, incidentally making defends feel more fun and rewarding to draw) and 2. *Passive Benefits* (Juggernaut, again - making defends more fun and rewarding to draw). Self-damage is my favorite playstyle, much more consistent in this than the 1st game. Exhaust is great, not much to be said, feels nice to have Ashen Strike in this game. I like that the strength-scaling in STS II focuses more on burst and shorter term tactical play vs set-it-and-forget it limit break/demon form of STS I. I feel like inexperienced players seem to overestimate how long most fights last, leading them overvalue infinite scaling cards like Demon Form, the tempo lost from setting it up is often worse than just playing some combo of 3 strike/defend even in most hallway fights. Burst Strength is more fun and more engaging to the player. Vulnerable is very fun as well and has much overlap with burst strength in both playstyle and card pool, tons of synergy, might go so far as to say they're variants of the same archetype.
Silent 5/10 (Was my 9/10 and my favorite in STS I). Feels autopilot, hard not to go Sly. Sly feels too consistent. Many autopicks. Decent amount of commons are generically great picks Act I. Turns have several actions involved but all of the actions feel like rudimentary going through the motions, everything happens passively. It feels quite fun the first few times but eventually, at least to me, just playing Acrobatics + Prepared over and over got stale. Those cards are great, and I love that they addressed this by moving Acrobatics to uncommon, but I feel it needs a bit more balancing. I just don't feel a strong pull to poison or shivs. Not enough enemies punish this playstyle. Several decision-points, but the decision always seems too obvious. Also has the most selfish playstyle in Multiplayer in that her optimal playstyle requires extending hallway fights, to points of scaling she can easily address that most other characters can't consistently keep up with. I think shivs needs a bit of a buff with 1 or 2 uncommons and maybe 1 more common to be as consistent as Sly, but I feel like the better solution would be to make Sly less forceable, you don't really get punished when the deck doesn't work out, because it kind of just always does work out. Poison is more balanced than it was in the first game, which I appreciate. I think Silent is close to enjoyable if the archetypes get a little more overlap (glue cards like Haze and Hidden Daggers are great!). I have thousands of hours in the 1st game with 2~3 times as many Silent runs as any of the other characters. I feel drawn to Necrobinder in this game the way I did to Silent in the 1st.
Defect 5/10 (explained above)