after playing it a few times(got to adventure 5, 9, and 13 now) I think the only annoying mechanic is really weapon degradation. I'm fine with the Lion eating stuff up, it's just that the encounters can get pretty absurd and aside from getting a ton of rings, your character never really scales to match. Beating a Ogre + Brimstone Ogre + 6 corrupted + corrupted spire + corrupted juggernaut with a 10 damage one handed weapon that can do a special move once every 17 hits is not fun.

Weapon degradation also makes the Blood Crescent absolutely unusable, since, despite the massive sacrifice you have to do to equip it, it will still turn into trash after about 4 fights.

I also wish there was a way to know what you need to do to get an encounter shard, like you can for weapons. Some of the requirements are(apparently) very obtuse.

I agree that degrading weapons are a bit rough but understand the need to balance things out. However, it can be fairly frustrting to not get good RNG with a weapon upgrade drop/card and/or not have sufficient fame to use an upgrade even if you have one.

Originally posted by Sweet Man:

Why the ♥♥♥♥

Do I have to play 5 challenges before playing endless mode?

You'll need to have a certain number of cards unlocked before playing endless in order for the game to behave.

Originally posted by Cheeseness:

Originally posted by Sweet Man:

Why the ♥♥♥♥

Do I have to play 5 challenges before playing endless mode?

You'll need to have a certain number of cards unlocked before playing endless in order for the game to behave.

When this thread vanished before I could reply to it, I assumed it had been deleted. Kudos for not doing that.

Sweet Man, to be more specific, the first 5 challenges introduce basic game mechanics and unlock enough cards to give endless mode enough variety to be playable. Hand of Fate 1 made you clear the first 4 bosses before playing endless mode for the same reasons.

Hey Sweet Man, as mentioned, in order for Endless Mode to function it needs a minimum amount of cards to draw from across a couple of different categories. We found that splitting those unlocks across the first few early challenges provided the best sense of progression for our audience, while also providing a good introduction to HoF's core concepts for new players. Sorry for the inconvenience! If you've got some experience with the original game you'll clear those first challenges in no time at all.

I agree about the degredation. It's hard enough as is without the need for taking those weapons away. At the very least lower the amount it degrades by....A lot?

What? Endless mode released just a day or two after I released my challenge mod? You guys couldn't have planned that better if you tried! ;)

Not sure what adventure i was on, maybe 11-14

We gotta talk about one counter.
Seriously, i know you wanna make it harder, but a triple brimstone wraith encounter is downright ridicilous.

I guess now i know you cannot pick undead when you are kinda far in endless, because i dont see how im supposed to deal with 3 lifedrain bosses that go through shield and seperate themselves across a pretty big room with minions to block. You cannot even interrupt 1 before the other 2 resume casting, even with a maximum health of 200-300 you would only stall for the inevitable afaik.

I got #2 leaderboard with mage encounter (as of writing this), so its not like im new to this game, and if theres a secret strat to beating such a comp i wouldnt mind hearing it. I guess an anti undead artifact nuke with holy mace or similar could take one out before you are dead if you got 200 or more max health, but mjeh.

I guess 3 corrupted brimstone giants with shrines and 1 corrupted boss with 8 brimstone corrupted at once, is to prefer to triple infernal wraith, even if it thought the former the worst thing i ever faced in my life.

Edit: I see another in this thread encounted the triple wraith. Good to see im not the only one being baffled by that encounter.

Good mode tho, especially since you added new stuff. I still didnt figure out how shards work. I unlocked like 80 shards, but only 1 completion because of weapon. So what happens to all the other small fragments is beyond me.


Ill add that lategame encounters like i listed really take too much time to complete (if you can). The game needs a bit more pace, but how you wanna do it without overencumbering the player with tons of brimstone bosses that becomes a roll/shield fest i dont know.

Originally posted by Møgsvinet:

Good mode tho, especially since you added new stuff. I still didnt figure out how shards work. I unlocked like 80 shards, but only 1 completion because of weapon. So what happens to all the other small fragments is beyond me.

Shards are meant to work like normal tokens, except that you need to acquire 5 of them to receive rewards.

There are only 50 shards in the update here - are you sure you were actually unlocking them? Like normal tokens, they will float off the card when it's possible to acquire it, but will return to the card if you don't meet the requirements.

If you're experiencing something different to this, could you make a thread in the bug subforum with more details and screenshots to help us better understand what's going on?

Ok, so disclaimed before I say anything: I've not played Endless Mode yet since I am waiting for PS4. But to me, a way of tracking how to get token shards seems like it would be nice for the more obtuse ones. I made a suggestion ages ago for that sort of thing, let me see if I find/remake it.

I played already some endless runs and I find it very nice and fun to play except one card. The devourer (the lion which is eating a sword) gives a very bad feeling to me. It is a card which has no counter play, can't be avoided whitout map reveal (and even then if the map is a single line it's a problem) and feels like punishment for nothing basicly. It has no win option (no matter what you do you loose) and it gives to me the feeling of "why even try, i loose anyway". Imo it would give much better feeling if the options would be the standard win, loose, huge loose (to me even, 1 win where you don't loose anything and 3 huge looses where you loose everything would be better) cause it would give the reward/punishment feeling ("Yes, I managed to get the success card, I don't loose" or "Ohh, I failed, now I loose. My fault."). In current state the devourer is a very frustating card. That's my opinion, I just wanted to express it cause it bothered me a bit.

Originally posted by Kylestien:

a way of tracking how to get token shards seems like it would be nice for the more obtuse ones

Their current behaviour is consistent with tokens. On equipment, the conditions for getting them and the progress toward meeting that condition are explained. On encounters, they aren't, and that seems to be intentional to avoid spoiling the outcomes of the encounters.

Originally posted by Ratt:

Originally posted by Kylestien:

a way of tracking how to get token shards seems like it would be nice for the more obtuse ones

Their current behaviour is consistent with tokens. On equipment, the conditions for getting them and the progress toward meeting that condition are explained. On encounters, they aren't, and that seems to be intentional to avoid spoiling the outcomes of the encounters.

If someone manages to get the token out of One Drunken Night please send me a message, i simply gave up on it and not include it anymore in my decks as I've tried everything to no avail.

Regarding weapon degradation: That's fine by me, you are supposed to sell the ones that went through too many battles, and pick new ones when you build the deck and add events / cards that will facilitate you to get the new weapons before boss encounter at end of level.

Regarding the Lion (devourer): that is fine with me as well, losing 1 out of 3 or 3 items once per map / adventure is not a big deal, you can generally get them back if you have the gold on very same map.

What is not ok, is that there is a huge discrepancy in factions power as game advances. Mages, Undead and Corrupted all have (in later stages, brimstone cards and multiples of tough enemies) unavoidable damage. Greed, Northenders and Empire are more ballanced because you can still avoid most of the damage both single targeted and AoE if you master the game mechanics.

This makes the first 3 factions highly unpreferrable the further you go, while the other 3 are more balanced (not easy, just fair game).

I feel that there should be some adjusmtents regarding how many boss level brimstone mobs can spawn and of what type based on their mechanics / stats vs minions from same / other factions at the very least.

Originally posted by Anelyn:

From my experience, you need to complete One Drunken Night without getting hit by any traps to get the token. Might have to get all treasures too, I'm not sure.

I agree that Mages and Undead are much, much tougher than the other factions later on, though I still have trouble with Phalanxes and captains(the ones wielding pistols) later on. Phalanxes are plain clunky to deal with, and although I've yet to die to a captain, they have some really quick unblockable sword slashes that tend to catch me off guard when I'm focusing on other enemies.

The problem with the Lion is that the item you lose won't be available on the same map, since you didn't add it to your deck when the adventure started. Losing a Gambler's Jewel is a pain in the ass since dice is pure RNG. Losing a good weapon is just a bit frustrating since fights later on take so long with rusty weapons.
This is one of the reasons I never give away any item in that event. I like bloating my inventory to reduce the chances of a necessary item showing up in the devour list.

Anyway, as another point of feedback, Raider Prevention's token is rather obscenely hard to get. Defeating 10 northerners in 45 seconds is pretty much impossible without Dionysius' Revenge(and a big enough weapon), and even with that, it's still a very, very tight timer.

And Fickle Fate(or whatever the blessing that gives bonus points but curses you if you fail a dice roll) is a curse disguised as a blessing, really. I get rid of it as soon as I get it, it's just too easy to fail a dice gambit and get some really awful curses in the process.

Honestly that's my biggest issue with Endless Mode so far. Like half the cards are just things that randomly steal your gear. Which is frustrating beyond belief.

I mean, if it was just random gear, I wouldn't care that much. But it's ALWAYS taking something I'm equipped with and working towards earning the shard for.

Hit a spot and a gnome stole my assassin's daggers, that I was ONE FINISHER away from completing the shard for.
Next spot took my helmet, which I was working on huge success pendulum challenges.
Next spot took away the sword that I had auto-equipped after losing my daggers, which was one that needed 20 weapon skill activations (I had 5 left to do).

Why is it only the shard gear that keeps being taken? I've got a TON of other useless crap on me. Some 20+ weapons I'm not using. I don't know how many rings at this point. But it's only ever the stuff with shards that goes.